Yehuda Leib Gordon

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Yehuda Leib Gordon

Yehuda Leib Gordon , also known as Leon Gordon and the acronym Yalag (born December 7, 1830 in Vilnius , Russian Empire ; died December 16, 1892 in Saint Petersburg , ibid) was a Russian author and poet of the Haskala .

life and work

Gordon's first language was Yiddish , in which he also wrote some satirical poems, but otherwise, like many of the Maskilim , disregarded them for the modern world. He wrote primarily in a new, literary Hebrew . His first teacher was Rabbi Lipa, a student of a follower of the Vilna Gaon . Using the Gaon method, the boy first learned the Bible and Hebrew grammar and then the Talmud ; this order was unusual in the traditional Jewish education of the time. At the age of 14, Gordon was considered a child prodigy and was allowed to continue his studies without a teacher. At the age of seventeen, Gordon began studying European culture and languages ​​(Russian, German, Polish, French and English). In 1853 he graduated from the state teacher training college in Vilnius and in the same year began working as a school teacher in various state Jewish schools in Kaunas province .

Gordon's first works were long epic poems related to biblical subjects, for example Ahawat David u-Michal ("The Love of David and Michals", 1857). In 1859, Mischle Jehuda ("Jehuda's Parables") appeared, with translations and adaptations of the works of Aesop , Phaedrus , La Fontaine , Lessing and Krylow . This work became very popular in the Russian Empire . It was also read by Karaean students and later summarized in an anthology by Moritz Steinschneider . Even in later years, Gordon worked as a translator and transferred among others, the Hebrew Pentateuch into Russian (1875) and the Hebrew Melodies ( Hebrew Melodies ) of Lord Byron into Hebrew (Semirot Yisrael, 1884).

One focus of Gordon's commitment was the struggle to improve the situation of women in Judaism . His poem Kozo schel Jod ("The point of iodine", finished in 1876) describes the situation of Bat-Schua, who is abandoned by her husband Hillel with two children and wants to get a divorce. But since the iodine in Hillel's name is missing in the get ( divorce letter ) that she presents to the orthodox rabbi, the rabbi refuses to confirm the divorce letter and she has to continue to live in poverty as an aguna (abandoned woman). Kozo schel Jod became the catchphrase for an unyielding Orthodox attitude.

In 1865 Gordon became the director of the Hebrew Public School in Telz and founded a girls' school in that town. In 1872 he gave up teaching and moved to St. Petersburg, where he was secretary of the Jewish community and head of the "Society for the Promotion of Culture Among Jews". There he was not only responsible for the interests of the St. Petersburg Jews, but also those of the entire Russian Empire. In 1879 he was banned for a year in Pudosch in the province of Olonez on charges of "anti-Tsarist activity" . During this time he wrote King Zedekiah in prison , a historical biblical poem in which he processed his prison experiences. In 1880 he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg, but could not resume his previous work and took a position as editor and editor of the Hebrew daily newspaper Ha-Meliz .

The pogroms in southern Russia after the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II were another heavy blow for Gordon. As a staunch advocate of the Enlightenment , Gordon initially promoted the concept of assimilation of the Jews in Russia and was of the opinion that the colloquial language Yiddish , which he regarded as "jargon", had to be replaced by Russian. After the violent riots in the 1980s, however, he abandoned the idea of ​​assimilation and saw emigration to the West, especially to the USA , as the only way to save. An emigration to Erez Israel did not seem appropriate to him at this time, as the corrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire blocked Jewish emigration to the province of Palestine. Nonetheless, Gordon was a supporter of the Zionist idea and published a positive review of Leo Pinsker's essay Autoemancipation in Hebrew and Russian .

Works

  • Collected seals by Jehuda Leib Gordon:
  • Gordon, Yehuda Lib .: Kol Shire Yehuda Lib Gordon: Yeshanim Gam Hadashim Be-Arba'ah Sefarim. Sefer Rishon: Shire Higayon. Be-Dafus GF Pins ve-Yeshei Tsederboym, St. Peterburg 1884, p. 148 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Jehuda Leib Gordon  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Encyclopaedie Britannica - Judah Leib Gordon - Russian writer. Retrieved April 12, 2015 .
  2. ^ Dan Diner: Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture, Volume III (He – Lu) , JB Metzler, 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-01218-0 , p. 433
  3. ↑ Andreas Künzli: LL Zamenhof (1859-1917) - Esperanto, Hillelism (Homaranism) and the "Jewish question" in Eastern and Western Europe , Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06232-9 , p. 238
personal data
SURNAME Gordon, Yehuda Leib
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hebrew poet, editor
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH Vilna
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1892
Place of death St. Petersburg