Soccer Dad

Jakob Allerhand

Vienna's Gentle Voice for Jews

In the early 1970s he moved to Vienna, received his doctorate in Jewish studies and became a professor for the few Viennese -- nearly all of them non-Jews -- who wanted to study Jewish history and Yiddish. One doctoral student told me Allerhand conducted his Yiddish classes this way: One student would be assigned to bring the herring, someone else supplied the dark bread and the professor invariably brought the vodka. Then the afternoons would fly past as he discussed with them literature, philosophy and drama, often throwing back drinks and reeling off from memory entire paragraphs of his favorite novels.