American orientalist, born in Warsaw, Russian Poland, on the 13th of August 1861, but went to Philadelphia at the age of five. Educated at the schools of that city and in the university of Pennsylvania, he studied subsequently at the universities of Leipzig and Breslau, Paris and Strassburg until 1885, when he returned to the university of Pennsylvania as professor of Semitic languages and librarian. He became president of the American Oriental Society (1914–5) and president of the Society of Biblical Literature (1916). He died on the 22nd of June 1921 at Jenkintown, PA. He published numerous works on the religions and civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, and, in connection with the World War, The War and the Baghdad Railway (1917); The War and the Coming Peace (1918); A Gentle Cynic (1919); Zionism and the Future of Palestine (1919).
