Abraham Shalom Yahuda ( he, אברהם שלום יהודה; 1877–1951) was a Palestinian Jew,
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
, teacher, writer, researcher, linguist, and collector of rare documents.
Biography
Abraham Shalom Yahuda was born in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
to a Jewish family originally from
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
. During his early life he studied under his brother
Isaac Ezekial Yahuda
Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...
. In 1895, at the age of fifteen, he wrote his first book (in Hebrew) entitled ''
Arab Antiquities''. Two years later, in 1897 he attended the
First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attende ...
in Basel, Switzerland. Afterwards he began teaching in Berlin from 1905 to 1914. Later, during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he relocated to Madrid where he was appointed in 1915, by royal decree, chair of rabbinic languages and literature
[Michael Rose Friedman]
Orientalism between Empires:Abraham Shalom Yahuda at the Intersection of Sepharad, Zionism, and Imperialism
Jewish Quarterly Review
''The Jewish Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering Jewish studies. It is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pen ...
Vol. 109, No. 3, Summer 2019 pp. 435–451,p.438. After a fall-out with
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israel ...
over Zionist attitudes to Arabs, he joined
Zeev Jabotinsky
Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...
's
Revisionist Zionist Movement, and was thereafter actively sponsored by the latter.
Eventually Yahuda would relocate once again to New York and continue his career at the
New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
.
During his lifetime Yahuda was a notable linguist and writer, translating and interpreting many ancient Arabic documents including various works of
pre-Islamic poetry
Arabic poetry ( ar, الشعر العربي ''ash-shi‘ru al-‘Arabīyyu'') is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that.
Arabic poetry ...
and medieval
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...
texts. In 1935 he published ''
The Accuracy of the Bible
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', a work which would spark a significant amount of international discussion.
His book '' Dr. Weizmann's Errors on Trial'' was published posthumously in New York in 1952. This work was a scathing result of the slight he felt in being anonymously referred to in
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israel ...
's memoirs (''Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann,'') as a Spanish professor of
marrano
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were Forced conversion#Spanish Inquisition, forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to Crypto-Judaism, practice Judaism i ...
background.
Upon his death many of Yahuda's vast collection of rare documents were donated to the
Jewish National and University Library
The National Library of Israel (NLI; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא ...
, amounting to about fifteen hundred documents. Much of the donated material was of Arabic origin. However, several hundred items were in ancient Hebrew as well. Also included were a number of documents from other countries, including a number of
illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
s and unpublished documents penned by Sir
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
.
The collection of 7,500 handwritten theological papers was granted recognition within
UNESCO's "
Memory of the World
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
" registry, recognizing documents which should be preserved for future generations.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and Yahuda corresponded intensively throughout the 1930s.
In 1940, Einstein arranged for Yahuda and his wife to travel to
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. Later that summer, Yahuda visited Einstein at Einstein's summer retreat in
Lake Saranac in the
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular ...
.
Afterward, in September of the same year, Einstein sent a letter to Yahuda from his Lake Saranac retreat expressing his fascination for Newton's religious views and interpretations on the
bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
.
Einstein's letter was likely inspired by his conversations with Yahuda at Lake Saranac.
Cultural influences
In his 1993 play ''
Hysteria
Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...
'', British playwright
Terry Johnson created a character partly based on Yahuda's attempt to convince
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
not to publish his final book, ''Moses and Monotheism''.
Other publications
* ''The Language of the Pentateuch in Its Relation to Egyptian'' (1933)
References
External links
Evri Yuva
“Translating the Arab-Jewish Tradition: From al-Andalus to Palestine/Land of Israel”in Essays of the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin: forum-transregionale-studien
*Reeva Spector Simon, Michael Menachem Laskier, Sara Reguer.
The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yahuda, Abraham
1877 births
1951 deaths
Israeli Jews
People from Jerusalem
Translators from Arabic
The New School faculty
Israeli people of Iraqi-Jewish descent
Writers from Jerusalem
Jewish orientalists
Jewish writers
Israeli writers
Zionists
Revisionist Zionism
Israeli orientalists
Complutense University of Madrid faculty