הנריק פולק

Henrik Pollak (1821-1894), physician and communal worker, born in Obuda (Altofen), Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire, now in Budapest, Hungary). His father had arrived there from Bohemia or Moravia. He studied medicine at the Universities of Pest and Vienna, Austria. In addition to Hebrew, Latin, Greek, English, French and German, he learned the Hungarian language. He advocated among the Jews the necessity of learning the vernacular and giving up their idiomatic and social seclusion.

He took part in the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1848 to 1849 as a physician in the revolutionary army. From 1860 on, when political conditions permitted it, he collaborated actively in the movements which were to establish the Jewish community of Hungary as one among equal denominations. He attended the Congress of Hungarian Jews in Budapest (1868-69), in which Jewish communal life has been organized, and recognized. He took part in the establishment of the rabbinical seminary, and the founding of the Hungarian Jewish Scholarship Fund. Pollak was a member of the National Public Health Committee.

He published "Sistemate medicinae a Paracelso ad nostra tempora" (1846), in addition he contributed to the "Orvosi Hetilap" ("Medical Weekly") and to the "First Hungarian Jewish Calendar" (1848), on statistics of the Jews of Hungary.

Pollak retired from communal activities in the 1870s.