Abraham Fraenkel

Abraham Fraenkel was a German-born mathematician who became an early leader of mathematics in what would become the state of Israel. Fraenkel is known chiefly for his contributions to axiomatic set theory, publishing papers in 1922 and 1925 that added the axiom of replacement and related refinements to Ernst Zermelo's original 1908 axiom system, producing what is now known as Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, the standard foundational framework used throughout modern mathematics. His 1919 book Einleitung in die Mengenlehre, an introduction to set theory, was among the first systematic textbook treatments of the subject and went through several editions. After emigrating from Germany, Fraenkel became the first Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he spent the remainder of his academic career and helped establish mathematical research in the region. He received the Israel Prize for exact sciences in 1956 in recognition of his foundational contributions to mathematics.