Jacob Samuel Bick (; 6 July 1772 – 21 May 1831) was a Galician

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

author, playwright, and translator. Bick translated a number of French and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

poems into

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, and published biographies of

Menachem Mendel Lefin Menachem Mendel Lefin (also Menahem Mendel Levin) (1749–1826) was an early leader of the Haskalah movement. Biography He was born in Satanov, Podolia, where he had a traditional Jewish education supplemented by studies in science, mathematics, a ...

, Ephraim Zalman Margolioth, Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev, and others. His contributions to the ''

Bikkure ha-ittim ''Bikkure ha-Ittim'' () was a Hebrew-language annual published in Vienna from 1820 to 1831. Founded by Salomon Jacob Cohen, it was adopted by the Galician Maskilim as their means to promote culture and education among Galician Jews. The publicatio ...

'', ', and other

publications of his time contain strong pleas for the spread of secular knowledge and industry among

Galician Jews Galician Jews or Galitzianers () are members of the subgroup of Ashkenazi Jews originating in the levant having developed in the diaspora of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, from contemporary western Ukraine ( Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and ...

; and, like many of his contemporaries among the Maskilim, he was strongly in favor of agricultural pursuits by Jews. He died of cholera during an 1831 epidemic and left several manuscript works, both in prose and poetry. They were burned in the Great Fire in Brody in the spring of 1835, when the house of his son-in-law, Isaac Rothenberg, was totally destroyed. Bick was highly respected for his piety, learning, and ability; and the destruction of his literary remains was at the time deplored as a great loss.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bick, Jacob Samuel 1772 births 1831 deaths Jews from the Austrian Empire Deaths from cholera English–Hebrew translators French–Hebrew translators Hebrew-language playwrights Hebrew-language poets Jewish dramatists and playwrights Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) People of the Haskalah People from Brody