WAWELBERG, HIPOLIT

WAWELBERG, HIPOLIT (1843–1901), banker and philanthropist. Born in Warsaw, he was a son of the merchant banker and maskil, Ẓevi Hirsch Wawelberg. From his youth he advocated the assimilation of Polish Jewry into the gentile population, but his longtime residence in St. Petersburg (from 1869), where he managed a branch of his father's bank, brought him into close contact with Jewish public workers and Jewish affairs. He was appointed a member of the Committee for the Struggle Against Civil Discrimination against Russian Jews, headed by Baron Horace *Guenzburg. He was also active in the *Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia and contributed liberally to various Jewish cultural and charitable institutions. Wawelberg displayed particular concern for the settlement program of Baron de *Hirsch in Latin America, and in 1899 he donated a large sum to the *Jewish Colonization Association (ica) for this purpose. ica responded by renaming the settlement Santa Elena (in Argentina) "Wawelberg." He also generously supported the school for crafts of the Warsaw Jewish community and founded a Jewish agricultural school in *Czestochowa. Wawelberg sided with those Polish circles that advocated a compromise with the Russian regime, and, to encourage this tendency, he founded a liberal Polish weekly Kraj, in St. Petersburg. It was outstanding for its literary standard. He financed the publication of the Warsaw Polish daily Kuryer Polski, whose trend was also liberal, advocating sympathy for Russia and fighting antisemitism. Wawelberg donated large sums for the publication of inexpensive editions of the works of classical Polish writers and is still considered one of the greatest Maecenases of Polish literature. He believed that a cultural and social rapprochement between Polish Jewry and their gentile neighbors could be effected through the establishment of institutions in which Jews and Poles would work together. In 1895 he contributed to the establishment of an industrial school in Warsaw. When the school reverted to the Polish government (1918), Wawelberg's heirs inserted a clause into the agreement stating that Jewish students were not to be discriminated against, although this was not abided by. Before his death, Wawelberg established a fund at the University of Lvov to encourage research in Jewish history in Poland. This fund was helpful to several Jewish historians, such as M. *Schorr, M. *Balaban, and I. *Schiṕer.

bibliography:

Lu'aḥ Aḥi'asaf (1902/03), 32 ("Keronikah Ivrit"); I.L. Peretz, Avnei Pinnah (1952), 91–98; J. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun di Yidn in Varshe, 3 (1953), 88–94; M. Turkow, Di Letste fun a Groysn Dor (1954), 151–99.

[Gedalyah Elkoshi]