Heinrich Josefsohn (Hebrew: צבי יאזאפזאהן; ) was a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwri ...

from

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. He was member of the

Biurists The Biurists were a class of Jewish Biblical exegetes, of the school of Moses Mendelssohn. Most of the Biblical commentators immediately preceding Mendelssohn had interpreted the Biblical passages from an individual point of view, and Mendelssohn wa ...

and the Me'assfim, continuing the Hebrew literary work of

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

and Hebrew literary figures in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Josefson was more religious in philosophy than his peers, specifically

David Friedländer David Friedländer (sometimes spelled Friedlander; 6 December 1750, Königsberg – 25 December 1834, Berlin) was a German banker, writer and communal leader. Life Communal leader and author in Berlin, a pioneer of the practice and ideology of ...

Isaac Satanow Isaac Satanow (born at Satanow, Poland (currently in Ukraine), 1732; died in Berlin, Germany, 25 December 1804) was a Polish-Jewish '' maskil'', scholar, and poet. Life Born to a Jewish family in Satanow, in early manhood he left his native count ...

and

Herz Homberg Naphtali Herz Homberg (; September 1749 – 24 August 1841) was a Bohemian ''maskil'', educator, and writer. Biography Heerz Homberg was born at Lieben in 1749. He studied Talmud at Prague, Pressburg, and Glogau, and began the study of general ...

. He composed a manuscript of a Mendelssohn-style Be'ur on the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

with the

Judeo-German Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

of Meir Obornik, censored and signed by Carolus (Karl) Fischer, a Semitic scholar and censor in Prague. Josefson criticizes

Friedländer Friedländer (Friedlander, or Friedlaender) is a toponymic surname derived from any of German places named Friedland (disambiguation), Friedland. The surname may refer to: People Friedländer * Adolf Albrecht Friedländer (1870–1949), Aust ...

harshly in the introduction to the manuscript; unfortunately, this manuscript was never brought to print, despite intentions and work to do so (possibly through repression). This manuscript today is at the

University of Pennsylvania Libraries The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of founder and first pre ...

cited as ''UPenn CAJS Rar Ms. 537''. Josefsohn appears to have been in the camps of such as

Heinrich Graetz Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was a German exegete and one of the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (no ...

, in direct opposition to Friedländer, who sought a form of conversion of

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

Lutheranism Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

, which may explain his repression and obscurity today, despite talent as a poet, Bible translator and elucidator, and author;

William Zeitlin William Zeitlin (; – 1921) was a Russian scholar and bibliographer. Biography William Zeitlin was born in Gomel, Mogilev Governorate, into a prominent Jewish family from Shklov. His major work was ''Kiryat Sefer'', or ''Bibliotheca Hebraica P ...

did not know of Josefsohn's Biblical work in his citation of his work, indicating possibly repression by those cohorted with

. The only work of Josefsohn to be printed today is a two-part novel called ''Fegfeuer's sieben Abtheilungen'' / ''Shiv'ah midore Gehinom'' ("''The seven degrees of Hell''"), printed after his death in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

1870 (the printing had a patron named Jacob Neusatz in

Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the Cities in Romania, third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical ...

). The narrative often pauses for

verse Verse may refer to: Poetry * Verse (poetry), a line or lines in a poetic composition * Blank verse, a type of poetry having regular meter but no rhyme * Free verse, a type of poetry written without the use of strict meter or rhyme, but still re ...

and resumes after (in the style of an

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

), and the Western-

Maskilic The ''Haskalah'' (; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), often termed the Jewish Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Europe and th ...

adaptation of this style Josefsohn seems to have perfected.

References

{{authority control 1770s births 1840s deaths Hebraists Writers from Prague 18th-century translators Bible translators Hebrew-language poets Jews from the Austrian Empire Austrian male poets 19th-century Austrian poets 18th-century Austrian poets 18th-century dramatists and playwrights Jewish dramatists and playwrights Czech male dramatists and playwrights People of the Haskalah Jewish novelists