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Ben-Ami Finkelstein

psychiatrist (1910-1975)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 26, 2024
Entity authorityQ816408 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ben-Ami Finkelstein (28 May 1910 – 3 January 1975) was a psychiatrist.

Life

Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1935 at the University of Zurich with a thesis on the white spot disease. During the Second World War he was interned for a time in a labor camp. He then worked in the psychiatric hospital Tarpeh, where he did research on the ″impact of immigration on the character of mad-prone persons″ (Einfluss der Einwanderung auf den Charakter einer zum Wahnsinn neigenden Person) on the basis of a Holocaust survivor from Lithuania. In 1952 he published his results on that matter that were criticized in 2012 by Israeli historian Rakefet Zalashik for ideological omissions.

Finkelstein has worked at the Eastern State Hospital in Lexington (Kentucky) and at the controversial Lima State Hospital in Lima, Ohio. In the 1970s, Finkelstein worked at the Rosegg hospital in the Swiss township of Solothurn.

In 1957 Finkelstein published through the Amsterdam publisher F. Van Rossen the book ″Psychological sketches″ (Psychologische Skizzen), after which he published numerous articles in American journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (in 1971 Finkelstein published, among other articles, one on the suicide of Vincent van Gogh).

Finkelstein, among other things, dealt with the psychology of crime. He was in contact with Albert Einstein and Hans Martin Sutermeister.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ben-Ami Finkelstein” as psychiatrist (1910-1975). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1910, 1975, 1935, 1952—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1910-05-28. The account is most persuasive where Ben-Ami, Finkelstein and psychiatrist can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as psychiatrist (1910-1975). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 26, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q816408. VIAF identifies the subject as 15724972. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1975, 1935 and 1952.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Ben-Ami Finkelstein primary sources, Ben-Ami Finkelstein archive and Ben-Ami research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ben-Ami Finkelstein” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.