Berthold Feiwel

Berthold Feiwel (August 15, 1875 – December 29, 1937) was an Austrian-Jewish writer, translator, journalist, and Zionist politician.



Life
Berthold Feiwel, son of Josef and Charlotte (née Schnabel) Feiwel, attended school in Brno and studied law and economics at the universities of Vienna and Zurich from 1893 to 1897.

In 1897, he participated in the preparations for the First Zionist Congress and was also a delegate. Along with Robert Stricker and Max Hickel, he founded the Jüdische Volksstimme in Brno and served as its editor-in-chief. He also established the Jewish Academic Association Veritas.

Summoned to Vienna by Theodor Herzl, Feiwel became the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Zionist central organ Die Welt from January 1900 to approximately August 1901. Since the Fourth Congress, he was a member of the Great Actions Committee and a co-founder and leading figure of the Democratic Faction at the Fifth and Sixth Congresses. Feiwel was a co-founder of the Jüdischer Verlag in Berlin and served as its director from 1902 to 1907. In the conflict between Western and Eastern Jews, he, as a Western Jew, showed great understanding and interest in Eastern Jewish culture, translating poems by Morris Rosenfeld. He published the Jewish Almanac, the Young Harp, and in Cologne, the magazine Young Israel. In collaboration with Martin Buber and Chaim Weizmann, he planned the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After World War I, Feiwel moved to London and actively engaged in the Zionist cause. From 1920 to 1926, he was the director of the newly established Keren Hayesod in London and from 1929, head of the Jewish Colonial Trust. From 1933, he lived in Mandatory Palestine.

On his 50th birthday, the Vienna Morning Newspaper praised Feiwel: “A modest man who always focuses on the cause to which he has dedicated his life’s work, he has consistently diverted the attention of the Zionist public from his personal contribution to Zionist successes.”

Quote
Anthem of the Jewish Academic Holiday Association Achiwah, Hungarian Hradisch. The steps of the young thunder, It surges and roars like storm and battle; The Jewish people have awakened And call for their sons.
 * Awake, sleepers in the deep night!

They come, my people, to save you, Their arm is strong, their eyes laugh, Courage is their weapon and pride their attire. The chains shatter and split,
 * The day flames. The night is over!

And if the enemies throw you down, And if the kingly splendor turns to rubble We will rebuild you with strong power And make you more beautiful again.
 * No longer will you, Zion, be enveloped in night!

...
 * Awake, sleepers in the deep night!

Literature

 * Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian Authors of Jewish Origin 18th to 20th Century. Volume 1: A–I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8, pp. 307f.
 * Feiwel, Berthold. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors. Volume 7: Feis–Frey. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica Archive. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-22687-X, pp. 18–23.
 * Salomon Wininger: Great Jewish National Biography. Volume 2. Czernowitz 1927, pp. 231f.