Mordecai Aaron Günzburg

Leading writer of Hebrew prose (1795–1846)

Mordecai Aaron Günzburg

Native name|

מֹרְדְּכַי אַהֲרֹן גִינְצְבּוּרְג

Born| (1795-12-03)3 December 1795
Salantai, Russian Empire
Died| 5 November 1846(1846-11-05) (aged 50)
Vilnius, Russian Empire
Pen name| Yonah ben Amitai
Language| Hebrew, Yiddish
Literary movement| Haskalah
Notable works| Devir (1844)
Aviezer (1863)

Mordecai Aaron Günzburg (Hebrew: מֹרְדְּכַי אַהֲרֹן גִינְצְבּוּרְג, romanized: Mordekhai Aharon Gintsburg, Lithuanian: Mordechajus Aronas Gincburgas; 3 December 1795 – 5 November 1846), also known by the acronym Remag (רמא״ג) and the pen name Yonah ben Amitai (יוֹנָה בֶּן־אֲמִתַּי), was a Lithuanian Jewish writer, translator, and educator. He was a leading member of the Haskalah in Vilnius,[1][2] and is regarded as the "Father of Hebrew Prose."[3][4]

## Biography

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Günzburg was born into a prominent Jewish family in Salantai in 1795.[5] His father Yehuda Asher (1765–1823), under whom he studied Hebrew and Talmud, was one of the early members of the Haskalah in Russia,[6] and wrote treatises on mathematics and Hebrew grammar.[7] Günzburg was engaged at the age of twelve, and married two years later, whereupon he went to live with his in-laws at Shavly.[8] He continued his studies under his father-in-law until 1816.[9] From there Günzburg went to Palanga and Mitau, Courland, where he taught Hebrew and translated legal papers into German. He did not stay in Courland long, and after a period of wandering settled in Vilnius in 1835.[10]

In 1841, he founded with Shlomo Salkind the first secular Jewish school in Lithuania, which he headed until his death in 1846 at the age of fifty-one.[7][10] A. B. Lebensohn, Wolf Tugendhold [Wikidata], and Michel Gordon,[11] among others, published eulogies in his memory.[6]

## Work

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Günzburg was best known for his series of histories of contemporary Europe.[12][13] His first major publication was Sefer gelot ha-aretz (1823), an adaption into Hebrew of Joachim Heinrich Campe's Die Entdeckung von Amerika,[14] a Yiddish translation of which he released the following year as Di entdekung fun Amerike.[6] In 1835, he published the first volume of his universal history Toldot bnei ha-adam, adapted from Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz [de]'s Handbuch der weltgeschichte.[15] (A few chapters of the second volume would later be published in the Leket Amarim, a supplement to Ha-Melitz, in 1889.) In the same genre he wrote Ittote Russiya (1839), a history of Russia, and Ha-Tzarfatim be-Russiya (1842) and Pi ha-ḥerut (1844), accounts of the Napoleonic Wars.[16]

Among his other publications were Malakhut Filon ha-Yehudi (1836), a translation from German of Philo's embassy to Caligula, and the anthology Devir (1844), an eclectic collection of letters, tales, and sketches.[17] Many of Günzburg's works were published posthumously, most notably his autobiography Aviezer (1863, composed between 1828 and 1845),[18][12] as well as Ḥamat Dammeshek (1860), a history of the Damascus affair of 1840, and the satirical poem Tikkun Lavan ha-Arami (1864).[19][7]

Günzburg's outlook was influenced by Moses Mendelssohn's Phaedon and the Sefer ha-Berit of Phinehas Elijah ben Meïr [he].[13] He struggled energetically against Kabbalah and superstition as the sources of the Ḥasidic movement, but he was at the same time opposed to the free thought and proto-Reform movements.[20]

## Selected publications

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Title page of Aviezer (1863)

* Sefer gelot ha-aretz ha-ḥadashah al yede Kristof Kolumbus [Discovery of the New Land by Christopher Columbus] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Missionarrow. 1823. Later published as Masa Kolumbus, o, gelot ha-aretz ha-ḥadashah [Columbus' Voyage; or, Discovery of the New Land].
* Di entdekung fun Amerike [The Discovery of America] (in Yiddish). Vilna: Rom. 1824.
* Toldot bnei ha-adam [History of Mankind] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1\. Vilna: Defus Binyamin ben David Ari' Segal. 1832.
* Kiryat sefer [Republic of Letters] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Binyamin ben David Ari' Segal. 1835. hdl:2027/nnc1.cu58931899. A letter-writing manual.
* Malakhut Filon ha-Yehudi [Delegation of Philo Judaeus] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Avraham Yitsḥak bar Shalom. 1836.
* Ittote Russiya [Chronicles of Russia] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1839. A history of Russia.
* Ha-Tzarfatim be-Russiya [Frenchmen in Russia] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus M. Rom. 1842.
* Maggid emet [Herald of Truth] (in Hebrew). Leipzig: C. L. Fritzsche. 1843. A refutation of Max Lilienthal's Maggid Yeshu'ah.
* Devir [Inner Sanctum] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1\. Vilna: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1844. hdl:2027/nnc1.0026859629.
* Pi ha-ḥerut [Voices of Freedom] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1844.
* Sefer yemei ha-dor [Days of the Generation] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Yosef Reʼuven Rom. 1860. A history of Europe from 1770 to 1812.
* Ḥamat Dammeshek [The Wrath of Damascus] (in Hebrew). Königsberg. 1860. hdl:2027/njp.32101076527512.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
* Devir [Inner Sanctum] (in Hebrew). Vol. 2\. Vilna: Defus Shmuel Yosef Finn ve-Avraham Tzvi Rosenkranz. 1861. hdl:2027/uc1.ax0001254127.
* Aviezer; hu sefer toldot ish ram ha-maʻalah asher katav be-etsem yado [Abiezer] (Autobiography) (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Shmuel Yosef Fin ve-Avrohom Tzvi Rozenkrantz. 1863.
* Tikkun Lavan ha-Arami: shir sipuri neged ha-ḥasidim [Righting Lavan the Aramæan] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Halter ve-Eisenstadt. 1894 [1864].
* Ha-Moriyyah [Moriah] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Druk fun Aleksander Ginz. 1878. hdl:2027/nnc1.cu58952225.
* Leil shimmurim [Watch-night] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Defus Yosef Unterhendler. 1883.

## References

[edit]

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rosenthal, Herman; Seligsohn, M. (1904). "Günzburg, Mordecai Aaron ben Judah Asher". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 6\. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 112–113.

1. ^ Abramson, Glenda M.; Rabin, Chaim; Leiter, Samuel. "Hebrew literature: Romanticism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019.
2. ^ Ginsburg, Saul M. (1939). "Max Lilienthal's Activities in Russia; New Documents". Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (35): 44–50\. JSTOR 43058467.
3. ^ Rhine, Abraham Benedict (1910). Leon Gordon: An Appreciation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. p. 37.
4. ^ Landman, Isaac, ed. (1969). "Günzberg, Mordecai Aaron". The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 5\. New York: KTAV Publishing House. p. 133.
5. ^ Raisin, Jacob S. (1913). The Haskalah Movement in Russia. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. pp. 213–221.
6. ^ a b c Kharlash, Yitskhok (13 August 2015). "Mortkhe-Aron Gintsburg (Mordechai Aharon Ginzburg, Güenzburg)". Yiddish Leksikon. Translated by Fogel, Joshua. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
7. ^ a b c Friedlander, Yehuda (2008). "Gintsburg, Mordekhai Aharon". In Hundert, Gershon (ed.). YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Translated by Hann, Rami. New Haven: Yale University Press.
8. ^ Biale, David (1997). Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 149, 155. doi:10.1525/9780520920064. ISBN 978-0-520-92006-4. S2CID 261466493.
9. ^ Galron-Goldschläger, Joseph, ed. (2019). "M. A. Güntzburg". Lexicon of Modern Hebrew Literature (in Hebrew). Ohio State University. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
10. ^ a b Ahimeir, Abba (2007). "Guenzburg, Mordecai Aaron". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
11. ^ Landman, Isaac, ed. (1943). "Gordon, Michel". The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 5\. New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Inc. p. 65.
12. ^ a b Mintz, Alan (1979). "Guenzburg, Lilienblum, and the Shape of Haskalah Autobiography". AJS Review. 4: 71–110\. doi:10.1017/S0364009400000428. JSTOR 1486300. S2CID 162554102.
13. ^ a b Bartal, Israel (1990). "Mordechai Aaron Günzburg: A Lithuanian Maskil Faces Modernity". In Malino, Frances; Sorkin, David (eds.). From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750–1870. Translated by Greenwood, N.; Schramm, L. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. pp. 126–147\. ISBN 9780814327159.
14. ^ Shavit, Zohar (Spring 1992). "Literary Interference between German and Jewish-Hebrew Children's Literature during the Enlightenment: The Case of Campe". Poetics Today. 13 (1): 41–61\. doi:10.2307/1772788. JSTOR 1772788.
15. ^ Greenbaum, Avraham (Spring 1993). "The Beginnings of Jewish Historiography in Russia". Jewish History. 7 (1): 99–105\. doi:10.1007/BF01674497. JSTOR 20101146. S2CID 159491930.
16. ^ Waxman, Meyer. A History of Jewish Literature. Vol. 3\. New York: Thomas Yoseloff. pp. 213–214.
17. ^ Banbaji, Amir (2012). "Two Paradigms of Aesthetics in Haskalah Literary Criticism: From Satanov to Lebensohn". Hebrew Studies. 53: 170–171\. doi:10.1353/hbr.2012.0010. JSTOR 23344445. S2CID 170772448.
18. ^ Pelli, Moshe (May 1990). "The Literary Genre of the Autobiography in Hebrew Enlightenment Literature: Mordechai Ginzburg's 'Aviezer'". Modern Judaism. 10 (2): 159–169\. doi:10.1093/mj/10.2.159. JSTOR 1396259.
19. ^ Slouschz, Nahum (1902). La Renaissance de la littérature hébraïque (1743–1885) (in French). Paris. pp. 88–89.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
20. ^ Rosenthal, Herman; Seligsohn, M. (1904). "Günzburg, Mordecai Aaron ben Judah Asher". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 6\. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 112–113.

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