The body of written works produced in the Hebrew
language and distinct from Jewish literature, which
also exists in other languages.
Literature in Hebrew has been produced
uninterruptedly from the early 12th century bc, and
certain excavated tablets may indicate a literature
of even greater antiquity. From 1200 bc to c. ad
200, Hebrew was a spoken language in Palestine,
first as biblical Hebrew, then as Mishnaic Hebrew, a
later dialect that does not derive directly from the
biblical dialect and one that gained literary status
as the Pharisees began to employ it in their
teaching in the 2nd century bc. It was not revived
as a spoken language until the late 19th century,
and in the 20th century it was adopted as the
official language of the new State of Israel. The
latter event gave impetus to a growing movement in
Hebrew literature centred in Israel.
Hebrew literature is not synonymous with Jewish
literature. Some Hebrew writing was produced by the
Samaritans and in the 17th century by Protestant
enthusiasts. Jews also produced important
literatures in Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, Judeo-Spanish
(Ladino), Yiddish, and a number of other languages.
Apart from the Aramaic writings, however, such
literatures always served only that part of Jewry
using the language in question. When the community
ceased to exist, the literature produced in that
language was forgotten (or, in the case of Greek
Jewish literature, became part of Christian
tradition) except for whatever part of it had been
translated into Hebrew and thus became part of
Hebrew literature.
The Hebrew language, though not spoken between c.
ad 200 and the late 19th century, has always adapted
itself to the needs of changing literary tastes. In
the Bible it develops from a simple and earthy idiom
to a language suitable for the expression of
sophisticated religious thought without losing the
poetic force and rhythmic fullness that
characterizes it. Mishnaic Hebrew is pedestrian and
exact, and yet it can reach heights of irony or of
warmth. In medieval poetry Hebrew allows extravagant
displays of verbal artistry but also, in
northwestern Europe, a simplicity equal to that of
the spoken languages of its milieu. One generation
of translators in the 12th century created a
scientific Hebrew that is not inferior to
contemporary Arabic or Latin in precision or
syntactic refinement. The 17th–19th centuries saw
the formation of a stately, rigid, classical style
based on biblical Hebrew, but at the same time
eastern European mystics made the language serve the
expression of their love of God. Literary Hebrew in
the 20th century draws upon ancient literature to a
marked degree, with styles often modeled upon
ancient predecessors. The modern period has also
evolved a new type of language for nonliterary
writing, while in novels the style is often based
upon the spoken language.
Ancient Hebrew literature
Preexilian period, c. 1200–587 bc
All that is
preserved of the literature of this period is
slightly more than 20 of the 39 books included in
the
Old Testament (the remainder being from the next
period). Poetry probably preceded prose. Biblical
poetry was based on the principle of parallelism;
i.e., the two halves of a verse express the same
idea, either by repeating it in different words or
by stressing different aspects of it. Examples are
found in the book of Psalms: “But they flattered him
with their mouths; they lied to him with their
tongues” (Ps. 78:36); “He turned their rivers to
blood, so that they could not drink of their
streams” (Ps. 78:44). To this form was added a
simple rhythm, consisting mainly in having each half
of a line divided into an equal number of stressed
words. There were also folk songs, to which belonged
perhaps large parts of the
Song of Solomon, dirges,
epic chants, and psalms. The use of various forms of
poetry in the work of the prophets appears to be a
later development.
The earlier prose texts were still very close to
poetry in structure and language. The first real
prose may well have been some of the laws recorded
in the Pentateuch. In Jeremiah and Deuteronomy a
high standard of prose rhetoric was achieved: some
of the conversations in the historical books were
attempts to reproduce in writing the style of
ordinary speech.
Tintoretto.
The Queen of Sheba and Solomon
Period of the Second Temple, 538 bc–ad 70
The
literary output of this period was large, only part
of it belonging to the biblical canon. The biblical
Hebrew of the writings was artificial because it had
ceased to be spoken and had been replaced by
Aramaic, a related Semitic language, and Mishnaic
Hebrew. Works that are included among the Dead Sea
Scrolls belong to this period. Some of these works
provide evidence of a new kind of writing, the
homiletic, or sermonizing, commentary to the Bible
called Midrash. The only work of real literary merit
among the scrolls is the fervent personal poetry of
the Hymns of Thanksgiving.
Parts of the biblical books of Ezra and Daniel
and certain works among the Dead Sea Scrolls are in
an early form of Aramaic. This period also began to
provide translations (called Targums) of most of the
Hebrew Bible into a slightly later Aramaic.
Talmudic literature
In contrast to the works of
the Bible and the Second Temple were the collections
of writings concerned with Jewish civil and
religious law. Whereas the former were lengthy
writings bearing the imprint of their authors or
editors, early rabbinic literature consisted
entirely of collections of individual statements
loosely strung together. The individual paragraphs
exhibit the influence of Hellenistic rhetoric.
Collections that follow the arrangement of biblical
books are called Midrash, as opposed to works such
as the Mishna, where the material is arranged
according to subject. The Mishna was the main work
of the period c. 100 bc–ad 200. The following
period, ad 200–500, was notable for two main
innovations: the appearance of an additional
literary centre in Babylonia, where Jewry flourished
in contrast to its subjugation under the oppressive
rule of Rome and, later, Byzantium in Palestine; and
the literary use of the spoken local dialects of
Aramaic alongside Hebrew. The Talmuds produced by
Palestine and Babylonia in this period contained a
large proportion of Haggada, statements dealing with
theological and ethical matters and using stories,
anecdotes, and parables to illustrate certain
points. This material was later an influence on
Hebrew fiction of the Middle Ages and of the modern
period.
Literary revival, 500–1000
In the 6th century, some Jewish groups attempted to
enforce the exclusive use of Hebrew in the
synagogue, this tendency being part of a Hebrew
revival that began in Palestine and spread westward
but did not reach Babylonia until the 10th century.
Piyyutim
Synagogues began in this period to
appoint official precentors, part of whose duty it
was to compose poetical additions to the liturgy on
special sabbaths and festivals. The authors were
called payṭanim (from Greek poiētēs, “poet”), their
poems piyyuṭim. The keynote was messianic fervour
and religious exuberance. Besides employing the
entire biblical, Mishnaic, and Aramaic vocabularies,
the payṭanim coined thousands of new words. Such
poems, presupposing a highly educated audience,
abound in recondite allusions and contain exhaustive
lists of rites and laws. It is known that the most
outstanding poets—Phineas the Priest, Yose ben Yose,
Yannai, and Eleazar ha-Kalir, or ben Kalir—lived in
that order, but when or where in Palestine any of
them lived is not known. The accepted datings are
3rd century and 5th–6th century ad. Many piyyuṭim
are still used in the synagogue.
Adoption of Arabic metre
Biblical Hebrew was
re-established as the literary idiom about 900 by
Sa'adia ben Joseph, grammarian and religious
polemicist. The Arabic system of quantitative metre
was adapted for Hebrew during this period
(900–1000), probably by Dunash ben Labrat. At first
the piyyuṭ form was retained for religious poems,
and the new metres were used only for secular
poetry, which closely imitated Arabic models and,
like the latter, was chiefly employed for laudatory
addresses to prominent people.
Sa'adia ben Joseph
Saʿadia ben Joseph, Arabic Saʿīd Ibn
Yūsuf Al-fayyūmī (b. 882, Dilaz, in al-Fayyūm,
Egypt—d. September 942, Sura,
Babylonia), Jewish exegete, philosopher,
and polemicist whose influence on Jewish
literary and communal activities made
him one of the most important Jewish
scholars of his time. His unique
qualities became especially apparent in
921 in Babylonia during a dispute over
Jewish calendrical calculations. He
produced his greatest philosophical
work, Kitāb al-amānāt wa al-iʿtiqādāt
(“The Book of Beliefs and Opinions”) at
Sura in 935. His Arabic translation of
the Old Testament is exceptionally
valuable for its commentaries.
Life
Little is known of Saʿadia’s early
years. When he departed from Egypt, at
the age of about 23, he left behind,
besides his wife and two sons, a
distinguished group of devoted students.
By that time he had already composed a
Hebrew-Arabic dictionary, later expanded
and issued under the name ha-Egron. For
unknown reasons he migrated to
Palestine. There he found a growing
community of Karaites, a heretical
Jewish sect that rejected the Talmud
(the authoritative rabbinic compendium
of law, lore, and commentary); this
group enjoyed the support of the local
Muslim authorities.
Apparently disappointed with the
standards of learning in Palestine, he
left for Babylonia. There he was
confronted with not only the Karaitic
schism but also a gnostic trend (derived
from an ancient dualistic, theosophical
movement), which rejected the
foundations of all monotheistic
religions. Books such as that of the
Persian Jewish heretic Ḥiwi al-Balkhī,
which denied the omnipotence,
omniscience, and justice of the biblical
God and pointed to biblical
inconsistencies, were then popular. In
the face of such challenges, Saʿadia
marshaled his great talents in the
defense of religion in general and
Jewish tradition in particular.
Employing the same manner as Ḥiwi,
Saʿadia composed his refutation of him
in a somewhat complicated rhymed Hebrew.
Then, too, he wrote his Kitāb ar-radd ʿalā
ʿAnān (“Refutation of Anan,” the founder
of Karaism), a lost work that has been
identified with Saʿadia’s partially
extant polemical poem Essa meshali.
In 921 Saʿadia, who by then had
attained scholarly prominence, headed
the Babylonian Jewish scholars in their
conflict with the Palestinian scholar
Aaron ben Meir, who had promulgated a
far-reaching change in the Jewish
calendrical computation. The conflict
ended with no definite victory for
either side. Yet, Saʿadia’s
participation in it demonstrated his
indomitable courage and his importance
for the Jewish community in Babylonia.
Throughout this period he continued his
literary polemics against the Karaites.
In 928 he completed his Kitāb attamyīz
(“Book of Discernment”), a defense of
the traditional Rabbanite calendar.
On May 22 of the same year he was
appointed by the exilarch (head of
Babylonian Jewry) David ben Zakkai as
the gaon (“head”) of the academy of Sura,
which had been transferred to Baghdad.
Upon assuming this office, he recognized
the need to systematize Talmudic law and
canonize it by subject. Toward this end
he produced Kitāb al-mawārīth (“Book on
the Laws of Inheritance”); Aḥkam al-wadīʿah
(“The Laws on Deposits”); Kitāb ash-shahādah
wa al-wathāʾiq (“Book Concerning
Testimony and Documents”); Kitāb
aṭ-ṭerefot (“Book Concerning Forbidden
Meats”); Siddur, a complete arrangement
of the prayers and the laws pertaining
to them; and some other minor works. In
the Siddur he included his original
religious poems. These works clearly
show the Greco-Arabic methods of
classification and composition.
His accomplishments intensified his
sense of chosenness and made him more
unyielding and less compromising. As it
seems, these attitudes alienated some of
his friends and provoked the envy of the
Exilarch. In 932, when Saʿadia refused
to endorse a decision issued by the
Exilarch in a litigation, an open breach
ensued between the two leaders. The
Exilarch excommunicated Saʿadia, and the
latter retaliated by excommunicating the
Exilarch. After three years of
embittered struggle, in which each side
enjoyed the support of some rich and
politically influential Jews of Baghdad,
Ben Zakkai succeeded in having the
Muslim ruler al-Qāhir remove Saʿadia
from his office. The Gaon went into
seclusion.
The years that followed turned out to
be the brightest in Saʿadia’s literary
career. During these years he composed
his major philosophical work, Kitāb al-amānāt
wa al-iʿtiqādāt. The objective of this
work was the harmonization of revelation
and reason. In structure and content it
displays a definite influence of Greek
philosophy and of the theology of the
Muʿtazilī, the rationalist sect of Islām.
The introduction refutes skepticism and
establishes the foundations of human
knowledge. Chapter one seeks to
establish creatio ex nihilo (creation
out of nothing) in order to ascertain
the existence of a Creator-God. Saʿadia
then discusses God’s uniqueness,
justice, revelation, free will, and
other doctrines accepted both by Judaism
and by the Muʿtazilī (a great Islāmic
sect of speculative theology, which
emphasized the doctrines of God’s
uniqueness and absolute justice). The
second part of the book deals with the
essence of the soul and eschatological
problems and presents guidelines for
ethical living.
In 937 a reconciliation between the
Gaon and the Exilarch occurred, and
Saʿadia was reinstated as gaon. In 940
Ben Zakkai died and seven months later
his son died, leaving behind a young
child. Saʿadia took the orphan into his
home and treated him like his own.
Saʿadia himself died in September 942.
Sa'adia’s works.
Exact chronology for many of
Saʿadia’s works cannot be definitely
determined. The most important of these
in philology are: Kutub al-lughah
(“Books on Grammar”), fragments of which
were published by Solomon Skoss, and
Tafsīr as-sab ʿīn lafẓah (“The
Explanation of the Seventy Hapaxlegomina”),
fragments of which were edited by N.
Alony.
Saʿadia’s opus magnum was on
exegesis. He prepared an Arabic
translation of the whole Pentateuch
(published by Joseph Derenbourg) and a
translation with an extensive commentary
on Genesis 1–28, Exodus, and Leviticus.
Only a few fragments of this extensive
commentary have been published. His
translation and commentaries on Isaiah,
Proverbs, Job, and Psalms are extant in
their entirety. Fragments of his
commentaries on Daniel and Canticles,
Esther, and Lamentations are preserved
in the Geniza collection (fragments of
medieval texts found in an old synagogue
in Cairo and transferred to various
libraries). In his biblical commentaries
the Gaon formulated new principles of
interpretation modeled on the rules of
Greco-Arabic rhetoric.
His anti-Karaite works include Kitāb
ar-radd ʿalā Ibn Sākawayhī (“Refutation
of Ibn Sākawayhī”) and Kitāb taḥṣīl ash-sharāʾiʿ
as-samāʿīyah (“Book Concerning the
Sources of the Irrational Laws”). In the
latter work the Gaon contends that
matters pertaining to the irrational
commandments of the Mosaic Law may never
be decided by means of analogy but only
by the regulations transmitted through
oral tradition. Talmudic tradition is
therefore, he argues, indispensable.
Another anti-Karaite work is the Maqālah
fī sirāj as-sabt (“Treatise on the
Lights of Sabbath”). It refutes the
Karaite injunction forbidding the
preparation of light for the sabbath.
In philosophy he wrote a
philosophical commentary on the mystical
book Sefer yetzira. In contrast to his
“Book on Beliefs and Opinions,” this
volume does not show any influence of
kalām (Islāmic scholastic theology).
Moses Zucker
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Dunash ben Labrat
Dunash , Labrat also spelled Librat,
also called Al-abrad, or Adonina Ha-levi
(b. c. 920, Fčs, Mor.?—d. c. 990,
Córdoba?), Hebrew poet, grammarian, and
polemicist who was the first to use
Arabic metres in his verse, thus
inaugurating a new mode in Hebrew
poetry. His strictures on the Hebrew
lexicon of Menahem ben Saruq provoked a
quarrel that helped initiate a golden
age in Hebrew philology.
Dunash was born either in Fčs or in
Baghdad and after travelling to Sura,
Babylonia, studied there under a
renowned master of Jewish learning,
Saʿadia ben Joseph. It was in Sura that
he first composed his poems in Arabic
metres, an innovation that amazed
Saʿadia.
After a time, Dunash migrated to
Córdoba, in Moorish Spain, then
experiencing a renaissance of Jewish
culture under a powerful Jewish
statesman and adviser to the caliph,
Ḥisdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915–975?). A
favourite of Ḥisdai’s, the philologist
Menahem ben Saruq, had written the first
true Hebrew dictionary. Dunash wrote a
devastating polemic against this work
that combined personal attacks on
Menahem with praise for Ḥisdai. Menahem
lost favour with Ḥisdai and died not
long afterward. Menahem’s pupils
answered with a polemic of their own, a
quarrel that paved the way for a fresh
examination of Hebrew grammar. Dunash
also wrote an unpublished treatise on
grammar in which he reveals his
understanding (unusual for his time)
that, although Hebrew verbs are based on
three-consonant roots, in some
conjugations a root letter may be
dropped.
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The Middle Ages
The Palestinian tradition in Europe, 800–1300
From
Palestine, the Hebrew renaissance soon spread into
the Byzantine Empire. In Sicily and southern Italy
(which belonged to Byzantium) several important
payṭanim were at work, and before 1000 a secular
literature began to arise in Italy: a fantastic
travelogue of Eldad the Danite; a historical
romance, Sefer ha-yashar (1625; Eng. trans., Sefer
ha-yashar, the Book of the Righteous) and Josippon,
a revision of Josephus’ Antiquities filled with
legendary incidents—this last-named book was popular
until modern times and was translated into many
languages. Nathan ben Yehiel completed in 1101 at
Rome a dictionary of Talmudic Aramaic and Hebrew,
the ʿArukh, which is still used.
In the middle of the 10th century members of the
north Italian family Kalonymos brought Talmudic
studies and piyyuṭim to Mainz, Ger., where the
yeshiva (school) became a centre of studies under
the direction of Gershom ben Judah, known as “the
Light of the Exile.” As a poet, he established a
distinctive style of European piyyuṭ in poems that
read very much like early European popular poetry.
The greatest alumnus of the Mainz academy was Rashi,
an author of complete commentaries on the Bible and
on the Babylonian Talmud, himself a poet of note.
The slaughter of Jewish peoples in western and
central Europe during the Crusades drove large
masses of Jews into eastern Europe. The German Jews
carried with them their Yiddish speech but hardly
any literary culture. In Germany accounts of the
disaster were written in a new prose style permeated
with poetry; liturgical poetry became henceforth
mainly a chronicle of persecutions. These sufferings
inspired an important mystical movement, largely
propagated through stories, of which the chief
collections are the Ayn Shoyn Mayse Bukh (1602;
Maʿaseh Book) and the Sefer Ḥasidim (1538; “The Book
of the Just”), the latter attributed to Judah ben
Samuel, “the Hasid” of Regensburg (died 1217).
Eldad the Danite
Eldad ben Mahli ha-Dani, English Eldad
the Danite (flourished 9th century),
Jewish traveller and philologist who was
generally credited with the authorship
of a fanciful geographical narrative
that exerted an enduring influence
throughout the Middle Ages. This
possibly gave rise to the legend of
Prester John, the mighty Oriental
priest-potentate of fabulous wealth and
power.
Probably originally from southern
Arabia, Eldad visited Mesopotamia,
Egypt, North Africa, and Spain and
caused a stir by his account of the Ten
Lost Tribes of Israel. He himself
claimed to be a descendant of the
Danites, who, together with the tribes
of Naphtali, Asher, and Gad, were said
to have established a Jewish kingdom in
Cush (Kush), variously interpreted as
Ethiopia or, roughly, present-day Sudan.
His veracity was challenged largely
because the ritual prescriptions he
described diverged from those of the
Talmud, the rabbinical compendium of
law, lore, and commentary. His Hebrew
narrative, Sefer Eldad, established his
reputation as a philologist whom leading
medieval Jewish grammarians and
lexicographers quoted as an authority on
linguistic difficulties. It appeared in
several languages and in widely
deviating versions. The first edition
was published at the Italian city of
Mantua in 1480.
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Gershom ben Judah
Gershom ben Judah, (b. c. 960, Metz,
Lorraine [now in France]—d. 1028/40,
Mainz, Franconia [Germany]), eminent
rabbinical scholar who proposed a
far-reaching series of legal enactments
(taqqanot) that profoundly molded the
social institutions of medieval European
Jewry.
He was called the light of the exile
and also Rabbenu (“Our Teacher,” a title
of reverence). As head of the rabbinic
academy at Mainz, he was a pioneer in
bringing the learning of the Talmudic
academies at Babylon and Palestine to
western European schools. At synods of
community leaders he proposed his
taqqanot, which included the prohibition
of polygamy (permitted by biblical and
Talmudic law but already mostly
unpracticed), interdiction of the
husband’s right to divorce without the
wife’s consent, prohibition of reading
another’s mail without his consent (mail
then was usually carried by travelers),
and prohibition against taunting Jews
who had been forcibly converted to
another religion and had then returned
to Judaism.
He wrote many responsa (authoritative
answers in response to questions about
Jewish law), worked on a critical text
of the Talmud and the Masora, and
transmitted to his students an extensive
oral commentary on the Talmud. All
subsequent rabbinic students in western
Europe considered themselves, in the
words of the renowned medieval French
Jewish commentator Rashi (1040–1105),
“students of his students.”
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Judah ben Samuel
Judah ben Samuel, also called Judah The
Ḥasid Of Regensburg, or Yehuda The Ḥasid
(d. 1217), Jewish mystic and
semilegendary pietist, a founder of the
fervent, ultrapious movement of German
Ḥasidism. He was also the principal
author of the ethical treatise Sefer
Ḥasidim (published in Bologna, 1538;
“Book of the Pious”), possibly the most
important extant document of medieval
Judaism and a major work of Jewish
literature. Judah is not to be confused
with the commentator Judah Sir Leon of
Paris (1166–1224), also called ha-Ḥasid,
or the 17th-century messianic enthusiast
Judah Ḥasid ha-Levi, nor is the Ḥasidic
movement of his time directly related to
the 18th-century Ḥasidic movement
founded by the Baʿal Shem Ṭov.
The facts of Judah’s life, like those
of other major Jewish mystics, are
obscure. He was the son of Samuel the
Ḥasid, also a mystic, and belonged to
the eminent Kalonymos family, which
provided medieval Germany with many of
her mystics and spiritual leaders. It is
known that in about 1195, possibly
because of German persecution, he left
Speyer for Regensburg, where he founded
a yeshiva (academy) and gathered such
disciples as the mystic Eleazar of Worms
(also a member of the Kalonymos family)
and the codifiers Isaac ben Moses of
Vienna and Baruch ben Samuel of Mainz.
Most of Judah’s life, however, is
clothed in legend; e.g., it is stated
that he was ignorant of Jewish law
until, at 18, sudden enlightenment
enabled him to work such miracles as
reviving the dead and visiting the
prophet Elijah.
The Sefer Ḥasidim is a compilation of
the writings of Judah, of his father
Samuel, and of Judah’s disciple Eleazar
of Worms. Judah’s teachings, however,
appear to give a distinctive stamp to
the entire work. The treatise, although
disorganized and poorly written, is
invaluable for giving a realistic
picture of the concerns and problems of
a medieval Jewish community; religion is
revealed in its practical workings,
rather than as disembodied theories.
Dealing with man’s relations with God
and his fellowman, his business
practices, the sabbath, social
intercourse with Gentiles, penitence,
and a host of other subjects, the book
is a detailed manual of conduct.
Judah also wrote a mystic work
surviving only in citations dealing with
the kavod (“divine glory”), the aspect
of God that man can experience, as
distinguished from the ultimate reality
of God, which is beyond man’s experience
or comprehension. Judah was also the
author of liturgies and responsa
(authoritative answers, or responses, to
questions of Jewish law).
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The golden age in Spain, 900–1200
Spanish Jewry
began to flourish in Muslim Spain under the
caliphate of Córdoba, where Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a
vizier, was the first great patron of Hebrew
letters. His secretary, Menahem ben Saruk (died c.
970), wrote a biblical lexicon, which was criticized
by Dunash ben Labrat when the latter arrived in
Spain with philological ideas from the East. Samuel
ha-Nagid, vizier of Granada (990–1055), himself a
poet and philologist, gathered around him a group of
poets, most outstanding among whom was Ibn Gabirol.
Moses ibn Ezra of Granada (died c. 1139) was the
centre of a brilliant circle of poets. Moses’
kinsman Abraham ibn Ezra, a poet, philosopher,
grammarian, and Bible commentator, attacked the
language and style of the early payṭanim; he and
Judah ben Samuel Halevi were the first to use Arabic
metres in religious poems. Dominated by Arab
standards of taste, the secular poetry dealt with
themes of Arabic poetry and often reproduced Arabic
phrases; it was written to be appreciated by a small
circle of connoisseurs and declined with the
collapse of Jewish prosperity in Muslim Spain. The
last major poet in Spain was Judah ben Solomon
Harizi, who translated various philosophical works
into Hebrew.
The use of biblical Hebrew was made possible by
the work of philologists. Of great importance was
the creation of comparative linguistics by Judah ibn
Kuraish (about 900) and Isaac ibn Barun (about
1100). Judah Hayyuj, a disciple of Menahem ben
Saruk, recast Hebrew grammar, and, in the form given
to it by David Kimhi of Narbonne (died c. 1235), the
new system was taken over by the Christian humanists
and through them by modern scholarship. The first
complete Hebrew grammar, Kitāb al-lumaʿ (1886; “The
Book of the Variegated Flower Beds”), was written by
Ibn Janāh of Córdoba (died 1050).
Jewish medieval philosophers in Spain wrote in
Arabic, not Hebrew, until the 13th century. Apart
from Isaac Israeli (north Africa, died c. 940) few
medieval Jews made original contributions to
science, but the Spanish Jews shared the best
scientific education. Abraham bar Hiyya (died c.
1136) of Barcelona was an original mathematician who
wrote in Hebrew works on mathematics, astronomy, and
philosophy. When the Almohads expelled the Jews from
Muslim Spain in 1148, many learned refugees went to
Languedoc and Provence and there translated
scientific and philosophical works.
Hisdai ibn Shaprut
Hisdai ibn Shaprut, in full Ḥisdai Abu
Yusuf ben Isaac ben Ezra ibn Shaprut,
Ḥisdai also spelled Ḥasdai (b. c. 915,
Jaén, Spain—d. c. 975, Córdoba), Jewish
physician, translator, and political
figure who helped inaugurate the golden
age of Hebrew letters in Moorish Spain
and who was a powerful statesman in a
number of major diplomatic negotiations.
After becoming court physician to the
powerful Umayyad caliph ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān
III, Ḥisdai gradually gained eminence in
the Arab world, acting as vizier without
title. He used his linguistic talents
(he knew Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin) and
persuasive personality in delicate
diplomatic missions between Muslim and
Christian rulers. On one occasion he
helped negotiate a treaty with the
Byzantine Empire. One of the presents
from the Byzantine emperor to the caliph
was a copy of a pharmacological text by
the Greek physician Dioscorides (fl. c.
50 ce); Ḥisdai helped translate it into
Arabic. On another occasion, Ḥisdai
paved the way for a peace treaty with
the warring kingdoms of Navarre and
León. After ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān died in 961,
Ḥisdai continued to perform important
services for ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān’s son and
successor, al-Ḥakam II, in whose reign
he died.
Ḥisdai helped inaugurate the golden
age of Spanish Judaism, gathering under
his patronage such major literary
figures as Dunash ben Labrat (c. 920–c.
990) and Menahem ben Saruq (c. 910–c.
970), who helped establish scientific
Hebrew grammar and a new mode in Hebrew
poetry. Ḥisdai fostered the study of
Jewish law and the Talmud (the rabbinic
compendium of law, lore, and
commentary), thereby making Spanish
Jewry relatively independent of the
Eastern Talmudic academies.
Ḥisdai’s correspondence (written by
Menahem ben Saruq) with a Jewish Khazar
king, Joseph, is of historic importance.
The Khazars, a Turkic people dwelling in
southern Russia, had converted to
Judaism in the middle of the 8th century
ce. Ḥisdai’s letter and the king’s
response led a shadowy existence until
their unexpected publication in the 16th
century. After much controversy, the
authenticity of both letters and the
accuracy of their information seem well
established.
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Menahem ben Saruk
Menahem ben Saruq, in full
Menahem ben Jacob ibn Saruq, Saruq also
spelled Saruk (b. c. 910, Tortosa,
Independent Moorish States—d. c. 970,
Córdoba?), Jewish lexicographer and poet
who composed the first Hebrew-language
dictionary, a lexicon of the Bible;
earlier biblical dictionaries were
written in Arabic and translated into
Hebrew.
After travelling to Córdoba, a city
in Moorish Spain, Menahem became a
protégé of Isaac, the father of Ḥisdai
ibn Shaprut, who was to become a
powerful Jewish statesman in Córdoba.
After Isaac’s death, Ḥisdai employed
Menahem as his literary secretary.
Menahem composed the historic letter
Ḥisdai sent to Joseph, king of the
Khazars, inquiring about the Khazars’
conversion to Judaism.
Ḥisdai also encouraged Menahem to
compile his famous dictionary. It was
severely criticized by a rival
philologist and poet, Dunash ben Labrat,
who, by his bitter attacks, succeeded in
turning Ḥisdai against Menahem. Menahem
probably died not long after his fall
from favour. Dunash’s attack provoked a
counterattack by Menahem’s pupils, one
of whom, Judah ben David Ḥayyuj, was a
major Hebrew grammarian.
Menahem’s dictionary, the Maḥberet
(from ḥaber, “to join”), despite its
faults, did have many virtues and
remained in use for many years. He
established that Hebrew is a language
with definite, discoverable rules, and
he illustrated his principles with many
elegantly phrased examples. His
dictionary was an invaluable aid to
Bible study for European Jews who could
not read Arabic.
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Samuel
ha-Nagid
Samuel ha-Nagid, Arabic
Ismail Ibn Nagrelʿa (b. 993, Córdoba,
Spain—d. 1055/56, Granada), Talmudic
scholar, grammarian, philologist, poet,
warrior, and statesman who for two
decades was the power behind the throne
of the caliphate of Granada.
As a youth Samuel received a thorough
education in all branches of Jewish and
Islāmic knowledge and mastered Arabic
calligraphy, a rare achievement among
Jews. When Córdoba was sacked in 1013 by
the Berbers, a north African people
believing in Islām, Samuel fled to
Málaga, at that time part of the Muslim
kingdom of Granada.
Samuel’s unusual linguistic and
calligraphic skills caught the attention
of the Granadan vizier, who employed him
as his private secretary. He soon became
an invaluable political adviser to the
vizier, who, at his death, commended
Samuel to the caliph Ḥabbūs. The caliph
made Samuel the new vizier, and as such
he assumed direction of Granada’s
diplomatic and military affairs.
Ḥabbūs died in 1037. Although his
elder, pleasure-loving son then assumed
the throne, Samuel was the caliph in
fact if not in actuality. He steered
Granada through years of continuous
warfare and actively participated in all
major campaigns. His influence became so
great that he was even able to arrange
for his son Joseph to succeed him as
vizier.
Samuel was also nagid (Hebrew: “chief
”) of Granadan Jewry. As such, he
appointed all the judges and headed the
Talmudic academy. He is generally
believed to be the author of Mevo
ha-Talmud (“Introduction to the
Talmud”), a long-lived Talmudic manual.
He also wrote a concordance to the
Bible, encouraged learning in all
fields, and became a respected, even
revered figure among both Arabs and
Jews.
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Ibn Gabirol
Ibn Gabirol, in full Solomon ben
Yehuda Ibn Gabirol, Arabic Abū Ayyūb
Sulaymān ibn Yaḥyā ibn Gabirūt, Latin
Avicebron or Avencebrol (b. c. 1022,
Málaga, caliphate of Córdoba—d. c.
1058/70, Valencia, kingdom of Valencia),
one of the outstanding figures of the
Hebrew school of religious and secular
poetry during the Jewish Golden Age in
Moorish Spain. He was also an important
Neoplatonic philosopher.
Early life and career
Born in Málaga about 1022, Ibn
Gabirol received his higher education in
Saragossa, where he joined the learned
circle of other Cordoban refugees
established there around famed scholars
and the influential courtier Yekutiel
ibn Ḥasan. Protected by this patron,
whom Ibn Gabirol immortalized in poems
of loving praise, the 16-year-old poet
became famous for his religious hymns in
masterly Hebrew. The customary language
of Andalusian literature had been
Arabic, and Hebrew had only recently
been revived as a means of expression
for Jewish poets. At 16 he could rightly
boast of being world famous:
…My song is a crown for kings and
mitres on the heads of governors.
My body walks upon the earth, while my
spirit ascends to the clouds.
Behold me: at sixteen my heart like that
of a man of eighty is wise.
He made, however, the mistake of
lampooning Samuel ha-Nagid, a rising
Jewish statesman and vizier in the
Berber kingdom of Granada, who was also
a talented poet, Talmudist, strategist,
and model writer of letters. After
making poetical amends, Ibn Gabirol
seems to have been admitted to the
favour of this vizier, whose main court
encomiast he subsequently became.
This happened while the poet was
involved (on the Saragossan side) in the
disproportionate strife between the
grammarians of Saragossa and those of
Granada concerning Hebrew linguistics.
Being an emancipated Cordoban, he
offended the orthodox with heresies such
as recommending childlessness,
denunciation of the “world,”
Neoplatonism, and an almost insane
self-aggrandizement (coupled with the
use of animal epithets for his
opponents). He apparently had to flee
from Saragossa; the circumstances
leading to his departure are described
in his “Song of Strife”:
Sitting among everybody crooked and
foolish his [the poet’s] heart only was
wise.
The one slakes you with adder’s poison,
the other, flattering, tries to confuse
your head.
One, setting you a trap in his design
will address you: “Please, my lord.”
A people whose fathers I would despise
to be dogs for my sheep…
His “Song of Strife” and other poems
show that his being a synagogal poet did
not protect him against the hatred of
his co-religionists in Saragossa, who
called him a Greek because of his
secular leanings.
Against all warnings by his patron
Yekutiel, Ibn Gabirol concentrated on
Neoplatonic philosophy, after having
composed a non-offensive collection of
proverbs in Arabic, Mukhtār al-jawāhir
(“Choice of Pearls”), and a more
original, though dated, ethical treatise
(based on contemporary theories of the
human temperaments), also in Arabic,
Kitāb iṣlāḥ al-akhlāq (“The Improvement
of the Moral Qualities”). The latter
contains chapters on pride, meekness,
modesty, and impudence, which are linked
with the sense of sight; and on love,
hate, compassion, and cruelty, linked
with hearing and other senses.
In need of a new patron after the
execution of Yekutiel in 1039 by those
who had murdered his king and taken over
power, Ibn Gabirol secured a position as
a court poet with Samuel ha-Nagid, who,
becoming the leading statesman of
Granada, was in need of the poet’s
prestige. Ibn Gabirol composed widely
resounding poems with a messianic tinge
for Samuel and for Jehoseph (Yūsuf), his
son and later successor in the vizierate
of Granada. All other biographical data
about Ibn Gabirol except his place of
death, Valencia, must be extrapolated
from his poetry.
Poetry
The Jewish subculture of Moorish
Andalusia (southern Spain) was
engendered by the cultural “pressure” of
the Arab peers. Ibn Gabirol’s dual
education, typical for the Jewish
intelligentsia in the larger cities,
must have encompassed both the entire
Hebrew literary heritage—the Bible,
Talmud, and other rabbinic writings and,
in particular, Hebrew linguistics—and
the Arabic, including the Qurʾān, Arabic
secular and religious poetry and
poetics, and the philosophical,
philological, and possibly medical
literature.
His poetry, like that of the entire
contemporary Hebrew school, is modelled
after the Arabic. Metrics, rhyme
systems, and most of the highly
developed imagery follow the Arabic
school, but the biblical language adds a
particular tinge. Many of Ibn Gabirol’s
poems show the influence of the knightly
Arab bard al-Mutanabbī and the
pessimistic Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī.
His secular topics included
exaggerated, Arab-inspired self-praise,
justified by the fame of the child
prodigy; love poems (renouncing yet
keenly articulate); praise of his noble
and learned protectors, together with
scathingly satirical reproach of others;
dirges (the most moving of which are
linked with the execution of the
innocent Yekutiel); wine songs
(sometimes libertine); spring and rain
poems; flower portraits; the agonizingly
realistic description of a skin ailment;
and a long didactic poem on Hebrew
grammar. Ibn Gabirol’s long poetic
description of a castle led to the
discovery of the origins of the first
Alhambra palace, built by the
above-mentioned Jehoseph. Of a very rich
production, about 200 secular poems and
even more religious ones were preserved,
though no collection of his poems
survived. Many manuscript fragments of
the former came to light only recently,
preserved in synagogue attics by his
co-religionists’ respect for the Hebrew
letter. Many of his religious poems were
included in Jewish prayer books
throughout the world.
His religious poems, in particular
the poignant short prayers composed for
the individual, presuppose the high
degree of literacy typical of Moorish
Spain, and they, too, show Arabic
incentive. His famed rhymed prose poem
“Keter malkhut” (“The Crown of the
Kingdom”), a meditation stating the
measurements of the spheres of the
universe, jolts the reader into the
abject feeling of his smallness but,
subsequently, builds him up by a
proclamation of the divine grace.
The following morning meditation
exemplifies his religious poetry:
See me at dawn, my Rock; my Shelter,
when my plight
I state before Thy face likewise again
at night,
Outpouring anguished thought—that Thou
behold’st my heart
and what it contemplates I realise in
fright.
Low though the value beof mind’s and
lip’s tribute
to Thee (accomplishes aught my spirit
with its might?).
Most cherish’st Thou the hymnwe sing
before Thee. Thus,
while Thou support’st my breath, I
praise Thee in Thine height.
Amen.
Philosophy
His Fountain of Life, in five
treatises, is preserved in toto only in
the Latin translation, Fons vitae, with
the author’s name appearing as Avicebron
or Avencebrol; it was re-identified as
Ibn Gabirol’s work by Salomon Munk in
1846. It had little influence upon
Jewish philosophy other than on León
Hebreo (Judah Abrabanel) and Benedict de
Spinoza, but it inspired the Kabbalists,
the adherents of Jewish esoteric
mysticism. Its influence upon Christian
Scholasticism was marked, although it
was attacked by St. Thomas Aquinas for
equating concepts with realities.
Grounded in Plotinus and other
Neoplatonic writers yet also in
Aristotelian logic and metaphysics, Ibn
Gabirol developed a system in which he
introduced the conception of a divine
will, like the Logos (or divine “word”)
of Philo. It is an essential unity of
creativity of and with God, mutually
related like sun and sunlight, which
mediates actively between the
transcendent deity and the cosmos that
God created out of nothingness (to be
understood as the potentiality for
creation). Matter emanates directly from
the deity as a prime matter that
supports all substances and even the
“intelligent” substances, the
sphere-moving powers and angels. This
concept was accepted by the Franciscan
school of Scholastics but rejected by
the Dominicans, including St. Thomas,
for whom form (and only one, not many)
and not matter is the creative
principle. Since matter, according to
Aristotle and Plotinus, “yearns for
formation” and, thus, moving toward the
nearness of God, causes the rotation of
the spheres, the finest matter of the
highest spheres is propelled by the
strongest “yearning,” which issues from
God and returns to him and is active in
man (akin to the last line of Dante’s
Divine Comedy: “The love which moves the
sun and the other stars”).
Yet, the dry treatise does not betray
the passionate quest of the Neoplatonist
author. A philosophical poem, beginning
“That man’s love,” reveals the human
intent. Therein, a disciple asks the
poet-philosopher what importance the
world could have for the deity (to be
understood in Aristotelian terms as a
deity that only contemplates its own
perfection). The poet answers that all
of existence is permeated, though to
different degrees, by the yearning of
matter toward formation, and he declares
that this yearning may give God the
“glory” that the heavens proclaim, as
the Bible teaches.
Frederick P. Bargebuhr
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Moses ibn Ezra
Moses ibn Ezra, (b. c. 1060, Granada,
Spain—d. c. 1139), Hebrew poet and
critic, one of the finest poets of the
golden age of Spanish Jewry (900–1200).
He was one of the first Jewish poets to
write secular verse; his surname,
“ha-Sallaḥ” (Hebrew: Writer of
Penitential Poems), however, was
bestowed because of his penitential
prayers (seliḥot).
Known in Arabic as Abū Hārūn Mūsā, he
belonged to a prominent Hispano-Hebrew
family (his three brothers were eminent
scholars) and was related to the poet
and biblical interpreter Abraham ibn
Ezra. He fell deeply in love with a
niece, the daughter of one of his older
brothers, and she requited his love. His
brother, however, refused his suit,
giving her hand to a younger brother.
This episode affected Ibn Ezra deeply,
not only estranging him from his
brothers and driving him from Granada
but also influencing his subsequent
poetry.
Both his sacred and his secular
poetry are generally considered to be
unsurpassed in mastery of the Hebrew
language and poetic structure and style.
Much of his secular poetry is found in
the cycle Tarshish. In it, he celebrates
love, the pleasures of wine, and the
beauty of birdsong and bemoans
faithlessness and the onset of old age.
His later works were mostly
penitential prayers of an introspective,
melancholy cast; many of them are
included in the liturgy of the Sefardim
(Jews of Spanish or Portuguese descent)
for the New Year and the Day of
Atonement. He also wrote a moving elegy
when his former love died in childbirth.
Ibn Ezra wrote, in Arabic, an
important treatise on the poetic art,
Kitāb al-muḥāḍarah wa al-mudhākarah
(“Conversations and Recollections”;
translated into Hebrew as Shirat
Yisraʾel, or “Song of Israel,” in 1924
by B. Halper). Dealing with Arabic,
Castilian, and Jewish poetry, the work
is an important Spanish literary
history.
Also in Arabic, Ibn Ezra wrote a
philosophical treatise, sections of
which were translated into Hebrew as ʿArugat
ha-bosem (“The Bed of Spices”). It deals
with such problems as the attributes of
God and the microcosmic nature of man
and is largely a compilation of the
thoughts of other philosophers.
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Abraham ibn Ezra
Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, (b.
1092/93, Tudela, Emirate of Saragossa—d.
1167, Calahorra, Spain), poet,
grammarian, traveller, Neoplatonic
philosopher, and astronomer, best known
as a biblical exegete whose commentaries
contributed to the Golden Age of Spanish
Judaism.
As a young man, he lived in Muslim
Spain. Not much is known about his early
life. He was on friendly terms with the
eminent poet and philosopher Judah
ha-Levi, and he travelled to North
Africa and possibly to Egypt. Primarily
known as a scholar and poet up to that
point, in about 1140 Ibn Ezra began a
lifelong series of wanderings throughout
Europe, in the course of which he
produced distinguished works of biblical
exegesis and disseminated biblical lore.
His biblical commentaries include
expositions of the Book of Job, the Book
of Daniel, Psalms, and, most
importantly, a work produced in his old
age, a commentary on the Pentateuch, the
five books of Moses. Although his
exegeses are basically philological, he
inserted enough philosophical remarks to
reveal himself to be a Neoplatonic
pantheist. At the same time, he believed
that God gave form to uncreated, eternal
matter, a concept somewhat at odds with
his Neoplatonic emanations doctrine. Ibn
Ezra, in his departure from orthodox
biblical interpretation (although he
extolled such orthodoxy), is sometimes
held to be a precursor of the great
17th-century philosopher Spinoza. His
commentary on the Pentateuch is
sometimes ranked with the classic
11th-century commentaries by Rashi on
the Talmud, the rabbinic compendium of
law, lore, and commentary.
Ibn Ezra also translated the
Hispano-Hebrew grammarians who had
written in Arabic and wrote grammatical
treatises. He also had a good knowledge
of astronomy and cast horoscopes, and he
believed in numerological mysticism as
well.
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Judah ben Samuel Halevi
Judah ha-Levi, Hebrew in full Yehuda
Ben Shemuel ha-Levi (b. c. 1075, Tudela,
Kingdom of Pamplona [Navarre]—d. July
1141, Egypt), Jewish poet and religious
philosopher. His works were the
culmination of the development of Hebrew
poetry within the Arabic cultural
sphere. Among his major works are the
poems collected in Dīwān, the “Zionide”
poems celebrating Zion, and the Sefer
ha-Kuzari (“Book of the Khazar”),
presenting his philosophy of Judaism in
dialogue form.
Life
Judah ha-Levi was born in the town
of Tudela in northern Spain. At the time
of his birth, most of Spain, including
his native town, was still under Muslim
rule, but the Reconquista, the Christian
sovereigns’ struggle to regain the
territories lost to the Muslims, was
already under way. In 1085 King Alfonso
VI of Castile conquered Toledo and made
it his capital, and the exploits of the
Cid, the celebrated national hero of
Spain, also fall into the same period.
Judah ha-Levi, whose poetic gifts
manifested themselves unusually early,
spent his childhood in the Christian
part of the country, but even as a boy
he felt himself drawn to Muslim Spain,
then one of the principal cultural
centres of Europe.
Judah ha-Levi went to Andalusia in
southern Spain some time before 1090,
where he established contact with local
Hebrew poets and intellectuals, and
justly attracted considerable attention
by his impressive talent. The most
famous Hebrew poet of the time, Moses
ibn Ezra from Granada, invited Judah
ha-Levi to visit him, and the two sealed
a bond of lifelong friendship. His stay
in Granada, enjoyed in the company of
Ibn Ezra, was a period of success and
happiness. He expressed his good spirits
in several poems. This pleasant period
ended in 1090 when Granada was stormed
by the Almoravids, North African Berber
disciples of a zealous Muslim movement,
who now established an orthodox and
intolerant regime in Andalusia. It is
not known with any certainty whether
Judah ha-Levi witnessed the Almoravid
invasion in Granada or elsewhere, but
the event greatly influenced the
remainder of his life and his world
view.
In his youth Judah ha-Levi also spent
time in other Jewish centres of
Andalusia, for example, in Lucena, a
town of predominantly Jewish population
in which a noted yeshiva, or academy for
Jewish theological studies, was located.
He composed a poetic epitaph when Isaac
Alfasi, the head of the institution,
died in 1103 and maintained very
friendly relations with his successor,
Joseph ibn Migash, for whom he even
wrote letters. Judah ha-Levi also spent
a certain amount of time in Sevilla
(Seville), where he was poorly received
by some wealthy Jews, on whom he
revenged himself by denouncing their
greed and ignorance in biting satirical
verses. There are intimations in his
poems that he must once have known
material distress and depended on the
good will of generous patrons.
Judah ha-Levi finally made his way,
however, and became independent.
Disappointed with the Almoravid regime,
he turned toward Christian Castile and
settled in its capital city of Toledo.
There he worked untiringly as a
physician, one of the professions open
to Jews in Christian surroundings, a
profession which in fact brought them
into close contact with those
surroundings.
As a resident of Toledo he celebrated
prominent Castilian Jews in his verses,
particularly the successful courtier
Joseph ibn Ferruziel, better known by
his Hispano-Arabic sobriquet Cidellus,
who distinguished himself as a physician
and adviser to King Alfonso VI. Judah
ha-Levi for a while believed that the
fortunes of his sorely tried people
would flourish in Castile, but his hopes
were destroyed by successive
disappointments. Solomon ibn Ferruziel,
a nephew of Cidellus who was also
actively in the service of the Castilian
state, was to return to Toledo from an
important mission in Aragon. Along the
way he was assassinated by Christian
Spaniards on May 3, 1108. Judah ha-Levi
had already composed a very elaborate
poem to celebrate the reception of the
Jewish statesman, which he had to set
aside. He composed a long official elegy
for the murdered man, ending it with a
curse against the “Daughter of Edom,”
sinful Christianity. Additional acts of
violence were committed against Jews in
Castile, and, still worse, it was often
they who suffered in the clashes between
the Almoravid realm and the Christian
kingdoms in Spain. Distrusted,
plundered, and slain by both sides, it
was as though they were between hammer
and anvil. Judah ha-Levi recognized the
complete hopelessness of their situation
and portrayed it in his poems.
Medieval Jews tried again and again
to decipher the mysterious dates of
their deliverance cited in the Book of
Daniel and sought to apply them to their
own time. Judah ha-Levi’s works contain
a reference to Daniel in a prophetic
poem, in which the poet said that he had
learned in a dream of the impending
collapse of the Muslim empire in 1130.
In the last years of his life he
apparently returned in resignation to
Muslim Spain and lived in Córdoba, which
remained an important centre of Jewish
culture even in the period of decline.
Judah ha-Levi had a very wide circle of
acquaintances and maintained
relationships with many famous
contemporaries in Spain as well as
abroad. He managed to gain a certain
prosperity and lived in his house
surrounded by a loving family and a few
disciples. Yet he was thoroughly
dissatisfied with his life. As old age
approached he felt an increasing need to
travel to Jerusalem, writing about it at
length in verse and prose. The epilogue
of the Kuzari explains his attachment to
Zion and sounds like a farewell to
Spain. Among his many poems celebrating
the Holy Land is “Zionide” (“Ode to
Zion”), his most famous work and the
most widely translated Hebrew poem of
the Middle Ages. He also carried on a
heated controversy in verse with the
opponents of his Zionist ideas.
Judah ha-Levi thought about and
prepared for his journey to the Holy
Land for many years. He was aided by a
good friend, Halfon ha-Levi-Aldamyati, a
very rich and cultivated Egyptian Jew
whose trade relations extended as far as
Yemen and India and who also frequently
visited Spain. Judah ha-Levi left Spain
in 1140. According to his carefully laid
plans, he was first to embark for Egypt
and then to proceed from there via the
land route to Palestine. Aboard ship he
composed a whole series of sea songs,
which in both theme and mood represented
a considerable innovation in Hebrew
literature. His ship entered Alexandria
harbour on May 3, 1140, where he, along
with a large Jewish party, was
splendidly received. He was lodged in
the magnificent home of Aaron ibn al-ʿAmmānī,
a noted Jewish physician and judge, and
stayed in Egypt for several months. Many
prominent Jews of the country came to
admire him and to make his acquaintance,
and he acquired many friends. From
Alexandria he went to Cairo, or Fustat,
the city where lived Samuel ben Hananiah,
the Nagid, or head, of all Egyptian
Jews, and there he was further
acclaimed. Judah ha-Levi felt deep awe
and humility in the land in which some
of the biblical miracles had occurred
and at the same time a kind of delight
in all the beauties that revealed
themselves to him. It seemed to him that
his youth was restored; creative forces
stirred within him, and he wrote
prolifically and easily. But he
certainly always bore in mind his sacred
destination and was often disturbed by
the thought that death might yet
intervene.
Judah ha-Levi did not in fact go
beyond Egypt, although it is not known
what detained him there. He died in 1141
and was deeply mourned in Egypt. His
death was romantically embellished in a
legend that arose much later, according
to which he was slain by a hostile
Muslim just as he had arrived in Zion
and was reciting his famous “Zionide.”
The legend found wide circulation and
was repeated in detail by two well-known
19th-century poets, in German by
Heinrich Heine in the Romanzero of 1851
and in Hebrew by Micah Judah Lebensohn
in Rabbi Yehudah ha-Levi in 1869.
Writings
Judah ha-Levi was strongly
influenced by Arabian literature,
elements of which he ingeniously
assimilated. His great collection of
poems entitled Dīwān includes secular
and religious poetry, both of which
express passionate attachment to Zion
(the land of Israel). For the poet, the
Holy Land was not only a site where the
Jewish people would one day gather after
their deliverance from exile;
immigration and settlement in Palestine
would also hasten the coming of the
Messiah. He celebrated Jerusalem in song
as had none of his medieval
predecessors. He also expounded his
views on the nature of Judaism in an
Arabic prose work consisting of
dialogues between a learned Jew and the
Khazar king who was converted to Judaism
in the 8th century. It was widely
circulated in Hebrew translation under
the title Sefer ha-Kuzari.
Jefim H. Schirmann
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Judah ben Solomon
Harizi
Judah ben Solomon Harizi, (b. c. 1170,
Spain—d. c. 1235), man of letters, last
representative of the golden age of
Spanish Hebrew poetry. He wandered
through Provence and also the Middle
East, translating Arabic poetry and
scientific works into Hebrew.
His version of the Guide of the
Perplexed of Maimonides is more artistic
if less accurate than that of Ibn Tibbon.
His skillful adaptation of the difficult
Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī, under the title
Mahberot Ithi’el, encouraged him to
compose original Hebrew maqāmahs
entitled the Tahkemoni, on which his
fame primarily rests. His writing is
characterized by its rich vocabulary and
remarkable linguistic dexterity.
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David Kimhi
David Kimhi, Kimhi also spelled Kimchi,
Kimḥi, or Qimḥi, byname Radak (acronym
of Rabbi David Kimhi), also called
Maistre Petit (b. c. 1160, Narbonne?,
Toulouse, France—d. c. 1235, Narbonne?),
European scholar of the Hebrew language
whose writings on Hebrew lexicography
and grammar became standard works in the
Middle Ages and whose reputation
eclipsed that of both his father, Joseph
Kimhi, and his brother, Moses, a
grammarian.
As a boy David Kimhi learned his
father’s teachings under the tutelage of
his brother and then began to support
himself by teaching children the Talmud,
the body of Jewish tradition. His own
great work, the Sefer mikhlol (“Book of
Completeness”), was originally intended
to comprise a grammar and a lexicon of
the Hebrew language. The latter,
however, appeared as a separate work,
Sefer ha-shorashim (“Book of the
Roots”). (The grammar, edited and
translated by William Chomsky, was
published in 1933; 2nd ed. 1952.) His
work differed from previous grammars in
its comprehensive treatment of verbs and
covered all the rules of conjugation,
punctuation, and accent. Distinguished
also by conciseness and clarity, it
became the leading grammar for
centuries. The lexicon enjoyed a
comparable popularity, and, though based
largely on the dictionary of Ibn Janāḥ
and the writings of Joseph Kimhi, it
remains an original work. Kimhi
introduced many new etymologies, made
comparisons of Hebrew and Aramaic and of
Hebrew and Provençal, and included
exegetical notes on the biblical
contexts of word roots. Another work, ʿEṭ
sofer (“Pen of the Scribe”), was a
manual covering the rules of punctuation
and accent for biblical manuscripts.
David Kimhi was also the most
important biblical exegete of his
family. The importance of his
commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, and
other Old Testament books is underscored
by their presence, second to those of
the great medieval commentator Rashi, in
the first printed editions of the Hebrew
Bible. (The commentaries were edited and
translated into English by various hands
and published in 1919–35 as part of
Columbia University Oriental Studies.) A
staunch supporter of the great Jewish
philosopher Maimonides, Kimhi was also
extremely skilled in refuting Christian
attacks on Judaism and Jews.
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Ibn Janāh
Ibn Janāḥ, also called Ibn Jonah, Abu
Al-walīd Marwān, bynames Rabbi Jonah and
Rabbi Marinus (b. c. 990, Córdoba—d. c.
1050, Zaragoza, Spain), perhaps the most
important medieval Hebrew grammarian and
lexicographer. Known as the founder of
the study of Hebrew syntax, he
established the rules of biblical
exegesis and clarified many difficult
passages.
Trained as a physician, Ibn Janāh
practiced medicine, but, out of profound
religious conviction, he also devoted
much time to the scientific
investigation of Hebrew so as to place
biblical exegesis on a firm linguistic
basis. His first work, al-Mustalha (“The
Complement”), like his other works, was
written in Arabic. It was a criticism of
and a supplement to the verb studies of
Judah ben David Ḥayyuj, the founder of
scientific Hebrew grammar.
The critical aspect of Ibn Janāḥ’s
study embroiled him in a long and bitter
dispute with the partisans of Ḥayyuj.
Though his polemics against them have
been lost, their substance has been
preserved in his principal work, Kitāb
at-tanqiḥ (“Book of Exact
Investigation”). In the first of its two
parts, Kitāb al-luma (“Book of the Many-Coloured
Flower Beds”), Ibn Janāḥ dealt in large
measure with grammar proper and included
discussions of parts of speech and
prefixes and provided a detailed outline
of noun declensions. Particularly
important was the section on syntax,
which has scarcely been surpassed.
The second part of the Tanqiḥ, Kiṭāb
al-uṣūl (“Book of the Roots”), is a
Hebrew lexicon in which Ibn Janāḥ showed
the nuances of word roots and
illustrated them with examples. He made
extensive comparisons of Hebrew and
Arabic and thereby managed to clarify
the meaning of many words. His comments
facilitated the exegesis of many
abstruse biblical passages, and the
origin of various corrections by modern
textual critics can be found in his
work.
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Isaac ben Solomon Israeli
Isaac ben Solomon Israeli, Arabic Abū
Ya-ʿqūb Isḥaq Ibn Sulaymān Al-isrāʾīlī,
also called Isaac Israeli, or Isaac The
Elder (b. 832/855, Egypt—d. 932/955, Al-Qayrawān,
Tunisia), Jewish physician and
philosopher, widely reputed in the
European Middle Ages for his scientific
writings and regarded as the father of
medieval Jewish Neoplatonism. Although
there is considerable disagreement about
his birth and death dates, he is known
to have lived more than 100 years and
never to have married or to have had
children.
Israeli first gained note as an
oculist, maintaining a practice near
Cairo until about 904, when he became
court physician in Al-Qayrawān to the
last Aghlabid prince, Ziyādat Allāh. He
also studied medicine there under Isḥāq
ibn ʿAmrān al-Baghdādī, with whom he
sometimes has been confused.
Some five years after his arrival,
Israeli entered into the service of al-Mahdī,
the founder of the North African Fāṭimid
dynasty (909–1171), whose capital was
Al-Qayrawān. At the request of the
caliph, Israeli wrote eight medical
works in Arabic. All were translated
into Latin in 1087 by the monk
Constantine, who claimed to have written
them himself. Not until 1515 was their
true authorship uncovered, and the works
were republished in Lyon under the title
Omnia Isaac Opera (“All of Isaac’s
Works”); the editor, however, mistakenly
included the writings of other medical
scholars as well. Israeli’s scientific
works include standard treatises on
fevers, urine, pharmacology,
ophthalmology, and ailments and
treatments. He wrote also on logic and
psychology, showing particular insight
in the field of perception.
Of his philosophical writings, Kitāb
al-ḥudūd (Hebrew: Sefer ha-gevulim, “The
Book of Definitions”) is best known.
Beginning with a discussion of
Aristotle’s four types of inquiry,
Israeli goes on to present 56
definitions, including definitions of
wisdom, intellect, soul, nature, reason,
love, locomotion, and time. Others of
his philosophical works include Sefer
ha-ruʾaḥ ve-ha-nefesh (“Treatise on
Spirit and Soul”), probably part of a
larger exegetical effort, and Kitāb al-jawāhir
(“Book of Substances”).
Israeli’s thought was influenced
heavily by two major sources: the great
9th-century Islāmic philosopher al-Kindī
and a lost pseudo-Aristotelian treatise
on such matters as the source of being,
the nature of the intellect, and the
course of the soul. Israeli’s
interpretation of eschatological matters
in the light of Neoplatonic mysticism
was to influence Solomon ibn Gabriol in
the 10th century and other later Jewish
philosophers.
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Abraham bar Hiyya
Abraham bar Hiyya, also called
Abraham Bar Hiyya Ha-nasi (Hebrew: “the
Prince”) (b. c. 1065—d. c. 1136),
Spanish Jewish philosopher, astronomer,
astrologer, and mathematician whose
writings were among the first scientific
and philosophical works to be written in
Hebrew. He is sometimes known as
Savasorda, a corruption of an Arabic
term indicating that he held some civic
office in the Muslim administration of
Barcelona.
In addition to translating scientific
books from Arabic into Latin and Hebrew,
Abraham also wrote a number of original
works, among them a scientific
encyclopaedia (the first in the Hebrew
language) and a book on mathematics,
Ḥibbur ha-Meshiḥah ve-ha-Tishboret
(“Treatise on Measurement and
Calculation”), which, in its Latin
translation, Liber Embadorum (1145),
became a principal textbook in western
European schools. Other notable works by
Abraham include the philosophical
treatise Hegyon ha-Nefesh ha-Aẓuva
(Meditation of the Sad Soul), which
dealt with the nature of good and evil,
ethical conduct, and repentance; and
Megillat ha-Megalleh (“Scroll of the
Revealer”), in which he outlined his
view of history, based on astrology and
purporting to forecast the messianic
future.
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The period of retrenchment, 1200–1750
Hebrew culture in western Europe
From 1200 to 1750
was the era of the ghetto, during which the area of
western European Hebrew culture shrank to a remnant
in Italy, while an entirely different culture arose
in eastern Europe. The appearance in 1200 of the
Hebrew version, translated from Arabic, of Moses
Maimonides’ Moreh Nevukhim (1851–85; The Guide of
the Perplexed), which applied Neoplatonic and
Aristotelian philosophy to biblical and rabbinic
theology, provoked orthodox circles into opposition
to all secular studies. As a result of Maimonides’
work, there was a return to Neoplatonist mysticism
in a form known as Kabbala. This culminated in the
theosophy of the Zohar (1560; “The Book of
Splendor”), which is ascribed to Moses de Leon and
which exercised an influence comparable only with
that of the Bible and Talmud. Hebrew culture,
however, was reduced to a miniature scale in the
West after the expulsion of the Jews from England
(1290), from France (1306), and from Spain (1492).
It continued in Italy, where it remained in contact
with contemporary Christian thought. The most
outstanding figure was the mystical philosopher
Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, who wrote a work on poetics
and three remarkably modern plays.
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Moses
Maimonides
Moses Maimonides, original name Moses
Ben Maimon, also called Rambam, Arabic
name Abū ʿImran Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd
Allāh (b. March 30, 1135, Córdoba
[Spain]—d. Dec. 13, 1204, Egypt), Jewish
philosopher, jurist, and physician, the
foremost intellectual figure of medieval
Judaism. His first major work, begun at
age 23 and completed 10 years later, was
a commentary on the Mishna, the
collected Jewish oral laws. A monumental
code of Jewish law followed in Hebrew,
The Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic,
and numerous other works, many of major
importance. His contributions in
religion, philosophy, and medicine have
influenced Jewish and non-Jewish
scholars alike.
Life
Maimonides was born into a
distinguished family in Córdoba
(Cordova), Spain. The young Moses
studied with his learned father, Maimon,
and other masters and at an early age
astonished his teachers by his
remarkable depth and versatility. Before
Moses reached his 13th birthday, his
peaceful world was suddenly disturbed by
the ravages of war and persecution.
As part of Islamic Spain, Córdoba had
accorded its citizens full religious
freedom. But now the Islamic
Mediterranean world was shaken by a
revolutionary and fanatical Islamic
sect, the Almohads (Arabic: al-Muwaḥḥidūn,
“the Unitarians”), who captured Córdoba
in 1148, leaving the Jewish community
faced with the grim alternative of
submitting to Islam or leaving the city.
The Maimons temporized by practicing
their Judaism in the privacy of their
homes, while disguising their ways in
public as far as possible to appear like
Muslims. They remained in Córdoba for
some 11 years, and Maimonides continued
his education in Judaic studies as well
as in the scientific disciplines in
vogue at the time.
When the double life proved too
irksome to maintain in Córdoba, the
Maimon family finally left the city
about 1159 to settle in Fez, Morocco.
Although it was also under Almohad rule,
Fez was presumably more promising than
Córdoba because there the Maimons would
be strangers, and their disguise would
be more likely to go undetected. Moses
continued his studies in his favourite
subjects, rabbinics and Greek
philosophy, and added medicine to them.
Fez proved to be no more than a short
respite, however. In 1165 Rabbi Judah
ibn Shoshan, with whom Moses had
studied, was arrested as a practicing
Jew and was found guilty and then
executed. This was a sign to the Maimon
family to move again, this time to
Palestine, which was in a depressed
economic state and could not offer them
the basis of a livelihood. After a few
months they moved again, now to Egypt,
settling in Fostat, near Cairo. There
Jews were free to practice their faith
openly, though any Jew who had once
submitted to Islam courted death if he
relapsed to Judaism. Moses himself was
once accused of being a renegade Muslim,
but he was able to prove that he had
never really adopted the faith of Islam
and so was exonerated.
Though Egypt was a haven from
harassment and persecution, Moses was
soon assailed by personal problems. His
father died shortly after the family’s
arrival in Egypt. His younger brother,
David, a prosperous jewelry merchant on
whom Moses leaned for support, died in a
shipwreck, taking the entire family
fortune with him, and Moses was left as
the sole support of his family. He could
not turn to the rabbinate because in
those days the rabbinate was conceived
of as a public service that did not
offer its practitioners any
remuneration. Pressed by economic
necessity, Moses took advantage of his
medical studies and became a practicing
physician. His fame as a physician
spread rapidly, and he soon became the
court physician to the sultan Saladin,
the famous Muslim military leader, and
to his son al-Afḍal. He also continued a
private practice and lectured before his
fellow physicians at the state hospital.
At the same time he became the leading
member of the Jewish community, teaching
in public and helping his people with
various personal and communal problems.
Maimonides married late in life and
was the father of a son, Abraham, who
was to make his mark in his own right in
the world of Jewish scholarship.
Works
The writings of Maimonides were
numerous and varied. His earliest work,
composed in Arabic at the age of 16, was
the Millot ha-Higgayon (“Treatise on
Logical Terminology”), a study of
various technical terms that were
employed in logic and metaphysics.
Another of his early works, also in
Arabic, was the “Essay on the Calendar”
(Hebrew title: Maʾamar haʿibur).
The first of Maimonides’ major works,
begun at the age of 23, was his
commentary on the Mishna, Kitāb al-Sirāj,
also written in Arabic. The Mishna is a
compendium of decisions in Jewish law
that dates from earliest times to the
3rd century. Maimonides’ commentary
clarified individual words and phrases,
frequently citing relevant information
in archaeology, theology, or science.
Possibly the work’s most striking
feature is a series of introductory
essays dealing with general philosophic
issues touched on in the Mishna. One of
these essays summarizes the teachings of
Judaism in a creed of Thirteen Articles
of Faith.
He completed the commentary on the
Mishna at the age of 33, after which he
began his magnum opus, the code of
Jewish law, on which he also laboured
for 10 years. Bearing the name of Mishne
Torah (“The Torah Reviewed”) and written
in a lucid Hebrew style, the code offers
a brilliant systematization of all
Jewish law and doctrine. He wrote two
other works in Jewish law of lesser
scope: the Sefer ha-mitzwot (Book of
Precepts), a digest of law for the less
sophisticated reader, written in Arabic;
and the Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi (“Laws of
Jerusalem”), a digest of the laws in the
Palestinian Talmud, written in Hebrew.
His next major work, which he began
in 1176 and on which he laboured for 15
years, was his classic in religious
philosophy, the Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn (The
Guide for the Perplexed), later known
under its Hebrew title as the Moreh
nevukhim. A plea for what he called a
more rational philosophy of Judaism, it
constituted a major contribution to the
accommodation between science,
philosophy, and religion. It was written
in Arabic and sent as a private
communication to his favourite disciple,
Joseph ibn Aknin. The work was
translated into Hebrew in Maimonides’
lifetime and later into Latin and most
European languages. It has exerted a
marked influence on the history of
religious thought.
Maimonides also wrote a number of
minor works, occasional essays dealing
with current problems that faced the
Jewish community, and he maintained an
extensive correspondence with scholars,
students, and community leaders. Among
his minor works those considered to be
most important are Iggert Teman (Epistle
to Yemen), Iggeret ha-shemad or Maʾamar
Qiddush ha-Shem (“Letter on Apostasy”),
and Iggeret le-qahal Marsilia (“Letter
on Astrology,” or, literally, “Letter to
the Community of Marseille”). He also
wrote a number of works dealing with
medicine, including a popular miscellany
of health rules, which he dedicated to
the sultan, al-Afḍal. A mid-20th-century
historian, Waldemar Schweisheimer, has
said of Maimonides’ medical writings:
“Maimonides’ medical teachings are not
antiquated at all. His writings, in
fact, are in some respects astonishingly
modern in tone and contents.”
Maimonides complained often that the
pressures of his many duties robbed him
of peace and undermined his health. He
died in 1204 and was buried in Tiberias,
in the Holy Land, where his grave
continues to be a shrine drawing a
constant stream of pious pilgrims.
Significance
Maimonides’ advanced views aroused
opposition during his lifetime and after
his death. In 1233 one zealot, Rabbi
Solomon of Montpellier, in southern
France, instigated the church
authorities to burn The Guide for the
Perplexed as a dangerously heretical
book. But the controversy abated after
some time, and Maimonides came to be
recognized as a pillar of the
traditional faith—his creed became part
of the orthodox liturgy—as well as the
greatest of the Jewish philosophers.
Maimonides’ epoch-making influence on
Judaism extended also to the larger
world. His philosophic work, translated
into Latin, influenced the great
medieval Scholastic writers, and even
later thinkers, such as Benedict de
Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz, found in his
work a source for some of their ideas.
His medical writings constitute a
significant chapter in the history of
medical science.
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Moses de Leon
Moses , original name Moses Ben Shem
Tov (b. 1250, León [Spain]—d. 1305,
Arevalo), Jewish Kabbalist and
presumably the author of the Sefer ha-Zohar
(“Book of Splendour”), the most
important work of Jewish mysticism; for
a number of centuries its influence
among Jews rivaled that of the Old
Testament and the Talmud, the rabbinical
compendium of law, lore, and commentary.
The details of Moses de León’s life,
like those of most Jewish mystics, are
obscure. Until 1290 he lived in
Guadalajara (the Spanish centre of
adherents of the Kabbala). He then
traveled a great deal and finally
settled in Ávila. On a trip to
Valladolid, he met a Palestinian
Kabbalist, Isaac ben Samuel of Acre; to
him (as recorded in Isaac’s diary),
Moses confided that he possessed the
centuries-old, original manuscript of
the Zohar, copies of which he had been
circulating since the 1280s. He promised
to show it to Isaac at his home in
Ávila. Because the authorship of the
Zohar was ascribed to the 2nd-century
Palestinian rabbinic teacher Simeon ben
Yoḥai (a reputed worker of miracles),
the original manuscript would have been
of incomparable interest and value.
Unfortunately, Moses died before he
could fulfill his promise, and Isaac
subsequently heard rumours that Moses’
wife had denied the existence of this
manuscript, claiming rather that Moses
himself was the author of the Zohar.
The Zohar, written for the most part
in a strange, artificial, literary
Aramaic, is primarily a series of
mystical commentaries on the Pentateuch
(the Five Books of Moses), in manner
much like the traditional Midrashim, or
homilies based on Scripture. Against the
backdrop of an imaginary Palestine,
Simeon ben Yoḥai and his disciples carry
on a series of dialogues. In them, it is
revealed that God manifested himself in
a series of 10 descending emanations, or
sefirot (e.g., “love” of God, “beauty”
of God, and “kingdom” of God). In
addition to the influence of
Neoplatonism, the Zohar also shows
evidence of the influence of Joseph
Gikatilla, a medieval Spanish Kabbalist
thought to have been a friend of Moses
de León. Gikatilla’s work Ginnat egoz
(“Nut Orchard”) provides some of the
Zohar’s key terminology.
These influences, although cunningly
disguised, were discerned by Gershom
Scholem, one of the great 20th-century
scholars of Jewish mysticism, and he
became convinced that the Zohar was a
medieval work. He was able to
demonstrate, further, that the Aramaic
in which the Zohar is written is, in
both vocabulary and idiom, the work of
an author whose native language was
Hebrew. Finally, by comparing the Zohar
with the Hebrew works of Moses de León,
Scholem identified León as the Zohar’s
author. Scholem theorized that the Zohar
was León’s attempt to combat the rise of
rationalism among Spanish Jewry and the
resultant laxity in religious
observance. With the Zohar, according to
Scholem, Moses de León attempted to
reassert the authority of traditional
religion (Kabbala itself means
“tradition”) by simultaneously giving
its doctrines and rituals a fresh,
compelling reinterpretation and
ascribing this reinterpretation to an
old, mythically revered authority. Many
traditional scholars, nevertheless,
still hold that Simeon ben Yoḥai wrote
the Zohar.
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Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto
Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, (b.
1707, Padua, Venetian republic
[Italy]—d. May 6, 1747, Acre, Palestine
[now ʿAkko, Israel]), Jewish cabalist
and writer, one of the founders of
modern Hebrew poetry.
Luzzatto wrote lyrics and about 1727
the drama Migdal ʿoz (“Tower of
Victory”), but he early turned to
cabalist studies, eventually becoming
convinced that he was receiving divine
revelation and, finally, that he was the
Messiah. After being expelled by the
Italian rabbis, he moved to Amsterdam
(1736), where he wrote his morality play
La-yesharim tehilah (Praise for
Uprightness) and an ethical work,
Mesilat yesharim (1740; The Path of the
Upright), which still ranks as a
classic.
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Eastern Europe and the religious crisis
In the
kingdom of Poland (which then extended from
Lithuania to the Black Sea) refugees from German
persecution mingled with earlier Byzantine émigrés
to create, by the 15th century, a prosperous Jewry
with extensive autonomy. Their culture was not a
continuation of western European Hebrew civilization
but a new creation. The Bible (except for the
Pentateuch) was neglected, while the Babylonian
Talmud—hitherto studied only by specialists—became
the basis of all intellectual life, particularly
since the so-called pilpul method of Jacob Pollak
had turned its study into an exciting form of mental
gymnastics. The typical literature consisted of
novellae (hiddushim), ingenious discussions of
Talmudic minutiae written in an ungrammatical
mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Imaginative
literature existed only in Yiddish, for women and
the uneducated.
The expulsion from Spain produced a wave of
messianic emotion. Kabbala flourished in Safad, the
new Palestinian centre, the meeting place of
Spanish, European, and Oriental Jews. There, in
1570–72, Isaac Luria created a cosmic messianism.
Though its formulation, in the writings of his pupil
Hayyim Vital, was abstruse and esoteric, its
phraseology penetrated the widest masses, as a
result of the introduction of Kabbalist prayers, and
coloured all later Hebrew writing. Luria’s teachings
were developed by the false messiah Sabbatai Zebi in
the next century, for and against whom a vast
literature was written.
The sufferings of Polish Jewry in the Cossack
massacres of 1648—described in a long poem by the
Talmudist Yom Tov Lipmann Heller—opened their
country to Lurianic mysticism. Out of popular
Kabbalist elements, Israel ben Eliezer, called the
Ba'al Shem Tov, produced Ḥasidism. His teaching,
like that of his successors, was oral and, of
course, in Yiddish; but it was noted by disciples in
a simple, colloquially flavoured Hebrew. Since they
taught mainly through parables, this may be
considered to mark the beginning of the Hebrew short
story. Indeed these narratives exercised, and still
exercise, a profound influence on modern Hebrew
writers.
Isaac ben Solomon Luria
Isaac ben Solomon Luria, byname Ha-ari
(Hebrew: The Lion) (b. 1534, Jerusalem,
Palestine, Ottoman Empire—d. August 5,
1572, Safed, Syria [now Zefat, Israel]),
eponymous founder of the Lurianic school
of Kabbala (Jewish esoteric mysticism).
Luria’s youth was spent in Egypt,
where he became versed in rabbinic
studies, engaged in commerce, and
eventually concentrated on study of the
Zohar, the central work of Kabbala. In
1570 he went to Safed in Galilee, where
he studied under Moses ben Jacob
Cordovero, the greatest Kabbalist of the
time, and developed his own Kabbalistic
system. Although he wrote few works
beyond three famous hymns, Luria’s
doctrines were recorded by his pupil
Ḥayyim Vital, who presented them in a
voluminous posthumous collection.
Luria’s father was an Ashkenazi (a
German or Polish Jew), while his mother
was a Sephardi (of Iberian-North African
Jewish stock). Legend has it that the
prophet Elijah appeared to his father
and foretold the birth of the son, whose
name was to be Isaac. As a child, Luria
was described as a young genius, “a
Torah scholar who could silence all
opponents by the power of his
arguments,” and also as possessed of
divine inspiration.
The main source for his life story is
an anonymous biography, Toledot ha-Ari
(“Life of the Ari”), written or perhaps
edited some 20 years after his death, in
which factual and legendary elements are
indiscriminately mingled. According to
the Toledot, Luria’s father died while
Isaac was a child, and his mother took
him to Egypt to live with her well-to-do
family. While there, he became versed in
rabbinic studies, including Halakha
(Jewish law), and even wrote glosses on
a famous compendium of legal
discussions, the Sefer ha-Halakhot of
Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi. He also engaged
in commerce during this period.
While still a youth, Luria began the
study of Jewish mystical learning and
lived for nearly seven years in
seclusion at his uncle’s home on an
island in the Nile River. His studies
concentrated on the Zohar (late
13th–early 14th century), the central
and revered work of the Kabbala, but he
also studied the early Kabbalists
(12th–13th century). The greatest
Kabbalist of Luria’s time was Moses ben
Jacob Cordovero of Safed (modern Ẕefat),
in Palestine, whose work Luria studied
while still in Egypt. During this period
he wrote a commentary on the Sifra
di-tzeniʿuta (“Book of Concealment”), a
section of the Zohar. The commentary
still shows the influence of classical
Kabbala and contains nothing of what
would later be called Lurianic Kabbala.
Early in 1570 Luria journeyed to
Safed, the mountain town in the Galilee
that had become a centre of the
Kabbalistic movement, and he studied
there with Cordovero. At the same time,
he began to teach Kabbala according to a
new system and attracted many pupils.
The greatest of these was Ḥayyim Vital,
who later set Luria’s teachings down in
writing. Luria apparently expounded his
teachings only in esoteric circles; not
everyone was allowed to take part in
these studies. While he devoted most of
his time to the instruction of his
pupils, he probably made his living in
trade, which prospered at that time in
Safed, situated as it was at the
crossroads between Egypt and Damascus.
At the time of Luria’s arrival in
Safed, the group of Kabbalists gathered
there around Cordovero had already
developed a unique style of living and
observed special rituals, going out, for
instance, into the fields to welcome the
sabbath, personified as the Sabbath
Queen. With Luria’s arrival, new
elements were added to these excursions,
such as communion with the souls of the
zaddikim (men of outstanding piety) by
means of special kawwanot (ritual
meditations) and yiḥudim
(“unifications”) that were in essence a
kind of lesser redemption whereby the
souls were lifted up from the kelipot
(“shells”; i.e., the impure, evil forms)
into which they were banned until the
coming of the Messiah.
The strong influence of Luria’s
personality helped to bring about in
Safed an atmosphere of spiritual
intensity, messianic tension, and the
fever of creation that accompanies the
sense of a great revelation. Deep
devoutness, asceticism, and withdrawal
from the world marked the Kabbalists’
way of life. Luria apparently looked
upon himself as the Messiah ben Joseph,
the first of the two messiahs in Jewish
tradition, who is fated to be killed in
the wars (of Gog and Magog) that will
precede the final redemption. In Safed
there was an expectation (based on the
Zohar) that the Messiah would appear in
Galilee in the year 1575.
Even though he did not distinguish
himself as a writer, as is evident from
his own remarks about the difficulty of
writing, Luria composed three hymns that
became widely known and part of the
cultural heritage of the Jewish people.
These are hymns for the three sabbath
meals, which became part of the
Sephardic sabbath ritual and were
printed in many prayer books. The three
meals were linked by means of mystical
“intention” or meditation (kawwana) to
three partzufim (aspects of the
Godhead). The hymns are known as “Azamer
be-she-vaḥim” (“I Will Sing on the
Praises”), “Asader seʿudata” (“I Will
Order the Festive Meal”), and “Bene hekh-ala
de-khesifin” (“Sons of the Temple of
Silver”). They are mystical, erotic
songs about “the adornment (or fitting)
of the bride”—i.e., the sabbath, who was
identified with the community of
Israel—and on the other partzufim: arikh
anpin (the long-suffering: the
countenance of grace) and zeʿir anpin
(the impatient: the countenance of
judgment).
During his brief sojourn in Safed—a
scant two years before his death—Luria
managed to construct a many-faceted and
fertile Kabbalistic system from which
many new elements in Jewish mysticism
drew their nourishment. He set down
almost none of his doctrine in writing,
with the exception of a short text that
seems to be only a fragment: his
commentary on the first chapter of the
Zohar—“Be-resh hormanuta de-malka”—as
well as commentaries on isolated
passages of the Zohar that were
collected by Ḥayyim Vital, who attests
to their being in his teacher’s own
hand. Luria died in an epidemic that
struck Safed in August 1572.
What is called Lurianic Kabbala is a
voluminous collection of Luria’s
Kabbalistic doctrines, recorded after
his death by Ḥayyim Vital and appearing
in two versions under different
editorship. Because of this work,
Lurianic Kabbala became the new thought
that influenced all Jewish mysticism
after Luria, competing with the Kabbala
of Cordovero. Vital laboured much to
give Lurianic Kabbala its form as well
as to win legitimization for it.
Lurianic Kabbala propounds a theory
of the creation and subsequent
degeneration of the world and a
practical method of restoring the
original harmony. The theory is based on
three concepts: tzimtzum (“contraction,”
or “withdrawal”), shevirat ha-kelim
(“breaking of the vessels”), and tiqqun
(“restoration”). God as the Infinite (En
Sof) withdraws into himself in order to
make room for the creation, which occurs
by a beam of light from the Infinite
into the newly provided space. Later the
divine light is enclosed in finite
“vessels,” most of which break under the
strain, and the catastrophe of the
“breaking of the vessels” occurs,
whereby disharmony and evil enter the
world. Hence comes the struggle to rid
the world of evil and accomplish the
redemption of both the cosmos and
history. This event occurs in the stage
of tiqqun, in which the divine realm
itself is reconstructed, the divine
sparks returned to their source, and
Adam Qadmon, the symbolic “primordial
man,” who is the highest configuration
of the divine light, is rebuilt. Man
plays an important role in this process
through various kawwanot used during
prayer and through mystical intentions
involving secret combinations of words,
all of which is directed toward the
restoration of the primordial harmony
and the reunification of the divine
name.
The influence of Luria’s Kabbala was
far-reaching. It played an important
role in the movement of the false
messiah Shabbetai Tzevi in the 17th
century and in the popular Ḥasidic
(mystical-pietistic) movement a century
later.
Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer
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Hayyim ben Joseph Vital
Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, (b. 1543, Safed,
Palestine [now Ẕefat, Israel]—d. May 6,
1620, Damascus [now in Syria]), one of
Judaism’s outstanding Kabbalists
(expounder of Jewish esoteric or occult
doctrine).
In Safed, Palestine, in about 1570,
Vital became the disciple of Isaac ben
Solomon Luria, the leading Kabbalist of
his time, and after Luria’s death (1572)
Vital professed to be the sole
interpreter of the Lurian school. He
became the leader of Palestinian Jewish
Kabbalism and served as rabbi and head
of a yeshiva (school of advanced Jewish
learning) in Jerusalem (1577–85). His
major work was the ʿEtz ḥayyim (“Tree of
Life”), a detailed exposition of Lurian
Kabbala, which also appeared in altered
editions by rivals that he repudiated.
His son Samuel published accounts of
Vital’s dreams and visions posthumously
under the title Shivḥe R. Ḥayyim Vital.
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Sabbatai Zebi
Shabbetai Tzevi, also spelled Sabbatai
Zebi, or Zevi (b. July 23, 1626, Smyrna,
Ottoman Turkey [now İzmir, Tur.]—d.
1676, Dulcigno, Alb.), a false messiah
who developed a mass following and
threatened rabbinical authority in
Europe and the Middle East.
As a young man, Shabbetai steeped
himself in the influential body of
Jewish mystical writings known as the
Kabbala. His extended periods of ecstasy
and his strong personality combined to
attract many disciples, and at the age
of 22 he proclaimed himself the messiah.
Driven from Smyrna by the aroused
rabbinate, he journeyed to Salonika (now
Thessaloníki), an old Kabbalistic
centre, and then to Constantinople (now
Istanbul). There he encountered an
esteemed and forceful Jewish preacher
and Kabbalist, Abraham ha-Yakini, who
possessed a false prophetic document
affirming that Shabbetai was the
messiah. Shabbetai then traveled to
Palestine and after that to Cairo, where
he won over to his cause Raphael Halebi,
the wealthy and powerful treasurer of
the Turkish governor.
With a retinue of believers and
assured of financial backing, Shabbetai
triumphantly returned to Jerusalem.
There, a 20-year-old student known as
Nathan of Gaza assumed the role of a
modern Elijah, in his traditional role
of forerunner of the messiah. Nathan
ecstatically prophesied the imminent
restoration of Israel and world
salvation through the bloodless victory
of Shabbetai, riding on a lion with a
seven-headed dragon in his jaws. In
accordance with millenarian belief, he
cited 1666 as the apocalyptic year.
Threatened with excommunication by
the rabbis of Jerusalem, Shabbetai
returned to Smyrna in the autumn of
1665, where he was wildly acclaimed. His
movement spread to Venice, Amsterdam,
Hamburg, London, and several other
European and North African cities.
At the beginning of 1666, Shabbetai
went to Constantinople and was
imprisoned on his arrival. After a few
months, he was transferred to the castle
at Abydos, which became known to his
followers as Migdal Oz, the Tower of
Strength. In September, however, he was
brought before the sultan in Adrianople
and, having been previously threatened
with torture, became converted to Islām.
The placated sultan renamed him Mehmed
Efendi, appointed him his personal
doorkeeper, and provided him with a
generous allowance. All but his most
faithful or self-seeking disciples were
disillusioned by his apostasy.
Eventually, Shabbetai fell out of favour
and was banished, dying in Albania.
The movement that developed around
Shabbetai Tzevi became known as
Shabbetaianism. It attempted to
reconcile Shabbetai’s grandiose claims
of spiritual authority with his
subsequent seeming betrayal of the
Jewish faith. Faithful Shabbetaians
interpreted Shabbetai’s apostasy as a
step toward ultimate fulfillment of his
messiahship and attempted to follow
their leader’s example. They argued that
such outward acts were irrelevant as
long as one remains inwardly a Jew.
Those who embraced the theory of “sacred
sin” believed that the Torah could be
fulfilled only by amoral acts
representing its seeming annulment.
Others felt they could remain faithful
Shabbetaians without having to
apostatize.
After Shabbetai’s death in 1676, the
sect continued to flourish. The
nihilistic tendencies of Shabbetaianism
reached a peak in the 18th century with
Jacob Frank, whose followers reputedly
sought redemption through orgies at
mystical festivals.
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Yom Tov Lipmann Heller
Yom Ṭov Lipmann ben Nathan ha-Levi
Heller, (b. 1579, Wallerstein, Bavaria
[Germany]—d. Sept. 7, 1654, Kraków,
Pol.), Bohemian Jewish rabbi and scholar
who is best known for his commentary on
the Mishna. His works also indicate that
he had extensive knowledge of
mathematics, the sciences, and other
secular subjects.
Raised by his grandfather Moses
Wallerstein, a respected rabbi, Heller
studied at the yeshiva of Judah Loew ben
Bezalel and was appointed a dayan
(judge) in Prague at the age of 18. He
served as a rabbi to communities in
Moravia and Vienna, but he was recalled
to Prague in 1627 to the office of the
chief rabbinate. At this time, because
of involvement in the Thirty Years’ War,
the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II had
imposed heavy taxes on the Jews of
Bohemia. As chief rabbi, Heller was
responsible for overseeing the
collection of the tax, a task that
aroused bitter opposition within the
Jewish community and made him the object
of false accusations. Charged with
contemning both the state and
Christianity, he was heavily fined and
briefly imprisoned; he was also
forbidden to serve the rabbinate
anywhere within the empire.
Later, while serving as a rabbi in
Vladimir, Volhynia, Pol., Heller again
became the centre of controversy. At a
rabbinical conference known as the
Council of the Four Lands, he fought for
the renewal of a decree preventing the
purchase of rabbinical offices, simony
being a practice at that time. This
aroused the anger of some of the
wealthier Jews, who succeeded in
obtaining a decree from the governor
ordering Heller’s expulsion. Although
the decree was eventually rescinded, in
1643 Heller accepted an appointment to
the chief rabbinate in Kraków, where he
lived the remainder of his life.
Among Heller’s many written works are
an autobiography, Megillat eyva (“Scroll
of Hate”; first published in 1818),
which documented the various communities
in which he had lived and included
accounts of massacres of Jews in Prague
(1618) and the Ukraine (1643). The most
famous of his many religious works is
his commentary on the Mishna, Tosafot
Yom Ṭov (1614–17, 2nd ed. 1643–44; “The
Additions of Yom Ṭov”). Heller’s
commentary was intended to serve as a
supplement to the commentary of Obadiah
of Bertinoro; both works are found in
many modern editions of the Mishna.
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Ba'al Shem Tov
Baʿal Shem Ṭov, (Hebrew: “Master of
the Good Name”: )byname of Israel Ben
Eliezer, acronym Beshṭ (b. c. 1700,
probably Tluste, Podolia, Pol.—d. 1760,
Medzhibozh), charismatic founder (c.
1750) of Ḥasidism, a Jewish spiritual
movement characterized by mysticism and
opposition to secular studies and Jewish
rationalism. He aroused controversy by
mixing with ordinary people, renouncing
mortification of the flesh, and
insisting on the holiness of ordinary
bodily existence. He was also
responsible for divesting Kabbala
(esoteric Jewish mysticism) of the rigid
asceticism imposed on it by Isaac ben
Solomon Luria in the 16th century.
Life
The Beshṭ’s life has been so adorned
with fables and legends that a biography
in the ordinary historical sense is not
possible. He came from humble and
obscure beginnings in a village known to
contemporary Jews as Okop or Akuf,
depending on the Hebrew vocalization. As
a young orphan he held various
semi-menial posts connected with
synagogues and Hebrew elementary
religious schools. After marrying the
daughter of the wealthy and learned
Ephraim of Kuty, he retired to the
Carpathian Mountains to engage in
mystical speculation, meanwhile eking
out his living as a lime digger. During
this period his reputation as a healer,
or baʿal shem, who worked wonders by
means of herbs, talismans, and amulets
inscribed with the divine name, began to
spread. He later became an innkeeper and
a ritual slaughterer and, about 1736,
settled in the village of Medzhibozh, in
Podolia. From this time until his death,
he devoted himself almost entirely to
spiritual pursuits.
Though the Beshṭ gained no special
renown as a scholar or preacher during
his lifetime, he made a deep impression
on his fellow Jews by going to the
marketplace to converse with simple
people and by dressing like them. Such
conduct by a holy man was fiercely
condemned in some quarters but
enthusiastically applauded in others.
The Beshṭ defended his actions as a
necessary “descent for the sake of
ascent,” a concept that eventually
evolved into a socio-theological theory
that placed great value on this type of
spiritual ministration.
While still a young man, the Beshṭ
had become acquainted with such figures
as Rabbi Naḥman of Gorodënka and Rabbi
Naḥman of Kosov, already spoken of as
creators of a new life, and with them he
regularly celebrated the ritual of the
three sabbath meals. In time it became
customary for them to deliver pious
homilies and discourses after the third
meal, and the Beshṭ took his turn along
with the others. Many of these
discourses were later recorded and have
been preserved as the core of Ḥasidic
literature. When the Beshṭ’s spiritual
powers were put to a test by other
members of the group—an indication that
he probably was not yet recognized as
the “first among equals”—he reportedly
recognized a mezuzah (ritual object
affixed to a doorpost) as ritually
“unfit” by means of his clairvoyant
powers.
The Beshṭ gradually reached the point
where he was prepared to renounce the
strict asceticism of his companions. In
words recorded by his grandson Rabbi
Baruch of Medzhibozh, he announced:
I came into this world to point a new
way, to prevail upon men to live by the
light of these three things: love of
God, love of Israel, and love of Torah.
And there is no need to perform
mortifications of the flesh.
By renouncing mortification in favour
of new rituals, the Beshṭ in effect had
taken the first step toward initiating a
new religious movement within Judaism.
The teaching of the Beshṭ centred on
three main points: communion with God,
the highest of all values; service in
ordinary bodily existence, proclaiming
that every human deed done “for the sake
of heaven” (even stitching shoes and
eating) was equal in value to observing
formal commandments; and rescue of the
“sparks” of divinity that, according to
the Kabbala, were trapped in the
material world. He believed that such
sparks are related to the soul of every
individual. It was the Beshṭ’s
sensitivity to the spiritual needs of
the unsophisticated and his assurance
that redemption could be attained
without retreat from the world that
found a ready response among his
listeners, the common Jewish folk. He
declared that they were, one and all,
“limbs of the divine presence.”
The Beshṭ and his followers were
fiercely attacked by rabbinical leaders
for “dancing, drinking, and making merry
all their lives.” They were called
licentious, indifferent, and
contemptuous of tradition—epithets and
accusations that were wild
exaggerations, to say the least.
An understanding of the Beshṭ’s view
of the coming of the Messiah depends to
a great extent on the interpretation of
a letter attributed to, but not signed
by, the Beshṭ. It affirms that the
author made “the ascent of the soul,”
met the Messiah in heaven, and asked him
when he would come. The answer he
received was: “when your well-springs
shall overflow far and wide”—meaning
that the Beshṭ had first to disseminate
the teaching of Ḥasidism. According to
one view, the story indicates that the
messianic advent was central in the
Beshṭ’s belief; according to another, it
effectively removes messianic redemption
from central spiritual concern in the
life that must be lived here and now.
Influence
During his lifetime, the Beshṭ brought
about a great social and religious
upheaval and permanently altered many
traditional values. In an atmosphere
marked by joy, new rituals, and ecstasy,
he created a new religious climate in
small houses of prayer outside the
synagogues. The changes that had
occurred were further emphasized by the
wearing of distinctive garb and the
telling of stories. Though the Beshṭ
never did visit Israel and left no
writings, by the time he died, he had
given to Judaism a new religious
dimension in Ḥasidism that continues to
flourish to this day.
Among the Beshṭ’s most outstanding
pupils was Rabbi Jacob Joseph of
Polonnoye, whose books preserve many of
the master’s teachings. He speaks with
holy awe of his religious teacher in
tones that were echoed by other
disciples, such as Dov Baer of Mezrechye,
Rabbi Nahum of Chernobyl, Aryeh Leib of
Polonnoye, and a second grandson, Rabbi
Ephraim of Sydoluvka, who was but one of
many to embellish the image of his
grandfather with numerous legends.
Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer
Sid Z. Leiman
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The 18th and 19th centuries
In the 18th century the conservative mystical
movement of Hasidism spread rapidly over all eastern
Europe except Lithuania. There, Elijah ben Solomon
of Vilna, a writer of unusually wide scope,
advocated a better graded course of Talmudic
training. Shneur Zalman of Ladi created the highly
systematized Habad Ḥasidism, which was widely
accepted in Lithuania. The Musar movement of Israel
Salanter encouraged the study of medieval ethical
writers.
Elijah ben Solomon
Elijah ben Solomon, in full Elijah
Ben Solomon Zalman, also called by the
acronym Ha-gra, from Ha-gaon Rabbi
Eliya-hu, also called Elijah Gaon (b.
April 23, 1720, Sielec, Lithuania,
Russian Empire—d. Oct. 9, 1797, Vilna
[now Vilnius, Lithuania]), the gaon (“excellency”)
of Vilna, and the outstanding authority
in Jewish religious and cultural life in
18th-century Lithuania.
Born into a long line of scholars,
Elijah traveled among the Jewish
communities of Poland and Germany in
1740–45 and then settled in Vilna, which
was the cultural centre of eastern
European Jewry. There he refused
rabbinic office and lived as a recluse
while devoting himself to study and
prayer, but his reputation as a scholar
had spread throughout the Jewish world
by the time he was 30. As a mark of
nearly universal reverence, the title
gaon, borne by the heads of the
Babylonian academies and virtually
extinct for many centuries, was bestowed
upon him by the people.
Elijah’s scholarship embraced mastery
of every field of study in the Jewish
literature up to his own time. His vast
knowledge of the Talmud and Midrash and
of biblical exegesis, as well as of
mystical literature and lore, was
combined with a deep interest in
philosophy, grammar, mathematics and
astronomy, and folk medicine.
Elijah’s most important contributions
were his synoptic view of Jewish
learning and his critical methods of
study. In an age of narrow, puritanical
piety, he broadened the conception of
Torah learning to include the natural
sciences, and asserted that a complete
understanding of Jewish law and
literature necessitated the study of
mathematics, astronomy, geography,
botany, and zoology. He encouraged
translations of works on these subjects
into Hebrew. Elijah also introduced the
methods of textual criticism in the
study of the Bible and the Talmud. He
based his interpretations on the plain
meaning of the text rather than on
narrow sophistries. In general, his
influence was felt in the direction of
an increased emphasis on rationalism and
synthesis.
Elijah led an implacable opposition
to the pietistic mystical movement of
Ḥasidism from 1772 until his death. He
condemned Ḥasidism as a superstitious
and antischolarly movement and ordered
the excommunication of its adherents and
the burning of their books. He became
the leader of the Mitnaggedim (opponents
of Hasidism) and was temporarily able to
check the movement’s spread in
Lithuania. He was also mildly opposed to
the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment.
At about age 40 Elijah began teaching
a chosen circle of devoted pupils who
were already experienced scholars. Among
them was Ḥayyim ben Issac, who went on
to found the great yeshiva (Talmudic
academy) at Volozhin (now Valozhyn,
Belarus), which trained several
generations of scholars, rabbis, and
leaders. Elijah’s writings were
published posthumously and include
commentaries and numerous annotations on
the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, and other
works.
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Beginnings of the Haskala movement
In the Berlin
of Frederick II the Great, young intellectuals from
Poland and elsewhere, brought in as teachers, met
representatives of the European Enlightenment; they
came under the influence of Moses Mendelssohn and
also met some representatives of Italian and Dutch
Hebrew cultures. One, a Dane, Naphtali Herz Wessely,
who had spent some time in Amsterdam, wrote works on
the Hebrew language, and another, an Italian, Samuel
Aaron Romanelli, wrote and translated plays. Out of
these contacts grew Haskala (“Enlightenment”), a
tendency toward westernization that venerated Hebrew
and medieval western Jewish literature. Among German
Jews, then already in rapid process of
Germanization, this Hebrew movement had no place.
The Enlightenment was introduced in Galicia
(Austrian Poland), a centre of Ḥasidism, by the
Edict of Toleration (1781) of the emperor Joseph II.
By supporting some of its aims, Hebrew writers
incurred hatred and persecution. Their chief weapon
was satire, and the imitation by Joseph Perl of the
Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515; “Letters of
Obscure Men”) of Crotus Rubianus and the essays of
Isaac Erter were classics of the genre. One poet,
Meir Letteris, and one dramatist, Naḥman Isaac
Fischman, wrote biblical plays.
Mendelssohn, Lavater and Lessing, in an imaginary
portrait by the
Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1856).
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn, (b. Sept. 26,
1729, Dessau, Anhalt [Germany]—d. Jan.
4, 1786, Berlin, Prussia), German-Jewish
philosopher, critic, and Bible
translator and commentator who greatly
contributed to the efforts of Jews to
assimilate to the German bourgeoisie.
The son of an impoverished scribe
called Menachem Mendel Dessau, he was
known in Jewry as Moses Dessau but wrote
as Mendelssohn, from the Hebrew ben
Mendel (“the Son of Mendel”). His own
choice of the German Mendelssohn over
the Hebrew equivalent reflected the same
acculturation to German life that he
sought for other Jews. In 1743 he moved
to Berlin, where he studied the thought
of the English philosopher John Locke
and the German thinkers Gottfried von
Leibniz and Christian von Wolff.
In 1750 Mendelssohn became tutor to
the children of the silk manufacturer
Issak Bernhard, who in 1754 took
Mendelssohn into his business. The same
year, he met a major German playwright,
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who had
portrayed a noble Jew in his play Die
Juden (1749; “The Jews”) and came to see
Mendelssohn as the realization of his
ideal. Subsequently, Lessing modeled the
central figure of his drama Nathan der
Weise (1779; Nathan the Wise, 1781)
after Mendelssohn, whose wisdom had
caused him to be known as “the German
Socrates.” Mendelssohn’s first work,
praising Leibniz, was printed with
Lessing’s help as Philosophische
Gespräche (1755; “Philosophical
Speeches”). That year Mendelssohn also
published his Briefe über die
Empfindungen (“Letters on Feeling”),
stressing the spiritual significance of
feelings.
In 1763 Mendelssohn won the prize of
the Prussian Academy of Arts in a
literary contest; and as a result King
Frederick the Great of Prussia was
persuaded to exempt Mendelssohn from the
disabilities to which Jews were
customarily subjected. Mendelssohn’s
winning essay compared the
demonstrability of metaphysical
propositions with that of mathematical
ones and was the first to be printed
under his own name (1764). His most
celebrated work, Phädon, oder über die
Unsterblichkeit der Seele (1767;
“Phaedo, or on the Immortality of the
Soul”), defended the immortality of the
soul against the materialism prevalent
in his day; his title reflects his
respect for Plato’s Phaedo.
In 1771 Mendelssohn experienced a
nervous breakdown as the result of an
intense dispute over Christianity with
the Swiss theologian J.C. Lavater, who
two years earlier had sent him his own
translation of a work by his compatriot
Charles Bonnet. In his dedication,
Lavater had challenged Mendelssohn to
become a Christian unless he could
refute Bonnet’s arguments for
Christianity. Although Mendelssohn
deplored religious controversy, he felt
compelled to reaffirm his Judaism. The
strain was relaxed only when he began a
translation of the Psalms in 1774. He
next embarked on a project designed to
help Jews relate their own religious
tradition to German culture—a version of
the Pentateuch, the first five books of
the Old Testament, written in German but
printed in Hebrew characters (1780–83).
At the same time, he became involved in
a new controversy that centred on the
doctrine of excommunication. The
conflict arose when his friend Christian
Wilhelm von Dohm agreed to compose a
petition for the Jews of Alsace, who
originally had sought Mendelssohn’s
personal intervention for their
emancipation. Dohm’s Über die
bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden
(1781; “On the Civil Improvement of the
Jews”) pleaded for emancipation but,
paradoxically, added that the state
should uphold the synagogue’s right to
excommunicate its members. To combat the
resulting hostility to Dohm’s book,
Mendelssohn denounced excommunication in
his preface (1782) to a German
translation of Vindiciae Judaeorum
(“Vindication of the Jews”) by Manasseh
ben Israel. After an anonymous author
accused him of subverting an essential
part of Mosaic law, Mendelssohn wrote
Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und
Judentum (1783; “Jerusalem, or on
Religious Power and Judaism”). This work
held that force may be used by the state
to control actions only; thoughts are
inviolable by both church and state.
A final controversy, revolving around
allegations that Lessing had supported
the pantheism of Benedict de Spinoza,
engaged Mendelssohn in a defense of
Lessing, while he wrote his last work,
Morgenstunden (1785; “Morning Hours”),
in support of the theism of Leibniz. His
collected works, which fill seven
volumes, were published in 1843–45.
Through his own example Mendelssohn
showed that it was possible to combine
Judaism with the rationalism of the
Enlightenment. He was accordingly one of
the initiators and principal voices of
the Haskala (“Jewish Enlightenment”),
which helped bring Jews into the
mainstream of modern European culture.
Through his advocacy of religious
toleration and through the prestige of
his own intellectual accomplishments,
Mendelssohn did much to further the
emancipation of the Jews from prevailing
social, cultural, political, and
economic restrictions in Germany. His
son Abraham was the father of the
composer Felix Mendelssohn.
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Romanticism
Galicia’s chief contribution was to
the Jüdische Wissenschaft, a school of historical
research with Romanticist leanings. The impact of
Haskala ideas upon the humanistic Italo-Hebrew
tradition produced a short literary renaissance. Its
main connections were with the Jüdische
Wissenschaft, to which Isaac Samuel Reggio
contributed. Samuel David Luzzatto , a prolific
essayist, philologist, poet, and letter writer,
became prominent by his philosophy of Judaism, while
a poet, Rachel Morpurgo, struck some remarkably
modern chords. For the Jews of the Russian Empire,
the Enlightenment proper began with Isaac Baer
Levinsohn in the Ukraine and with Mordecai Aaron
Ginzberg (Günzburg), in Lithuania. In the 1820s an
orthodox reaction set in, coinciding with the rise
of a Romanticist Hebrew school of writers. A.D.
Lebensohn wrote fervent love songs to the Hebrew
language, and his son Micah Judah, the most gifted
poet of the Haskala period, wrote biblical romances
and pantheistic nature lyrics. The first Hebrew
novel, Ahavat Ziyyon (1853; “The Love of Zion”), by
Abraham Mapu, was a Romantic idyll, in which Mapu,
like all Haskala writers, employed phrases culled
from the Bible and adapted to the thought the writer
wished to express.
Mapu’s third novel, ʿAyiṭ tzavuaʿ (1857–69; “The
Hypocrite”), marked a departure. It dealt with
contemporary life and attacked its social evils and
portrayed a new type, the maskil (possessor of
Haskala), in a fight against orthodox obscurantism.
The new, aggressive Haskala soon came under the
influence of Russian left-wing writers, such as
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky and Dmitry
Pisarev. Judah Leib Gordon, like Mapu, had started
as a Romantic writer on biblical subjects. From 1871
onward he produced a series of ballads exposing the
injustices of traditional Jewish life. Moses Leib
Lilienblum began as a moderate religious reformer
but later became absorbed by social problems, and in
Mishnat Elisha ben Abuyah (1878; “The Opinions of
Elisha ben Abuyah”) he preached Jewish socialism.
Peretz Smolenskin created in six novels a
kaleidoscope of Jewish life in which he rejected the
westernized Jew as much as orthodox reactionaries
did.
Samuel David Luzzatto
Samuel
David Luzzatto, also called by acronym
Shedal (b. Aug. 22, 1800, Trieste
[Italy]—d. Sept. 30, 1865, Padua),
Jewish writer and scholar.
In his
writings, which are in Hebrew and
Italian, Luzzatto presents an emotional
and antiphilosophical concept of
Judaism, and his Hebrew poetry is also
pervaded by national spirit. His chief
merit as a scholar lies in biblical
exegesis, Hebrew philology, and the
history of Hebrew literature. His
extensive correspondence in Hebrew was
published in 1882–94 and in other
languages in 1890. His autobiography in
Italian appeared in 1882.
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Abraham Mapu
Abraham Mapu, (b. Jan. 10, 1808,
near Kovno, Lithuania, Russian Empire—d.
Oct. 9, 1867, Königsberg, East Prussia
[now Kaliningrad, Russia]), author of
the first Hebrew novel, Ahavat Ziyyon
(1853; Annou: Prince and Peasant), an
idyllic historical romance set in the
days of the prophet Isaiah. Couched in
florid biblical language, it artfully
depicts pastoral life in ancient Israel;
the book attained immediate popularity
and was later translated into several
languages.
A
teacher of religion and German, Mapu was
an influential advocate of the Haskalah,
or Enlightenment, movement. Influenced
stylistically by Victor Hugo and Eugčne
Sue, Mapu’s novels romanticized a
sovereign Israel and indirectly paved
the way for the revival of Jewish
nationalism and the Zionist movement.
Other novels include ʿAyiṭ tzavuaʿ
(1858–69; “The Hypocrite”), an attack on
social and religious injustice in the
ghetto; Ashmat Shomron (1865; “Guilt of
Samaria”), a biblical epic about the
hostility between Jerusalem and Samaria
in the time of King Ahaz; and Ḥoze
ḥezyonot, (1869; “The Visionary”), an
exposé of Ḥasidism, which was
confiscated by religious authorities.
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Judah Leib Gordon
Judah Leib Gordon, also called Leon
Gordon, byname Yalag (b. Dec. 7, 1830,
Vilnius, Lithuania—d. Sept. 16, 1892,
St. Petersburg, Russia), Jewish poet,
essayist, and novelist, the leading poet
of the Hebrew Enlightenment (Haskala),
whose use of biblical and postbiblical
Hebrew resulted in a new and influential
style of Hebrew-language poetry.
After
he left Lithuania, Gordon was imprisoned
as a political conspirator by the
Russian government. After his release he
became editor of Ha-Melitz. His early
poems dealing with biblical subjects
were followed by powerful satires in
verse aimed against the harsher aspects
of rabbinic Judaism. His last poems
reflect bitter disillusionment with the
ideals of Haskala, or Jewish
Enlightenment. Although of limited
poetic talent, Gordon’s advocacy of
social and religious reforms proved
widely influential, and his skillful use
of postbiblical idiom increased the
flexibility of modern Hebrew. His poems
were collected in Kol Shire Yehuda
(1883–84) and his stories in Kol Kithbe
Yehuda (1889).
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Modern literature in Hebrew
Mendele
Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem,
Mordecai (Rabbinowicz) Ben-Ammi,
and Hayyim Nahman Bialik (Odessa, circa 1910).
Formative influencesThe first formative influences
on 20th-century Hebrew literature belong to the late
19th century. The middle classes of eastern European
Jewry that read Hebrew books turned to Jewish
nationalism, and Zionist activity, coupled with the
movement for speaking Hebrew, widened the circle of
Hebrew readers. Hebrew daily papers began to appear
in 1886. Writers borrowed extensively from medieval
translators and European languages, and the Hebrew
language assumed a new character. A key figure in
the transition to modern writing was Shalom Jacob
Abramowitsch, who wrote under the pseudonym of
Mendele Mokher Sefarim; after his first novel he
became convinced that biblical Hebrew was unsuitable
for modern subjects and turned to Yiddish. From 1886
onward he returned to writing mainly in Hebrew and
by using Hebrew and Aramaic phrases from the Talmud
was able to capture the homeliness he prized in
Yiddish. His stories depicted life as it really was,
and his style and support of traditional values
attracted a wide readership. The popularity of his
stories of ghetto life ensured that they would
remain the most read and written genre of Hebrew
literature until the mid-20th century. A group of
writers adopted “grandfather Mendele” as their
model. One of these, Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Haham),
wrote, from 1889 onward, articles evolving a secular
philosophy of Jewish nationalism. His periodical
ha-Shiloaḥ attained editorial standards previously
unknown in Hebrew. From 1921, he devoted his last
years to the editing of his correspondence, a
valuable documentary of the period.
Hayyim Nahman Bialik, an important poet,
essayist, editor, and anthologist of medieval
literature, was, for a time, literary editor of
ha-Shiloaḥ and was much influenced by Aḥad Haʿam.
His poetry expressed the inner struggles of a
generation concerned about its attitude to Jewish
tradition. Saul Tchernichowsky, on the other hand,
was untroubled by tradition, and his poetry dealt
with love, beauty, and the three places where he had
lived: the Crimea, Germany, and Palestine. Isaac
Leib Peretz, who wrote both in Hebrew and in
Yiddish, introduced the Ḥasidic, or pietistic
devotional, element into literature. The
emotionalism and simple joy of life of that milieu
thereafter strongly influenced writers, and the
language absorbed many Ḥasidic terms. A literary
historian, Ruben Brainin, discerned the presence of
a “new trend” in literature and foresaw a
concentration on human problems. Bialik had already
pointed to a conflict between Judaism and the
natural instincts of Jews. This psychological
interest dominated the work of a group of
short-story writers and, in particular, that of the
writer and critic David Frischmann, who, more than
anyone else, imposed European standards on Hebrew
literature. European literary tendencies thus became
absorbed into Hebrew. Uprooted by the pogroms of
1881 and the two Russian revolutions of 1905 and
1917, Jews had emigrated to western Europe and
America, and Hebrew literary activity in eastern
Europe was disrupted. The Soviet Union eventually
banned Hebrew culture, and it also decayed in other
eastern European countries and in Germany as the
position of Jews deteriorated.
Mendele Mokher Sefarim
Mendele
Moykher Sforim, Moykher also spelled
Mokher or Mocher, Sforim also spelled
Seforim or Sefarim, pseudonym of Sholem
Yankev Abramovitsh (b. Nov. 20, 1835,
Kopyl, near Minsk, Russia [now in
Belarus]—d. Dec. 8, 1917, Odessa [now in
Ukraine]), Jewish author, founder of
both modern Yiddish and modern Hebrew
narrative literature and the creator of
modern literary Yiddish. He adopted his
pseudonym, which means “Mendele the
Itinerant Bookseller,” in 1879.
Mendele
published his first article, on the
reform of Jewish education, in the first
volume of the first Hebrew weekly,
ha-Maggid (1856). He lived from 1858 to
1869 at Berdichev in the Ukraine, where
he began to write fiction. One of his
short stories was published in 1863, and
his major novel ha-Avot ve-ha-banim
(“Fathers and Sons”) appeared in 1868,
both in Hebrew. In Yiddish he published
a short novel, Dos kleyne mentshele
(1864; “The Little Man”; Eng. trans. The
Parasite), in the Yiddish periodical Kol
mevaser (“The Herald”), which was itself
founded at Mendele’s suggestion. He also
adapted into Hebrew H.O. Lenz’s
Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte, 3 vol.
(1862–72).
Disgusted with the woodenness of the
Hebrew literary style of his time, which
closely imitated that of the Bible,
Mendele for a time concentrated on
writing stories and plays of social
satire in Yiddish. His greatest work,
Kitsur massous Binyomin hashlishi (1875;
The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin
the Third), is a kind of Jewish Don
Quixote. After living from 1869 to 1881
in Zhitomir (where he was trained as a
rabbi), he became head of a traditional
school for boys (Talmud Torah) at Odessa
and was the leading personality (known
as “Grandfather Mendele”) of the
emerging literary movement. In 1886 he
again published a story in Hebrew (in
the first Hebrew daily newspaper, ha-Yom
[“Today”]), but in a new style that was
a mixture of all previous periods of
Hebrew. While continuing to write in
Yiddish, he gradually rewrote most of
his earlier Yiddish works in Hebrew. His
stories, written with lively humour and
sometimes biting satire, are an
invaluable source for studying Jewish
life in eastern Europe at the time when
its traditional structure was giving
way.
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Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha'am)
Aḥad
Haʿam , (Hebrew: “One of the People”:
)original name Asher Ginzberg (b. Aug.
18, 1856, Skvira, near Kiev, Russian
Empire [now in Ukraine]—d. Jan. 2, 1927,
Tel Aviv, Palestine [now in Israel]),
Zionist leader whose concepts of Hebrew
culture had a definitive influence on
the objectives of the early Jewish
settlement in Palestine.
Reared
in Russia in a rigidly Orthodox Jewish
family, he mastered rabbinic literature
but soon was attracted to the
rationalist school of medieval Jewish
philosophy and to the writings of the
Haskala (“Enlightenment”), a liberal
Jewish movement that attempted to
integrate Judaism with modern Western
thought.
At the
age of 22, Aḥad Haʿam went to Odessa,
the centre of the Jewish nationalist
movement known as Hibbat Zion (“Love of
Zion”). There he was influenced both by
Jewish nationalism and by the
materialistic philosophies of the
Russian nihilist D.I. Pisarev and the
English and French positivists. After
joining the central committee of Hibbat
Zion, he published his first essay, “Lo
ze ha-derekh” (1889; “This Is Not the
Way”), which emphasized the spiritual
basis of Zionism.
In
1897, after two visits to Palestine, he
founded the periodical Ha-Shiloaḥ, in
which he severely criticized the
political Zionism of Theodor Herzl, the
foremost Jewish nationalist leader of
the time. Aḥad Haʿam remained outside
the Zionist organization, believing that
a Jewish state would be the end result
of a Jewish spiritual renaissance rather
than the beginning. He called for a
renaissance of Hebrew-language culture,
and to that end he did urge the creation
of a Jewish national homeland in
Palestine as the centre and model for
Jewish life in the Diaspora (i.e., the
settlements of Jews outside Palestine).
Aḥad
Haʿam was an intimate adviser to the
Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann during the
time that Weizmann was playing a leading
role in eliciting from the British
government its Balfour Declaration of
1917, a document supporting a Jewish
homeland in Palestine. His last years
were spent in Palestine, editing his
Iggerot Aḥad Haʿam, 6 vol. (1923–25;
“Letters of Aḥad Haʿam”). Further
letters, principally from the last phase
of his life, and his memoirs were
published in Aḥad Haʿam: Pirqe zikhronot
we-iggerot (1931; “Collected Memoirs and
Letters”). His essays comprise four
volumes (1895, 1903, 1904, and 1913).
While
stressing the rational and moral
character of Judaism, Aḥad Haʿam
believed that the goal of re-creating
Jewish nationhood could not be achieved
by purely political means but rather
required spiritual rebirth. The clarity
and precision of his essays made him a
major Hebrew-language stylist and an
influential force in modern Hebrew
literature.
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Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Haim Naḥman Bialik , (b. January 9,
1873, Radi, Volhynia, Ukraine, Russian
Empire—d. July 4, 1934, Vienna,
Austria), a leading Hebrew poet,
esteemed for expressing in his verse the
yearnings of the Jewish people and for
making the modern Hebrew language a
flexible medium of poetic expression.
Born
into poverty, Bialik was left fatherless
when he was five or six years old and
was brought up by his rigidly pious,
learned grandfather. After an intensive
education in the Jewish classics, he
attended for a short time the Jewish
academy in Volozhin (now Valozhyn,
Belarus). These three influences—his
poverty, his being an orphan, and his
study of Jewish religious classics—were
the wellsprings of much of Bialik’s
poetry. In 1891 he went to Odessa, then
the centre of Jewish modernism, where he
struck up a lifelong friendship with the
Jewish author Aḥad Haʿam, who encouraged
Bialik in his creative writing.
The
following year Bialik moved to Zhitomir
(now Zhytomyr, Ukraine) and to a small
town in Poland. He worked unsuccessfully
as a lumber merchant, then taught for a
few years in a Hebrew school. The
publication of his first long poem,
“Ha-matmid” (“The Diligent Talmud
Student”), in the periodical Ha-shiloaḥ
(edited by Aḥad Haʿam) established his
reputation as the outstanding Hebrew
poet of his time. The poem is a
sympathetic portrait of a student whose
single-minded dedication to Talmudic
study is awe-inspiring, even saintly.
His
writing career assured, Bialik returned
to Odessa as a teacher in a Hebrew
school, at the same time publishing
poems and some of the most highly
regarded stories in modern Hebrew
literature. His poems inspired by the
pogrom that took place in 1903 in the
city of Kishinyov (now Chişinău,
Moldova) contain some of the fiercest
and most anguished verse in Hebrew
poetry. In such poems as “Be-ʿĭr he-haregah”
(“In the City of Slaughter”), Bialik
lashes out at both the cruelty of the
oppressors and the passivity of the
Jewish populace.
His
other poems include a fragment of an
epic, “Metey midbar” (“The Dead of the
Desert”), and “Ha-brekha” (“The Pool”).
“Metey midbar” imaginatively builds on a
Talmudic legend about the Jewish host
(in the biblical book of Exodus) who
perished in the desert. “Ha-brekha” is a
visionary nature poem in which the body
of water reveals to the poet the
wordless language of the universe
itself.
Bialik
translated into Hebrew such European
classics as Miguel de Cervantes’s Don
Quixote, Friedrich von Schiller’s
Wilhelm Tell, and S. Ansky’s play Der
dibek (“The Dybbuk”). An indefatigable
editor and literary organizer, he was a
cofounder of the Tel Aviv publishing
firm Dvir (with his lifelong associate,
the author and editor Y.H. Ravnitzky)
and edited Sefer ha-agadah
(1907/08–1910/11; The Book of Legends),
a collection of traditional Jewish
homilies and legends. He also edited the
poems of the medieval poet and
philosopher Ibn Gabirol and began a
popular modern commentary on the Mishna
(the codification of Jewish oral laws).
In 1921
Bialik left Soviet Russia for Germany,
where Jewish writers had established a
short-lived Hebrew centre, and then
settled in Palestine (1924). There he
devoted himself to public affairs,
producing only a few poems, the most
important of which was “Yatmut” (“Orphanhood”),
a long poem about his childhood that he
wrote shortly before his death.
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Saul Tchernichowsky
Saul
Tchernichowsky, Tchernichowsky also
spelled Chernikhovsky (b. Aug. 20, 1875,
Crimea, Ukraine, Russian Empire—d. Oct.
13, 1943, Jerusalem), prolific Hebrew
poet, whose poetry, in strongly biblical
language, dealt with Russia, Germany,
and Palestine and with the themes of
love and beauty.
In 1922
Tchernichowsky left the Ukraine, and,
after wanderings that took him to the
United States in 1928–29, he settled in
Palestine in 1931 and became a school
physician at Tel Aviv. His production of
written material (chiefly poetry), from
the age of 14 until a month before his
death, was immense. It included sonnet
cycles, short stories, idylls of Jewish
village life in Russia, and translations
of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer, William
Shakespeare, Moličre, and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow.
Tchernichowsky’s poetry is deeply
romantic and suffused with a love of
Greek culture; the conflict between this
and Judaism gave rise to what some
consider to be his finest work.
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Isaac
Leib Peretz
I.L. Peretz, in full Isaac Leib Peretz,
also spelled Yitskhak Leybush Perets,
Leib also spelled Loeb or Löb (b. May
18, 1852, Zamość, Poland, Russian
Empire—d. April 3, 1915, Warsaw),
prolific writer of poems, short stories,
drama, humorous sketches, and satire who
was instrumental in raising the standard
of Yiddish literature to a high level.
Peretz
began writing in Hebrew but soon turned
to Yiddish. For his tales, he drew
material from the lives of impoverished
Jews of eastern Europe. Critical of
their humility and resignation, he urged
them to consider their temporal needs
while retaining the spiritual grandeur
for which he esteemed them. Influenced
by Polish Neoromantic and Symbolist
writings, Peretz lent new expressive
force to the Yiddish language in
numerous stories collected in such
volumes as Bakante bilder (1890;
“Familiar Scenes”), Khasidish (1907;
“Hasidic”), and Folkstimlekhe geshikhtn
(1908; “Folktales”). In his drama Die
goldene keyt (1909; “The Golden Chain”),
Peretz stressed the timeless chain of
Jewish culture.
To
encourage Jews toward a wider knowledge
of secular subjects, Peretz for several
years wrote articles on physics,
chemistry, economics, and other subjects
for Di yudishe bibliotek (1891–95; “The
Jewish Library”), which he also edited.
Among his other nonfictional works are
Bilder fun a provints-rayze (1891;
“Scenes from a Journey Through the
Provinces”), about Polish small-town
life, and Mayne zikhroynes (1913–14; “My
Memoirs”).
Peretz
effectively ushered Yiddish literature
into the modern era by exposing it to
contemporary trends in western European
art and literature. In his stories he
viewed Hasidic material obliquely from
the standpoint of a secular literary
intellect, and with this unique
perspective the stories became the
vehicle for an elegiac contemplation of
traditional Jewish values.
The
Peretz home in Warsaw was a gathering
place for young Jewish writers, who
called him the “father of modern Yiddish
literature.” During the last 10 years of
his life, Peretz became the recognized
leader of the Yiddishist movement, whose
aim—in opposition to the Zionists—was to
create a complete cultural and national
life for Jewry within the Diaspora with
Yiddish as its language. He played an
important moderating role as deputy
chairman at the Yiddish Conference that
assembled in 1908 at Czernowitz,
Austria-Hungary (now Chernivtsi,
Ukraine), to promote the status of the
language and its culture.
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Émigré and Palestinian literature
The writers of
this generation were known as the émigré writers.
Their work was pessimistic, as the rootlessness
without hope of Uri Nissan Gnessin and Joseph Ḥayyim
Brenner exemplified. The majority of writers active
in Palestine before 1939 were born in the Diaspora
(Jewish communities outside Palestine) and were
concerned with the past. An exception was Yehuda
Burla, who wrote about Jewish communities of Middle
Eastern descent. The transition from ghetto to
Palestine was achieved by few writers, among them
Asher Barash, who described the early struggles of
Palestinian Jewry. S.Y. Agnon, the outstanding prose
writer of this generation (and joint winner of the
1966 Nobel Prize for Literature), developed an
original style that borrowed from the Midrash
(homiletical commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures),
stories, and ethical writings of earlier centuries.
While his earlier stories were set in Galicia, he
later began to write about Palestine. In Ore’aḥ
nataʿ lalun (1938; A Guest for the Night) the
narrator recounts his return to his native town in
Galicia. Temol shilshom (1945; Only Yesterday),
widely regarded as Agnon’s finest work, satirizes
the ideals of both secular Zionism and religious
Judaism.
Poetry immediately addressed Palestinian life.
Among outstanding writers were Rachel (Rachel
Bluwstein), who wrote intensely personal poems; Uri Zevi Greenberg, a political poet and exponent of
free verse; and Abraham Shlonsky, who would lead
Israel’s Symbolist school.
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S.Y. Agnon
S.Y.
Agnon, in full Shmuel Yosef Agnon,
pseudonym of Shmuel Yosef Halevi
Czaczkes (b. July 17, 1888, Buczacz,
Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Buchach,
Ukraine]—d. Feb. 17, 1970, Reḥovot,
Israel), Israeli writer who was one of
the leading modern Hebrew novelists and
short-story writers. In 1966 he was the
corecipient, with Nelly Sachs, of the
Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born of
a family of Polish Jewish merchants,
rabbis, and scholars, Agnon wrote at
first (1903–06) in Yiddish and Hebrew,
under his own name and various
pseudonyms. Soon after settling in
Palestine in 1907, however, he took the
surname Agnon and chose Hebrew as the
language in which to unfold his
dramatic, visionary, highly polished
narratives.
Agnon’s
real literary debut was made with Agunot
(1908; “Forsaken Wives”), his first
“Palestinian” story. His first major
work was the novel Hakhnasat kalah, 2
vol. (1919; The Bridal Canopy). Its
hero, Reb Yudel Hasid, is the embodiment
of every wandering, drifting Jew in the
ghettos of the tsarist and
Austro-Hungarian empires. His second
novel, Ore’aḥ Nataʿ Lalun (1938; A Guest
for the Night), describes the material
and moral decay of European Jewry after
World War I. His third and perhaps
greatest novel, ʿTmol shilshom (1945;
“The Day Before Yesterday”), examines
the problems facing the westernized Jew
who immigrates to Israel. This is
neither a realistic story (like some of
the early tales) nor a symbolic
autobiography, yet it can be understood
only in the light of Agnon’s own actual
and spiritual experience.
All
Agnon’s works are the final result of
innumerable Proust-like revisions, as is
shown by the many manuscripts in
existence and by the variety of the
printed texts. Already there are two
widely different versions of his
collected works, one in 11 volumes (Kol
sipurav shel Shmuel Yosef Agnon, vol.
1–6, Berlin, 1931–35; 7–11, Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv, 1939–52) and one in 8
volumes (Tel Aviv, 1953–62). The archaic
structure of his prose presents great
difficulties for the translator, yet
even in translation his power is
unmistakable.
Agnon
edited an anthology of folktales
inspired by the High Holidays of the
Jewish year, Yamim nora’im (1938; Days
of Awe, 1948), and a selection of famous
rabbinic texts, Sefer, sofer, vesipur
(1938). An autobiographical sketch
appeared in 1958. Translations of his
works include In the Heart of the Seas
(1948; Bi-levav yamim) and Two Tales
(1966; Edo ve-Enam).
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Uri Zvi
Greenberg
Uri Zvi Greenberg, byname Tur Malka (b.
Jan. 10, 1894, Bialykamien, Eastern
Galicia [now Ukraine]—d. May 8, 1981,
Israel), Hebrew and Yiddish poet whose
strident, Expressionist verse exhorts
the Jewish people to redeem their
historical destiny; he warned of the
impending Holocaust in such poems as “In
malkhus fun tselem” (1922; “In the
Kingdom of the Cross”). An adherent of
the right-wing Revisionist Zionist
Party, Greenberg used his poetry to
espouse a religious mystical view of
Zionism and to further Revisionism’s
extreme nationalism.
The son
of a Hasidic rabbi, Greenberg received a
traditional Hasidic upbringing in
Lemberg (now Lvov). In Warsaw, in 1920,
he was co-publisher of Khalyastre (“The
Gang”), an Expressionist, avant-garde
literary journal. He wrote in both
Yiddish and Hebrew until immigrating to
Palestine (later Israel) in 1924;
thereafter he wrote solely in Hebrew.
Considered a foremost Hebrew poet of his
generation, Greenberg was at odds with
the main intellectual and political
thrust in Hebrew literature and Israeli
politics because of his political and
social views. He served one term in the
Knesset (parliament) as a member of the
Herut Party (1949–51).
His
early Hebrew-language poetry, such as
“Yerushalayim shel matah” (1924; trans.
as “Jerusalem”), was influenced by Walt
Whitman. From the 1930s his work was
politicized, as in the collection Ezor
magen u-ne’um ben ha-dam (1930; “A
Shield of Defense and the Word of the
Son of Blood”), the poem “Migdal ha-Geviyyot”
(1937; “The Tower of Corpses”), and the
acclaimed collection Reḥovot hanahar
(1951; “Streets of the River”).
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Abraham
Shlonsky
Abraham Shlonsky, also spelled Avraham
Shlonski (b. March 6, 1900, Poltava
province, Russia [now in Ukraine]—d. May
18, 1973, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel),
Israeli poet who founded Israel’s
Symbolist school and was an innovator in
using colloquial speech in Hebrew verse.
In the
early 1920s Shlonsky emigrated to
Palestine, becoming literary editor of
various periodicals. He translated into
Hebrew works by authors such as Bertolt
Brecht, Nikolay Gogol, Aleksandr
Pushkin, William Shakespeare, and G.B.
Shaw. Much of Shlonsky’s poetry concerns
the Israeli pioneer’s rejection of
Western values and the emergence of
Israel as a modern country. Verse
collections include Shire ha-mapolet
ve-ha-piyus (1938; “Songs of Defeat and
Conciliation”) and ʿAl mileʾt (1947; “On
Filling In”).
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Israeli literature
World War II and the
Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49 brought to the fore
Palestinian-born writers who dealt with the problems
of their generation in colloquially flavoured
Hebrew. In the State of Israel, where Hebrew had
become the official language, literature developed
on a large scale, mainly along contemporary western
European and American lines. The extreme diversity
in culture of parts of the population and the
problems of new immigrants provided the main themes
for fiction. Poetry flourished, but original drama
at first was slow to develop. Greenberg’s Rehovot
HaNahar (1951; “Streets of the River”) traces the
process by which the humiliation of the massacred is
transmuted by the pride of martyrdom into the
historical impulse of messianic redemption. In a
long dramatic poem, Bein ha-Esh ve-ha-Yesha (1957;
Between the Fire and Salvation), Aaron Zeitlin
envisioned the annihilation of European Jewry in
mystical terms, examining the relationship of
catastrophe and redemption.
Native Israeli prose writers wrote of their life
in the kibbutz, the underground, and the war of
1948–49. S. Yizhar and Moshe Shamir emerged as the
outstanding representatives of this generation,
probing the sensibility of the individual in a
group-oriented society. But the establishment of the
State of Israel could not allay the anxieties of the
individual. The dominant themes of writers who had
no access to collective ideals were personal
ones—frustration, confusion, and alienation. The
works of Yehuda Amichai and Haim Gouri are
representative of the poetry of this period and of
the following decades; their poems emphasize the
dissolution of social coherence and express the
individual devoid of a sense of historical and
spiritual mission. The novelist Aharon Megged’s
Ha-Hai ʿal ha-met (1965; The Living on the Dead)
casts a putative hero of the pioneer generation in
an ironic light.
Memories of the Holocaust haunt the lyrical work
of Aharon Appelfeld. Flight and hiding are the
characteristic situations of his early stories. His
Badenhaim, ʿir nofesh (Badenheim 1939), published in
1975, captures the ominous atmosphere of the
approaching Holocaust sensed by a group of
assimilated Jews vacationing at an Austrian resort.
It describes social and spiritual disintegration, as
do his novels Tor ha-peli ʾot (1978; The Age of
Wonders) and Katerinah (1989; Katerina). Appelfeld’s
many other novels and novellas consider the theme of
the survivor’s spiritual paralysis (as, for example,
in Bartfus ben ha-almavet [1988; The Immortal
Bartfuss]) at the same time that they explore the
frozen spiritual landscape of the post-Holocaust
world.
The New Wave is the name given to the generation
of prose writers who began publishing in the late
1950s and ’60s. Shimon Ballas’s novel Ha-Maʾabarah
(1964; “The Transit Camp”), which describes the
struggle of immigrants from Iraq in an Israeli
transit camp, is one of the first books in which the
absorption of Jewish immigrants of the Mizrahi
religious Zionist movement is recounted from the
immigrant’s perspective. But many New Wave
writers—including A.B. Yehoshua, Yaʿakov Shabtai,
and Amos Oz—made attempts in their early work to
distance themselves from preoccupations with Israeli
reality. In Yehoshua’s stories the narrator’s tone
is remote and the people are drained of emotion.
Occasionally, an act of feeling or meaning breaks
the mood of boredom and illuminates a character’s
humanity. In both Ha-Meʿahev (1976; The Lover) and
Gerusḥim meʾuḥarim (1982; A Late Divorce), Yehoshua
explores the confrontation between the philosophy of
his generation and the ideology of the Zionist
founders. His Mar Mani (1990; Mr. Mani), a complex
and innovative work about a Sephardic family whose
history is linked to the significant events in
Diaspora and Israeli history, spans a period of 150
years. Shabtai’s novel Zikhron devarim (1977; Past
Continuous) broke new ground in its evocation of the
family in society. Oz, in a series of later novels,
confronted the difficulties of life in Israel.
Kufsah sheḥora (1987; Black Box) utilizes a
satirical epistolary style to depict a family at war
with itself, while La-daʾat ishah (1989; To Know a
Woman) also details family relationships. Panter
ba-martef (1994; Panther in the Basement), written
from the point of view of a child, is set in
Palestine in 1947 as British rule over the region is
coming to an end. Oto ha-yam (1999; The Same Sea) is
an unconventional novel of love, family, and loss,
written in a mixture of poetry and prose.
Personal frustration and religious vision are the
subjects of the novelist Pinḥas Sadeh. Yitzḥak
Orpaz’s novels tend toward psychological
exploration, particularly in the series beginning
with Bayit le-adam eḥad (1975; “One Man’s House”).
Yoram Kaniuk’s work examines the alienated Israeli,
but Ha-Yehudi ha-aḥaron (1981; The Last Jew)
explores the Israeli experience as a response to the
Holocaust. The realistic stories of Yitzḥak Ben Ner
are set in rural and urban communities (Sheḳiʿah
kefarit [1976; “A Rustic Sunset”] and Ereẓ reḥokah
[1981; “A Distant Land”]). The writings of
Amalia
Kahana-Carmon explore the subjective impressions of
experience and the complexities of time and memory
through a stream-of-consciousness technique.
In the 1980s and ’90s a new generation of
writers, including Yehoshuʿa Ḳenaz and David
Grossman, began to emerge. Ḳenaz’s Hitganvut yeḥidim
(1986; “Heart Murmur”; Eng. trans. Infiltration)
depicts a group of recruits in the Israeli army who
are representative of Israeli society. Grossman’s
ʿAyen ʿerekh: ahavah (1986; See Under: Love), a
novel about the Holocaust, is regarded by some as
one of the great novels of the modern period. In
Viḳṭoryah (1993; Victoria) Sami Michael traced the
history of a Baghdadi family in Israel. The
experiences of immigrants from North African and
Middle Eastern countries were described by other
writers, including Albert Swissa in his novel ʿAḳud
(1990; “The Bound One”) and the poets Ronny Someck,
Erez Biṭon, and Maya Bejerano. Yoel Hoffmann, whose
work is characterized by stylistic experimentation
and the influence of Japanese literature,
represented the experience of German Jewish
immigrants to Palestine in Bernharṭ (1989; Bernhard)
and Krisṭus shel dagim (1991; The Christ of Fish).
In the last decades of the 20th century, writers
explored a wide variety of themes and styles,
influenced more than previously by American popular
culture. In Agadat ha-agamim ha-ʿatsuvim (1989; “The
Legend of the Sad Lakes”) Itamar Levi attempted to
confront the subject of the Holocaust in a
surrealistic manner. One of the phenomena of these
decades was the appearance of a number of women
writers, including Judith Katzir, ʿEdnah Mazya, Orly
Castel-Bloom, and many others, who provided a
powerful alternative to the male voice that had
dominated Hebrew letters from the start of the
modern period. Many of these writers traced their
own family histories. The literary world of Leʾah
Eni (Leah Aini) is one of memory, in which two
central elements intersect: the community in which
she spent her childhood and the Holocaust. The work
of Hanna Bat Shahar (a pseudonym) deals
predominantly with the inner world of women who are
bound by the strict rules and customs of Orthodox
communities.
At the turn of the 21st century, Hebrew poetry
remained innovative. Some poets addressed subjects
previously considered taboo for Hebrew literature,
such as homosexuality. The poetry of Itamar
Yaʿoz-Ḳesṭ, Admiel Kosman, Benyamin Shvili, and
Chava Pinchas-Cohen (Ḥava Pinḥas-Kohen) tended
toward broadly metaphysical, even religious,
expression.
Chaim Rabin
Samuel Leiter
Glenda M. Abramson
Ed.
Yehuda Amichai
Yehuda Amichai, (b. May 3, 1924,
Würzburg, Germany—d. September 22, 2000,
Jerusalem, Israel), Israeli writer who
is best known for his poetry.
Amichai
and his Orthodox Jewish family
immigrated to Palestine in 1936. During
World War II he served in the British
army, but he later fought the British as
a guerrilla prior to the formation of
Israel; he also was involved in the
Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1956 and 1973.
Amichai attended the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem and taught for several
years at secondary schools.
Amichai’s poetry reflects his total
commitment to the state of Israel, and
from his first collection, Akhshav u-ve-yamim
aḥerim (1955; “Now and in Other Days”),
he employed biblical images and Jewish
history. He also compared modern times
with ancient, heroic ages and sought to
expand biblical language in order to
encompass contemporary phenomena. In the
1970s he introduced sexuality as a
subject in his poems. With Amen (1977)
he garnered a wider audience through the
translation of his poems into English by
Ted Hughes. Influenced by modern
American and English poets, including
W.H. Auden, Amichai was noted for his
lyrical use of everyday language and the
simplicity of his work. The
English-language collection The Selected
Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (1986) contains
selections from his many publications in
Hebrew.
In
addition to short stories and plays,
Amichai also wrote novels, of which the
best known is Lo me-achshav, lo mi-kan
(1963; Not of This Time, Not of This
Place), about the quest for identity of
a Jewish immigrant to Israel. Gam ha-ʾegrof
hayah paʿam yad petuḥah (1989; Even a
Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers)
is a selection of his poetry in
translation. Open Closed Open (2000)
continued to explore the Israeli
experience.
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Aharon Appelfeld
Aharon Appelfeld, Aharon also spelled
Aron (b. Feb. 16, 1932, Cernăuţi,
Romania [now Chernivtsi, Ukraine]),
novelist and short-story writer who is
best known for his Hebrew-language
allegorical novels of the Holocaust.
At the
age of eight Appelfeld and his parents
were captured by Nazi troops. His mother
was killed, and Aharon and his father
were sent to a labour camp. Appelfeld
eventually escaped and for two years
roamed rural Ukraine. In 1944 he worked
in the field kitchens of the Soviet
army. He immigrated to Palestine in 1947
and served two years in the Israeli
army, during which time he resumed his
formal education, which had ended after
the first grade. He later studied
philosophy at Hebrew University and
taught Hebrew literature at Israeli
universities. Although Appelfeld’s works
in English translation deal primarily
with the Holocaust, his writings cover a
wider range of subject matter.
Appelfeld’s fiction includes Bagai ha-poreh
(1963; In the Wilderness), Badenheim, ʿir
nofesh (1979; Badenheim 1939), Ha-Ketonet
veha-pasim (1983; Tzili: The Story of a
Life), Bartfus ben ha-almavet (1988; The
Immortal Bartfuss), Katerinah (1989;
Katerina), Mesilat barzel (1991; “The
Railway”), and Unto the Soul (1994).
Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a
Conversation with Philip Roth was
published in 1994.
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Amos Oz
Amos Oz, original name Amos Klausner (b.
May 4, 1939, Jerusalem), Israeli
novelist, short-story writer, and
essayist in whose works Israeli society
is unapologetically scrutinized.
Oz was
educated at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem and at the University of
Oxford. He served in the Israeli army
(1957–60, 1967, and 1973). After the
Six-Day War in 1967, he became active in
the Israeli peace movement and with
organizations that advocated a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. In addition to writing, he
worked as a part-time schoolteacher and
labourer.
Oz’s
symbolic, poetic novels reflect the
splits and strains in Israeli culture.
Locked in conflict are the traditions of
intellect and the demands of the flesh,
reality and fantasy, rural Zionism and
the longing for European urbanity, and
the values of the founding settlers and
the perceptions of their skeptical
offspring. Oz felt himself unable to
share the optimistic outlook and
ideological certainties of Israel’s
founding generation, and his writings
present an ironic view of life in
Israel.
His
works of fiction include Artsot ha-tan
(1965; Where the Jackals Howl, and Other
Stories), Mikhaʾel sheli (1968; My
Michael), La-gaʿat ba-mayim, la-gaʿat
ba-ruaḥ (1973; Touch the Water, Touch
the Wind), Kufsah sheḥora (1987; Black
Box), and Matsav ha-shelishi (1991; The
Third State). Oto ha-yam (1999; The Same
Sea) is a novel in verse. The memoir
Sipur ʿal ahavah ve-ḥoshekh (2002; A
Tale of Love and Darkness) drew wide
critical acclaim.
Oz was
among the editors of Siaḥ loḥamim (1968;
The Seventh Day), a collection of
soldiers’ reflections on the Six-Day
War. His political essays are collected
in such volumes as Be-or ha-tekhelet
ha-ʿazah (1979; Under This Blazing
Light) and Be-ʿetsem yesh kan shete
milḥamot (2002; “But These Are Two
Different Wars”). How to Cure a Fanatic
(2006) is an English-language collection
of two essays by Oz and an interview
with him.
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Amalia Kahana-Carmon
Amalia Kahana-Carmon, (b. 1926, Kibbutz
Ein Harod, Israel), Israeli author of
novels, novellas, short stories, and
essays, whose modern style influenced
subsequent generations of Israeli
writers.
Kahana-Carmon
was raised in Tel Aviv. She served as a
radio operator in an Israeli army combat
unit during the Arab-Israeli war of
1948–49. At Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, she studied library science
and philology. She was secretary of the
Israeli consulate in London and later
worked as a librarian at Tel Aviv
University.
In 1966
she published her first collection of
stories, Bi-khefifah ahat (“Under One
Roof”). Unlike anything before it in
Hebrew literature, the book was an
immediate success, and it became so
influential that in 2007 it was deemed
to be among the most important books
written during Israel’s history. Along
with Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, Kahana-Carmon
became a key figure in the new wave of
Israeli fiction of the 1960s. Unlike her
contemporaries, however, she wrote about
the inner lives of women, exploring a
realm of desire and fantasy more
subjective than the Zionist themes then
prevalent in Israeli literature. Her
later writing often concerned itself
with individuals who are marginalized by
society and who revolt against
established orders and expectations
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