In regard to Aubrey Solomon who became Abba Eban, his mother was Alida
Sacks, the daughter Eliahu-Ze'ev Sacks from Joniskis.
Her brother Samuel Sacks was the father of well-known neurologist and
writer
Oliver Sacks.
Alida's second husband was Isaac Eban.
Ann Rabinowitz
-----------
Abba was born in Cape Town in 1915, the son of Alida and Abraham Meir
Solomon, a businessman from Lithuania.The father died when Abba was
less then two and Alida later married Dr. Isaac Eban, a London
physician whose surname Abba adopted....
------------------------------------------------
Eliahu Ze-Ave (Eli velval, SACKS
Born: 1855, Joniskis, Lithuania
Died: 31 Jan 1929, London, England
married; Bassa (Bessie) HERSHKOWITZ
Born: ____ Lithuania
Died: 1931, London, England children; Children:
1. Lena SACKS Born: 1885, Joniskis, Lithuania. Married:( Benzion (Ben)
HALPER
Born: 1884, Joniskis, Lithuania; Londo Died: 1924, Philadelphia, Pa,
Usa, children; Howard b 1908 and Neville 1915)
____. Died: 1980, London, England.
Altenka (Alida) SACKS Born: 25 Apr 1891, Joniskis, Lithuania. Married:
21 Jun 1921, Westcliff On Sea, Essex, England. Died: 23 Mar 1973,
London, England.
first husband; Abraham Meir SOLOMON Born: Joniskis, Lithuania
Died: 16 Jan 1916, London, England children; Children: Ruth Helen
{Solomon} EBAN married; Robin {Naftali} LYNN
Aubrey (Abba) {Solomon} EBAN Born: 2 Feb 1915, Cape Town, South
Africa. Died: 17 Nov 2002, Tel Aviv, Israel. ( children Eli and Gila)
Benjamin (Bennie) SACKS Born: 1893, Joniskis, Lithuania. Died: Mar
1974, ____ Portugal.
Samuel Eliezer SACKS Born: 1895, Joniskis, Lithuania. Married: May
1922, Poetsroadsynagog, England. Died: 21 Jun 1990, London, England.
Spouse: Muriel Elsie LANDAU
Born: 21 Jan 1895, London, England
Married: May 1922, Poetsroadsynagog, England
Died: 13 Nov 1972, Herzlia, Israel Children:
Marcus Lionel SACKS Born: 15 Apr 1923, London, England. Died: 23 Mar
2004, Sydney, Nsw, Australia.
David SACKS Born: 7 Nov 1924, London, England. Died: 11 Jan 1993,
London, England.
Michael Vivian SACKS
Oliver Wolf SACKS
Oliver Sacks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oliver Wolf Sacks (born July 9, 1933, London), is a United
States-based British neurologist who has written popular books about
his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was
adapted into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Sacks considers that his literary style follows the tradition of
19th-century "clinical anecdotes," a literary style that included
informal case histories, following the writings of Alexander Luria.[1]
Sacks is a childhood friend of Jonathan Miller[2] and a cousin of
Robert Aumann and the late Abba Eban.[3]
In 2007,[4] Columbia University appointed Sacks as "its first Columbia
artist, a newly created designationThe fourth and youngest child of a
prosperous North London Jewish medical family: his father Sam a
doctor, his mother Elsie a surgeon. Aged six in 1939, his parents sent
him to a boarding school in the Midlands for four years to keep him
out of harm's way.[2] During his childhood, Sacks was passionate about
chemistry and tried to collect samples of all the elements and did
many experiments in his home laboratory. He derived much inspiration
from his uncle Dave, as told in Sacks' autobiographical book Uncle
Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.
Sacks earned his medical degrees from Oxford University while a member
of The Queen's College. In 1960, he went to Canada on holiday, and on
arrival sent his parents a one-word telegram: "Staying". Sacks
hitch-hiked to the Rockies, and then down to San Francisco, where he
fell in with the poet and motorcycle enthusiast, Thom Gunn.[2] Sacks
became a resident in neurology at UCLA.
After converting his British qualifications to American recognition,
Sacks moved to New York where he has lived since 1965, and taken twice
weekly therapy sessions since 1966.[2]
In 1966, Sacks began working as a consulting neurologist at Beth
Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Services), a chronic care
facility in the Bronx. It was here that he first encountered a group
of patients, many of whom had spent decades unable to initiate
movement due to the devastating effects of the 1920s sleeping
sickness, encephalitis lethargica.[5] His work at Beth Abraham
provided the foundation on which the Institute for Music and
Neurologic Function (IMNF), where Sacks is currently an honorary
medical advisor, is built. In 2000, he was honored with the IMNF's
Music Has Power Award for his contributions towards advancing
knowledge of the power of music to awaken and heal, and again in 2006
to commemorate his 40th year at Beth Abraham and recognize his
dedication to its patients.
Sacks was formerly a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, adjunct professor of neurology at the
New York University School of Medicine, where he worked for over 43
years. On September 1, 2007, he became professor of clinical neurology
and clinical psychiatry at the Columbia University College of
Physicians and Surgeons, leading that department while serving as
Columbia University's first "artist"—a new position the university
hopes will help bridge the gap between disciplines such as medicine,
law, and economics.[4] He remains a consultant neurologist to the
Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintains a practice in New York City.
Sacks describes his cases with little clinical detail, concentrating
on the experiences of the patient (in the case of his A Leg to Stand
On, the patient was himself). The patients he describes are often able
to adapt to their situation in different ways despite the fact that
their neurological conditions are usually considered incurable.[6] His
most famous book, Awakenings, upon which the movie of the same name is
based, describes his experiences using the new drug L-Dopa on Beth
Abraham post-encephalitic patients in 1969. Awakenings was also the
subject of the first film made in the British television series
Discovery.
In his other books, he describes cases of Tourette syndrome and
various effects of Parkinson's disease. The title article of The Man
Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is about a man with visual agnosia and
was the subject of a 1986 opera by Michael Nyman. The title article of
An Anthropologist on Mars is about Temple Grandin, a professor with
high-functioning autism. In his book The Island of the Colour-blind he
describes the Chamorro people of Guam, who have a high incidence of a
form of ALS known as Lytico-bodig (a devastating combination of ALS,
dementia, and parkinsonism). Along with Paul Cox, Sacks is responsible
for the resurgence in interest in the Guam ALS cluster, and has
published papers setting out an environmental cause for the cluster,
namely toxins such as beta-methylamino L-alanine (BMAA) from the cycad
nut accumulating by biomagnification in the flying fox bat.[7][8]
Sacks's writings have been translated into 21 languages, including
Catalan, Finnish, and Turkish. He was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize
for Writing about Science in 2001. Oxford University awarded him an
honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2005. In March 2006, he
was one of 263 doctors who published an open letter in The Lancet
criticizing American military doctors who administered or oversaw the
force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees who had committed themselves to
hunger strikes.[9]
Books
Migraine (1970)
Awakenings (1973)
A Leg to Stand On (1984) (Sacks' own experience of losing the control
of one of his legs after an accident.)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985)
Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf (1989). Berkeley:
University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06083-0.
An Anthropologist on Mars (1995)
The Island of the Colour-blind (1997) (total congenital color
blindness in an island society)
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001)
Oaxaca Journal (2002)
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007)
[edit] Essays and articles
article in TATE ETC. Summer 2007 including exclusive stereograph of
his first photograph, taken at age 12
"The Mind's Eye (Oliver Sacks)" (positive experiences of blind people)
- published in "The Best American Essays 2004", Ed. Robert Atwan
New York Times Op-Ed by Oliver Sacks regarding the Island of Stability
theory
[edit] Television series
The Mind Traveller
[edit] References
^ All in the Mind (2 April 2005). The Inner Life of the Broken Brain:
Narrative and Neurology. Radio National.
^ a b c d Andrew Brown (5 March 2005). Oliver Sacks Profile: Seeing
double. The Guardian.
^ Alden Mudge (November 2001). Chemical reaction: Oliver Sacks finds
cosmic order in the elements. BookPage.
^ a b Motoko Rich (1 September 2007). Oliver Sacks Joins Columbia
Faculty as 'Artist'. The New York Times. "The appointment grew out of
conversations that Dr. Sacks had with several people, including Eric
Kandel, a Nobel laureate in medicine and a professor at Columbia, and
Gregory Mosher, director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia, which
aims to incorporate an interdisciplinary approach to the arts into the
undergraduate experience."
^ Music Has Power Awards Event Journal, Institute for Music and
Neurologic Function, November 2006
^ Sacks, Oliver [1995] (1996-01-12). "Preface", An Anthropologist on
Mars, New Ed, London: Picador, xiii–xviii. ISBN 0-330-34347-5. ""The
sense of the brain's remarkable plasticity, its capacity for the most
striking adaptations, not least in the special (and often desperate)
circumstances of neural or sensory mishap, has come to dominate my own
perception of my patients and their lives.""
^ Occurrence of beta-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) in ALS/PDC patients
from Guam, National Institutes of Health, October 11, 2004
^ Cycad neurotoxins, consumption of flying foxes, and ALS-PDC disease
in Guam, National Institutes of Health, November 26, 2002
^ Medics call for
Biography . Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP
http://www.oliversacks.com/about.htm
; http://www.bookpage.com/0111bp/oliver_sacks.html
In Uncle Tungsten it's Sacks' own boyhood enthusiasm for all things
chemical that provides the narrative energy. Sacks writes with
intelligence, passion and even humor about key personalities and
turning points in the history of chemistry and topics ranging from
metals and minerals to photography and spectroscopy. ("I've been
investigating the campus with my pocket spectroscope!" Sacks exclaims
at one point in our conversation. "I'm delighted to find that in my
room here at Cornell there are four sorts of light.")
Sacks grew up in an exceptionally accomplished Anglo-Jewish family.
His grandfather invented the Landau lamp, a crucial safety innovation
in coal mining. Both of his parents were doctors. His Uncle Dave --
the Uncle Tungsten of the title -- was an inveterate experimenter with
metals and lightbulbs (his nickname came from the tungsten his light
bulb factory used for filaments). His first cousin was Abba Eban,
former Israeli foreign minister.
While the chapters Sacks devotes to describing his family and homelife
do not dwell on his inner life, he does reveal himself in bits and
pieces: that almost from birth he was expected to become a doctor and
that, eager to begin his training, his mother had him dissecting human
fetuses by the age of 11, which horrified him; that his Uncle Tungsten
and his more eccentric and intellectually forbidding Uncle Abe, rather
than his parents, shaped and abetted his growth as a boy chemist; that
he was sent as a child to a boarding school outside of London during
World War II, and was abused by a tyrannical headmaster
..........................................
Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks (born 1948, London) is the Chief Rabbi
of the United Kingdom's main body of Orthodox synagogues. His official
title is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth.
As well as the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest
synagogue body in the UK, he is the Chief Rabbi of most orthodox
synagogues, but not the religious authority for the Federation of
Synagogues or the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. However, he
is recognised by the majority of orthodox synagogues throughout the
Commonwealth, hence his formal title. In addition, the majority of UK
Jews recognise his wider role as a spokesman and ambassador for the
Jewish community. Sacks is also still recognised as the Chief Rabbi of
the Hong Kong Jewish community, a role he was asked to retain after
Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule.
Rabbi Sacks was educated at St Mary's Primary School and Christ's
College Finchley, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (MA), New
College, Oxford, University of London (PhD), Jews' College London and
Etz Chaim Yeshiva, London.[1]
Rabbi Sacks studied philosophy and obtained the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the
universities of: Cambridge; Glasgow; Haifa; Middlesex; Yeshiva
University; Liverpool and St. Andrews, and is an honorary fellow of
Gonville and Caius and King's College London.
Rabbi Sacks heads the Chief Rabbi's Cabinet[1] consisting of fourteen
other rabbis who advise him on a number of areas, such as Jewish
education, Israel, Jewish-Christian relations, matters relating to the
Beth Din (Jewish religious court), and several other areas of concern
to the Jewish community. The Chief Rabbi's Cabinet meets on a
quarterly basis and its members are entitled to represent the Chief
Rabbi at public events.
Rabbi Sacks had been Principal of Jews' College, London, the world's
oldest rabbinical seminary, as well as rabbi of the Golders Green
(1978-82) and Marble Arch (1983-90) Synagogues in London. He gained
rabbinic ordination from Jews' College as well as from London's Etz
Chaim yeshiva.
More recently Sacks has been praised for building positive
relationships with the Progressive community and notably is the first
Chief Rabbi to sit with a Reform Rabbi as a joint President of the
Council of Christians and Jews in the UK.[2]
In September 2001, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred on him a
doctorate of divinity in recognition of his first ten years in the
Chief Rabbinate of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
In 2004, his book "The Dignity of Difference" was awarded the
Grawemeyer Award for Religion.
Rabbi Sacks was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 2005
'for services to the Community and to Inter-faith Relations'.[3]
Also in 2005, Rabbi Sacks visited the Jewish student organization at
the University of Cambridge, appearing as a guest of Samuel Green on
the student radio show Kol Cambridge and taking call-ins.
He was made an Honorary Freeman of the London Borough of Barnet in
September 2006
--
Related to the Sacks family; Rabbi Moses Segal who was the first rabbi
of
Oxford from 1902 -1909.
Rabbi Moses Hirsh (Zvi) was born in Lithuania in 1876. He came to
England at an early age and received his education at Oxford. He
married Leah nee Frumkin ( daughter of Aryeh Leib Frumkin, the founder
of Petach Tikvah) Rabbi Moses Segal was a lecturer at the Hebrew
University 1928\ ( full professor 1939)'
http://books.google.com/books?id=uVvIM5OuoJEC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=judah+benzion+segal&source=web&ots=Ar6OLxdAEL&sig=q6sG3-tuQWi4shV_vTCjX9GJ4ao
The sons of Rabbi Segal;
Samuel Segal , Baron Segal MRCS, LRCP, MA (Oxon) (2 April 1902 – 4
June
1985) was a British doctor and Labour Party politician and a zionist,
who became Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. He married a Jewish
woman from Alexandria, Egypt.
Early life
Samuel Segal was the son of Rabbi Moses Segal who was the rabbi of
Oxford from 1902 -1909. His first languge was Hebrew. ( was the elder
brother of Judah Segal whose Involvement in Jewish community
included; Principal, Leo Baeck College, 1982-85; President, 1985-2003
Member, Council of Christians and Jews
President: North Western Reform Synagogue
President: British Association for Jewish Studies, 1980
Vice-President, Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 1985-91)
. Lord Sam was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon
Tyne (Scholar), Jesus College, Oxford (Exhibitioner; Honorary fellow,
1966) and Westminster Hospital (Scholar).
[ Medical career
He was a casualty Surgeon at Westminster Hospital then a Senior
Clinical Assistant at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. He
served on several London County Council Hospital Committees.
Following the start of World War II, he joined RAFVR Medical Branch,
October 1939. He served in Aden 1940, Western Desert 1941, Syrian
Campaign 1941. He was attached to the Greek Air Force, 1941; Squadron
Leader, 1942; Senior Medical Officer RAF Naval Co-operation Group in
Mediterranean, 1942. He was on the Headquarters Staff Middle East,
1943-44 and the Air Ministry Medical Staff, 1944-45.
He was a regional medical officer for the Ministry of Health, 1951-62.
Political career
After unsuccessfully fighting the Tynemouth seat at the 1935 general
election, he was stood again unsuccessfully at the Birmingham Aston
by-election in May 1939. However, at the 1945 general election he was
elected for Preston.
The Preston constituency was abolished for the 1950 general election,
when Segal stood for the new Preston North seat, but lost by 938 votes
to the Conservative candidate, Julian Amery.[1]
In 1964, he was created a life peer as Baron Segal, of Wytham in the
Royal County of Berkshire. In the House of Lords he was Deputy Speaker
and Deputy Chairman of Committees from 1973-82.
Other posts
Lord Segal was chairman of the British Association for the Retarded,
the Royal Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, the
[[Anglo-Israel Association and the Anglo-Israel Archaeological
Association. He was a governor of Carmel College.
His daughter lives in Oxford
Notes
^ UK general election results, February 1950
[edit] References
Who was Who
Craig, F. W. S. [1969] (1983). British parliamentary election results
1918-1949, 3rd edition, Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services.
ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.
Parliament of the United Kingdom (1801–present)
Preceded by
Randolph Churchill and
Edward Charles Cobb
-------------------------
Judah Benzion Segal MC, FBA, often known as Ben (21 June 1912 - 23
October 2003, Edgware, Middlesex) was Professor of Semitic Languages
at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
His father was Rabbi Professor Moses Segal and his brother was the
doctor and Labour Party politician Samuel Segal. He had two daughters;
one is Prof. Naomi Segal.
[ Education
Magdalen College School, Oxford
St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. Jarrett Scholar, 1932; John
Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Hebrew, 1933; 1st Class Oriental Langs
Tripos, 1935; Tyrwhitt Scholar and Mason Prizeman, 1936. BA
(Cambridge), 1935, MA 1938; DPhil (Oxford) 1939.
Colours, Cambridge University Boxing Club, 1935, 1936.
Career
Mansel Research Exhibitioner, St. John's College, Oxford, 1936-39;
James Mew Scholar, 1937.
Deputy Assistant Director, Public Security, Sudan Government, 1939-41
Served in World War II, GHQ, MEF, 1942-44, Captain; Education Officer,
British Military Administration, Tripolitania, 1945-46. He was awarded
a Military Cross in 1942.
School of Oriental and African Studies from 1946; Head of Department
of Near and Middle East, 1961-68; Professor 1961-79, then Emeritus
Professor; Honorary Fellow 1983.
Visiting Lecturer, Ain Shams University, Cairo, 1979
Research Fellow, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1980
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, South India, 1981
[ Involvement in Jewish community
Principal, Leo Baeck College, 1982-85; President, 1985-2003
Member, Council of Christians and Jews
President: North Western Reform Synagogue
President: British Association for Jewish Studies, 1980
Vice-President, Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 1985-91
Honours
Fellow of the British Academy, 1968
Freedom, City of Urfa, Turkey, 1973
] Publications
The Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac, 1953
The Hebrew Passover, 1963
Edessa, 1970
Aramaic Texts From North Saqqara, 1983
A History of the Jews of Cochin, 1993
Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum, 2000
Whisper Awhile, 2000
Articles in learned periodicals.
Ben Segal: Public-spirited scholar of Aramaic and Hebrew studies†
Geoffrey Khan
gk101@cam.ac.uk
Cambridge University
[1] Judah Benzion 'Ben' Segal, scholar of semitic languages, born June
21 1912; died October 23 2003.
[2] Judah "Ben" Segal, who has died aged 91, was a leading scholar in
the field of Aramaic and Hebrew studies. He was professor of semitic
languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in the
University of London, from 1961 until his retirement in 1979.
[3] Among much else, he was largely responsible for a degree course
that allowed students to study all the major languages of the semitic
family, including Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian and Ethiopic. This
course, which sadly no longer exists, was unique in a British
university at the time, and provided an excellent training for those
who wished to undertake a research degree in semitic philology. It
ensured that students gained a thorough knowledge of the languages and
were able to read the most challenging texts, rather than simply
learning "about" the languages.
[4] Segal's own research was wide ranging. Several of his publications
concerned the Christian Aramaic dialect known as Syriac, and the
culture and literature of eastern Christianity. His first book, The
Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac (1953), a study of the
vowels of Syriac, is greatly admired by semitic philologists and often
regarded as one of his best works.
[5] In 1970, he published Edessa: The Blessed City, an erudite but
very accessible historical study of the city of Edessa, modern Urfa in
southern Turkey, where the Syriac language had its origins. He also
made major contributions in the field of Hebrew and Jewish history;
his book The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to AD 70 (1963)
quickly became a standard work.
[6] In retirement, Segal continued his scholarly research with
considerable energy. In 1981, he was awarded a Leverhulme emeritus
fellowship, which allowed him to conduct research in India on the Jews
of Cochin, resulting in the publication, in 1993, of his definitive
work on the subject, A History of the Jews of Cochin.
[7] He also continued to make important contributions to Aramaic
studies through his publication of Aramaic texts from North Saqqara,
with some Fragments in Phoenician (1983) and his Catalogue of the
Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (2000, in
collaboration with Erica Hunter).
[8] Born in Newcastle, Segal was educated at Magdalen College school,
Oxford, and graduated with a first-class tripos degree in Oriental
languages from Cambridge University in 1935. He returned to Oxford to
study for a research degree, and was awarded a DPhil there in 1939.
His outstanding ability won him a series of prizes and scholarships.
[9] Most of his later academic colleagues and students were not aware
that he had distinguished himself in action during the second world
war, to the extent that, in 1942, he had been awarded the Military
Cross for bravery.
[10] Earlier that year, he was sent more than 100 miles behind German
lines in north Africa to report on the movements of Rommel's forces,
and give advance warnings of planned attacks. He spent several weeks
in secret hideouts with local Arabs, whose language he could speak.
His regular reports helped save many allied lives. Narrowly avoiding
capture on several occasions, he led an operation that resulted in the
capture of the Libyan town of Derna, which proved to be crucial for
the advance of Montgomery's 8th Army.
[11] After the war, Segal pursued an academic career, as had his
father, the distinguished Hebrew scholar M.H. Segal. In 1946, he
joined SOAS, where he spent his entire career, as a lecturer in Hebrew
and Aramaic, was promoted to reader in 1955, and took a chair in
semitic languages in 1961. In 1968, he was elected to a fellowship of
the British Academy.
[12] It was my privilege to be his student at SOAS in the late 1970s,
and I was, at first, overawed at being taught by a scholar of such
eminence and erudition. Segal's quiet, gentle approach, however, soon
made me feel completely at ease. In those days, more importance was
attached to passing on scholarship to a younger generation than to
maximising the number of students in the class. Indeed, I was often
the only student on the courses that he taught.
[13] His public-spiritedness was demonstrated on numerous occasions,
especially when, at the age of 70, he agreed to become director of the
progressive London Jewish seminary, Leo Baeck College, and worked
resolutely to save it from imminent closure.
[14] His wife Leah ( nee Seidemann), whom he married in 1946, survives
him, as do their two daughters (Miryam and Naomi).
gk101@cam.ac.uk
Cambridge University
Obituary: Professor J. B. Segal
Independent, The (London), Nov 7, 2003 by A. K. Irvine
J. B. SEGAL was a widely respected scholar of the Syriac and Aramaic
languages and, as Professor of Semitic Languages at London University
from 1961 until his retirement in 1979, promoted a comprehensive
approach to the study of Semitic languages - making full use of the
unique resources provided by Soas - the university's School of
Oriental and African Studies.
As Head of the Near and Middle East Department at London, he sought to
advance the study of the broad field of Semitic linguistics and
philology. No longer were "Semitic languages" to be treated as an
interesting sideline of a Hebrew-Aramaic curriculum, but the new BA
degree in Semitic Languages that Segal was largely instrumental in
introducing at London was to include, in addition to Hebrew, thorough
coverage of Akkadian, Arabic and Semitic Ethiopian languages (these
last introduced to the curriculum in 1964 at his instigation). The
college thus became the only institution in the United Kingdom where
"BA Semitic Languages" meant exactly what it said.
Judah Benzion Segal was born in Newcastle in 1912, the son of the
distinguished biblical and Mishnaic scholar M.H. Segal and younger
brother of the future MP for Preston Samuel (later Lord) Segal, who
was to play an important role in setting up the National Health
Service.
Educated at Magdalen College School in Oxford, "Ben" Segal entered St
Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 1932 to read for the Oriental
Languages Tripos, graduating in 1935 with a First, before proceeding
to Oxford to continue his researches at St John's College. There he
was awarded a DPhil in 1939. At both universities he won prestigious
prizes and awards, notably the James Mew Scholarship at Oxford in
1937. He also found time to gain his colours in 1935 and 1936 with the
Cambridge University Boxing Club. The skill acquired thereby was to
prove of benefit when, later in life, he encountered an officious
policeman while carrying out fieldwork in a remote part of Turkey.
Fortunately, they made friends later.
Segal's scholarly career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second
World War, but he was able to spend his war service largely in the
Near East and North Africa. From 1939 till 1941 he served as Deputy
Assistant Director, Public Security, for the government of the Sudan
and from 1942 until 1944, as captain, at the General Headquarters of
the Middle East Force. In 1942 he was awarded the Military Cross for
bravery behind enemy lines in an action which contributed to the final
capitulation of the strategic city of Dema to the Allies in January
1943, though he was never very forthcoming on the details of this.
Finally, he served as Education Officer in the British Military
Administration in Tripolitania in 1945 and 1946.
On his return to civilian life in 1946 he resumed his professional
career as a Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at Soas, and was to remain
there till his retirement. In 1961 he was appointed Professor of
Semitic Languages, and in the same year head of department, in which
role he was both conscientious and fair.
Although he had been able to publish an important, if recondite study,
The Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac (1953), and the more
popular The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to AD 70 (1963)
and was a frequent contributor of articles to learned journals
throughout his life, he inevitably found that his college
responsibilities now left him little time in which to pursue and
develop his own research interests and he stood down as head of
department in 1968.
Two subjects had particularly concerned him from the outset of his
career, perhaps the more compelling being the origins of Syriac, the
language, in its several forms, of the Eastern Christian churches with
an extensive and important literature. The roots of Syriac trace back
ultimately to the East Turkish city of Edessa, now Urfa, and it was to
this ancient centre that Segal had devoted most of his research
interest.
In 1970 Edessa: "the blessed city", probably his most significant
work, appeared. Thoroughly researched, written in an attractive style
and beautifully illustrated, it appealed as much to the layman for its
general interest as to the scholar for its authoritativeness. It
touched Segal very deeply that in 1973 he was granted the freedom of
the city of Urfa in recognition of his lifelong devotion to its
history and culture.
Segal's other passion was for the Jews of Cochin, and as early as 1962
he had written an article on the subject for a learned journal. He
maintained this interest into his retirement and in 1981 was awarded a
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, which enabled him to conduct fruitful
research in Cochin itself. This eventually bore fruit with the
publication of his authoritative A History of the Jews of Cochin in
1993. Two other works which stem from this period are concerned with
Aramaic and Phoenician, both languages related to Syriac: Aramaic
Texts from North Saqqara, with some fragments in Phoenician (1983) and
a Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the
British Museum (2000
A number of honours came his way, not least his election to a
Fellowship of the British Academy in 1968. In 1979, just before he
retired, he was invited by Ain Shams University in Cairo to come as a
Visiting Lecturer. As a Jew he derived particular satisfaction from
this positive and friendly gesture, and it is perhaps typical of his
generous spirit and recognition of the worth of all cultures and
societies that he felt so honoured by the invitation. In 1980 he was
appointed a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And
in 1983, in recognition of his long service, he was elected an
Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental Studies.
On his retirement Segal was also very much involved with the Jewish
community in north London. He was active in his support for the Leo
Baeck College, a Liberal Jewish Talmudic school, and was Principal
there from 1982 till 1985, when he became President. He promoted his
ecumenical approach as an active member of the Council of Christians
and Jews and was also President of the North Western Reform
Synagogues. From 1985 to 1991 he served as Vice-President of the
Reform Synagogues of Great Britain.
As a person, Segal was friendly and approachable, and at the same time
modest and self-effacing. He led a happy family life with his wife
Leah and their two daughters; and, if he found the pressures of work
building up, he would seek solace in long and pensive walks