József Kiss (30 November 1843,

Mezőcsát Mezőcsát is a small town in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Northern Hungary, 35 kilometers from county capital Miskolc. History The area has been inhabited since ancient times. In 1067 a monastery was founded here. At this time the village wa ...

- 31 December 1921, Budapest) was a Hungarian poet and editor.

Biography

Kiss was born in Mezőcsát.Yaron, Baruch (2007). "Kiss, József." ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''. Eds. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA. Vol. 12, pp. 201-202. Retrieved via ''Gale eBooks'', 5 May 2020. Also available online via
Encyclopedia.com
'. His father, István Klein, was a poor Jewish shopkeeper. His mother was the daughter of a Jewish-Lithuanian teacher who had fled the pogroms. In 1850, the family moved to Gömör és Kishont County, where his father became a Royal tenant farmer. While there, he was introduced to literature by , a

Reformed Reform is beneficial change Reform may also refer to: Media * ''Reform'' (album), a 2011 album by Jane Zhang * Reform (band), a Swedish jazz fusion group * ''Reform'' (magazine), a Christian magazine *''Reforme'' ("Reforms"), initial name of the ...

priest. Soon, his parents decided that he should be a

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...

and sent him to study in Miskolc. In 1856, at the age of thirteen, he fled to Vienna. He eventually returned home and enrolled at the in Debrecen. In 1862, when he was 19, his mother died and, around the same time, his father's business failed. Kiss was forced to give up his studies and subsequently spent several years as an itinerant Hebrew teacher, in the cities of the Great Hungarian Plain. In 1867, the year that Jewish emancipation was reproclaimed, with the establishment of the constitutional monarchy of Austria-Hungary, he went to

Pest Pest or The Pest may refer to: Science and medicine * Pest (organism), an animal or plant deemed to be detrimental to humans or human concerns ** Weed, a plant considered undesirable * Infectious disease, an illness resulting from an infection ** ...

and unsuccessfully appealed to the Jewish community there to support the publication of his first book of poems. He published the volume privately, as ''Zsidó dalok'' (Jewish Poems); however, it failed to gain notice. He then took work as a proofreader at the Deutsch publishing house. From 1870 to 1873, he was the editor of the ''Illustrated World'', a journal he had taken over from . In 1873, he married a distant relative. The following year, he became seriously ill and wrote his novel, ''Budapesti rejtelmek'' (Secrets of Budapest) while bedridden. His first success came in 1875 with his long ballad-poem, ', which was presented at a meeting of the Kisfaludy Society by Ferenc Toldy. As his popularity grew, so did the controversies surrounding his point of view. The journalist,

Jenő Rákosi Jenő Rákosi (born Jenő Kremsner; 12 November 1842, Acsád, Kingdom of Hungary – 8 February 1929, Budapest, Hungary) was a Hungarian writer, journalist, theater director, editor, and a member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Kisfaludy Soc ...

, was an especially harsh critic. Kiss also translated many of the Psalms into modern language with a contemporary perspective; he had to publish these himself due to dogmatic criticisms. Since 1882, he had supported his literary activities by working for a French-Hungarian insurance company. When the company failed in 1889, he returned to his editing work and, in 1890, created ', a social and literary bulletin. In 1914, he became a member of the Kisfaludy Society.

References

Sources

Biography
@ MEK

@ the ''Magyar Zsidó Lexikon''
''The Week'' (''A Hét'')
@ Epika

External links

@ MEK
''Ünnepnapok'' (Holidays)
@ MEK
''The Week'', 21 January 1906
with his poem ''A KNYÁZ POTEMKIN'', inspired by the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

''Simon Judit'' (1915 film)
@ IMDb {{DEFAULTSORT:Kiss, Jozsef 1843 births 1921 deaths Hungarian male poets Hungarian editors Hungarian Jews Jewish poets People from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County 19th-century Hungarian poets 19th-century Hungarian male writers 20th-century Hungarian poets 20th-century Hungarian male writers