Herman Rosenthal (October 6, 1843 – 1917) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author, editor, and librarian.
Rosenthal was born in
Friedrichstadt (Jaunjelgava)-See also:*List of cities in Latvia...
,
CourlandCourland is one of the cultural and historical regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...
. He was educated at
Bauske (Bauska)Bauska is a town in Bauska County, in the Zemgale region of southern Latvia. The town is situated at the confluence of the rivers Mūsa and Mēmele where they form the Lielupe River. Bauska is located 66 km from the Latvian capital Riga and 20 km from the Lithuanian border.-History:The...
and
Jakobstadt (Jēkabpils)Jēkabpils is a town in Latvia roughly halfway between Riga and Daugavpils. The Daugava river runs through the town, and the ancient valley, branches, and islands of the river are considered picturesque. The town was home to an air base during Soviet rule.-History:A stone cross-castle -...
, graduating in 1859. In that year he translated into
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
several of
NekrasovNekrasov, also Nekrassov , or Nekrasova , is a Russian last name and may refer to:-People:*Aleksandr Nekrasov , Russian mathematician and academician...
's poems. In 1869 he engaged in the printing trade at
KrementchugKremenchuk is an important industrial city in the Poltava Oblast of central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kremenchutskyi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located on the banks of Dnieper River.-History:Kremenchuk was...
, and in 1870 he published a collection of poems,
Gedichte. In the Russo-Turkish war he served in the Russian Red Cross Society and received the society's medal for distinguished service (1877-78).
Herman Rosenthal (October 6, 1843 – 1917) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author, editor, and librarian.
Biography
Rosenthal was born in
Friedrichstadt (Jaunjelgava)-See also:*List of cities in Latvia...
,
CourlandCourland is one of the cultural and historical regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...
. He was educated at
Bauske (Bauska)Bauska is a town in Bauska County, in the Zemgale region of southern Latvia. The town is situated at the confluence of the rivers Mūsa and Mēmele where they form the Lielupe River. Bauska is located 66 km from the Latvian capital Riga and 20 km from the Lithuanian border.-History:The...
and
Jakobstadt (Jēkabpils)Jēkabpils is a town in Latvia roughly halfway between Riga and Daugavpils. The Daugava river runs through the town, and the ancient valley, branches, and islands of the river are considered picturesque. The town was home to an air base during Soviet rule.-History:A stone cross-castle -...
, graduating in 1859. In that year he translated into
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
several of
NekrasovNekrasov, also Nekrassov , or Nekrasova , is a Russian last name and may refer to:-People:*Aleksandr Nekrasov , Russian mathematician and academician...
's poems. In 1869 he engaged in the printing trade at
KrementchugKremenchuk is an important industrial city in the Poltava Oblast of central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Kremenchutskyi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located on the banks of Dnieper River.-History:Kremenchuk was...
, and in 1870 he published a collection of poems,
Gedichte. In the Russo-Turkish war he served in the Russian Red Cross Society and received the society's medal for distinguished service (1877-78). Returning to his craft as master-printer, he pursued it in Smyela, government of Kiev, and in the city of
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
until 1881. He produced a humorous story, "Die Wunderliche Kur," in 1872, and later assisted in the founding of
Zarya (Dawn), a daily paper, the first number of which appeared at Kiev in 1878. At this time Rosenthal was elected corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Russian Jews.
Interested in the condition of his oppressed coreligionists, Rosenthal sailed for the United States in 1881 for the purpose of founding there agricultural colonies to be settled by Russian Jewish immigrants. During 1881-82 he succeeded in establishing colonies in
LouisianaThe State of Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and
South DakotaSouth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota was carved out of the southern half of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889...
. He also took a prominent part in the administration of the
Woodbine, New JerseyWoodbine is a borough in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States. It is part of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 2,716....
, colony in 1891. During 1887 and 1888 Rosenthal engaged in the book-trade, but gave up this occupation on being appointed chief statistician of the
Edison General Electric CompanyThe General Electric Company, or GE , is a multinational American technology and services conglomerate incorporated in the State of New York. In 2009, Forbes ranked GE as the world's largest company...
, a post he held for three years. In 1892 he went to the Far East, whither he was sent by the Great Northern Railroad Company to investigate the economic conditions and trade of
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
, and
JapanThe Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the...
, on which he published a report (St. Paul, 1893). On his return he was elected secretary of the German-American Reform Union,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, and a member of the press bureau of the
Committee of SeventyThe Committee of Seventy is a good government group in Philadelphia, United States, founded in 1904. It is perhaps best known for monitoring elections in the city and its suburbs....
, which was instrumental in the overthrown of the notorious Tweed Ring. In 1894 he was appointed chief of the discharging department of the Immigration Bureau,
Ellis IslandEllis Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor, is the location of what was from January 1, 1892, until November 12, 1954 the main entry facility for immigrants entering the United States; the facility replaced the state-run Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Manhattan...
, New York, an office he occupied two years. In 1897, he became a vice president of the Federation of American Zionists of New York. In 1898 he accepted the post of chief of the Slavonic Department,
New York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is one of the leading public libraries of the world and is one of the United States's most significant research libraries. It is composed of a very large circulating public library system combined with a very large non-lending research library system...
(Astor branch), a position he held until 1917. He joined the editorial board of the
Jewish EncyclopediaThe Jewish Encyclopedia was an encyclopedia originally published between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
as Chief of the Russian department in December 1900.
Rosenthal has been prominently connected with Hebrew literature and with the development of the
HaskalahHaskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the late 18th century that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
movement in Russia. He contributed (1859-67) to
Ha-Melitz and other Hebrew periodicals, and corresponded with Jacob Reifmann,
Leon GordonLeon Gordon, originally Judar Loeb Ben Asher, was a Russian-Jewish poet and novelist . He was born at Wilna in 1831 and died at St. Petersburg in 1892.He took a leading part in the modern revival of the Hebrew language and culture...
, Zweifel,
ZederbaumAleksander Ossypovich Zederbaum was a Polish-Russian Jewish journalist. He was founder and editor of Ha-Meliẓ, and other periodicals published in Russian and Yiddish; he wrote in Hebrew.A son of poor parents, he was apprenticed to a tailor...
,
FuennSamuel Joseph Fuenn was a Russian scholar born in Vilnius. He received the usual Talmudic education, and also acquired an extensive general knowledge of the profane sciences. In 1848 the government appointed him professor of Hebrew and Jewish history in the newly founded rabbinical school of...
, and other Hebrew scholars. In the United States he edited and published, together with A. Rosenberg, the Hebrew monthly
Ha-Modia' le-Chodashim (1901). In 1894 Rosenthal founded the society "Ohole Shem," of which he served as president.
Rosenthal translated into German verse "
EcclesiastesEcclesiastes is a book of the Hebrew Bible...
" ("Worte des Sammlers"), New York, 1885, 2d ed. 1893, and the "
Song of SongsThe Song of Songs , is a book of the Hebrew Bible—Tanakh or Old Testament—one of the five megillot...
" ("Lied der Lieder"), 1893, and, into English, a work by Hugo Ganz,
The Land of Riddles, New York, 1905.
His eldest son, Max Rosenthal, born at Krementchug, government of
PoltavaThe Poltava Governorate or Government of Poltava was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate which was split between the Chernihiv Governorate and Poltava Govenorate with an...
, Russia, June 6, 1865, was educated for the medical profession at the universities of Bern, Berlin, and
LeipzigThe University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe and the second-oldest university in Germany...
(M.D. 1887). In 1888 he became house surgeon at St. Mark's Hospital, New York City, and for two years he was senior resident physician at the Montefiore Home. He became gynecologist at the German Dispensary and attending gynecologist at the Sydenham Hospital. His other son, George D. Rosenthal, born 1869, was manager of the Edison General Electric Company at
St. LouisSt. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States...
.