HERZBERG-FRAENKEL, LEO

HERZBERG-FRAENKEL, LEO (1827–1915), Galician author and functionary. As a result of his political activities during the 1848 revolution he was compelled to leave his native Brody; from 1850 to 1852 he was a journalist in Vienna. He then returned to Brody, where he was secretary of the Chamber of Commerce for the next 40 years. Active both in general and Jewish life, Herzberg-Fraenkel served as deputy of Brody for many years. He published novels dealing with East European Jewish life (which were translated into several languages), including Ghettogeschichten (1885), tales of the ghetto; Geheime Wege (1897), on the clandestine activities of Jewish youth in Russia; and several novels on non-Jewish themes. His essay on Polish Jewry appeared in Oesterreich-Ungarn in Wort und Bild. Although he welcomed the idea of Herzl's Judenstaat, he did not believe that the Zionist ideal could be realized. However, he stressed the need for a speedy exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe, no matter where and without political aim. He was among the supporters of plans to settle the Jews of Galicia on the land in an attempt to make them economically productive. His son *sigmund (1857–1913) taught German and Austrian history at the universities of Vienna and Czernowitz.

bibliography:

N.M. Gelber, Toledot Yehudei Brody (1955), index; Kohut, in: AZJ, 80 (1916), 65–68; J. Moses (ed.), Die Loesung der Judenfrage (1907), 294–8.

[Encyclopaedia Judaica (Germany)]