Leon Theremin (better known as Lev Termen) was a Russo-Soviet inventor and polymath who is credited with numerous discoveries and creations such as the early electronic instrument known as the Theremin which he invented in October 1920 (and successfully patented in 1928), the Rhythmicon (the world’s first drum machine which he co-created with Henry Cowell in 1931), an early electromagnetic television in 1925 and most famously ‘The Thing’ which was the device behind one of the greatest Soviet intelligence coups of the Cold War: the ‘Great Seal Bug’ (basically a listening device hidden in a carved ornamental great seal of the United States that hung in the US Ambassador’s Office in Moscow from 1945 to 1952 when it was accidentally discovered by playing children).
However, Theremin has also been cited as a ‘jewish inventor’ by jews such as Slava Bazarsky (1) much like how jews have falsely claimed that the Scottish physicist James Clark Maxwell (2) and an American inventor (and anti-Catholic/anti-immigrant writer) Samuel Morse were jewish. (3)
The claim that Theremin was jewish is complete and utter nonsense and seems to be based on the fact that he is adopted Russian name Lev Termen sounds vaguely jewish.
Theremin was born on 15th August 1896 in St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire to Sergei Emilievich Theremin – who was a respected lawyer and the son of the Tsar’s court physician – and Yevgenia Antonova Orzhinskaya; who was a Russian aristocrat of part-Polish and part-Russian origins. (4)
The Theremins were descended from the Albigenses in southern France – (5) who are often confused and conflated with the better known Cathars but are in fact a different group and Christian heresy – who became prominent French Huguenots; one of whom was blessed by Calvin himself, and another was murdered in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in France in 1572. (6)
But by the time of Theremin’s birth his family were all Russian Orthodox Christians. (7)
Thus we can see that Theremin was not jewish in any way, shape or form but rather a Russo-Soviet citizen of French Huguenot and aristocratic Polish and Russian origins!
References
(1) https://slavaguide.com/en/blog/jewish-inventors-and-jewish-inventions
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-james-clerk-maxwell-jewish
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-samuel-morse-jewish
(4) Albert Glinsky, 2000, ‘Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage’, 1st Edition, University of Illinois Press: Urbana, p. 10
(5) Ibid., pp. 9-10
(6) Ibid., p. 10(
(7) Ibid., p. 11