Detailed
Description |
|
Three works bound together. The first is Megillat Yehudit, the text of the story of Judith from the Apocrypha with a Judeo-German translation and commentary by Judah Leib ben Ze'ev. The story takes place on the occasion of the hostile advance of an "Assyrian" army into Palestine. The inhabitants of a certain Jewish city called "Bethulia," (properly "Betylua") can check the advance of the enemy, because their city occupies the narrow and important pass through which is the entrance into Judea (Judith iv. 7 et seq., viii. 21-24). But the Assyrians, instead of attempting to force the pass, blockade the city and cut off its water-supply. In the distress which follows, Judith, a woman of Bethulia, works deliverance for her city—and thus for all Judea and Jerusalem—by bewitching the Assyrian captain, Holofernes, and cutting off his head. The translator, Judah Leib ben Ze'ev (1764–1811), was a grammarian and lexicographer; the first Jewish scholar to apply Western research methods to the study of Hebrew. Born near Cracow, Ben Ze'ev received a traditional Jewish education, but covertly, on his own, studied Hebrew philology and secular subjects. He belonged to the group of Polish-Jewish writers that published Ha-Me'assef, a literary organ in the spirit of the early Haskalah. Later, in 1787, when he moved to Berlin, he was admitted to the circle of Haskalah scholars there. In Berlin, he devoted himself to secular studies but returned to his native city which he was forced to leave when persecuted by Orthodox Jews because of his liberal opinions. He settled in Breslau and worked as a proofreader in a Hebrew publishing house. Later he moved to Vienna where he was employed in the same capacity, in the Hebrew printing establishment of Anton von Schmid.
The second work is She'erit Yehudah, a Hebrew translation of the French tragic dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699) Esther by Solomon Judah Rapoport. It is a play based on the biblical book of Esther. Racine's reputation rests on nine tragedies in Alexandrine verse written between 1667 and 1691. There is no record of his having any personal knowledge of Jews, but the heroine's speech in Esther (1689) makes his sympathy for them clear enough. A reference in the preface to Esther to the modern celebration of Purim also shows an awareness of Jewish customs. Racine's profound knowledge of the Scriptures and its application to his work can be traced to his Jansenist education at Port-Royal (1655–58), where he first met Blaise Pascal and enjoyed semi-private tutoring by such scholars as Louis-Isaac Le Maître de Saci (1615–84), the translator and Bible commentator, and Jean Hamon (1618–87), author of a four-volume commentary on the Song of Songs (1708). Racine obtained the most thorough grounding in the Scriptures then available in France, but did not learn Hebrew. His knowledge of Midrash and Targum and Jewish traditions were derived from the works of the contemporary Christian Hebraists Matthew Poole, John Lightfoot, and Richard Simon. Racine's Phèdre (1677), though based on classical myth, involves Judeo-Greek syncretism. Phaedra's pangs of conscience can only be understood within the framework of biblical law and a biblical conception of man's relationship to the Deity. The biblical tragedies (Esther, 1689; Athalie, 1691) are less religious in implication than Phèdre, and partake of the rationalist spirit that pervaded French intellectual society at the end of the 17th century. Like most of Racine's plays, Esther depicts only the last part of the story, stressing midrashic, apocryphal, and original elements–Ahasuerus' dream, Esther's prayer, and an intimate conversation between Haman and his wife. Haman's pathetic supplication to the queen, Esther's refusal of pardon, and her silence when the king falsely accuses Haman of attempting to rape her are given far more emphasis in Racine's play than in the biblical narrative. David Franco-Mendes, who pointed out that Racine's last great tragedy supports Queen Athaliah in her struggle against God, intended his Hebrew melodrama Gemul Atalyah (Amsterdam, 1770) as a reply to the French author. Racine makes the high priest Joad (the biblical Jehoiadah) a prophet of heroic faith, who foresees on stage the criminal career of his Davidic protégé, yet unflinchingly sacrifices his own son to his messianic hopes. The third work is piyuttim for Purim by Judah Loeb b. Benjamin Zeeb Ben-Zeev (1764-1811).
|
