Dr. Karl Landsteiner, celebrated research scientist and Nobel Prize winner, is seeking an injunction to prevent the publishers of the forthcoming “Who’s Who in American Jewry” from including his biography and is asking damages of $100,000 in the event it is printed.
The case, which may serve as a test of the legal right to list a person of Jewish descent as a Jew against his desire, was in the hands of Supreme Court Justice Ernest E. Hammer for decision today following submission of additional affidavits by both sides.
Dr. Landsteiner, a Roman Catholic by conversion, said publication of his name and biography would cause “irreparable injury to my private life and profession.” He said “it will be detrimental to me to emphasize publicly the religion of my ancestors.”
Dr. Landsteiner is listed in the Biographical Encyclopedia of American Jews published in 1935. He was born in Vienna in 1868 and since 1922 has been a member of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York. He won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1930 for his discovery of human blood groups.
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.
