Professor Moritz Sebastian Sobernheim, noted Orientalist and Rapporteur on Jewish political affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, died here today in his sixty-first year.
Professor Sobernheim had been first Councillor of the Legation in the German Foreign Office and Rapporteur on Jewish political matters since 1918.
Professor Sobernheim attained wide repute as an Orientalist and was an outstanding authority on Semitic Epigraphy. He was secretary of the Near Asian Egyptian Society at the time of his death.
Professor Sobernheim was a member of the Baalbek Expedition of the Prussian Government and has made many visits to Palestine and Syria on behalf of the Institut-Francais D’Archeologie Orientale. He has published a number of books on the people of Tripolitana,
Baalbek, Palmyria and Samaria.
He was active in Jewish communal affairs, and had served since 1924 as president of the German Federation of Israelite Communities, which was organized in 1872. Under his leadership the Federation’s principal aim was to bring about the formation of the projected all-German Federation of Jewish Communities.
As president of the Society for Promoting the Science of Judaism, he rendered many important achievements in the field of Jewish science and of Jewish scientific publications.
He was a member of the Board of the Jewish Colonization Association, Ezra, and a member of the praesidium of the Pro-Palestine Committee in Germany. He was also one of the founders and chairman of the Religious Centre Party in the Jewish Community.
Professor Sobernheim, who was born in Berlin on August 13, 1872, was a grandson of City Councillor Magnus, who was for many years a leading member of the Board of the Jewish Community of Berlin, and a stepson of Consul-General, Dr. Eugene Landau, the famous industrialist, vice-president of Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden. He was a brother of Dr. Walter Sobernheim, the industrialist and Dr. Kurt Sobernheim, the financier.
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