Joseph Gottfarstein

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Joseph Gottfarstein (born 1903 in Prenen ; died 1980 in Paris ; English - Yiddish spelling Yosef Gotfarshtein ) was a historian and philologist of Yiddish culture, language and literature and author of columnist articles for Yiddish journals in Kaunas, Berlin, Paris and Geneva. He was a Judaic writer ( Talmud connoisseur, Kabbalah researcher), poet and translator (from Russian into German , from Yiddish into French ) and was occasionally called " Rabbi ".

The name Gottfarstein (Yiddish farschtéjn = to understand) could be read as an order, an appeal. It would even be conceivable, because the name does not appear anywhere else (see also: Hapax legomenon ), that Gottfarstein gave himself this name as a program: “[Try] to [understand] God!” This maxim would correspond to the connection peculiar to Lithuanian Judaism Enlightenment-rationalist Haskala motifs with those of the ascetic-pietist (“existentialist”) Mussar movement founded by Israel Salanter (both motifs in contrast to the rather “ecstatic” Polish-Galician Judaism, which produced Hasidism ): Gottfarstein appears as a representative the last generation of a Lithuanian-Yiddish culture that lived out of tensions between orthodox tradition, secularizing intellectuality and pietistic mysticism.

Life

1903 born in Prenen ( Prienai ), south of Kowno ( Kaunas ), Lithuania ; grew up in Mariampol ( Marijampolė ) and Kaunas, Hebrew grammar school, 1916 at the famous yeshiva in Slobodka (where the later ghetto of Kaunas was located), 1918 Talmud pupil of strict observance (in the spirit of the ascetic-pietistic-spiritualistic Mussar movement) , Studied at the Yiddish teacher seminar in Kaunas; anarchist sympathizer, breaks with the Jewish ritual, but remains true to the Hebrew and Yiddish text traditions; 1923 Berlin, studies philosophy and violin, anarchist-literary circle, publisher of the (Yiddish) magazine Di Tswelfe , translates the Russian poet Sergej Jessenin , with Jacob Gordin and Olga Katunal in the “Philosophical Group” around Oskar Goldberg and Erich Unger ; Paris since the end of the 1920s , friendship with Joseph Roth 1934–1939 , acquaintance with Soma Morgenstern , contact with Gerhard / Gershom Scholem , married Sophie Abrahamer (called Zoschka), born in 1940 son Sam (uel), called Boudjou (later a math teacher in Strasbourg who devotes much of his time to Talmudic studies); after the occupation in Geneva, there meeting Ludwig Hohl , then again in Paris, lectures at the French-Yiddish Cercle Gaston Crémieux founded by Richard Marienstras ; dies in a Paris suburb in 1980.

Gottfarstein accompanied two great and (not only as drinkers) abysmal German-speaking writers for years and supported them in their fluctuating self-confidence: Joseph Roth and Ludwig Hohl .

bibliography

Secured

Monographs and Articles

  • L'école du meurtre ("The School of Murder (s)"), La Presse française et étrangère; Oreste Zéluck, Éditeur, Paris, et Les Éditions de la Baconnière à Boudry, Neuchâtel (Suisse), 1946, 367 p. [Topic: Theory and Practice of Anti-Semitism Education in the Nazi State 1933–1945]
  • The Folklore of Lithuanian Jews , in: YD Kamzon, Rav Kook Institution [for Talmudic Research] Jerusalem (Editor), Yahaduth Lita (New Hebrew), Vol. 1 - 4, Tel-Aviv 1959-1984, Vol. 1, 1959 , [24] + 256 p.
  • [The Nature of] Kiddush Hashem over the Ages and its Uniqueness in the Holocaust Period , in: Meir Grubsztein (Ed.), Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Conference on Manifestations of Jewish Resistance. Jerusalem, April 7-11, 1968, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem 1971, 21972, 562 p., P. 453 - 482, for the opening credits (and the title of the article) cf. Gottfarstein's contribution to the discussion in the same volume, p. 61 ff .; Excerpt (p. 475-478) reprinted under the title Jewish Law & the Holocaust in: Azriel Eisenberg, Witness to the Holocaust [a reader with individual bibliographies to specific topics], The Pilgrim Press, NY 1981, XX + 649 p., ISBN 0-8298-0432-3 , p. 297 ff.
  • Toward a Portrait of Lithuanian Jewry (New Hebrew), in: M. Zohary & A. Tartakover (Ed.), Hagut 'Ivrit Be-'Eyropa (Studies on Jewish Themes by Contemporary European Scholars), Brit-Ivrit Olamit / Israel Goldstein (Chairman of the Editorial Board), Yavne, Yerushalaim / Tel Aviv 1969; from: Joseph Gutferstein [sic!], The Indestructible Dignity of Man: The Last Musar Lecture in Slabodka , in: American Jewish Congress (Ed.), Judaism. A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life & Thought, Vol. 19, Number 3, Summer 1970, pp. 262-263 (p. 259: The translation from the Hebrew is the work of Dr. David Wolf Silverman .; P. 262: "This Chapter is part of a larger work ... on Lithuanian Jewry."); this excerpt reprinted under the title Kiddush Ha-Hayim (Sanctification of Life). The Indestructible Dignity of Man , in: Eisenberg (op.cit.), P. 300 ff.
  • Rencontres avec l'alphabet hébreu. Les lettres sculptées d'Anna Waisman , La Revue encyclopédique juive, n ° 49, 1978, p. 1359.

Translations

  • Marc Dvorjetski (* 1908), Le Ghetto de Vilna (Rapport Sanitaire) , Preface du Prof. L. Hersch. La traduction de l'Avant-Propos [Paris, le 23 août 1945] a été faite du yiddish par Rebecca Citrinbaum. Le Livre même [Report, Paris, October 1945; pp. 21 - 85] a été traduit par J [oseph] Gottfarstein, [Edition] Union OSE, Genève 1946, 85 p.
  • Cholem Aleichem (1859–1916), Le Tailleur Ensorcelé et autres contes , traduits du yiddish par Isaac Pougatch et Joseph Gottfarstein, avec un dessin de Marc Chagall [en frontispice], Editions Albin Michel (Collection “Présences du judaïsme”), Paris juin 1960, reproduit août 1983, 269 p., Introductory essay Cholem Aleichem , signed “JG et IP”, pp. 7-18; ISBN 2-226-01850-6 .
  • IL Peretz , Métamorphose d'une Mélodie et autres contes et récits ; traduits, préfacés, et annotés par J [oseph] Gottfarstein, Editions Albin Michel (Collection "Présences du judaïsme"), Paris septembre 1977, 288 p., Préface "La Littérature Yiddish au XIXe siècle", signed "JG", pp. 7-18, Notes et Références, Lexique, pp. 251-283, ISBN 2-226-00547-1 .
  • (published posthumously by Samuel Gottfarstein) Le Bahir . Le Livre de la Clarté [Sépher Ha-Bahir; Provence, end of the 12th century]. Traduit de l'hébreu et de l'araméen par JG [Édition bilingue], Collection 'Les Dix Paroles' / Textes de la tradition hébraïque, dirigée par Charles Mopsik, [Éditions] Verdier, 11220 Lagrasse [Aude] janvier 1983, reprint mars 2000, 171 p., Presentation [JG]: p. 7-15, texts: 17-155; ISBN 2-86432-021-5 .

Interviews and letters

  • Conversations about Joseph Roth, 1894–1939 , in: David Bronsen, Joseph Roth. A biography , Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1974, 713 p .; Excerpts from interview minutes, in notes (pp. 609–669) expressly referring to Gottfarstein.
  • Two letters to Ludwig Hohl (1904–1980) and Hanny Fries, October 27, 1946, February 24, 1947 (translation from the French), in: Werner Morlang , The most reliable of my friends. H. Fries et al. L. Hollow. Conversations, letters, drawings and documents , Nagel & Kimche, Zurich [= Filia v. Carl Hanser, Munich / Vienna] 2003, 392 S., S. 363-368; ISBN 3-312-00310-5 .
  • Five letters to Soma Morgenstern (1890–1976), January 16, November 14, 1958, June 1, October 9, 1959, April 11, 1960 (translated from Yiddish into New High German by Mirjam Triendl , November 1997), German Exile Archive 1933–1945 from the Deutsche Bibliothek Frankfurt (Main), unpublished, 5 original sheets (Yiddish in Hebrew typescript), 8 sheet translation, 7 p.

estate

The originally planned donation of the estate to the Yidisher visnshaftlekher institute archive in New York did not materialize. That is why Samuel Gottfarstein donated his father's estate to the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris in 2005 .

Doubtful

  • Fleeting use of the reference v. Eisenberg's partial reprint 1981 of the text Kiddush Ha-Hayim 1970 (Eisenberg, p. 300, without recourse to the "Acknowledgments", p. VI) produced a misleading reference to an alleged monograph "Judaism": the artist Louis Brandsdorfer wrote on June 17th 1987 in his preface to The Bleeding Sky. My Mother's Journey Through the Fire : "[...] I was also taken with a quote from Joseph Gottfarstein's book" Judaism ", that I found in Azriel Eisenberg's book," Witness to the Holocaust. "The quote was from the last Musar talk Rabbi Nahum Yanchiker, the Headmaster of the Slabodka Musar-Yeshiva near Kovno Lithuania, gave his students. " [this is followed by paraphrases and Quotes from Eisenberg, p. 301 sq.]
  • For the claim of Friedlander (op. Cit., "Vilna [...]", p. 158): "He also translated the tales of the Hasidic Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav." There is no bibliographical evidence so far. But compare: Rabbi Nahman de Bratslav (1772–1810), Les Contes , [choisis et presentes par] Martin Buber; traduits de [la version allemande] by Felix Levy et Lea Marcou, Stock, Paris 1981, 193 p. - Gottfarstein's Peretz translation ( see above ) contains Les Récits de Rabbi Na'hman'ké. La Révélation ou L'Histoire d'un Bouc , pp. 55 - 65, plus the Notes, pp. 256-258.

swell

  1. ↑ Some of these biographical details are taken from the report of the ethnologist Judith Friedlander (after an interview with Joseph Gottfarstein 1979, shortly before his death): The Gottfarstein Family , in: Vilna on the Seine. Jewish Intellectuals in France Since 1968 , Yale University Press, New Haven & London 1990, XV + 249 p., P. 157-161.
  2. ↑ a b Information from Samuel Gottfarstein.
  3. ↑ YIVO News 199, Winter 2005, p. 25 PDF file (1.1 MB)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gottfarstein, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Historian u. philologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Prenen
DATE OF DEATH 1980
Place of death Paris