Raphael Mahler

Raphael Mahler was born in 1899 in Nowy Sącz

Mahler was born on August 15, 1899, in Nowy Sącz, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. He came from a scholarly and business family. He studied at the town's public school, at a yeshiva and with private tutors.

He finished high school in Kraków and then studied history and philosophy at the University of Vienna, along with Jewish studies at a rabbinical seminary there. He earned his doctorate in 1922 with a thesis on the sociological problems of progress.

Back in Poland, he taught history in Jewish secondary schools and was active in Left Poale Zion. With Emanuel Ringelblum he founded the Jewish Young Historians Circle, and he worked with YIVO as a researcher and editor.

In 1937 he moved to New York at the invitation of YIVO and lectured at teachers' seminaries and schools. He later settled in Israel, taught at the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics and then became a professor at Tel Aviv University. A Marxist scholar and Mapam member, he stressed economic and social factors in Jewish history and published over 500 works.

In 1977 he received the Israel Prize for the history of the Jewish people. He died on October 4, 1977.