Visionaries from Lviv

Year 2023 marked 120 years of the Lazarus Jewish Hospital in Lviv (Lwów/Lemberg). This richly illustrated book is a tribute to its place in the once-vibrant Jewish community of the city and in the society at large during the period 1903-1939. Visionaries from Lviv presents the hospital’s history and its fascinating architecture, its doctors, and its founder, a prominent local Jewish philanthropist Maurycy Lazarus, with the background of the Jewish life in Lviv. 

The volume also details the history of medicine and medical education in Habsburg Galicia prior to the hospital’s founding, Jewish access to the medical profession, and the impact of Jewish doctors on the path to modernity. It also shows the struggle of women to become doctors. A moving and timely book with contributions from leading historians, scholars, and medical professionals, Visionaries from Lviv is an ode to the once thriving Jewish community in Lviv and a testament to how one person’s dream and commitment can impact the lives of so many. 

This publication was made possible with support from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund and Gesher Galicia.

Ewa Herbst, PhD is a great-granddaughter of Maurycy Lazarus, the founder of the Jewish Hospital in Lviv. She is an electrical and biomedical engineer, a former visiting professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and at Tulane University in New Orleans, principal research engineer at a biomedical instrument company, as well as CEO of her own research and development firm. In addition to publications in her area of research and several patents, she is the author of the book Dokument podróży (Travel Document), a story in poems and prose of her emotional turmoil after being forced out of Poland as a result of the wave of antisemitism that swept the country in 1967–69. She is also the author of “Herman Diamand―on the 90th Anniversary of His Death” (Kwartalnik Historii Żydów / Jewish History Quarterly, 287, no. 3 [2023]), an article about her great-uncle, one of the leading Galician and Polish politicians.

Ewa Herbst, PhD is a great-granddaughter of Maurycy Lazarus, the founder of the Jewish Hospital in Lviv. She is an electrical and biomedical engineer, a former visiting professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and at Tulane University in New Orleans, principal research engineer at a biomedical instrument company, as well as CEO of her own research and development firm. In addition to publications in her area of research and several patents, she is the author of the book Dokument podróży (Travel Document), a story in poems and prose of her emotional turmoil after being forced out of Poland as a result of the wave of antisemitism that swept the country in 1967–69. She is also the author of “Herman Diamand―on the 90th Anniversary of His Death” (Kwartalnik Historii Żydów / Jewish History Quarterly, 287, no. 3 [2023]), an article about her great-uncle, one of the leading Galician and Polish politicians.

Anna Jakimyszyn-Gadocha, Dr. habil. (Institute of Jewish Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków) is a historian and a specialist in Judaic studies, and author of the following books: Żydzi krakowscy w dobie Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej. Status prawny. Przeobrażenia gminy. System edukacyjny (2008), Mykwa. Dzieje żydowskiej łaźni rytualnej przy ul. Szerokiej w Krakowie (2012), Yiddish-English-Polish Dictionary (2016), W trosce o zdrowie żydowskiej społeczności Lwowa (1918–1939) (2021), and numerous articles. She is also the translator of Statut krakowskiej gminy żydowskiej z 1595 roku i jego uzupełnienia (2005). She is the co-editor of דפולין ממרא Mamre de-Polin. Księga jubileuszowa dedykowana Profesorowi Edwardowi Dąbrowie (2021) and of Anna Rutkowski’s Polish translation of Memoirs of Glickl of Hammeln (Glikl. Siedem ksiąg. Pamiętniki z lat 1691–1719) (2021).

Sergey R. Kravtsov, PhD is a research fellow at the Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, he was trained as an architect in his native city. In 1993, he received his doctoral degree from the Institute for the Theory and History of Architecture in Moscow, and moved to Israel in 1994. His research areas are the history of town planning, architectural theory, and the history of synagogue architecture. He is the author of Di Gildene Royze: The Turei Zahav Synagogue in L’viv (2011) and In the Shadow of Empires: Synagogue Architecture in East Central Europe (2018), and a co-author of Synagogues in Lithuania: A Catalogue (2010–2012) and Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia (2017). He has also published about ninety essays in his research areas and edited and co-edited three books.

Andrew Zalewski, MD is a physician and former professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He has authored two books on Austrian Galicia: Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family (2012) and Galician Portraits: In Search of Jewish Roots (2014), both of which reconstruct the story of his ancestors in a broader historical context. As the vice president of Gesher Galicia, he led archival research on Jewish educational access, in part supported by a grant from the Republic of Austria. His writings focus on Jewish cultural transformation, the impact of Jewish physicians, and Jewish legal rights in Galicia.

Dr. Zalewski is a frequent speaker at cultural and academic institutions in the US and abroad. His Gratz College course on the Jews of Galicia examines the internal and external forces behind the Jewish path to modernity. Unique archival records provide the background for his in-depth description of multiethnic Galicia.