Richard James Horatio Gottheil (13 October 1862 – 22 May 1936) was an

English American English Americans (historically known as Anglo-Americans) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2020 American Community Survey, 25.21 million self-identified as being of English origin. The term is distin ...

Semitic scholar,

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

, and founding father of

Zeta Beta Tau Zeta Beta Tau () is a Greek-letter social fraternity based in North America. It was founded on December 29, 1898. Originally a Zionist youth society, its purpose changed from Zionism in the fraternity's early years when in 1954 the fraternity beco ...

fraternity.

Biography

He was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, but moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

at age 11 when his father,

Gustav Gottheil Gustav Gottheil (May 28, 1827, Pinne/Pniewy, Grand Duchy of Posen, Prussia – April 15, 1903, New York City) was a Prussian born American rabbi. Gottheil eventually became one of the most influential, well-known and controversial Reform Jew ...

, accepted a position as the assistant

Rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

of the largest

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Temple Emanu-El. He graduated from Columbia College in 1881, and studied also in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, earning his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

in 1886. From 1898 to 1904 he was president of the American Federation of Zionists, and worked with both Stephen S. Wise and

Jacob De Haas Jacob de Haas (13 August 1872 – 21 March 1937) was a British-born Jewish journalist and an early leader of the Zionist movement in the United States. Biography Jacob De Haas was born in London. He was the secretary of the First Zionist Congress ...

as organizational secretaries. Though he was ever desirous of returning to the quiet life of academia, Gottheil attended the

Second Zionist Congress The Second World Zionist Congress (Hebrew: הקונגרס הציוני השני) met in Basel, Switzerland on 28 August 1898. and was the second meeting of the Zionist Organisation. The World Zionist Congress brought together delegates from ac ...

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, establishing relationships with

Theodor Herzl Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern p ...

and

Max Nordau Max Simon Nordau (born ''Simon Maximilian Südfeld''; 29 July 1849 – 23 January 1923) was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice ...

. "Professor Gottheil shunned publicity; he did not mind the trickles of adulation accorded him as President; but his official duties irked him beyond endurance. He hated to preside at meetings. He was careless in procedural matters and embarrassed by ceremonies in which he had to take part. He was horrified by emotional debates. He felt that his status as a professor was being sullied by his being President of a propaganda organization. He ran away from official duties. He usually limited his official addresses at Zionist meetings to the necessary items, speaking briefly. He became more and more nerve-provoked by his status, especially as the practical affairs of the Zionist Federation made no visible progress." Gottheil virtually vanished from the Zionist movement for the rest of his life. He continued writing and supporting the Zionist effort, but he never again undertook a leadership role. After 1904 he was vice president of the

American Jewish Historical Society The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) was founded in 1892 with the mission to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation and ...

. Gottheil wrote many articles on

Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...

al and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

questions for newspapers and reviews. He edited the ''Columbia University Oriental Series'', and the ''Semitic Study Series''. After 1901 he was one of the editors of the ''

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

''. He has written the chapter on Zionism which was translated into Arabic and published by

Najib Nassar Najib Nassar (January 1, 1865 – December 28, 1947) was a Palestinians, Palestinian journalist perhaps best known as the owner-editor of, and frequent contributor to, the Palestinian weekly newspaper ''Al-Karmil (newspaper), Al-Karmil.'' Historian ...

in his newspaper '' Al-Karmil'' and also in the form of a book in 1911. He died on 22 May 1936.

Publications

* ''The Syriac grammar of Mar Elia Zobha'' (1887) * ''Selections from the Syriac

Julian Romance The ''Julian Romance'' is fictionalized prose account of the reign of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. It was written sometime between Julian's death in 363 and the copying of the oldest known manuscript in the sixth century. It does not s ...

'' (1906) * ''Zionism'' (1914)

References

External links

* * *
Gottheil profile on ZBT.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottheil, Richard James Horatio 1862 births 1936 deaths 19th-century American male writers 19th-century English male writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century English male writers American Hebraists American male non-fiction writers American political writers American Reform Jews American Zionists British Hebraists British Jews British Reform Jews British Zionists Burials at Salem Fields Cemetery College fraternity founders Columbia College (New York) alumni Contributors to the Jewish Encyclopedia English emigrants to the United States English Jewish writers English male non-fiction writers English orientalists English political writers Jewish American writers Leipzig University alumni New York Public Library people Semiticists Writers from Manchester Zeta Beta Tau Reform Zionists