Josef Flesch

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Josef Flesch
Born(1781-09-19)19 September 1781
Neu-Rausnitz, Moravia, Holy Roman Empire
Died17 December 1839(1839-12-17) (aged 58)
Neu-Rausnitz, Moravia, Austrian Empire
LanguageHebrew
Literary movementHaskalah

Josef Flesch (Yiddish: יוסף פלעש; 19 September 1781 – 17 December 1839) was Moravian writer, translator, and merchant. He has been called the "father of the Moravian Haskalah."[1]

Biography[edit]

Josef Flesch was born in Neu-Rausnitz, Moravia, the son of local rabbi Abraham Flesch. He attended yeshiva in Prague with his father's childhood friend, Baruch Jeitteles.[2] After marrying the daughter of Salomon Berger in Leipnik in 1801 and spending three years in the house of his father-in-law, he returned to his hometown and joined his father's business.[3]

He was a frequent contributor to the Bikkure ha-Ittim,[4] and translated into Hebrew several of the writings of Philo,[5] notably Quis rerum divinarum heres sit (under the title Ha-yoresh divre Elohim, Prague, 1830) and De vita Moysis (under the title Ḥayye Moshe, Prague, 1838).[6] To the former work was added the oration which Flesch delivered at his father's funeral. His other publications include a Hebrew translation of philosopher Karl Heinrich Heydenreich,[2] and a list of Jewish scientists under the title Reshimat anshe mofet (Prague, 1838).[7][8]

References[edit]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainJacobs, Joseph; Kayserling, Meyer (1903). "Flesch, Joseph". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 409.

  1. ^ Miller, Michael L. (2021). "Absolutism and Control: Jews in the Bohemian Lands in the Eighteenth Century". In Capkova, Kateřina; Kieval, Hillel J. (eds.). Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-8122-5311-5.
  2. ^ a b Miller, Michael L. (2010). Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 88–91. ISBN 978-0-8047-7652-3.
  3. ^ Löw, Leopold (1890). "Abraham and Josef Flesch und ihre Zeit: Ein Beitrag zur neuern Geschichte der Jeschiboth und der judischen Studien". Gesammelte Schriften (in German). 2. Szeged: Verlag von Alexander Bába: 219–249.
  4. ^ Miller, Michael L. (2012). "'Your Loving Uncle': Gideon Brecher, Moritz Steinschneider and the Moravian Haskalah". In Leicht, Reimund; Freudenthal, Gad (eds.). Studies on Steinschneider: Moritz Steinschneider and the Emergence of the Science of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Vol. 33. p. 42. doi:10.1163/9789004226456_003. ISBN 978-90-04-22645-6.
  5. ^ Strauss, Ze'ev (2019). "Solomon Judah Rapoport's Maskilic Revival of Philo of Alexandria". In Runia, David T.; Sterling, Gregory E. (eds.). The Studia Philonica Annual. Vol. 31. Atlanta: SBL Press. pp. 204–208. ISBN 978-0-88414-420-5.
  6. ^ Zeitlin, William (1890). Bibliotheca hebraica post-Mendelssohniana (in German). Leipzig: K. F. Koehler's Antiquarium. p. 88.
  7. ^ Fürst, Julius (1863). Bibliotheca Judaica: Bibliographisches Handbuch der gesammten jüdischen Literatur (in German). Vol. 1. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann. p. 284.
  8. ^ Roest, M. (1875). Catalog der Hebraica und Judaica aus der L. Rosenthal'schen Bibliothek (in German). Vol. 1. Amsterdam: J. Clausen. p. 922.