- published: 07 Apr 2008
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Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם (help·info), Modern: Avraham, Tiberian: ʼAḇrāhām, Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom, Arabic: إبراهيم Ibrāhīm, Ge'ez: አብርሃም ʼAbrəham, Greek: Aβραάμ, Russian: Авраам), whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, through his sons Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham is the forefather of many tribes, namely the Ishmaelites, Israelites, Midianites and Edomites. Abraham was a descendant of Noah's son, Shem. Christians believe that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham through Isaac, and Muslims believe that Muhammad was a descendant of Abraham through Ishmael. Abraham is notable for his advocation and promotion of monotheism.
The Book of Genesis narrative that records the life of Abraham presents his role as one that could only be fulfilled through a monotheistic covenant established between him and God. The Qur'an has stories about Abraham and his offspring that are similar to the Bible's. In Islam, Abraham is recognised as a prophet, patriarch and messenger, archetype of the perfect Muslim, and reformer of the Kaaba.
Abraham (Bram) Pais (May 19, 1918 – July 28, 2000) was a Dutch-born American physicist and science historian. Pais earned his Ph.D. from University of Utrecht just prior to a Nazi ban on Jewish participation in Dutch universities during World War II. When the Nazis began the forced relocation of Dutch Jews, he went into hiding, but was later arrested and saved only by the end of the war. He then served as an assistant to Niels Bohr in Denmark and was later a colleague of Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Pais wrote books documenting the lives of these two great physicists and the contributions they and others made to modern physics. He was a physics professor at Rockefeller University until his retirement.
Pais was born in Amsterdam, the first child of middle-class Dutch Jewish parents. His father, Isaiah "Jacques" Pais, was the descendant of Sephardic Jews who migrated from Portugal to the Low Countries around the beginning of the 17th century. His mother, Kaatje "Cato" van Kleeff, was the daughter of an Ashkenazi diamond cutter. His parents met while studying to become elementary-school teachers. They both taught school until his mother quit when they married on December 2, 1916. His only sibling, Annie, was born on November 1, 1920. During Pais's childhood his father was an elementary schoolmaster, headmaster, and later the headmaster of the Sephardic Hebrew school.[citation needed]