Subject: Re: [HM] Was Cantor of Jewish descent? (was: Poetry and Mathematics)
From: Gordon Fisher (gfisher@shentel.net)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 20:13:13 EST
To what is below, the following can be added, quoted from the book *Georg
Cantor 1845-1914* by Walter Purkert and Hans Joachim Ilgauds, Birkhaeuser,
1987. At the beginning of a discussion of Cantor's ancestry, the authors
warn (p 13): "Ueber die Herkunft und die Ausbildung von GEORG WOLDEMAR
CANTOR [father of the mathematician] ist wenig Sicheres bekannt." (Very
little is known for sure about the origin and education of George Woldemar
Cantor.)
After some discussion of what is known about the ancestry of the father and
mother of our Georg, we read on p 15:
"Des oefteren ist die Frage diskutiert worden, ob GEORGE CANTOR [the
mathematician] juedischer Herkunft war. Dazu heisst es in einer Mitteilung
des daenischen genealogischen Instituts der juedischen Gemeinder nicht
vorkommt, und dass er ganz ohne Zweifel kein Jude war, ..." [3, Nr. 36].
(More often [i.e., than the ancestry of the mother] the question has been
discussed of whether Georg Cantor was of Jewish origin. About this it is
reported in a notice of the Danish genealogical Institute in Copenhagen
from the year 1937 concerning his father: "It is hereby testified that
Georg Woldemar Cantor, born 1809 or 1814, is not present in the registers
of the Jewish community, and that he completely without doubt was not a Jew
...")
And then:
"Auch jahrelange Bemuehungen des Bibliothekars JOSEF FISCHER, des besten
Kenners der juedischen Genealogie in Daenemark, im Auftrag juedischer
Professoren nachzuweisen, dass GEORGE CANTOR juedischer Abstammung war,
verliefen ergednislos [3, Nr. 36]. In CANTORs gedruckten Arbeiten und auch
in seinem Nachlass gibt es keine Aeusserungen von ihm selbst, die sich aug
eine juedische Herkunft seiner Vorfahren beziehen. Es existiert allerdings
im Nachlass die Abschrift eines Briefes Bruders LUDWIG vom 18. 11. 1869 an
die Mutter mit einigen unerfreulichen antisemitischen Aeusserungen, im dem
es u.a. heisst:
"Moegen wir zehnmal con Juden abstammen und ich im Princip noch so
sehr fuer Gleichberechtigung der Hebraeer sein, im socialen Leben sind mir
Christen lieber ..." [3, Nr. 36].
("Also efforts for a long time by the librarian Josef Fischer, one of the
best experts on Jewish genealogy in Denmark, charged with identifying
Jewish professors, that Georg Cantor was of Jewish descent, finished
without result. [Something seems to be wrong with this sentence, but the
meaning seems clear enough.] In Cantor's published works and also in his
Nachlass there are no stements by himself which relate to a Jewish origin
of his ancestors. There is to be sure in the Nachlass a copy of a letter
of his brother Ludwig from 18 Nov 1869 to their mother with some unpleasant
antisemitic statements, in which it is said among other things: "If we
were descended tenfold from Jews and I were in principle ever so much for
the equal rights of the Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians."")
The authors then write two paragraphs in which they explain that they find
the question of whether or not Cantor was Jewish to be an "an und fuer sich
ganz unwichtige Frage ueberhaupt" ("actually a completely unimportant
question"), and that they only were bringing it up because of things that
happened in the time of National Socialism, including the removal of a bust
of Cantor from the main building of the University of Halle on the grounds
that Cantor was Jewish.
Curiously, though, there is no mention in this book by Purkert and Ilgauds
of the letter from Cantor to Tannery in which Cantor speaks of
*israelitischen Eltern* (see below), so the above statements are in
contradiction with this statement in the letter. This is despite the fact
that this books contains an extensive appendix in which there are
quotations from numerous letters of Cantor to various mathematicians (not
including Tannery, that I could see in a quick scan.)
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net
At 07:23 PM 12/20/99 -0200, Julio Gonzalez Cabillon wrote:
>
> Dear Martin,
>
> The correspondence appended below might be of your interest.
>
> By the way, is there any basis for your statement "Kronecker was in
> fact a Christian"? If I remember things correctly, E.T. Bell asserted
> that Leopold Kronecker (1823--1823+68) converted to Christianity from
> Judaism when he was 68 years old.
>
>
> --------------------
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 23:41:04 -0200
> From: Julio Gonzalez Cabillon <jgc@adinet.com.uy>
> Subject: Re: Cantor's forefathers II
> To: Walter Felscher <walter.felscher@uni-tuebingen.de>
>
>
> Dear Walter,
>
> At 12:02 PM 18/05/1997 -0400, you wrote:
>
>| Urged on by Mr. Archibald's note, I took the pains to waddle to the
>| library and take a look at Mr.Dauben's well known book.
>|
>| And there, in footnote 4 to the Introduction, Mr.Dauben mentions a
>| letter by Cantor to Tannery, reprinted in Tannery's correspondence
>| published in 1934 . According to this footnote, Cantor there writes about
>|
>| "meine israelitischen Grosseltern" .
>|
>| While I have not been able to find the volume with Tannery's
>| correspondence here in Tuebingen, there is no reason to assume that Mr.
>| Dauben has misquoted from Cantor's letter. And Cantor's statement then
>| should settle the matter: one of his parents, presumably his father, was
>| "Jewish" in the ethnographical sense.
>|
>| Because until the time of Hitler, in German the adjective "israelitisch"
>| was used to characterize the Israelite religious community - one spoke of
>| the "protestantische Kirche" and the "katholische Kirche", but of the
>| "israelistische Kultus". Cantor's statement, therefore, says that (at
>| least) one pair of his grandparents practised the Israelite religion. As
>| it seems near to impossible that people non-ethnically Jewish practised
>| this religion, we obtain by classical negation that (at least) one pair
>| of Cantor's grandparents was ethnically Jewish. Hence so was that of
>| their children which was Cantor's parent.
>|
>| It remains to corroborate this conclusion by the exact quotation of
>| Cantor's letter in Tannery's correspondence.
>|
>| W.F.
>
> If you, Walter, or anyone else can spare the time, I'd much appreciate
> some further comments on the following excerpt of Georg Cantor's letter
> to Paul Tannery [reprinted in Tannery's "Memoires Scientifiques:
> Correspondance", edited by A. Dies, and published by J.-L. Heiberg & H.-G.
> Zeuthen, vol. XIII, Toulouse: E. Privat; Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1934]
>
> " Halle a.d. Saale, 6. Januar 1896.
> [...]
> Die Angabe in der neuen franzoesischen Encyclopaedie, dass
> ich derselben Familie angehoerte, wie mein Namensvetter Herr
> _Moriz Cantor_ in Heidelberg, _halte ich nitcht fuer richtig_,
> wenigstens _fehlt hierfuer jeglicher Anhalt_.
>
> Thatsache ist allein folgendes:
> Mein seliger, im Iahre 1863, in Deutschland verstorbener Vater
> _Georg Woldemar Cantor_ kam als Kind mit seiner Mutter nach
> _St. Petersburg_ und wurde dort alsdald _lutherisch getauft_. Er
> ist aber in _Kopenhagen_ (ich weiss nicht genau in welchem Iahre,
> etwa zwischen 1810-15) geboren, von _israelitischen Eltern_, die
> der dortigen _portugisischen Iudengemeinde_ angehoerten und daher
> hoechstwahrscheinlich _spanisch-portugisischen_ Ursprungs waren.
>
> Meine Mutter, Marie Cantor, geb. Boehm, die jetzt seit 1863
> in Berlin lebt, ist eine geborene Petersburgerin, gehoert einer
> roemisch-katholischen Familie an, die aus _Oesterreich_ stammt.
>
> Mein Grossvater muetterlicherseits Franz Boehm war Kaiserl.
> Russ. Concertmeister und _Violinvirtuose_ in St. Petersburg; auch
> dessen Frau, meine Grossmutter Maria Boehm, geb. _Morawek_ war
> _Violinvirtuosin_.
>
> Ein Bruder meines Grossvaters war der _Wiener_ Concertmeister
> _Joseph Boehm_, Gruender einer beruehmten Violinistenschule, aus
> welcher viele grosse Violinvirtuosen wie _Joachim_, _Ernest_, etc.
> hervorgegangen sind.
>
> _Vaeterlicherseits_ habe ich _nur einen maennlichen_ Verwandten,
> meinen einzigen um vier Iahre juengeren Bruder
>
> Constantin Cantor,
>
> der frueher Rittmeister in einem grossherz, hessischen Dragoner-
> regiment war, seit ueber zehn Jahren aber in Italien, seit sechs
> Jahren auf der Insel Capri, lebt, wo er in zweiter Ehe mit einer
> eingeborenen Capreserin verheiratet ist."
>
>
> My very best wishes,
>
> Julio
>
> PS I've inserted some e's in lieu of the German 'umlaut'.
>
>
> --------------------
>
>
> Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:57:39 +0100
> From: Walter Felscher <walter.felscher@uni-tuebingen.de>
> Subject: Re: Cantor's forefathers II
> To: Julio Gonzalez Cabillon <jgc@adinet.com.uy>
>
>
> Dearest Julio,
>
> yes, the letter you found is apparently the one to which Dauben's
> footnote referred : you are showing us the last missing link to clarify
> the tangled story of Cantor's forefathers.
>
> And of course, I am ashamed that I was too lazy to tap the library
> network myself in order to find out where Tannery's 'Memoires
> Scientifiques' might be loaned from hereabouts.
>
> What else to comment about ? That we now have, besides the
> Mendelsohn-Dirichlet-Hensel connection also a Cantor-Boehm-Joachim
> connection ? Joseph Joachim was both a phenomenal soloist (to whom Brahms
> dedicated his violin concerto) and the leader of a remarkable quartetto.
> About the other violinist, _Ernest_, is have no information at hand.
>
> With best wishes
>
> your
>
> Walter Felscher
>
> --------------------
>
>
> Greetings from summery Montevideo,
> Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
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