Israel Frenkel (; 18 September 1853 – 1890) was a

Polish-Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

Hebraist A Hebraist is a specialist in Jewish, Hebrew and Hebraic studies. Specifically, British and German scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries who were involved in the study of Hebrew language and literature were commonly known by this designation, a ...

, translator, and educator.

Biography

Frenkel was born in

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in 1853. His mother, Neḥama , was a descendant of Yaakov Yitzḥak of Lublin, and his father, Shraga Frenkel, came from a scholarly

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

family. He studied Talmudic literature under Rabbi Samuel Mohilever, at the same time studying Hebrew, German, and French. An early member of the Hibbat Zion movement, Frenkel became close friends with Mohilever, as well as with and

Nahum Sokolow Nahum ben Joseph Samuel Sokolow ( ''Nachum ben Yosef Shmuel Soqolov'', ; 10 January 1859 – 17 May 1936) was a Jewish-Polish people, Polish writer, translator, and journalist, the fifth President of the World Zionist Organization, editor of ''H ...

. he founded a

Talmud Torah Talmud Torah (, lit. 'Study of the Torah') schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of religious school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew language, H ...

in Radom in 1882, which emphasized the study of both

Judaic Judaism () is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which the ...

and secular subjects. His translations into

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 ...

include

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

's drama ''

Miss Sara Sampson ''Miss Sara Sampson'' (original spelling ''Miß Sara Sampson''" Miß" on the titlepage of the 1772 "Tragedies of G. E. Lessing" and "MISS" in all caps Dramatis personæ, though the spelling "Miss" now has wide currency in German) is a play by t ...

'', under the title ''Sara bat Shimshon'' (Warsaw, 1887); the songs in metric verse in David Radner's translation of

Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

's ''

Wilhelm Tell William Tell (, ; ; ; ) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for shooting an apple off his son's head. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, ...

'' (Vilna, 1878); and 's drama ''Esterka'', under the title ''Masʾa Ester'' (Warsaw, 1889), the heroine of which is

Esterka Esterka (Estera) refers to a mythical Jewish mistress of Casimir the Great, the historical King of Poland who reigned between 1333 and 1370. Medieval Polish and Jewish chroniclers considered the legend as historical fact and report a wonderful lov ...

, the mythical Jewish

mistress Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to: Romance and relationships * Mistress (lover), a female lover of a married man ** Royal mistress * Maîtresse-en-titre, official mistress of a ...

Casimir III the Great Casimir III the Great (; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, retaining the title throughout the Galicia–Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king fr ...

. Frenkel was also regular contributor to ''

Ha-Tsfira ''Ha-Tsfira'' () was a Hebrew-language newspaper published in Poland in 1862 and 1874–1931. History The first issue of ''Ha-Tsfira'' appeared in Warsaw, Congress Poland, in 1862, edited by Chaim Selig Slonimski. ''Ha-Tsfira'' was the first Hebr ...

'', ''

Ha-Shaḥar ''Ha-Shaḥar'' () was a Hebrew language, Hebrew-language monthly periodical, published and edited at Vienna by Peretz Smolenskin from 1868 to 1884. The journal contained scientific articles, essays, biographies, and literature, as well as genera ...

'', ''

Ha-Melitz ''HaMelitz'' (Hebrew: ) was the first Hebrew newspaper in the Russian Empire. It was founded by Alexander Zederbaum in Odessa in 1860. History ''HaMelitz'' first appeared as a weekly, and it began to appear daily in 1886. From 1871, it was publis ...

'', ''

Ha-Maggid ''Hamagid'' (; ), also known after 1893 as ''Hamagid LeIsrael'' (), was the first Hebrew language weekly newspaper. It featured mostly current events, feature articles, a section on Judaic studies, and, in its heyday, discussions of social issues ...

'', and other

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 ...

publications. He died at age 37 during the 1889–1890 flu pandemic. His son Yechiel Frenkel would become a prominent writer and Zionist activist.

Partial bibliography

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT: 1853 births 1890 deaths Translators to Hebrew People from Radom Jewish educators Translators from German Translators from Polish 19th-century Polish Jews Deaths from the 1889–1890 flu pandemic People of the Haskalah Hovevei Zion