Follow 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.