David Franco-Mendes

Title page of the first edition of Franco-Mendes' Judit

David Franco-Mendes (* 1713 in Amsterdam ; † 1792 there) was a Dutch - Jewish poet of Portuguese origin and an early representative of the Haskala .

Life

Franco-Mendes came from a distinguished family of Portuguese conversos . He demonstratively Hebrew the Franco of his name in Chofschi (חפשי, = free ) in order to break away from the past as a forced conversion. He received an excellent education, including a knowledge of several European languages. He was also considered to be a Talmudic scholar and authority in matters of Halacha . In his youth he was influenced by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto , who had been exiled from Italy to Holland for messianic activities . In 1769 Mendes became a member of the Amadores das Musas , a literary society. He maintained contact with numerous personalities in the newly blossoming Jewish literary world. He earned his living in later years as a copyist and writer, after failing as a businessman in 1778.

Act

In an epoch of the revival of the Hebrew language in central and north-western Europe as the language of literature, Franco-Mendes was one of the first playwrights, although he mainly wrote post-poetry. The latter includes, for example, גמול עתליה (dt. The retribution of Athalia ; first edition Amsterdam 1770), an adaptation of Racine's Athalie . Also known is a translation of a poem about the story of Judith by Pietro Metastasio by him under the title תשועת ישראל נידי יהודית (Eng. The salvation of Israel by Judit ; first edition Rödelheim 1804). He was one of the busiest collaborators for the Hebrew-language magazine Hame'assef (German: The Collector ), which was published in Berlin and was modeled on the Berlin monthly magazine . In addition, he wrote a series of biographical abstracts on important members of the Sephardic community in Amsterdam. However, many of his works are still only available in handwritten form.

Works

• Memorias do estabelecimento: E progresso dos Judeos Portuguezes e Espanhoes nesta famosa citade de Amsterdam = A Portuguese chronicle of the history of the Sephardim in Amsterdam up to 1772; (Ed.) Leo Fuks; RG Fuks-Mansfeld; BN Teensma. - Assen / Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1975. - XIV, 233 pp. ISBN 90-232-1322-X

literature

• Jozeph Melkman: David Franco Mendes. A hebrew poet. Jerusalem; Amsterdam 1951.
• Haydee Litovsky: Sephardic Playwrights of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Amsterdam. Lanham 1991. ISBN 978-0819178435
• Entry:  FRANCO-MENDES, DAVID. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 7, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865935-0 , pp. 177-178 (English).