Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism

David C. Reisman In Memoriam: Franz Rosenthal August 31, 1914-April 8, 2003 Franz Rosenthal died on Tuesday, April 8, 2003, in Branford, Connecticut . He will long be remembered by the international community of scholars for the foundational contributions of his research to the fields of Arabic-Islamic studies and Semitic philology. He will be sorely missed by his students, colleagues, and friends. Franz Rosenthal was born in Berlin, Germany, August 31, 1914, the second son of Kurt W Rosenthal and Elsa (Kirchstein) Rosenthal. He began his academic studies at the University of Berlin (1932-36), studying Classics with Werner Jaeger and with Richard Walzer, who would later collaborate with Rosenthal in Graeco-Arabic studies and probably had some influence in directing Rosenthal's philological talents toward Arabic-Islamic studies. However, it was Paul Kraus who I am indebted to Benjamin Foster for providing me with his epitome of Franz Rosenthal's unpublished autobiographical sketch and to Dimitri Gutas, Everett Rowson, Mark Smith, Maureen Draicchio, and Stanley Insler, who shared their recollections and anecdotes at the memorial service for Franz Rosenthal (Yale University, May 9, 2003). A bibliography of most of Rosenthal's publications can be found in his Science and Medicine in IsUm: A Collection of Essays (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), ix-xxvii.© Aleph 3 (2003) pp. 329-342329 first introduced him to the study of Arabic. (Quite abruptly, Rosenthal once told me; at their first meeting Kraus told him to return the next day prepared to begin reading!) Under the collective guidance of Carl Becker (Islamic Studies), Eugen Mittwoch (Semitics and Arabic literature ), Bruno Meissner (Assyriology), Erich Ebeling (Assyriology), and Hans Schaeder (Islamic studies),1 Rosenthal received his Ph.D. in 1936 with the dissertation Die Sprache der palmyrenischen Inschriften und ihre Stellung innerhalb des Aramäischen.2 This was a critical period in the lives of German Jewish academics. The Nazi rise to power had led to the dismissal ofJewish scholars from academic positions in Berlin in 1933; two of Rosenthal's mentors, Walzer and Kraus, had left Germany. Rosenthal taught briefly in Italy, where Walzer had gone, but returned to Berlin to teach at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. In 1937, Rosenthal published his seminal Die arabische Autobiographie ,3 as well as his "Arabische Nachrichten über Zenon den EIeaten "4—his first published foray into Graeco-Arabica. In August 1938, his history of Aramaic studies, Die aramaistische Forschung, was awarded the prestigious Lidzbarski Prize (he had submitted the manuscript for consideration in 1936), but the honor was denied him by the German authorities.5 This event was the harbinger of worse: the nightmare of November 9-10, 1938, the beginning of what Rosenthal would later call "the new barbarism,"6 would fundamentally redirect the course of his life. Rosenthal fled Germany for Sweden, then England , and finally the United States. With the exception of his mother and father, the majority of his family, including his older brother Günther, would perish in the Holocaust. Rosenthal's academic career in the United States, first at Hebrew Union College (1940-1948), then at the University of Pennsylvania (1948-1956), and finally at Yale University (1956-1985), was of singular importance in developing and nurturing the nascent field of Arabic-Islamic studies in North America. His unswerving commitment to excellence in training successive generations of scholars and his 330 David C. Reisman monumental corpus of publications attest to the singular role Franz Rosenthal occupied in the history of academic scholarship in the United States and abroad. At Yale, Rosenthal directed the doctoral studies of a number of students who continued the tradition of scholarship in the field of Arabic-Islamic studies, including Joel Kraemer, Jacob Lassner, Dimitri Gutas, and Everett Rowson. His exacting and disciplined approach to training scholars was often enlivened by his dry wit. While the scholarly standards Rosenthal set for his students were exceptionally high, once they were met he was unstintingly generous with his time and resources. He taught across a broad spectrum of subjects, including the Semitic languages and a host of advanced seminars in all genres of medieval Arabic literature. The prodigious range of Franz Rosenthal's scholarship is difficult to...