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Feb. 10, 2021 This Day in Jewish History , about Boris Pasternak, who won Nobel for Dr. Zhivago and irked Moscow, was originally published Feb. 10, 2016
February 10, 1890, is the birthdate of Boris Pasternak, the Russian poet, novelist and translator who won the Nobel Prize – and infuriated the Soviet regime – for his 1957 novel “Dr. Zhivago.” The book, although not concerned with Jewish themes in a major way, angered many Jews, including Israel’s prime minister, who described it as “one of the most despicable books about Jews ever written by a man of Jewish origin.”
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow. His father, Leonid Pasternak, who claimed descent from the 15th-century Portuguese-Jewish banker and philosopher Isaac Abarbanel, was a successful painter and art professor. Boris’ mother, the former Rosa Kaufman, the daughter of an Odessa industrialist, was herself a concert pianist.