Zvi Enrico Jolles Pioneer in Applied Chemistry

Abstract

When I brought to Florence the death mask of Prof. Angelo Angeli, earlier this year, I was greeted most warmly but with some puzzlement as to how it came to be in my possession. I discovered that my father, a pupil of Angeli and later a rising figure in Florentine chemistry between 1924 and 1938, had been completely forgotten there after he was expelled from Italy to comply with the fascist Racial Laws of 1938. This biography aims to fill that gap. It was originally written by his son, Joshua Jolles, on the occasion of the dedication of a Meeting Room at the Casali Institute, Jerusalem in 2005, and has been revised in 2017 by his daughter, Irene Bainbridge, for Substantia. It is a story of diligence and adventure, tenacity against many odds, and finally the triumph of optimism over adversity, to be celebrated in Florence, his Alma Mater, with the establishment of the Fondo Jolles, for the preservation of many documents relating to his life and work.