Nathan Birnbaum (16 May 1864 – 2 April 1937), a.k.a. Mathias Acher, or Mathias Ascher, was an Austrian Jewish philosopher, said to have formed the Kadimah , a Jewish nationalist organisation. He is also credited with coining the terms Zionist and Zionism.

He was born in Vienna, the son of Jews from Eastern Europe. After a traditional religious education, he became interested during his Gymnasium education in the prospect of emigration to Palestine. From 1882 to 1885 he studied law at the University of Vienna, receiving staying on to study philosophy and Orientalism.

In 1890 he married Rosa Korngut (1869-1934). They had three sons: Solomon Birnbaum (1891-1989), Menachem Birnbaum (1893-1944), and Uriel Birnbaum (1894-1956). In 1933, at the time of the Nazi rise to power, Birnbaum emigrated with his family to the Netherlands; in 1937 he died there, in Scheveningen, after a period of severe illness.

Until his death, Birnbaum continued as a journalist, an advocate of Zionism and of Yiddish culture. Birnbaum, in his youth, had been associated with Theodor Herzl and was one of the most important representatives of the cultural variant of Zionism, which promoted the settlement of of Palestine without specific promotion of a Jewish state, and only through Chaim Weizmann was he drawn into political Zionism. Birnbaum continued, however, to speficically advocate for Eastern European Judaism, [Hasidic Judaism|Hassidic]] culture and the Yiddish language. For this reason, he was among those who initiated the first Conference for the Yiddish Language, in Czernowitz. Later Birnbaum, who had at various points adopted almost every possible religious stance including atheism, subscribed to Orthodox Judaism and became General Secretary of Agudath Yisroel .

Works

• Ausgewählte Schriften zur jüdischen Frage, 2 Bände, 1910.
• Den Ostjuden Ihr Recht!; (Löwith ) Vienna, 1915,
• Gottes Volk; (Löwith) Vienna, 1918
• Um die Ewigkeit. Jüdische Essays; (Welt ) Berlin, 1920
• Im Dienste der Verheissung, Frankfurt 1927
• Der Aufstieg; Berlin and Vienna, Jan. 1930 - Dec. 1932

References

This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia (retrieved 05:22, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)). That, in turn, gives the following references:

• M. Kühntopf-Gentz, Nathan Birnbaum; Diss. Tübingen 1990. (In German.)
• Angelika M. Hausenbichl, Nathan Birnbaum. Seine Bemühungen um das jüdische Theater und die jüdische Kultur; Dipl.Arb. Wien 2001. (In German.)
• dies., Wirklich nur Politiker?; in: David. Jüdische Kulturzeitschrift 54 (09/2002). (In German.)
• Joshua A. Fishman, Ideology, Society and Language. The Oddysey of Nathan Birnbaum; Ann Arbor (Karoma Publ.) 1987. (In English.)
• Solomon Birnbaum, Nathan Birnbaum; in: Leo Jung (Hg.), Men of the Spirit, New York (Kymson Publ.) 1964. (In English.)
• S. A. Birnbaum, Nathan Birnbaum and National Autonomy; in: Josef Fraenkel (Hg.), The Jews of Austria, London 1967, 1970. (In English.)