Hersz (Hersch, Herman) Bad ID: 320

Hersz (Hersch, Herman) Bad ID: 320

1862–1942?

Jewish religion teacher, philosopher, and book collector.

Hersz Bad (also known as Hersch or Herman) was born on May 5, 1869, in Peremyshliany. He came from a family influenced by the ideals of the Jewish Enlightenment — the Haskalah.

He attended school and received a religious education in Peremyshliany. He enrolled in a gymnasium in Lviv but completed his studies in Brody, graduating in 1894. That same year, he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, where he studied for one year (1894–1895). While in Vienna, he also attended lectures at the Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt, the local rabbinical seminary.

In 1895, he left Vienna and began working at a private elementary school run by the Baron Hirsch Foundation (Baron Hirsch-Stiftung) in Zborów (now Zboriv). At the same time, he attended the Imperial-Royal Teachers Seminary (C.K. Seminarium Nauczycielskie) in Tarnopol (now Ternopil), earning his diploma in June 1896. In 1898, he obtained a teaching certificate qualifying him to teach elementary school. He continued working at Hirsch Foundation schools until October 1902, when he resigned to pursue further studies in philosophy in Lviv.

From 1902 to 1905, he attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Lviv as an auditor. He also studied at the Institute for the Training of Jewish Religion Teachers (Zakład dla kształcenia nauczycieli religii mojżeszowej we Lwowie), founded by Lviv's Jewish community. On November 26, 1905, he was granted the qualification to teach Jewish religion in secondary schools with Polish as the language of instruction.

During 1905–1906, he taught Jewish religion at several public and private schools in Lviv, including the Konarski, Kordecki, and Staszic schools.

His main professional career was tied to Lviv's secondary schools (gymnasiums). He taught religion at the Fifth Gymnasium from 1904 to 1913, advancing from teaching assistant to certified deputy teacher. At the Third Gymnasium (known as the Franz Joseph Gymnasium, and during the interwar period as the Stephen Báthory Gymnasium), he served as a religion teacher from 1913 to 1928, attaining full-time (tenured) status in the 1917–18 school year. He also taught part-time at the First, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Gymnasiums, as well as at girls' gymnasiums. At the Słowacki Private Gymnasium, he taught an introductory philosophy course (propaedeutics of philosophy).

Beyond his school teaching, he trained professionals at the Institute for the Training of Jewish Religion Teachers (1910–1913) and worked at the private Talmud Tora school.

After the outbreak of World War I, he evacuated to Vienna, returning to Lviv at the end of 1915 and resuming his work at the Third Gymnasium.

Due to declining health, he went on leave in November 1929 and was officially retired on June 30, 1930.

Hersz Bad belonged to the earliest generation of students of Professor Kazimierz Twardowski. He was especially interested in Kantian philosophy. He published several philosophical works, contributed to the journals Przegląd Filozoficzny and Ruch Filozoficzny, and served on the editorial board of the latter. From 1907, he was a member of the Polish Philosophical Society in Lviv (Polskie Towarzystwo Filozoficzne we Lwowie). Roman Ingarden remembered him as "a modest scholar, yet full of enthusiasm for philosophical research and tenacity in substantiating and defending his theses" (Wspomnienia, 1946, 335).

In 1907, he joined the Secondary School Teachers' Association (Towarzystwo nauczycieli szkół wyższych). In 1935, he served as chairman of the board of the Safa Berurah School Society in Lviv. In 1932, he also served on a jury at the Lviv court.

He maintained an extensive personal library. In 1935, he donated 235 works (355 volumes) to the Hebrew University Library and the National Library in Jerusalem, covering philosophy, psychology, mathematics and logic, natural sciences, theology, Jewish studies, and art, as well as Judaica (including the Scroll of Esther and a Hanukkah lamp) and reproductions of paintings by Artur Grottger and Jan Matejko.

No information is available about his family or children.

Several of his addresses in Lviv are known: in 1910, he lived at ul. Grodecka, 53; in 1913–1914 and in 1916, at ul. Łyczakowska, 155; and in 1935, at ul. Sakramentek, 32.

Information about his death comes from a single source — a mention in the list of losses suffered by the Polish people (Olszewicz, Lista, 175).

Works and projects

• Hersz Bad, Czy Schopenhauer był filozofem? (Lwów: Nakładem L. Chmielewskiego, 1909), 54.
• Hersz Bad, Geneza i zmierzch legendy "Kant–Laplace" (Lwów: Wydawnictwo Księgarni M. H. Rubina, 1931), 48.
• Hersz Bad, "Georg Simmel: Kant. Sechzehn Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Berliner Universität (recenzja)", Przegląd Filozoficzny, 1905, nr 8.
• Hersz Bad, "Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena do wszelkiej przyszłej metafizyki (tł. Romuald Piątkowski) — recenzja", Przegląd Filozoficzny, 1907, nr 10.
• Hersz Bad, "'Grundlegung' Kanta w tłumaczeniu polskim", Przegląd Filozoficzny, 1908, nr 3.
• Hersz Bad, "O kwestię autentyczności deklaracji Kanta z dnia 29 maja 1801 r. pt. "Do publicznej wiadomości"", Przegląd Filozoficzny, 1920, nr 23: 19–43.
• Hersz Bad, "Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena do wszelkiej przyszłej metafizyki… (tł. Benedykt Bornstein) — recenzja", Ruch Filozoficzny, 1921–1922, nr 6–7: 88–90.

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