Luden Wolf (1857-1930): a study in ambivalence*

Consistency is not necessarily a virtue. And there may be some inner consistency within the ambivalence. In any case, Wolf could have made a reasonable plea in mitigation via the proposition that changing times, with their new perils and opportunities, may call for new-style solutions to old-new problems. This is neither an historical narrative nor a biographical paper. It is an impres? sionist portrayal of a prominent public figure who was also a particularly private man, the object being to explore Wolf’s inner contrasts and examine any threads of consistency. He wrote much. In later years, with failing eyesight, he wrote less, but his memory was sharp, his acolytes many and his commitment to his public tasks unabated.

The late Dr A. S. Diamond, one-time president of this Society, told me of his visits to Wolf in his latter years in rooms in Grays Inn, where, over cups of tea,

Written by

Israel Finesrein

Published in

Volume 35

1996 - 1998

Other articles within the volume

• Two Jewish heroines of the SOE
• The SIG: behind the lines with Jewish commandos
• Kaethe Cohn’s Escape from Berlin to London in 1942*
• Isaac Diamond and the Jews in the timber trade in the East End, 1880-1910*
• Luden Wolf (1857-1930): a study in ambivalence*
• Claude Montefiore: defender of rabbinic Judaism?*
• Jews in Vanity Fair*
• The influence of German music on United Kingdom synagogue practice*
• F. H. Goldsmid and Archbishop Whately of Dublin: their significance in the emancipation debate
• The Jews of Gravesend before 1915*
• A pioneering philosemite: Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790-1846) and the Jews*
• Moses Samuel, Liverpool Hebraist1
• The Jews in Hull, between 1766 and 1880
• The Jewish ancestry of Velasquez
• Don Fray Francisco de Victoria OP (1540—92) Bishop of Tucumán
• Italian musicians at the Tudor Court – were they really Jews?
• In Memoriam: Alfred Rubens, FRICS, FSA, FRHistS (1903—1998)
• In Memoriam: Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM, CBE, MA, FBA (1909—1997),
• Preface