Waldemar Haffkine (Mordecai Zeev) On the 70th Anniversary of His Death

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The 3rd of Heshvan 5761 will mark the 70th anniversary of the death of Waldemar (Mordecai Zeev) Haffkine, the famous bacteriologist who discovered vaccines against the cholera and the bubonic plague and who spent years in India fighting these diseases. The Times of London wrote on October 28, 1930, that with Haffkine’s death bacteriology had lost one of its pioneers, ” for he was distinguished in the small company of men and women — the number includes Koch, von Behring Ebert and Kitasato – whose work serves today as one of the foundations of modern medicine.”

Haffkine, who was born in Odessa, was active in Jewish affairs throughout his life. He was an enthusiastic follower of the Hovevei Zion movement and a supporter of political Zionism. An observant Jew he published during World War I an essay in praise of Orthodox Judaism (“A Plea for Orthodoxy,” Menorah Journal, New York, 1916) which was reprinted in other journals and translated into several languages.

During the last years of his life, after his return from India to Europe, he supported Torah institutions in Eastern Europe. In his last will he stipulated that the income from securities which he had deposited in the Banque Cantonale  Vaudoise of Lausanne, where he resided toward the end of his life, be used to subsidize Talmudei Torah and Yeshivot in Eastern Europe.

In 1964, Nobel Laureate Prof. Selman Waksman published a book about Haffkine entitled, “The Brilliant and Tragic life of W.M. Wolff Haffkine, Bacteriologit. At the time, I drew Prof. Walksman’s attention to some information about Haffkine’s Jewish activities of which he might not have been aware. He wrote me that he doubted whether he would be able to make use of the material for this edition of his book because it was already in proof form. ” I may be able to add some of the material [written by] Macht, which is very valuable and which I have not seen previously,” he stated.

In the upcoming articles I have made us of Prof. S. Walksman’s book, of the Report of Activities (1930-1938) of the Haffkine Foundation for the Benefit of Yeshivot (Lausanne, 1938) and other sources (which are listed at the end of my a rticle on Haffkine in the forthcoming supplementary volume of the Entziklopedya Shel HaTziyonut HaDatit) as well as of Haffkine’s Archives, preserved at the National and Hebrew University Library in Jerusalem.

The memory of Haffkine is revered throughout India to this day.

In 1925 the Government Plague Research Laborator in Bombay, which Haffkine had founded and of which he had served as director, was renamed “Haffkine Institute” in his honor.

Following the death of Haffkine in 1930, and again in 1959, when the Haffkine Institute observed 60 years since its founding,as well as in 1973-1974, when it celebrated throughout an entire  year its 75th jubilee, the Institute- which is today a very large and famous medical research center that produces medicines, vaccines and vitamins and trains medical researchers -published proclamations in honor of Haffkine.

My wife and I attended the opening of the celebrations which took place in August 1973. It was a very impressive affair at which one of the speakers was India’s Minister of Health.

In 1964 the Indian Postal Service issued a stamp bearing the portrait of Haffkine.

(Continued next week)

The Jewish Press, Friday, Oct. 13 2000 p. 43