Alfred Levy
(Wingersheim 1880 - Bonn 1934)
So far, 18 books have been identified in the HfJS library that contain this stamped ownership note:
Rabbi Dr. Levy
Bonn a. Rh. Venusbergweg 21
The favorable circumstance that this ownership note also includes an address leaves no doubt about the attribution of the stamp. It comes from the rabbi Dr. Alfred Levy, who last worked in Bonn.
Levy was born on February 20, 1880 in Wingersheim in Alsace. He attended grammar school in Strasbourg and Colmar. After leaving school in 1899, he enrolled at the University of Breslau, where he studied Semitic philology, philosophy and art history. At the same time, Levy was a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau (Fraenkel Foundation). In 1902, he moved to Heidelberg to continue his studies there. in 1902/03 he traveled to London and devoted himself to the study of South Arabian manuscripts at the British Museum. These studies served as the basis for his dissertation "Das Targum zu Kohelet nach südarabischen Handschriften herausgegeben" (printed: Breslau 1905), which was supervised by the Heidelberg ancient orientalist Carl Bezold. Following this, Levy continued to attend the rabbinical seminary in Breslau, where he was ordained in 1909. From there, he was appointed rabbi in Nordhausen/Harz, where he held this position until 1925.
In 1912, Levy married Klara Jablonski (Magdeburg 1888 - 1978 Strasbourg) in Berlin. Their children Rita (born 1913, died 1987 in Israel) and Ernst (born 1917, died 2013 in France) were both born in Nordhausen. As Levy took over the rabbinate in Bonn in 1926, the family moved to the Rhine. Due to increased reprisals against Jewish children, Levy advocated the establishment of a Jewish school in Bonn. Levy did not live to see the founding of the school. He died a few weeks earlier on February 5, 1934 and was buried in the Römerstraße cemetery. (He was succeeded in Bonn by Rabbi Dr. Rudolf Seligsohn.) Their son Ernst fled to France after the Nazi seizure of power, where he tried to go into hiding in Alsace and later joined the French military in Limoges. After the death of her husband, Klara Levy dissolved the family household in Bonn and fled with her daughter Rita to Alsace and from there to Limoges, where she and her son survived the war. Rita managed to emigrate to Palestine in 1936.
It has not yet been possible to trace the whereabouts of Levy's library after his death. From the 1960s at the earliest, some of his books came into the possession of the rabbi of Westphalia, Emil Davidovič, and after his death in 1986 they were bequeathed to the Heidelberg HfJS. It is conceivable that Levy's library passed into the possession of his successor Seligsohn in 1934 and was later confiscated. After the end of the war, the books were recovered at an as yet unknown location and possibly "restituted" to Jewish communities in Rhineland-Westphalia. Davidovič had apparently incorporated books from these holdings into his rabbinical library.
At the beginning of 2026, we were able to restitute the books to the five grandchildren of Klara and Alfred Levy in France and Israel. At the request of the descendants, the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem will also receive some of the books.
Thanks to
In our research on the family of Alfred Levy and his descendants, we were supported by the staff of the Memorial and the NS Documentation Center Bonn, the USC Shoa Foundation, the Heidelberg University Archives and the Magen David Adom Israel. We would also like to thank Prof. Francine Kaufmann and Pierre Goetschel for their helpful information, as well as the very enlightening and friendly exchange with Alfred Levy's grandchildren.
Selected sources
GND Alfred Levy: https://d-nb.info/gnd/114724863X
Max Wollsteiner: Genealogical overview of some branches of the descendants of Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen of Padua, Berlin 1930, also mentioning Klara (Claire) Jablonski, Alfred Levy and the two children: https://portal.dnb.de/bookviewer/view/1246053802#page/39/mode/1up
Michael Brocke, Julius Carlebach (eds.): Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner, Part 2, Munich 2009, p. 380f.
Book donation by Alfred Levy to the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau: https: //sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/periodical/pageview/2725150 (it was a miniature edition of the tractate Sukka, printed in Offenbach in 1722)
Mention of the ordination in the annual report of the Breslau seminary: https: //sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/periodical/pageview/2725499
Doctoral file: Heidelberg University Archives, Files of the Faculty of Philosophy 1902/03 III, Dean Karl Rathgen, III, 5a, no. 147 c
Marriage certificate: Ancestry; various genealogical records in MyHeritage and Geni
Ernst Levy served André Schwarz-Bart as a quasi model for the character of Ernie in his novel Der Letzte der Gerechten / Le Dernier des Justes (1959), see the research of Prof. Francine Kaufmann: https://journals.openedition.org/coma/8007?lang=en
Birgit Bergmann et al: Transcending Tradition. Jewish Mathematicians in German-Speaking Academic Culture, Frankfurt am Main 2012, p. 105 (Alfred Levy's involvement in the establishment of a Jewish school in Bonn)
Digital copy of Alfred Levy's dissertation: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/levy1905 (does not contain a curriculum vitae)
Levy's involvement in supporting Jewish students (contains Levy's handwritten signature and an address stamp (Bonn, Kapuzinerstraße 11)), Center for Jewish History, Records oft the Farband fun di Yidishe Studentn Fareynen in Daytshland; Student financial aid - Bonn (Box 4, Folder 152, RG 18), Scan 32-34, https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE3605206
Levy's obituary in the Israelitisches Familienblatt of 22.02.1934, p. 8, https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/cm/periodical/pageview/11324302
Obituary in La Tribune juive. Organe indépendant du judaïsme de l'Est de la France (Strasbourg) of March 9, 1934: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6238363j/f12
Link to Alfred Levy's data record in LCA: https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/entities/11127 (including a list of volumes)
List of volumes restituted by the HfJS from the property of Dr. Alfred Levy:
(Interestingly, Book 1 and Book 17 from this list were given the consecutive inventory numbers D88/2422 and D88/2423 when they were cataloged in 1988, suggesting that the books were together in the Davidovič estate when the boxes of books reached the HfJS. It therefore also seems plausible that Davidovič had the books next to each other on the shelf. This joint arrangement may have been prompted less by the subject matter than by the fact that both books came from Dr. Levy)
1. Johannes Dominicus: Lessing's position on Judaism, Dresden 1893, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/257156
2. Arnold Merzbach: Psychologie der hebräischen Personalsymbole (offprint from: "Festschrift für Jacob Rosenheim"), Frankfurt am Main 1931, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/266347
3. Chaim Müntz: We Jews, Berlin 1907, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/268884
(The mathematician Chaim Müntz was a teacher at the Odenwaldschule near Heppenheim before the First World War - a relative of Alfred Levy's wife Klara was also a teacher at this school, but only in the 1950s: Ernest Jouhy (Ernst Leopold Jablonski) It is not yet clear whether there is a connection here)
4. D. C. Siegfried: Handkommentar zum Alten Testament. Prediger und Hoheslied, Göttingen 1898, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/252407
5. Heinemann Stern: Psychologie des Religionsunterrichts mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des jüdischen, Berlin 1924, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/254113
6. Arthur Liebermann: Zur jüdischen Moral. Das Verhalten von Juden gegenüber Nichtjuden nach dem jüdischen Religionsgesetze, Berlin ca. 1920, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318156
7. Hans Heinrich Schaeder: Esra der Schreiber, Tübingen 1930, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318157
8. Benno Jacob: Auge um Auge. Eine Untersuchung zum Alten und Neuen Testament, Berlin 1929, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318158
9. Oste und West. Illustrierte Monatsschrift für das gesamte Judentum, Berlin 1909, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318171
10. Ost und West. Illustrierte Monatsschrift für das gesamte Judentum, Berlin 1910, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318176
11. Jahrbuch für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, Berlin 1925, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318172
12. Jahrbuch für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, Berlin 1927, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318173
13. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Leipzig 1838, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318180
14. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Leipzig 1842, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318179
15. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Leipzig 1843, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318177
16. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Leipzig 1845, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318178
17. Hermann Vogelstein: Um Wahrheit Recht und Frieden, Berlin 1924, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/318199
18. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Leipzig 1839, https://db.lootedculturalassets.de/index.php/Detail/objects/321473
(Text: Ph. Zschommler)
