Naphtali Keller (25 January 1834 in

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarn� ...

, Galicia – 5 August 1865 in Rožnov (Rožnau, Rosenau),

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The m ...

) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n scholar. He was the son of Israel Mendel Keller, a well-to-do

innkeeper Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accomm ...

. Naphtali as a mere youth practised speaking

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 ...

with his friend M. Weissmann and began to write

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

in that language. He also acquired a certain amount of modern culture by means of

educational literature. After losing in business the marriage portion given him by his father-in-law, he went with his wife and four children to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and there eked out a toilsome existence as a

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

. In 1864 he published with great care and impartiality the first volume of the Hebrew

periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also example ...

'' Bikkurim''. In the spring of 1865, on the advice of his physician, he went to Rožnov, a watering-place, to seek relief from an illness which had attacked him in the previous year; but he died there. Keller was the author of 2 stories: * (1) ''"Sullam ha-Haẓlaḥah"'', written in imitation of the " David Barnay" of

Julius Rodenberg Julius Rodenberg (originally ''Julius Levy''; 26 June 1831, Rodenberg – 11 July 1914, Berlin) was a German Jewish poet and author. He studied law at the universities of Heidelberg, Göttingen, Berlin, and Marburg, but soon abandoned jurisprud ...

, and 1st printed in " Ha-Maggid" (1863) * (2) ''"Debek lo Tob"'', a tale of Galician Jewish life, which first appeared in ''Bikkurim'' (1866). These stories were published at

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

in 1880 under the collective title ''Sippure Naftali''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keller, Naphtali 1834 births 1865 deaths People from Tarnów Austrian male writers Polish male writers Jewish Austrian writers Jewish Polish writers Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Czech people of Polish-Jewish descent Austrian people of Polish descent