Telemachus Timayenis

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Telemachus (Telemaque) Thomas Timayenis Ph.D.[1] often T. T. Timayenis (1853-1918) was a Greek-American professor, novelist, playwright and one of the first published opponents of jewish supremacism in the United States. Timayenis was also one of the first to formulate a discourse on the jewish Question along racial lines in the United States, rather than considerations of religious doctrine.[2]

Early life

Timayenis was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor and educated in the schools of Athens. He came from a prominent Greek family. He father Thomas Timayenis (died May 29, 1882) was a professor of languages at the University of Athens.[3] His mother Cotine (Fotini?) Rodacanachi Timayenis[4] was the sister to J. M Rodacanachi the consul of Greece in Boston.[5]

Academic career

In 1874 Telemachus Timayenis taught at the Springfield Collegiate Institute, a preparatory school in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1879 he was a professor of classical Greek at the New York Hellenic Institute and the Chautauqua School of Languages. In 1886 he was the director of the New York School of Languages.[6] Timayenis taught the children of some of Americaโ€™s richest families including the Rockefellers.

Opposition to jewish supremacism

In 1888 he left his academic work and established Minerva Publishing Company in New York. Minerva Publishing was the first company in American to publish books critical of jews.[7] Timayenis authored three book on the jews: The Original Mr. Jacobs: A Startling Exposรฉ, โ€ŽThe American jew: An Expose of His Careerโ€Ž, and Judas Iscariot: An Old Type in a New Form. In The Original Mr. Jacobs--a title used to explain the "real jew"--Timayenis acknowledges the work of French journalist Edouard Drumont and his 1886 book La France Juive (jewish France). The Original Mr. Jacobs sold over 200,000 copies and went into its thirtieth edition[8] โ€Žwith twenty printings.[9] In The American jew Timayenis provided several illustrations showing physical characteristics on how one might identify a jew. [1]

jewish reaction was predictable. They first called for a boycott of the books and when that didnโ€™t work they began to issue death threats by mail--at times six a day--against Timayenis, his wife and child. Others offered to pay Timayenis money to destroy the plates of the books and stop exposing the activities of the jews. Timayenis steadfastly refused and said he only wrote the truth.[10]

Timayenis also had planned to launch an anti-jewish paper to be called The Anti-Semite which never appeared.[11]

Later life and family

By 1897 he had moved back to Boston. From 1909 to 1916 Timayenis published and edited a monthly Greek-American newspaper The Eastern and Western Review .

Telemachus Timayenis was a Mason[12] and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.[13] His brother, Demosthenes T. Timayenis, was the consul for Greece in Boston.[14] Another brother Plutarch T. Timayenis also lived in Boston.

Works

Academic

  • The Modern Greek: Its Pronunciation and Relations to Ancient Greek, with an Appendix on Rules of Accentuation (1877) text
  • Aesop's Fables (1879) text
  • A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Present Volume 1 (1880) Volume 2 (1883)
  • โ€ŽGreece in the times of Homer an account of the life customs and habits of the Greeks during the Homeric periodโ€Ž (1885) text
  • World's Best Histories: Greece from the Earliest Times to the Present Vol. One

Anti-jewish

  • The Original Mr. Jacobs: A Startling Exposรฉ (1888) text
  • โ€ŽThe American jew: An Expose of His Careerโ€Ž (1888) text
  • Judas Iscariot: An Old Type in a New Form (1889)

Fiction

Novels

  • A Disputed Inheritance: A Thrilling Story of Love, Mystery, and Intrigue (1888)
  • For his Brother's Sake (1888)
  • Decoyed: A Novel (1894)
  • Unsatisfied: A Masterpiece of Tealism (1891)
  • His Last Passion: A sensational and realistic story of English modern life by Martius, pseudonym of T. T. Timayenis[15]

Plays

  • The wife of Miletus a drama in five acts (1883)
  • Hervor, the Gaul a drama in five acts (1908) Text

Other

See also

Notes

  1. โ†‘ The Chautauquan, Volume 1, page 38
  2. โ†‘ Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History, By John Corrigan, Lynn S. Neal
  3. โ†‘ "Young Timayenis's Death" The New York Times, May 3, 1885
  4. โ†‘ "Against an Insurance Company", The New York Times, August 4, 1884
  5. โ†‘ Official catalogue Foreign Exhibition, Boston, 1883, page 365
  6. โ†‘ The Publishers Weekly, Volume 30 (1886), page 311
  7. โ†‘ The Tarnished Dream: The Basis of American Anti-Semitism by Michael N. Dobkowski, page 57
  8. โ†‘ "Anonymous Enemies", The New York Times, September 4, 1888
  9. โ†‘ United States jewry, 1776-1985, Volume 3, By Jacob Rader Marcus. page 170
  10. โ†‘ "Anonymous Enemies", The New York Times, September 4, 1888
  11. โ†‘ United States jewry, 1776-1985, Volume 3, By Jacob Rader Marcus. page 170
  12. โ†‘ The New York supplement, Volume 24, page 78
  13. โ†‘ The Baptists, Who are they? and What do they Believe? (1898), page 85
  14. โ†‘ "Young Timayenis's Death" The New York Times, May 3, 1885
  15. โ†‘ Open library

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