Herman Branover
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Professor Herman Branover is known in the Jewish communities of Israel, Russia, and the West as an inspiring author, translator, publisher, and educator. He is said in some circles to be the leading pioneer of the field of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He is not referenced or cited in basic texts that treat the subject. His research and development company Solmecs developed a non-conventional environmentally safe energy generator which has led to many useful spin-off technologies.
As a young scientist in Riga, Latvia, Branover wrote philosophical essays questioning atheism, materialism, and determinism and seeking G-d. These struggles to free his mind and soul from Communist propaganda were secretly reproduced and distributed underground. His manuscripts were smuggled out of the USSR to Israel and published there in Russian and Hebrew by the Israeli Ministry of Education.
The first Jew holding a Doctor of Science degree and the title of Full Professor to receive an exit visa to leave the USSR, Branover was among the initiators of the Jewish revival movement in Soviet Russia. During his fifteen-year struggle to leave the Soviet Union, he initiated and directed a great number of activities advancing Jewish education and culture. Frequent arrests, interrogations, and harassment by the KGB did not stop him from teaching Jewish ethics to many individuals and groups. His Jewish spiritual activism has increased since his immigration to Israel and is directed at Russian-, Hebrew-, and English-speaking Jews throughout the world. He circles the globe answering invitations to teach at seminars, conferences, and lectures, responding to every personal plea for practical help and moral encouragement, and answering all perturbing questions that people from all walks of life ask him. In his personal conduct he strictly adheres to the customs and mystical philosophy of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism, but he does not impose a sectarian point of view on Jews from other streams of Judaism.
Having learned Hebrew secretly at great peril while a student in Leningrad, Branover undertook to translate some of the fundamental books of Judaism into Russian. He has continued this work in Israel as President of the SHAMIR Association of Religious Professionals from the USSR and Editor-in-Chief of its publishing house. He has organized and trained a team of translators and editors to complete and expand his work, which includes most importantly the Pentateuch with commentaries, the Code of Jewish Life, and writings of Maimonides and Yehuda Halevy. Over 12 million copies of 400 titles of Russian-language Judaica published by SHAMIR have helped thousands of Russian-speaking Jews regain their national spiritual heritage that 70 years of Communist oppression snuffed out. The SHAMIR office in Jerusalem runs a free employment placement service for immigrants, which boasts a 20-percent success rate (considerably higher than that of commercial employment bureaus).
In 1991, the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences invited Branover to supervise its 8-volume Encyclopedia of Russian Jewry. Covering 1000 years, the encyclopedia details the contribution of Jews to Russian and world civilization. The late Sir Isaiah Berlin of Oxford was the first chief consultant of the encyclopedia, and the Israeli Ministry of Education helps support the project. Three volumes have been printed in Russian. An English translation of Volume One was published in 1998 by Jason Aronson Publishers in the USA, and a children’s version is planned.
Under Branover’s direction, SHAMIR established a well-accredited Jewish day school in Petersburg. SHAMIR also has sent Rabbi Natan Barkan to Riga to serve as the Chief Rabbi of Riga and Latvia. Together with Rabbi Barkan and Prof. Ruvin Ferber, Branover has organized four international conferences in Riga entitled “Jews in a Changing World.” This is the only forum in the world where former Soviet Jews discuss spiritual and cultural problems on an academic level. Most of the Russian-speaking participants are successful academics who have never before studied Jewish wisdom literature or thought of applying it to their lives.
Since leaving the Soviet Union, Branover has traveled extensively within Israel and throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia and has seen the spiritual alienation rampant there. Whereas in the Soviet Union atheism was brutally enforced by the state, in the West a more subtle indoctrination has taken place. In both cases, people have been led to believe that science has disproved religion. To clarify the misunderstandings about science vis à vis religion, in 1981 Branover initiated an international English-Hebrew journal, B’Or Ha’Torah. This refereed and illustrated journal discusses science, the humanities, and contemporary social and personal issues in the light of the Torah. Major topics of discussion include: the philosophical implications of the indeterminism of contemporary physics; the nature and limitations of science versus those of religion; medical ethics, old age, dying, and euthanasia; the relationship between Divine Creation and human creativity; business ethics; ecology in Jewish law and tradition; family and community values; the dynamics of prayer and repentance. B’Or Ha’Torah also publishes creative kosher poetry and fiction, life stories, artwork, and nature photography. Papers by Branover in B’Or Ha’Torah include: “A Return to Mother Russia” (Vol. 7E), “The Lubavitcher Rebbe on Science and Technology” (vol. 9E), “Towards Environmental Consciousness: The Need to Educate”(vol. 10E), “The Concept of Absolute Time in Science and Jewish Thought” (with R. Ferber, vol. 11E), “Soul and Body—Judaism, Modern Medicine, and Cloning (with T. Gurvich, vol.12E).
In 1996 Jason Aronson Publishers of Northvale, New Jersey published Science in the Light of the Torah, an anthology of major science-related articles from B’Or Ha’Torah. Three international B’Or Ha’Torah conferences have been held in Miami, Florida. The proceedings of the first conference were edited by Herman Branover, Aryeh Gotfyrd, and Shalom Lipskar and published under the title Fusion by Feldheim Publishers in 1990. The papers from the third conference will be published in issues 12E and 13E of B’Or Ha’Torah.
Branover’s autobiography Return, including De Profundis, a collection of his early philosophical essays has been published in Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Celebrating Professor Branover’s seventieth birthday and the thirtieth anniversary of SHAMIR, a special reprint of Branover’s autobiography RETURN was published by SHAMIR in the spring of 2002. This 272-page reprint contains 32 pages of photographs and philosophical essays by the author that had not yet been published in English.
This life story of faith, fortitude, perseverance, and unbounded giving to others and to G-d has inspired thousands of Jews to discover their spiritual heritage and to use it as a way of life and source of well-being.
