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Raphael Loewe - Biography and Timeline

Raphael Loewe was born on April 16th 1919 in Calcutta, India, where his father, Herbert Loewe, was involved in the production of military uniforms during the First World War. Raphael Loewe’s mother, Ethel Victoria (1887-1946) was Albert Hyamson’s younger sister. Both of his parents came from influential Anglo-Jewish families. His father and great-grandfather, Louis Loewe, worked with the Montefiore family. Raphael has one brother, Michael Loewe (b. 1922), who is also a distinguished academic in the field of Chinese Studies at Cambridge University.

On the family's return to England Raphael went to the Dragon School in Oxford, whilst his father taught at the University of Oxford, and moved to The Leys school when his father’s work moved the family to Cambridge.

After completing his secondary education he began working as a tutor and in 1938 in Cologne, he experienced at first hand the spread of Nazism and increasing anti-Semitism in Europe. He became involved in preparing Jews to live abroad; his father also helped Jewish academics escape persecution and come to England. [1] Later that year Raphael began his academic career studying Classics at St John’s, Cambridge, graduating in 1942. His academic capabilities were recognised and he was awarded a classical scholarship and the John Stewart Rannoch Scholarship for Hebrew Studies. [2] In 2008, seventy years after joining St. John’s College as an undergraduate, he went back there to deliver a lecture on the history of the study of Hebrew at Cambridge University. He gave it during a seminar held to commemorate the centenary of Charles Taylor, Master of the College, who was instrumental in acquiring the Cairo Genizah fragments for the University.

During the Second World War Raphael was drafted into the Pioneer Corps and was later made an officer with the Royal Armoured Corps, he served in North Africa and Italy. In 1944 he was badly injured on his right side in an incident near Florence, affecting his right leg permanently.[3] He was awarded the Military Cross, 'granted in recognition of "exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy'’', for rescuing the crew from inside a burning tank, whilst a member of the 4th Indian Division. [4] The report states that on 22nd April 1943, Loewe ‘ran through fire quite regardless of his personal safety’ to save colleagues from a burning tank, concluding: 'This officer has always acted with the utmost courage in battle and stopped at nothing to serve his Regiment and the British Army'.[5] In 1944 he also demonstrated his heroism during the battle of Monte Cassino, repeatedly entering a minefield to rescue the wounded.

His war experiences and the cause of his injury were rarely discussed, but there are several first hand accounts of Raphael reminiscing about his involvement in the rededication of the Synagogue in Tunis, 1943. He was the highest ranked allied personnel present with the ability to read Hebrew and have knowledge of the Sephardic rite and was therefore asked to take part.

The end of the Second World War enabled his academic career to begin in earnest. Raphael’s academic career followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, grandfather and his own father, Herbert Loewe. His first article was published in 1947, whilst working as a researcher at Balliol College, Oxford (1946-1949).  His translation of the Aramaic liturgical poem Akdamuth into English was published in the Jewish Outlook. After this he went on to teach at Leeds University (1949-53), Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1954). In 1952 he married Chloe (née. Klatzkin), they had two daughters Elisabeth and Camilla. In 1961 he began teaching Hebrew at University College London, alongside this he also taught at Leo Baeck College, London. In 1963-64 he was a visiting scholar for a year at Brown University, Providence (Rhode Island). Following this experience he was offered a prestigious tenureship, which he declined as he preferred the English education system for his daughters. [6]

At University College London he taught Biblical Hebrew, and expected his students to translate poetry into fully pointed biblical Hebrew, which he himself was such a master of. From 1981 until his retirement in 1984 he held the position of Goldsmid professor of Hebrew and was Head of the Department (1981-84). The Goldsmid chair was established in memory of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid (1778-1859), a position also held by Hyman Hurwitz and Solomon Schechter. Loewe was stepping into the shoes of 150 years of Anglo-Jewish scholarship. At UCL there has now been established a Raphael Loewe Prize awarded to an undergraduate student annually and a Raphael Loewe memorial lecture was held at UCL in January 2012.  Shortly after his 90th birthday in 2009, he was made an honorary fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Raphael Loewe spent over sixty years researching, writing and teaching about Jewish thought, art and literature, particularly medieval Hebrew literature and culture.  He published widely, including his translation of Isaac Ibn Sahula’s Meshal Haqadmoni, translating the liturgy and piyyutim (liturgical poems) for volumes on the Rylands and Barcelona Haggadot. The poetry of Solomon Ibn Gabirol was a key passion and he published a volume on his works in 1989. He wrote and translated many medieval and early modern works of poetry from Hebrew to English and Latin, but also English poetry into Hebrew. Annually he and his wife, Chloe, sent cards to mark the Jewish New Year, each with his own translation. The Archive at the Leopold Muller Memorial Library also holds Raphael Loewe’s translations of Latin college graces into Hebrew, and poems he composed himself for friends and to mark special occasions, including one for the Bevis Marks Synagogue’s 300th anniversary, and it is now recited at Rosh Hashanah each year.

His creative talents went beyond translation, to the composition of his own poems in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and English; he also helped to design a stained glass window with the help of artist Michael Hall to represent a poem by Issac b. Moses, 'The Seven Heavens'. This amazing accomplishment was displayed as part of his inauguration in 1981 to the Goldsmid professorship.

In 1971 he set up a translation workshop that met regularly at Risa Domb’s home; here he shared his intellectual and more playful translations which he called his 'whimsicalities'.

He was awarded a Tel Aviv Prize for Gilguley merubha‘im, his translation into Hebrew of Edward Fitzgerald's English version of Omar Khayyam's Persian Rubáyyát. In 2000 he won the prestigious Seatonian Prize from Cambridge for his long poem on a sacred subject, ‘Like an evening gone’.

In a letter written in 1974 Raphael expressed his desire for medieval poetry in general, but specifically medieval Jewish poetry, to reach a wider audience, beyond academic and Jewish circles, and those who dismiss medieval poetry as ‘too uncouth’. [7] His translations and artistic projects, such as the Seven Heavens window, reflect this passion.

He was heavily involved in Anglo-Jewish societies including the Jewish Historical Society of England, the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, Lauderdale Road Synagogue, the Society for Old Testament Study, the British Association for Jewish Studies and the Cecil and Irene Roth Memorial Trust. The collection in Yarnton includes much correspondence relating to this. In the synagogue he was the Thesoureiro do Heshaim and was a Lavador and an elder. With others, including his wife, he worked on the archives.

His involvement in the Society for Old Testament Studies over many years included being elected to the position of Chair in 1980. During his tenure he celebrated the anniversary of his father, Herbert, acting as Chair in the 1930s. Jacob Haberman notes that this was one of the happiest achievements of his life. [8]

He died Friday May 27th 2011.