Alexander Robert Iliewitz
A;examder was orphaned of his father before he was born, and had a difficult childhood. When still young he was obliged to leave home in order to pursue medical training. He was apprenticed to a surgeon in Berditcheff, where he lived for three years. He then removed to Odessa, and afterwards to Galicia, where he stayed eight years with a surgeon. After these years of apprenticeship he went on to study in a college at Lemberg, passed the examinations and received his medical diplomas.
At that time he became seriously ill and became occupied with thoughts of his soul. He began to pray to God in simple faith, asking him to reveal himself to him.
After he recovered from this illness, Alexander moved to Pesth where he met missionaries who taught him of the Messiah. He came to faith in the Messiah and was baptised in 1845. In 1847 he was sent to Jerusalem to work as assistant medical missionary, and he served in this capacity until within a year or two of his death at the age of 80 in 1895. He is mentioned in this capacity in the Jerusalem Bishopric documents (click for link to book), by William H. Hechler.
" Much might be said with reference to the important work performed by the Hospital and its faithful Head, as also of the labours of Mr. Iliewitz, the surgeon, who, in the absence of Dr. Chaplin, now in England, is in charge of the Hospital." The Medical Mission of the London Jews Society has been one of the most beneficial efforts made for the good of Jerusalem. As stated above, a Medical Mission was began in 1824. In the Hospital several hundred in door patients and several thousand out-door cases are annually relieved ; and it was for many years the only source of medical aid for the whole city.
Bernstein writes of him, that he was "not a theologian, or a Talmudical scholar, and was not fitted for learned disputations with highly educated Jews. But he had a simple, trustful faith, which made him never tired of proclaiming the way of salvation. A learned rabbi, widely celebrated for his profound knowledge of the Kabbalah, complained that he had dared to preach Christ to him. 'I did not send for him', said the rabbi indignantly, 'to tell me that the Messiah has come. I sent for him to prescribe for my bad feet.' Alexander was in a special way the friend and helper of the poor and unlearned."
Iliewicz died in Jerusalem on 17th June 1895 and is buried in the Mt. Zion Cemetery.
Sources
Bernstein, A. Jewish Witnesses for Christ.
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