{{short description|British educator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}} {{Infobox academic | name = Chimen Abramsky | native_name = {{lang|he|שמעון אברמסקי}} | native_name_lang = he | birth_name = <!-- use only if different from full/othernames --> | birth_date = {{birth date|1916|09|12|df = y}} | birth_place = Minsk, Russian Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|2010|03|14|1916|09|12|df = y}} | image = Chimen_Abramsky.jpg | death_place = | spouse = Miriam Nirenstein | children = 2, including Jenny Abramsky | parents = Yehezkel Abramsky (father) | alma_mater = {{ubl | Hebrew University of Jerusalem | University of Oxford }} | workplaces = University College London }}
'''Chimen Abramsky''' ({{langx|he|שמעון אברמסקי}}; 12 September 1916 – 14 March 2010) was emeritus professor of Jewish studies at University College London.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news |last=Rapoport-Albert |first=Ada |author-link=Ada Rapoport-Albert |date=18 March 2010 |title=Chimen Abramsky obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/18/chimen-abramsky-obituary |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909143224/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/18/chimen-abramsky-obituary |archive-date=9 September 2013 |access-date=19 March 2010 |work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=18 May 2010 |title=Professor Chimen Abramsky |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7737796/Professor-Chimen-Abramsky.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221010164552/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7737796/Professor-Chimen-Abramsky.html |archive-date=10 October 2022 |access-date=13 August 2020 |work=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref> His first name is pronounced ''Shimon''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dreier |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Dreier |date=June 20, 2014 |title=The Leftwing Bibliophile: The Extraordinary Chimen Abramsky |url=https://jewishcurrents.org/leftwing-bibliophile-extraordinary-chimen-abramsky |access-date=February 13, 2024 |website=Jewish Currents}}</ref>
== Biography == Abramsky was born in Minsk to a Lithuanian Jewish family on 12 September 1916, the son of Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Abramsky |first=Sasha |author-link=Sasha Abramsky |date=August 27, 2015 |title=How the Atheist Son of a Jewish Rabbi Created One of the Greatest Libraries of Socialist Literature |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-the-atheist-son-of-a-jewish-rabbi-created-one-of-the-greatest-libraries-of-socialist-literature/ |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240115014059/https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-the-atheist-son-of-a-jewish-rabbi-created-one-of-the-greatest-libraries-of-socialist-literature/ |archive-date=January 15, 2024 |access-date=August 13, 2020 |journal=The Nation}} Adapted from The House of Twenty Thousand Books.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Chimen Abramsky Archive |title=Series 1: Personal Documents and Family Correspondence {{!}} item NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990048958690205171 |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990048958690205171/NLI |access-date=13 February 2024 |website=National Library of Israel}}</ref> He gained a BA degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MA from the University of Oxford. He was Reader in Jewish History, then Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. He was a Senior Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. A noted scholar of Jewish History, Abramsky was also well known as an expert on antiquarian Hebrew books and manuscripts, and was professionally consulted for many years by the auction house Sotheby's, which traditionally ran one Hebraica and Judaica auction every year.<ref name="Guardian"/><ref name="Times">{{cite news |date=19 March 2010 |title=Professor Chimen Abramsky: historian |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/professor-chimen-abramsky-historian-5z86hp2lrpq |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221211232850/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-chimen-abramsky-historian-5z86hp2lrpq |archive-date=11 December 2022 |access-date=19 March 2010 |work=The Times}}</ref>
His father arrived in London in December 1931 after being expelled from the Soviet Union. The next year Chimen arrived with his mother and younger brother.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Times" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Abramsky |first=Sasha |url=http://archive.org/details/houseoftwentytho0000abra_z9t8 |title=The house of twenty thousand books |publisher=Halban |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-905559-64-0 |publication-place=London |page=22 |author-link=Sasha Abramsky |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Three years later, in 1935, he travelled to Palestine to study history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and became involved in socialist campus politics. On one occasion he was beaten up by future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir – then a leading figure in the rightwing Irgun.<ref name="Guardian"/> Abramsky was described as an atheist.<ref name=":1" />
Visiting London in the summer of 1939 to see his parents Abramsky was unable to return to Palestine because of World War 2. Instead he started working at Shapiro, Vallentine & Co., London's oldest Jewish bookshop and publisher of Jewish scholarly books, where he met Miriam Nirenstein, the proprietor's daughter. They married in 1940 and had two children, Jack and Jenny. Jack, a mathematician, is the father of Sasha Abramsky.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nagler Miller |first=Robert |date=2015-10-16 |title=Writer's tribute to grandparents' world of 20,000 books |url=https://www.jweekly.com/2015/10/16/writers-tribute-to-grandparents-world-of-20000-books/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829023244/https://jweekly.com/2015/10/16/writers-tribute-to-grandparents-world-of-20000-books/ |archive-date=August 29, 2017 |access-date=April 8, 2021 |website=J. The Jewish News of Northern California}}</ref> Jenny became of the BBC's longest-serving senior executives.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brook |first=Stephen |date=10 April 2008 |title=Abramsky to leave BBC |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/10/bbc.radio |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227031308/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/10/bbc.radio |archive-date=27 February 2015 |access-date=14 February 2024 |work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref name="Guardian" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Summerskill|first=Ben|date=February 3, 2002|title=Observer Profile: Jenny Abramsky: The cat's whiskers|url=https://www.theguardian.com/observer/comment/story/0,,643989,00.html|access-date=2020-08-13|website=www.theguardian.com}}</ref> Abramsky was the uncle by marriage of the socialist historian Raphael Samuel. The house Chimen and Miriam shared in Highgate, Northern London,<ref>{{Cite news|last=Abramsky|first=Sasha|date=2015-08-27|title=How the Atheist Son of a Jewish Rabbi Created One of the Greatest Libraries of Socialist Literature|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-the-atheist-son-of-a-jewish-rabbi-created-one-of-the-greatest-libraries-of-socialist-literature/|access-date=2021-04-08|work=The Nation|issn=0027-8378}}</ref> was considered an important destination for thinkers and scholars.<ref name="Times" />
Abramsky's library in that home was a particular attraction, containing first editions of books by Marx, Engels, and William Morris; documents from Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg; notes from Lenin and Marx; even Luxemburg's doctoral dissertation. Though the family sold the library after Abramsky's death, a short documentary on it was made under the direction of Christopher Hird, titled "My Life, My Library and the Left," in which Abramsky is interviewed by Tariq Ali. Shown at Abramsky's wake, the film was later broadcast on Telesur.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ali |first1=Tariq |title=You Can't Please All |date=2024 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-80429-090-3 |page=39 |chapter=Farewell to the Fourth |quote=...the huge collection amassed by Raphael Samuel's uncle...Chimen Abramsky...: A first edition of ''Capital'' that had once belonged to Engels and had his imprimatur on it. Many first editions of Engels's own works. A complete file of William Morris's weekly magazine ''Commonweal'',...There were first editions of every Morris book, handwritten notes by Marx, Lenin's annotations on many volumes, Trotsky's and Luxemburg's documents and the latter's doctoral thesis....The core of the library was sold by his family....[O]n Chimen's insistence I did interview him, and Christopher did make a short film on the library that we first showed at Chimen's wake and, many years later, on Telesur...'My Life, My Library and the Left'...}}</ref>
In 1966, he was invited to take up a newly created lectureship in modern Jewish history at University College London.
In a well-known incident, Abramsky once hosted the Japanese prince and Hebrew scholar Prince Takahito Mikasa at the University College London's Institute of Jewish Studies in 1975.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Butler |first=Menachem |date=December 2, 2015 |title=Japan's Takahito Mikasa at 100: A Prince Among the Jews |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/a-prince-among-the-jews |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816164431/https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/a-prince-among-the-jews |archive-date=August 16, 2022 |website=Tablet}}</ref>
Abramsky died on 14 March 2010.<ref name=":0" />
== Further reading == * Abramsky, Sasha [https://archive.org/details/houseoftwentytho0000abra_z9t8/mode/2up ''The house of twenty thousand books'']. London : Halban, 2014 {{ISBN|9781905559640}}
== See also == * List of British Jews
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * ''The Jewish Year Book'', 2005, p. 217 * Abramsky, Sasha [https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/2703811/jewish/My-Grandfathers-House-of-Twenty-Thousand-Books.htm My Grandfather's House of Twenty Thousand Books - An Abramsky Family Memoir], Introduced by Dr. Naftali Lowenthal. Video. Chabad.org, [2014] * Rapoport-Albert, Ada [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/18/chimen-abramsky-obituary Chimen Abramsky obituary: Historian expert in Jewish studies and Hebrew literature] ''The Guardian'', 18 March 2010 * [https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/professor-chimen-abramsky-historian-5z86hp2lrpq Professor Chimen Abramsky: historian] ''The Times'', 19 March 2010. Archived at archive.today [https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/professor-chimen-abramsky-historian-5z86hp2lrpq Professor Chimen Abramsky: historian] * Davidzon, Vladislav [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/chimen-abramsky ''Chimen Abramsky’s House of Twenty Thousand Books''] ''Tablet Magazine'', February 18, 2015
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abramsky, Chimen}} Category:1916 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Place of death missing Category:20th-century atheists Category:Academics of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Category:Academics of University College London Category:Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford Category:Belarusian emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:20th-century Belarusian Jews Category:British bibliophiles Category:British people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Category:Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford Category:Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Category:Judaic scholars Category:People from Minsky Uyezd Category:Professorships in literature Category:Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine