Scienceאלישבע גולדשמידט

Elisabeth Goldschmidt

Elisabeth Goldschmidt was a German-born Israeli geneticist and zoologist who helped establish genetics research and teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

1912 to 1970Pioneering genetics research in IsraelIsrael's first genetic counseling clinicHuman genetics of Jewish communities

Born: 22 September 1912, Frankfurt
Died: 6 May 1970, Israel
Occupation: geneticist, zoologist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Goethe University Frankfurt

Elisabeth Goldschmidt was born in 1912 in Frankfurt

Goldschmidt was born Elisabeth Wechsler in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1912, to an Orthodox Jewish family. She started medical studies in 1932 but left after the Nazis came to power.

She moved to England and studied zoology and botany in London. She then settled in Jerusalem with her husband, Joseph Goldschmidt. In 1942 she earned a doctorate in zoology from the Hebrew University, with a thesis on the cells of Chironomidae.

She worked at the university's zoology department and later taught genetics, including to medical students. In 1950 she spent a year in the United States in the labs of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Curt Stern. She became associate professor in 1957 and full professor in 1967.

Her research moved from Drosophila flies to human genetics, including studies of Jewish communities and of marriage between relatives. With Tirza Cohen she set up the first genetic counseling clinic in Israel at Hadassah Hospital. She died in 1970, and she had a son, Eliezer, and a daughter, Yemima Ben-Menachem.