Ernst Simon

Ernst Simon was born in 1899 in Berlin

Simon was born in Berlin to Efraim Gotthold Simon and Cecilia Lippmann. He grew up in an assimilated Jewish family and was the eldest of 3 brothers. His father managed a trading company in Berlin.

He joined the German army in 1916 and fought in a field artillery unit in World War I. He was wounded at Verdun and later returned to service until the war ended. Antisemitism he met in the army led him to become a Zionist.

He studied in Berlin and Frankfurt and earned a doctorate in philosophy at Heidelberg University in 1923. He was close to Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber, and taught at the Free Jewish House of Learning in Frankfurt.

Simon and his wife Toni moved to the Land of Israel in 1928, and he taught history at the Reali School in Haifa. In 1934 he spent half a year in Germany teaching in Jewish adult education, then settled in Jerusalem. He joined the Hebrew University in 1939 and later headed its School of Education until he retired in 1967.

He was active in Brit Shalom and co-founded the Ihud party in 1942, both supporting a binational solution. He also helped found the Leo Baeck Institute. His son Uriel Simon became a biblical scholar at Bar-Ilan University.