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Alexander (Yasha)
Khvoles
(1920 - 2018)
Alexander Khvoles was born in 1920 in Tskhinvali, Georgia. He was a
grandson of the famous local rabbi Avraham (Abram) Khvoles (1854, Kovno – 1931,
Tskhinvali)
Grandfather Rabbi Abram Khvoles (1854, Kovno – 1931,
Tskhinvali)
In 1890, Rabbi A. Khvoles arrived in Georgia to raise
funds for education. In Tskhinvali, he made such a great impression on the
local Jewish community that he was asked to become their rabbi. On the
advice of his teacher, he agreed.
To get a a residence permit
, he agreed to simultaneously fulfill not just the functions of a spiritual
rabbi, chosen by the local community,
but as well a so-called state
rabbi, appointed by the authorities
for keeping the civil books
status. Thus, in Georgia, 25
years after the abolition of serfdom, when the cases of pogroms and blood
libels have not yet been erased from the memory of Jews, the first
Ashkenazi rabbi appeared, who went down in history as an outstanding
religious and public figure and the educator of Georgian Jews.
Parents
of Alexander Khvoles: Ruvim Abramovich Khvoles (1896 – 1973) and mother
Rakhil Davidovna Vidgop (1901 – 1970)
Alexander was born on November 27, 1920 in
Tskhinvali. He learned to read early, and before that - to add, subtract,
divide and multiply large numbers.
At the age of four he solved problems in arithmetic that his father
would give him. In a very young age,
not knowing algebra yet, he solved problems with two or three unknowns. At the age of fifteen he graduated from
high school, at twenty-one - the mathematical faculty of the Tbilisi
University.
It was year 1941, when Alexander Khvoles graduated
from the faculty of mathematics of Tbilisi University.
Since the Soviet-German war had already begun, Khvoles was
supposed to be drafted into the Red Army, but leading Georgian
mathematicians wrote to the commander of the Transcaucasian Military
District asking to postpone the conscription of the talented young mathematician.
Upon graduating from the university, Khvoles was sent to the
Rustavi Aviation Military School as a teacher of mathematics. Despite the
postponement, in March 1942 Alexander was drafted and
sent to the Tbilisi artillery school, from which he graduated at the end of
the year with the rank of lieutenant. His rifle division was deployed in
the Northern Caucasus near Krasnodar, where fighting was under way. Heavy
shelling by the enemy impeded the transportation of food to the soldiers
and they were starving. Khvoles refused to eat his special
officer's ration and gave it to the "common pot", while he
devoured the same food as his soldiers did.
1941
Sitting:
Alexander Khvoles; standing: his
cousin Yosif Baumberg
After the war,
Alexander said
that his mathematical education had helped him greatly during the war. He
could quickly calculate data required for aiming artillery. Furthermore,
during short breaks, he solved mathematical problems in his mind to get
some distraction from his disturbing thoughts.
In the summer of 1943 Khvoles's division took part in the Kursk
Operation. For his part in it, Aleksandr was awarded the Order of the Red
Star. Later he fought in Ukraine. In West Ukraine in July 1944, he was
wounded for the second time. Following this injury, Khvoles was
dismissed from army service as an invalid.
After the war, in September 1945, Alexander began working as an assistant at Tbilisi
State University. He taught and conducted scientific work. In 1949, he defended a dissertation on
integral equations. In 1950 the minister of education of the Soviet
Republic of Georgia proposed Khvoles for the position of
assistant rector of the South-Ossetian Pedagogical Institute
(Khvoles knew the Ossetian language, as well as Georgian). This was at
the beginning of Stalin's postwar anti-Jewish campaign,
and Khvoles doubted that his appointment would be approved. By chance,
while at the national Ministry of Education in Moscow, Aleksander met his
former regimental commander. The latter informed the deputy minister of
education about Khvoles' wartime heroism. The commander stressed that,
although Khvoles had been severely wounded in battle in July
1944, he continued to command his platoon. As a result of this
information, Khvoles was appointed assistant rector but later
returned to Tbilisi.
In 1948 Alexander married Esther (Esya) Tseitlin. Esther graduated from the Medical
Institute. She was fluent in seven languages: Russian, Latvian, Georgian,
French, English, German, and Hebrew. Alexander and Esther had three
children: Rosa (1949 - 1998), Aben (1951), and Basya (1956 – 2020)
In 1949, Alexander defended his Ph.D.
thesis "Integral Equations with a Fixed Singularity".
In 1952 Alexander moved to Tbilisi. He worked as an assistant professor
at the Department of Higher Mathematics at the Tbilisi Institute of Railway
Transport and at the same time at the Tbilisi Pedagogical
Institute. Continuing his scientific work, Alexander publishes
conclusions on the theory of differential equations.
After organizing the Tbilisi Computing Center at the Georgian Academy
of Sciences, A. Khvoles headed the Department of Mathematical
Programming in it. A. Khvoles' department solved
various problems of planning and optimization of technological processes
for the enterprises of Georgia.
In 1963, Soviet Government issued an executive order commending Soviet Republics to organize specialized schools with the focus on math and science (Executive order #905 from Aug. 23, 1963). Alexander took a leading role in organizing first specialized school in Georgia which later became the best rated school of Physics and Mathematics in Tbilisi – 42nd High School.
Alexander attracted the best teachers of the city to work at the school and
taught several subjects at the school himself. The selection process
to get into this school was very strict. Many wanted to study there
but only most capable were accepted. A few years later, Georgia
already had enough qualified programmers to support the industrial and
scientific institution needs.
For many years, Alexander conducted research in various fields of
mathematics.
He is the author of 65 printed scientific papers. He also
participated in the World Congress of Mathematicians in 1966 and in various
domestic and foreign symposia.
In 1990 Khvoles and his family
immigrated to Israel.
In Israel, Alexander continues his active scientific
work. Together with his son Aben, he co-authored a
scientific work on the theory of differential equations.
In 2010, for his ninetieth birthday,
Alexander got himself a gift by publishing “a Simple Proof of Cauchy's
Theorem” - about the arithmetic mean and geometric mean of
non-negative numbers.
Till the last
days, Alexander remained vigorous, witty, benevolent, and helped everyone
who turned to him for help. There were always many friends
around him. He was loved by his students, teachers, and
co-workers. One could not help but love him for his dedication to
science, the talent, and his kindness.
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