Elias Schwartzfeld

Elias Schwarzfeld or Schwartzfeld (Hebrew: אליאס (אליהו) שוורצפלד‎‎; March 7, 1855 – 1915) was a Moldavian, later Romanian Jewish historian, essayist, novelist and newspaperman, also known as a political activist and philanthropist. Writing in several languages (Romanian, Yiddish, French), he focused his studies on the Romanian Jewish community, while steadily publishing articles and brochures which confronted antisemitism. The brother of literary historian Moses Schwarzfeld, Elias was the uncle of poet-philosopher Benjamin Fondane.

Harassed and expelled by Romanian authorities, Schwarzfeld settled in France and became a French citizen. While pursuing his literary and scientific activities, he also worked as an assistant to Maurice de Hirsch, managing his various philanthropic projects and, after 1891, the Jewish Colonization Association.

Born in Iaşi, Elias Schwarzfeld belonged to a family of intellectual prominence: his father B. Schwarzfeld was a poet and owner of a large book collection. The future writer, who was two years older than Moses, also had a sister, Adela Schwarzfeld-Wechsler (1859 – 1953), mother of Benjamin Fondane. Elias received his early education in the city's public schools, and while still a student, between 1871 and 1873, contributed to the Iaşi papers Curierul de Iaşi and Noul Curier Român. Like his two siblings, Elias was raised within an intellectual environment shaped by Junimea literary society, his family being acquainted with several of Junimea's leading members.

In 1872, Schwarzfeld participated in setting up Vocea Aparătorului ("The Defender's Voice"), a review started on behalf of the Jews. In May 1874, he founded in Iaşi Revista Israelitică ("The Israelites' Review"), in which he published his first Jewish novel, Darascha. From 1874 to 1876, Elias Schwarzfeld studied medicine at the University of Bucharest, abandoning it later to take up the study of law. In 1881, he became a Doctor of Law, the title being awarded to him by the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

...
Wikipedia