The historian Amir Theilhaber speaks about his grandfather Dr Felix A. Theilhaber, and his life as a physician, sexual reformer, and Zionist.
The paternal grandfather of Amir Theilhaber (b. 1985) was the gynaecologist Dr Felix A. Theilhaber (1884–1956). Born in Franconia, Felix Theilhaber was one of the founders of the Maccabi Jewish sports movement in Germany at the dawn of the twentieth century, and was also a committed Zionist and social reformer. During his time in Berlin, he founded Gesex (the Society for Sexual Reform) in 1913 and campaigned for the legalization of contraception and abortion. In 1933, his licence to treat insurance patients was revoked by the KVD, the Statutory Health Insurance Physician Association of Germany. In 1935, he emigrated to Palestine, where he co-founded the Maccabi health insurance fund in 1940. Until his death, Felix Theilhaber was a chief physician at that organization, which today has 1.8 million members.
Amir Theilhaber is a historian currently doing research at the University of Bielefeld on the history of ethnology.