The German Geographical Society has awarded the Richthofen Gold Medal to Professor Alfred Philippson of Bonn, the highest honor that can be conferred upon a geographer in Germay. The medal has been awarded only twice previous—to Dr. Sven Hedin and to M. Drigalsky. Dr. Hedin is a Jew.
Dr. Philippson belongs to an old German family which gave many Rabbis to Frankfort and Metz. He was born in Bonn on January 1,1864, the youngest son of Rabbi Dr. Ludwig Philippson, founder of the “Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums,” and one of the pioneers of Jewish emancipation in Germany, and is a brother of the late Franz Philippson, president of the Jewish Colonization Association (Ica) who died in 1929.
Philippson followed his great teacher, Ferdinand von Richthofen, from Leipzig to Munich and Berlin. Immediately after he graduated at Bonn University, he went to Greece, where he has made seven exploration tours, through the mainland, the Archipelago and the adjoining parts of Asia Minor. He found so much material that it took years to collate it. Barred from a professorship in Germany before the War because he is a Jew, Dr. Philippson accepted in 1904 a call to Bern, but his reputation grew so immensely that seven years later, his own university, Bonn, called him to a professorship.
SOLE SURVIVOR
The stage has not escaped the Nazi purge in Berlin, remarks the London Evening Standard. All the famous Jewish actors have been sacked except one. He is playing the part of Mephistopheles in “Faust.” The Nazis think the role appropriate.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
