Isaac Ben Jacob

Isaac Ben Jacob (also Isaak Benjakob , Eisig Ben Jakob etc .; * January 10, 1801 in Ramygala; † July 2, 1863 in Vilnius ) was a Russian publicist and author and the first modern Hebrew bibliographer .

Life

He lived for some time in Riga , later in Leipzig and from 1848 in Vilnius. He worked for Julius Fürst , then - after the publication of his first work, a book on Hebrew poetry - he was the editor of the writings of some older Hebrew authors and worked on a large-scale edition of the Bible with a German translation (printed in Hebrew letters) and accompanying biurist comments (17 volumes, Wilna 1848-1853), which was of great importance for the cultural development of the Jews of the Eastern countries.

In 1853 Isaac Ben Jacob brought out a reissued and annotated edition of the bibliography Azulais Schem hagedolim . Ben Jacobs main work is the Ozar hassefarim, Thesaurus librorum hebraeorum tam impressorum quam manuscriptorum , a critical bibliography of all known and important Hebrew writings up to the year 1863 - published in Wilna in 1880 only after his death by his son Jacob Ben Jacob (1858-1926), who collaborated and continued to work on the continuation of his father's work for decades.

Isaac Ben Jacob also wrote other writings, a large number of journal articles and left behind extensive unpublished manuscripts for Hebrew-German dictionaries.

Works

• Oṣar has-sefarîm; sefer erek̮ le-teqûnot sifrē Yiśra'ēl nidpasîm ew-kitbē yad ... Self-published by Jacob Ben Jacob, Vilnius 1880 (unaltered reprint with additional German title translation: Ozar ha-sepharim: book treasure; bibliography of all Hebrew literature including manuscripts <to 1863> . Sendet, Vaduz 1986)

literature

• Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography. Volume I, Czernowitz 1925, page 294 f.
• Jewish Lexicon . Berlin 1927, Volume 1, Col. 824.

Web links

• Richard Gottheil , Peter Wiernik:  BENJACOB, ISAAC B. JACOB. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.