FRANKFURTER, SOLOMON FRIEDRICH

FRANKFURTER, SOLOMON FRIEDRICH (1856–1941), Austrian librarian, pedagogue, and classical philologist. Frankfurter was born in Pressburg and moved with his family to Vienna in 1859. In 1881 he began working as a volunteer at the University of Vienna library, where from 1919 to 1923 he served as director. In 1909 he was been appointed the first Jewish consultant on Jewish community questions to the Austrian Ministry of Culture and Education. Frankfurter was president of the Society for the Collection and Investigation of Jewish Historic Monuments, president of the B'nai B'rith, and member or consultant of many boards responsible for Jewish education and religion. He served briefly as director of the Vienna Jewish Museum, but also acted as an advisor. From 1934 to 1938 he was the only Jewish member of the Austrian Bundes-Kulturrat (Federal Board for Cultural Questions). When the Nazis invaded Austria (1938), he was arrested, but was released shortly afterwards.

Frankfurter's publications deal with archaeology; education, particularly the important role of a classical gymnasium education; biographies; and Jewish subjects. His works include Unrichtige Buechertitel mit einem Exkurs ueber hebraeische Buechertitel (1906); Das altjuedische Erziehungs-und Unterrichtswesen im Lichte moderner Bestrebungen (1910); Josef Unger 1828–1857 (1917), dealing with Unger's youth; and Zwei neugefundene mittelalterliche hebraeische Grabsteine in Wien (1918).

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix *Frankfurter was his nephew.

add. bibliography:

N.H. Tur-Sinai, "Viennese Jewry," in: J. Fraenkel (ed.), The Jews of Austria: Essays on their Life, History and Destruction (1967), 315; L. Kolb, "The Vienna Jewish Museum," in: ibid., 149.