Mesehet America, Gerson Rosenzweig, Vilna 1894
מסכת עמיריקא
- Sold Winning Bid: $290.00
- 17 Bid(s) View Bid History
- Lot Number 49850
- Title (English) Mesehet America
- Title (Hebrew) מסכת עמיריקא
- Note Signed Copy
- Author Gerson Rosenzweig
- City Vilna
- Publication Date 1894
- Estimated Price - Low 200
- Estimated Price - High 500
- Item # 1580517
- End Date
- Start Date
Physical Description
38 pp., octavo, 190:133 mm., usual age staining, wide margins. A good copy bound in modern wrappers.
Detail Description
Gerson Rosenzweig (1861–1914), was born in Lithuania, he taught Hebrew in Bialystok, and in 1888 he emigrated to the United States. Rosenzweig edited several Hebrew periodicals - Ha-Ivri (1891–1902), Kadimah (1899–1902), Ha-Devorah (1911–12) - they were short-lived and earned him neither fame nor a livelihood. He also edited Hebrew columns in the Yiddish press.
Though he was a versifier rather than a poet, he had a genuine flair for satire and he was known to his contemporaries as the "sweet satirist of Israel" and as a parodist he earned an honorable place in Hebrew literature. His Talmud Yanka'i ("Yankee Talmud," 1907, 1909) poured a stream of ill-humored sarcasm on the peddler, the teacher, the rabbi. The pages of that collection of satires resembled the pages of the Talmud: the text in large letters, wreathed by commentary in Rashi script, is divided into six tractates instead of the talmudic six orders. Rosenzweig also denounced the vulgarisms of the country, the worship of money, the religion of success. Epigrammatic neatness was his forte. Example: "What is the difference between a convert and an anarchist? A convert denies what he believes, an anarchist believes what he denies." Using a biblical phrase he quipped sardonically about his impending death by cancer of the tongue: "Life and death are at the mercy of the tongue" (Prov. 18:21). He published two books of epigrams: Shirim, Meshalim u-Mikhtamim (1893) and Hamishah ve-Elef Mikhtamim (1903; reprinted in Russia).
Hebrew Description
מן תלמוד ינקאי עם פירוש קצר ומספיק, מחברה ומסדרה מאתי ... גרשון ראזענצווייג.
שמו של המדפיס באותיות קיריליות.
פארודיה "בסגנון לשון התלמוד". יצאה גם בתוך "תלמוד ינקאי". עם ההסכמה מן ההוצאה הקודמת.
Reference
EJ; BE 2545; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000167148