Saul Adler, 1895 - 1966

Abstract

If the seeking of truth for its own sake and the pursuit of knowledge, urged on by a divine curiosity untinged with thought of gain or expediency, are the hall-marks of a scientist, then surely Saul Adler was pure gold. A biographical memoir on Adler would give a false representation of him as man and scientist if written without an account of his family background and close parental ties which had so profound an influence on his character from his earliest years and throughout his life. The social and economic state and the cultural atmosphere in the homes of his grandparents on both sides, as well as the scholarly conditions obtaining in his home life, in spite of the most straitened circumstances, were fundamental influences on Adler’s character. His paternal grandfather was a small corn merchant always on the edge of want, while his maternal grandfather was a shopkeeper only fractionally better off. Adler’s father was born in Russia at Kletzk and his mother at Karelitz, where Saul Adler was born. His father studied at various Talmudical colleges in Russia and received his rabbinical diploma. The home was full of Hebrew books, not only the Talmud but talmudic histories and commentaries on the Bible as well as modern Hebrew literature—poetry, novels and periodicals. His father’s consuming love of the Hebrew language, which he knew with an intimacy which scholarship alone would not have accounted for, was certainly transmitted to his son.