David Gintsburg

Born in the old Jewish center of Kamenets-Podolsk in the Russian Empire (today Kam’ianets’-Podil’s’kyi, Ukraine) to Baron Horace Gintsburg (Günzberg), a member of Russia’s most affluent Jewish banking family, David Gintsburg enjoyed a first-class private religious and secular education from traditionally educated but modern-minded teachers like Adolf Neubauer. Gintsburg went on to take his degree in St. Petersburg in “Oriental languages,” with particular interest in Arabic. A devoted philanthropist supporting Jewish institutions in St. Petersburg and throughout Russia, Gintsburg also used his family’s extensive resources to build his private library of rare Jewish illustrated manuscripts and incunabula, which served as the source material for his extraordinary bibliographical treasury, L’Ornement Hebreu (Hebrew Ornament). Gintsburg established and financed the Academy of Jewish Sciences in St. Petersburg (1907–1914) and served on the editorial board of the Evreiskaia entsiklopediia (Jewish Encyclopedia).