Heinrich Josefsohn (Hebrew: צבי יאזאפזאהן; ) was a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Bible translator The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, and ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

from

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. He was member of the

Biurists The Biurists were a class of Jewish Biblical exegetes, of the school of Moses Mendelssohn. Most of the Biblical commentators immediately preceding Mendelssohn had interpreted the Biblical passages from an individual point of view, and Mendelssohn wa ...

and the Me'assfim, continuing the Hebrew literary work of

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'Je ...

and Hebrew literary figures in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Josefson was more religious in philosophy than his peers, specifically

David Friedländer David Friedländer (sometimes spelled Friedlander; 16 December 1750, Königsberg – 25 December 1834, Berlin) was a German banker, writer and communal leader. Life Friedländer settled in Berlin in 1771. As the son-in-law of the rich banker D ...

Isaac Satanow Isaac Satanow (born at Satanow, Poland (currently in Ukraine), 1732; died in Berlin, Germany, 25 December 1804) was a Polish-Jewish ''maskil'', scholar, and poet. Life Born to a Jewish family in Satanow, in early manhood he left his native countr ...

and

Herz Homberg Naphtali Herz Homberg (; September 1749 – 24 August 1841) was a Bohemian ''maskil'', educator, and writer. Biography Heerz Homberg was born at Lieben in 1749. He studied Talmud at Prague, Presburg, and Glogau, and began the study of general l ...

. He composed a manuscript of a Mendelssohn-style Be'ur on the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( he, ספר ישעיהו, ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC ...

with the

Judeo-German Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

translation Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

of Meir Obornik, censored and signed by Carolus (Karl) Fischer, a Semitic scholar and censor in Prague. Josefson criticizes

Friedländer Friedländer (Friedlander, or Friedlaender) is a toponymic surname derived from any of German places named Friedland. The surname may refer to: People Friedländer * Adolf Albrecht Friedländer (1870–1949), Austrian neurologist and psych ...

harshly in the introduction to the manuscript; unfortunately, this manuscript was never brought to print, despite intentions and work to do so (possibly through repression). This manuscript today is at the

University of Pennsylvania Libraries The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

cited as ''UPenn CAJS Rar Ms. 537''. Josefsohn appears to have been in the camps of such as

Heinrich Graetz Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now Książ Wielkopo ...

, in direct opposition to Friedländer, who sought a form of conversion of

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

, which may explain his repression and obscurity today, despite talent as a poet, Bible translator and elucidator, and author;

William Zeitlin William Zeitlin (; – 1921) was a Russian scholar and bibliographer. Biography William Zeitlin was born in Homel, Mogilev Governorate, into a prominent Jewish family from Shklov. His major work was ''Kiryat Sefer'', or ''Bibliotheca Hebraica P ...

did not know of Josefsohn's Biblical work in his citation of his work, indicating possibly repression by those cohorted with

. The only work of Josefsohn to be printed today is a two-part novel called ''Fegfeuer's sieben Abtheilungen'' / ''Shiv'ah midore Gehinom'' ("''The seven degrees of Hell''"), printed after his death in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

1870 (the printing had a patron named Jacob Neusatz in

Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the second largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally ...

). The narrative often pauses for

verse Verse may refer to: Poetry * Verse, an occasional synonym for poetry * Verse, a metrical structure, a stanza * Blank verse, a type of poetry having regular meter but no rhyme * Free verse, a type of poetry written without the use of strict me ...

and resumes after (in the style of an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

), and the Western-

Maskilic The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...

adaptation of this style Josefsohn seems to have perfected.

References

{{authority control 1770s births 1840s deaths Hebraists Writers from Prague 18th-century translators Bible translators Hebrew-language poets Jews from the Austrian Empire Austrian male poets 19th-century Austrian poets 18th-century Austrian poets 18th-century dramatists and playwrights Jewish dramatists and playwrights Czech male dramatists and playwrights People of the Haskalah Jewish novelists