Project Details
Projekt
Mendel Lefin Satanover's Yiddish Translation of Job: Edition of an Important Document of Early 19th-Century East-European Haskalah
Applicant
Professor Dr. Roland Gruschka
Subject Area
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
Term
from 2015 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 286466353
The Yiddish Bible translations of Menahem Mendel Lefin of Satanów (1746-1826), a central figure of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) in Galicia and Podolia, belong to the earliest documents of Modern Eastern Yiddish that reflect an authentic form of the vernacular. At the same time, they are one of the earliest known attempts of translating the Bible into Yiddish in a modern key. Lefin translated Mishle (Proverbs), Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), Echa (Lamentations), Ijov (Job), and Tehillim (Psalms) into his native Yiddish dialect of Podolia. In his lifetime, only Mishle was printed (1814); a calligraphic manuscript of Kohelet of 1819, which today is extant only as a photomechanical reproduction, was probably meant to serve as a substitute for a printed publication. Of Lefin's other translations, only one manuscript (MS 8° 1053, Jewish National Library, Jerusalem), which contains a version of Lamentations and fragments of Job and Psalms, has come down to us. Lefin's Bible translations are an important source not only for the history of the Yiddish language and literature, but also for the history and culture of Ashkenazic Jewry in Eastern Europe, especially for the epoch of the Haskalah, and for the history of Jewish Bible translation in general. In spite of this multi-faceted importance, there is no critical edition of Lefin's Yiddish Bible translations (or of any other of his writings). The objective of this project is to prepare a scholarly edition of one of the Yiddish translations contained in the Jerusalem manuscript 8° 1053, Lefin's translation of Job, which will be a crucial step in attaining the broader desideratum. The annotated critical edition will provide a reliable textual base for research in the history of the Yiddish language or in Yiddish philology as well as for investigations of topics specifically related to the content of the text, such as in the fields of the history of the Haskalah or of Jewish exegesis. The edition is primarily intended for scholars of Yiddish language and literature and for graduate and PhD students who are going to specialize in these fields. In addition, it will also be of value for scholars of adjacent disciplines (such as those in Jewish, German, Slavic, and Semitic studies; linguistics, Bible and Religious studies; and Jewish and Christian theology) who have acquired a substantial reading knowledge in Modern Standard Yiddish.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
USA
