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Detail Description

Popular bi-lingual Hebrew-Judeo-German instructional manual on letter writing by Moses Samuel Naiman (Neumann). The full title is Mikhteve Ivrit : oder, Ebreisher und Dayṭsher briefshṭeller. There is an introduction in Hebrew from Neiman, followed by the same in Judeo-German. The text, arranged in paragraphs in the two languages, consists of examples of correspondence and documents on an unusually wide variety of subjects, including a deed of halitzah. At is a list of the 145 documents in Mikhtevei Ivrit.

Moses Samuel ben Menahman Naiman (Neumann) was a Hungarian poet; born at Ban, Hungary, in 1769; died at Budapest Nov. 29, 1831; son of a poor cantor who died prematurely. When hardly more than a child Moses Neumann went to Boskowitz, Moravia, where he became a pupil of the rabbi there, Samuel Kolin; several years later he removed to Prague, where Baruch Jeiteles exerted a lasting influence upon him. Neumann's life was full of hardships; he was tutor at Presburg; next entered into business at the neighboring town of Kittsee; then became a tutor again-at Vienna, Kittsee, and finally at Budapest, where he settled in 1822. Neumann had a master's command of the Hebrew language. His style is at times medieval, as in his drama "Bat Yiftaḥ" (Vienna, 1805) and his "Shire Musar" (ib. 1814). The latter consists of poems in German and Hebrew and is printed together with "Iggeret Terufah," a letter on the sin of self-defilement. Other works are: "Ma'gal Yosher," a Hebrew grammar (Prague, 1808, 1816; Vienna, 1831); "Hinnuk Lashon 'Ibrit," a theoretical and practical grammar of the Hebrew language (ib. 1815); a German translation of the "Millot Higgayon" of Maimonides, together with a Hebrew commentary entitled "Yeter ha-Bi'ur" (Vienna, 1822); a Hebrew-German letter-writer (4th ed., ib. 1834). He compiled also a geography, a Biblical history for the young, an elementary arithmetic, etc.