Subject: Re: [HM] Was Cantor of Jewish descent? (was: Poetry and Mathematics)
From: Gordon Fisher (gfisher@shentel.net)
Date: Wed Dec 22 1999 - 10:13:51 EST
I too found the letter by Imre Toth the most informative I've seen on
the question of Cantor's Jewish ancestry. I have some small questions
and comments, as follows. I agree that this is an unpleasant topic,
but as historians of mathematics, which I take to include biographers
of mathematicians, I suppose we are committed to trying to find out
something about the truth of this matter.
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net
At 02:44 AM 12/22/99 -0500, Abe Shenitzer wrote (translating Toth's letter):
[deletion]
> Nowhere is there a reference to Cantor's magnum opus on Jesus, a piece
> of lunacy but based on knowledge of the Talmud, signed Georg Aron.
Can this be obtained anywhere? It is fairly well known to those who have
studied biography of Cantor that he had some looney religious ideas, but I
don't recall a reference to this work he signed with the pseudonym Georg
Aron, which I suppose qualifies as a Jewish name.
> The DDR was interested in washing Cantor clean of any connection with
> Portuguese Jews (while the trajectory of the family - Portugal,
> Scandinavian countries, Russia - is not enough to prove anything, it
> is enough to give at least rise to suspicion of a connection with
> Portuguese Jews; this trajectory was a classic route). It all began
> in the Third Reich.
Wouln't it be better to translate "Das fang breits im III Reich an." as
"It began already in the Third Reich." The idea is, I think, that denial
of Cantor's Jewish ancestry began even in the Third Reich, and not later
in the DDR. Prof. Toth's conjecture about Bieberbach's pronouncement that
Cantor's Jewishness had not been sufficiently proven is most interesting,
and I find it rather convinving. That is, it appears that Bieberbach may
have realized a possible connection between Cantor's Jewishness and the
Nazis forbidding the use of set theory by German mathematicians since it
was, in a Nazi view, a kind of "degenerate, Jewish" science like Einstein's
relativity theories, would lead to a kind of suicide of German mathematics.
So he may have dissembled to Nazi authorities.
I note that in the book by Puckert and Ignauds there is a reference to such
a prohibition (p 15): "CANTOR als einen Vertreter des sogenannten S-Type
oder Gegentyp charakterisierten. Dieser S-Typ sollte angeblich einer
"gesunden" Entwicklung der Wissenschaft entgegen stehen; als sein Traeger
wurde das Judentum bezeichnet ([67], [238], [239]). (Cantor was
characterized as a representative of the so-called S-type or "countertype".
This S-type is said to be opposed to a "healthy" development of science;
Jewry was designated as its "carrier".) The reference [67] is to a work by
Ludwig Bieberbach, *Persoenlichkeitsstruktur und mathematisches Schaffen*
(*Personality structure and mathematical productivity (or: creativity)*),
Forschungen und Fortschritte 10 (1934), 235-237. Is this the source of
Bieberbach's pronouncement referred to by you, Prof. Toth? The references
[238] and [239] are to works by E R Jaensch, 1938 and 1939, on the
"Gegentypus" (countertype?), and on mathematical thought and "mental form"
(*Mathematisches Denken und Seelenform*).
> Somewhere, I no longer know where, someone wrote that Cantor was a Jew.
> Bieberbach responded (I read the article; it must be somewhere here but
> I don't know where) and said that Cantor's connection with Jewry had not
> been established with sufficient certainty. Bieberbach was cautious. I
> guess that his stand put an end to the Jew-baiting campaign against
> Cantor. My secret feeling is that after so many other interdictions it
> would have been very painful for Bieberbach to interdict set theory in
> the way relativity theory had been interdicted. He realized that this
> would spell the formal and final suicide of math in Germany. I once
> talked about this with Freudenthal, and he told me that Fraenkel, who
> knew Cantor personally, had told him that Cantor looked like a synagogue.
> Conclusion: Given such public, my triangle stands no chance of being
> noticed. Your I.T.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> (Remark by the translator. I don't get the meaning of the sentence that
> follows the word "Conclusion".)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Abe Shenitzer
>
I too wonder about the meaning of the last sentence of Prof. Toth's
message. Can you expand on this, Prof. Toth? Is there a reference here to
the star of David composed of two equilateral triangles, commanded by the
Nazis in 1941 to be worn by all Jews in the Deutsches Reich (and Poland)
over the age of six?
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Tue Jan 04 2000 - 09:28:06 EST