Ada Rapoport-Albert (1945-2020)
On Thursday 18 June 2020, the sad news arrived from London that our friend Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert had died; we had expected it, but had hoped it would be delayed. Ada, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1945, died at home in London, surrounded by the love and admiration of friends far and near; by her side were her daughter Maya, her son Saul (‘Bubel’) and his wife Selena, and her only grandchild, Yishai, whose presence brightened her final years, endowing them with joy and sweetness.
Ada is gone—tall and beautiful, wise and witty, an exceptional scholar, critical and meticulous, who loved people and knowledge. Ada is gone—the good friend, the authoritative researcher, and the superb editor. Ada is gone—the author of outstanding and trailblazing books, the model and exemplar for leading and experienced scholars as well as those just setting out on their path. Ada is gone—who, as far as I know, was the only person in the academic world who had no enemies.
Ada is gone, and with her the smile that always played on her face, and simultaneously the deep seriousness and tremendous gravity with which she was graced. All that is left now is her written legacy, and the memories and images of a wonderful and beautiful, almost legendary, figure: long, flowing hair, chain-smoking (a habit that she was forced to abandon in recent years because of illness); a woman of uncommon humility, gentle simplicity, almost monastic asceticism, a lust for books and love for friends, generosity, and unending goodness of heart.
In recent years Ada suffered a long series of illnesses that drained her strength—but not her spirit—until she finally succumbed. Six months ago she visited Israel, running from city to city and lecturing as usual from a pile of yellow papers festooned with note upon note. At a party her friends arranged in her honour, on 7 January in Jerusalem at the home of Irit and Immanuel Etkes, Ada hugged and kissed everyone present. And we all knew, and she knew, that this was a farewell visit. ‘A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance . . . and man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets’ (Ecclesiastes 3: 4, 12: 5).
Ada, who talked openly about her illness, gave no indication then that she would leave us so soon. She requested—and, of course, received—a copy of my new book, A Song Is More than Words: Chapters in the History of the Hebrew Song (Am Oved, 2019). The book appealed to her and made her very happy, and she promised to read it immediately. I wrote a dedication to her with a smile on my lips and pain in my heart. Ada loved to sing, though not many knew that she had spent her military service as a member of the Armoured Corps’ entertainment group.
Ada’s life journey has ended, with its ups and downs—and there were plenty of both. An era ends in the lives of her many friends in Israel, in Europe and beyond, who had benefited from her friendship and her wisdom for decades.
Ada lived in London from 1965 onwards (though she never applied for British citizenship), but her heart was very much in Israel—with the scenes of her childhood in Tel Aviv, the ivory towers of Israeli academia in Jerusalem, her beloved friends Ella and Dan Almagor, and her colleagues in the academic community of scholars of hasidism and kabbalah (her main field of research), many of whom were friends, and most of whom admired her. She visited Israel almost every year, often several times a year. Ada was part of the community, and when one member dies, the entire community mourns.
Ada, who was so good at looking after her colleagues’ papers, editing them thoroughly and carefully, and publishing them, was less careful with publishing her own writings, and didn’t get round to collecting them in a volume of her own. In January 2015, when she retired from teaching at UCL, Immanuel Etkes and I presented her with a parting gift: a volume that collected her mostly Hebrew articles. Entitled Studies in Hasidism, Sabbatianism, and Gender, it was published by the Zalman Shazar Centre. Its initial chapter by Immanuel Etkes and myself analyses and summarizes Ada’s research oeuvre and her contribution to the study of hasidism and Sabbatianism. Also, a selection of her own chapters and articles was published as Ada Rapoport-Albert: Hasidic Studies. Essays in History and Gender with a foreword by Moshe Rosman (Liverpool, 2018). It is hard to think about a world without Ada.
It is sad, it is dark, and mostly it is empty.
Rest in peace, our beloved sister.
David Assaf Tel Aviv University
Translated by Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz