Mekitze_Nirdamim

Mekitze Nirdamim

Mekitze Nirdamim

Add article description


Mekitze Nirdamim (Hebrew: מְקִיצֵי נִרְדָּמִים, Meḳitse nirdamim, lit. "Rousers of Those Who Slumber") is a literary society dedicated to the retrieval, preservation, and publication of medieval Hebrew texts.[1] It was first established at Lyck, Prussia in 1861, and is now based out of Jerusalem, Israel.

Quick Facts Formation, Founder ...

History

Mekitze Nirdamim was first established in Lyck, Prussia in 1861, mainly by the efforts of Eliezer L. Silbermann [he], editor of the Hebrew weekly Ha-Magid.[2] The Society's first board consisted of prominent scholars and philanthropists such as Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, Albert Cohn, S. D. Luzzatto, Moses Montefiore, Michael Sachs, Mattityahu Strashun, and Joseph Zedner.[3][4]

The organization's focus on realigning Haskalah and tradition among European Jews was met with opposition from some maskilim.[5] By 1864, nonethelessss, the number of subscribers stood at 1,200.[6] Among its early publications were Luzzatto's 1864 edition of Judah Halevi's Diwan,[7] Salomon Buber's edition of the Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (1868), and parts of Isaac Lampronti's rabbinic encyclopedia Paḥad Yizhak [he] (1864–74).[8]

The Society became increasingly inactive during the 1870s.[9] After Silbermann's death in 1882, Mekitze Nirdamim was successfully revived at Berlin in 1885 by Abraham Berliner, alongside Moses Levi Ehrenreich, Joseph Derenbourg, David Günzburg, Solomon Joachim Halberstam, Abraham Harkavy, Marcus Jastrow, David Kaufmann, and Mattityahu Strashun.[10] Amid the rise of Nazism in Germany, the Society was moved to Jerusalem in 1934, under the leadership of then-president Aron Freimann.[9][11] Agnon served as president of the Society from 1954 to 1970, and was succeeded by Gershom Scholem.[6]

Notable members


References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gottheil, Richard; Waldstein, A. S. (1904). "Meḳiẓe Nirdamim". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 447–448.

  1. Roth, Cecil, ed. (1962). "Mekitze Nirdamim". The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 1294. OCLC 1036870767.
  2. Peixotto, Benjamin Franklin, ed. (May 1887). "Hebrew Works Published by the 'MeKitzē-Nirdamim'". The Menorah. 2 (5). New York: Menorah Publishing Company: 263–264.
  3. Posner, Raphael; Ta-Shma, Israel M., eds. (1975). The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey. Keter Publishing House Jerusalem. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-7065-1389-9. OCLC 804898547.
  4. Raisin, Max (1919). A History of the Jews in Modern Times. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company. pp. 15–16.
  5. Ta-Shma, Israel Moses (2007). "Mekiẓe Nirdamim". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 13 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 797. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  6. Yahalom, Joseph (1995). "Diwan and Odyssey: Judah Halevi and the Secular Poetry of Medieval Spain in the Light of New Discoveries from Petersburg". Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos. 44: 23–45. ISSN 0544-408X.
  7. Spector, Shmuel, ed. (2001). "Lyck". The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. Vol. 2. New York: New York University Press. p. 776. ISBN 978-0-8147-9377-0.
  8. Meir, Yonatan (2013). "The Origins of Ḥevrat Mekiẓe Nirdamim in Eastern Europe". In Elizur, Shulamit (ed.). From Oblivion to the Bookshelf: The 150th Anniversary of Mekize Nirdamim (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mekitze Nirdamim. pp. 33–45. ISBN 978-965-462-012-3.
  9. Landman, Isaac, ed. (1942). "Mekize Nirdamim ('Awakers of Those Asleep')". The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: An Authoritative and Popular Presentation of Jews and Judaism Since the Earliest Times. Vol. 7. New York. p. 449. OCLC 999879047.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. Heuberger, Rachel (2011). "Aron Freimann and the Development of Jewish Bibliography in Germany in the 20th Century". In Leicht, Reimund; Freudenthal, Gad (eds.). Studies on Steinschneider: Moritz Steinschneider and the Emergence of the Science of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Leiden: Brill. p. 334. ISBN 978-90-04-22645-6.
  11. Hoffman, Anne Golomb (1991). Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing. Albany: SUNY Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-7914-0540-6.
  12. Butler, Menachem (22 July 2020). "In Memory of Shmuel Ashkenazi, Bibliographer of the Hebrew Book". Tablet. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  13. Berliner, A., ed. (1899). Kobez Al Jad (in Hebrew). Vol. 9. Berlin: Vereins M'kize Nirdamim.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Mekitze_Nirdamim, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.