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Judah Leib (Ben Asher) Gordon, also known as Leon Gordon, (December 7, 1830, Vilnius, Lithuania – September 16, 1892, St. Petersburg, Russia) (
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 ...
: יהודה לייב גורדון) was among the most important
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 ...
poets of the Jewish Enlightenment.


Biography

Gordon was born to well-to-do Jewish parents who owned a hotel in
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
. As a privileged child, he was able to study ''
Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
'' with some of the great educators of the city, and soon proved to be an exceptional student. He had already mastered the entire
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 ...
by the age of eleven, and was fluent in hundreds of pages of ''
Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
.'' Matters took a sharp turn when Gordon was fourteen, and his father went
bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
. Unable to finance his son's education any longer, the younger Gordon began a course of independent study at one of the many study halls in the city. In just three years, he had mastered almost the entire Talmud and dozens of other religious texts. By that time, however, he was also drawn by the spirit of the Enlightenment that was sweeping across the city. He began reading secular
literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
and learning foreign languages, and he befriended some of the leading
Haskalah 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 ...
figures of the time, including Kalman Schulman, the poet Abraham Dob Bär Lebensohn and his son
Micah Joseph Lebensohn Micah Joseph Lebensohn (; (2 February 1828 – 17 February 1852), also known by the pen name Mikhal (), was one of the foremost poets and translators of the Haskalah in Vilna. He is best known for his innovative narrative Biblical romances a ...
. With the financial situation deteriorating at home, Gordon, then twenty-two, decided it was time for him to pursue a career. He received a teaching certificate from the local rabbinical college, and became a school teacher in some of the smaller towns that housed major ''
yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...
s'', including Ponivezh and Telz. During the twenty years he spent as a teacher, he produced his most important work as a poet and author. In late 1871 Gordon was invited by the
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
community of
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
to serve as secretary of both the community and the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia; after several months of negotiations, he accepted the dual position for a three-month trial period, beginning in June 1872. Welcoming the move to the cosmopolitan Russian capital, and finding his activities on behalf of the community and the society well suited to his aspirations to contribute to the modernization of Jewish life, he quickly made himself indispensable in his post, and the community offered him a permanent contract, which he accepted. He continued in this position continuously for nearly seven years. In May 1879 he was arrested for purported anti-czarist activities, and exiled for some months to
Pudozh Pudozh (russian: Пудож; krl, Puudoži; vep, Pudož; fi, Puudosi or ') is a town and the administrative center of Pudozhsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, located on the Vodla River east of Petrozavodsk, but traveling by the ...
, in the Olonets district, before finally being cleared of the charges in 1880; it was a blow to him that the Saint Petersburg community chose not to reinstate him in his post upon his return. That same year Gordon became an editor for the Hebrew newspaper ''
Ha-Melitz ''Ha-Melitz'' or ''HaMelitz'' (Hebrew: ) was the first Hebrew newspaper in the Russian Empire. It was founded by Alexander Zederbaum in Odessa in 1860. History ''Ha-Melitz'' first appeared as a weekly, and it began to appear daily in 1886. From ...
''; and, despite frequent conflict with the newspaper's founder and editor-in-chief,
Aleksander Zederbaum Aleksander Ossypovich Zederbaum (; August 27, 1816, Zamość – September 8, 1893, Saint Petersburg) was a Polish-Russian Jewish journalist who wrote primarily in Hebrew. He was founder and editor of ''Ha-Melitz'', and other periodicals published ...
, he continued in that capacity until 1888.


Literary work

Gordon took a leading part in the modern revival of the Hebrew language and culture. His
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
s did much to rouse the Russian Jews to a new sense of the reality of life, and Gordon was the apostle of enlightenment in the
ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
s. Much of his poetry revolves around biblical and historical themes. These include ''The Love of David and Michal'' (1857), ''King Zedekiah in Prison'' (1879), ''Judah's Parables'' (1859), ''David and Barzilai'', ''Osenath, Daughter of Potiphera'', ''From between the Lion's Teeth'', and ''From the Depths of the Sea''. His works were intended to disseminate Enlightenment values and had a profound impact on Jewish life. Gordon also published collections of fables, most of them translated. In works such as "Little Fables for Big Children", he continues to advocate for the adoption of Enlightenment values, as he does in his memoirs, published in the last year of his life. Among his other writing on social issues is "The Point on Top of the
Yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...
" (''Kotzo shel yud''), dealing with the rights of women. The poem, which he dedicated to his friend the Hebraist Miriam Markel-Mosessohn,Balin, Carole B. (March 1, 2009)
Miriam Markel-Mosessohn
" ''Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia''. Jewish Women's Archive. www.jwa.org. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
describes a narrow-minded rabbi who destroys a woman's chance for happiness by invalidating her ''get'' (divorce document) – due to a trifling spelling mistake (the poem's Hebrew title essentially refers to "crossing the t's and dotting the i's"). His poems were collected in four volumes, ''Kol Shire Yehudah'' (St. Petersburg, 1883–1884); his novels in ''Kol Kitbe Yehuda'' (''Collected Writings of Gordon'', Odessa, 1889).


References


Further reading

* * * Stanislawski, Michael (1988). ''"For Whom Do I Toil?": Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry''. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ziva Shamir

"O Hebrew Woman, who knows your life: A Poetical Footnote to History"
' . Ariel - a quarterly review of arts an letters in Israel, no.49, 1979


External links


''Jewish Encyclopedia'': "Gordon, Leon (Judah Löb ben Asher)"
by Herman Rosenthal, Baron David von Günzburg, and Max Seligsohn (1906).
Biographical article from ''Junior Judaica: Encyclopaedia Judaica for Youth''
Jewish Agency for Israel. www.jewishagency.org * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Judah Leib Modern Hebrew writers Hebrew-language poets Jewish poets Lithuanian Jews Hebrew-language writers 1830 births 1892 deaths 19th-century poets People of the Haskalah