David Herzog
The life and works of David Herzog
David Herzog was born on 7 November 1869 in Tyrnau (Trnava) in present-day Slovakia. He was the eldest of eight children of the textile merchant Leopold Herzog and Cäcilia Herzog, née Süß. In Tyrnau, David Herzog attended primary school (1876-1881) and the prince-archbishop's grammar school (1881-1889). In 1889 he enrolled at the University of Berlin and began studying Semitic linguistics, which he completed on 4 January 1894 with a doctorate in philosophy. He continued his studies in Paris (1896) and Vienna (1899/1900).
After working as a rabbi in Berlin, Hungarian Ostrava (Moravia) and Smichov, a Prague suburb, he was elected as the new rabbi for Styria, Carinthia and - until 1918 - Carniola by the Jewish Community Council of the Jewish Community of Graz on 20 October 1907. In 1909, Herzog, who had habilitated in Semitic Philology at the German Carl Ferdinand University in Prague in 1901, began teaching at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, where he taught Semitic Philology until his forced expulsion in 1938. He was appointed associate university professor in 1926.
David Herzog received numerous awards, including the "Golden Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria" awarded to him in 1934 and "Honorary Citizenship of the City of Graz" (1929).
Throughout his life, David Herzog was subjected to anti-Semitic hostility against Judaism in general and also against him personally. The anti-Semitic attackers included his pupils, colleagues and also students at the University of Graz. After the "Anschluss" of Austria to National Socialist Germany, his licence to teach at the university was revoked. After 14 days of imprisonment in March 1938 and physical abuse in the course of the November pogrom of 1938, the Herzog couple were able to flee to England at the beginning of 1939. They lived in modest circumstances in London for a year before David Herzog was able to resume his academic work in Oxford in 1940.
David Herzog died in Oxford on 6 March 1946 and was buried in the Jewish section of Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford. Prof Cecil Roth wrote the eulogy on his gravestone. His wife Anna moved to Chicago in 1946 to join their son Fred, where she died in 1964.
