Humboldt U and Schneersons

היינו כחולמים

On the subject of Mendel Zalmanovich Schneerson.

We can now say with confidence that there were more Schneersons in Humboldt U than in תומכי תמימים Lubavitch. Was Zalman Schneersons the only odd ball to allegedly actually attend the תומכי תמימים? Does Berlin family count? (no pun intended).

Humboldt University in Berlin, the Background

The name of the school is really Friedrich Wilhelm University. After the WWII, the campus tragically found itself on the communist side of the Berlin wall. So they renamed the university from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm, who founded the school, to the brothers, scientists Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1949. From now on, we will call it Humboldt U.

1900

The school has many notable graduates, many who taught at the Humboldt U. A very abbreviated list:

• Erwin Schrödinger

• Max Planck

• Albert Einstein

• Robert Koch

• Otto von Bismarck

• Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (bothers Grimm)

• Heinrich Heine

• Yeshayahu Leibowitz (how is he part of the list?)

• Karl Marx

• Friedrich Engels

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

• Johann Gottlieb Fichte

• Walter Benjamin

• Arthur Schopenhauer

• Felix Mendelssohn

The Humboldt U also had these students who have been commemorated with brass pavers.

Click to enlarge.

I am sure this is a small sample, names that became known. Others died in battles on all sides of the wars and revolutions of the cursed century.

Humboldt U and Schneersons

There were basically two pairs of brothers attending Humboldt U:

1. Mendel and Leible (Mark Gurary) from Dnepropetrovsk.

2. Mendel and Fishel from Homel.

I have the feeling there might be more from the extended family there. They were of course only looking in the archive of Humboldt U for Mendel from Dnepropetrovsk מלך המושייה, and found another Mendel from Gomel nebach.

You do not expect Chernobeler or Kapuster chassidim to do an archival work at Humboldt U? Although, there are so many Twersky professors that it’s no longer interesting. Fishel Schneerson is probably the first professor from the Twersky (and Schneerson) family! Was Joseph Ber Soloveitchik in the same Humboldt U? I think so.

Mendel and Leible from Dnepropetrovsk were only attending the courses. Mendel and Fishel from Homel actually graduated with degrees. Both in medicine?

There are some other pages in the archive, but I think it is only notarized translation of the Russian transcript. Obviously, there has to be more.