Mordecai Aaron Günzburg

Mordecai Aaron Günzburg (Hebrew: מֹרְדְּכַי אַהֲרֹן גִינְצְבּוּרְג, romanized: Mordekhai Aharon Gintsburg, Lithuanian: Mordechajus Aronas Gincburgas; 3 December 1795 – 5 November 1846), also known by the acronym Remag (רמא״ג) and the pen name Yonah ben Amitai (יוֹנָה בֶּן־אֲמִתַּי), was a Lithuanian Jewish writer, translator, and educator. He was a leading member of the Haskalah in Vilnius,^[1][2] and is regarded as the "Father of Hebrew Prose."^[3][4]

Mordecai Aaron Günzburg
Native name	מֹרְדְּכַי אַהֲרֹן גִינְצְבּוּרְג
Born	(1795-12-03)3 December 1795 Salantai, Russian Empire
Died	5 November 1846(1846-11-05) (aged 50) Vilnius, Russian Empire
Pen name	Yonah ben Amitai
Language	Hebrew, Yiddish
Literary movement	Haskalah
Notable works	Devir (1844) Aviezer (1863)

Biography

Günzburg was born into a prominent Jewish family in Salantai in 1795.^[5] His father Yehuda Asher (1765–1823), under whom he studied Hebrew and Talmud, was one of the early members of the Haskalah in Russia,^[6] and wrote treatises on mathematics and Hebrew grammar.^[7] Günzburg was engaged at the age of twelve, and married two years later, whereupon he went to live with his in-laws at Shavly.^[8] He continued his studies under his father-in-law until 1816.^[9] From there Günzburg went to Palanga and Mitau, Courland, where he taught Hebrew and translated legal papers into German. He did not stay in Courland long, and after a period of wandering settled in Vilnius in 1835.^[10]

In 1841, he founded with Shlomo Salkind the first secular Jewish school in Lithuania, which he headed until his death in 1846 at the age of fifty-one.^[7][10] A. B. Lebensohn, Wolf Tugendhold [Wikidata], and Michel Gordon,^[11] among others, published eulogies in his memory.^[6]

Work

Günzburg was best known for his series of histories of contemporary Europe.^[12][13] His first major publication was Sefer gelot ha-aretz (1823), an adaption into Hebrew of Joachim Heinrich Campe's Die Entdeckung von Amerika,^[14] a Yiddish translation of which he released the following year as Di entdekung fun Amerike.^[6] In 1835, he published the first volume of his universal history Toldot bnei ha-adam, adapted from Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz [de]'s Handbuch der weltgeschichte.^[15] (A few chapters of the second volume would later be published in the Leket Amarim, a supplement to Ha-Melitz, in 1889.) In the same genre he wrote Ittote Russiya (1839), a history of Russia, and Ha-Tzarfatim be-Russiya (1842) and Pi ha-ḥerut (1844), accounts of the Napoleonic Wars.^[16]

Among his other publications were Malakhut Filon ha-Yehudi (1836), a translation from German of Philo's embassy to Caligula, and the anthology Devir (1844), an eclectic collection of letters, tales, and sketches.^[17] Many of Günzburg's works were published posthumously, most notably his autobiography Aviezer (1863, composed between 1828 and 1845),^[18][12] as well as Ḥamat Dammeshek (1860), a history of the Damascus affair of 1840, and the satirical poem Tikkun Lavan ha-Arami (1864).^[19][7]

Günzburg's outlook was influenced by Moses Mendelssohn's Phaedon and the Sefer ha-Berit of Phinehas Elijah ben Meïr [he].^[13] He struggled energetically against Kabbalah and superstition as the sources of the Ḥasidic movement, but he was at the same time opposed to the free thought and proto-Reform movements.^[20]

Selected publications

Title page of Aviezer (1863)

• Sefer gelot ha-aretz ha-ḥadashah al yede Kristof Kolumbus [Discovery of the New Land by Christopher Columbus] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Missionarrow. 1823. Later published as Masa Kolumbus, o, gelot ha-aretz ha-ḥadashah [Columbus' Voyage; or, Discovery of the New Land].
• Di entdekung fun Amerike [The Discovery of America] (in Yiddish). Vilna: Rom. 1824.
• Toldot bnei ha-adam [History of Mankind] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. Vilna: Defus Binyamin ben David Ari' Segal. 1832.
• Kiryat sefer [Republic of Letters] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Binyamin ben David Ari' Segal. 1835. hdl:2027/nnc1.cu58931899. A letter-writing manual.
• Malakhut Filon ha-Yehudi [Delegation of Philo Judaeus] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Avraham Yitsḥak bar Shalom. 1836.
• Ittote Russiya [Chronicles of Russia] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1839. A history of Russia.
• Ha-Tzarfatim be-Russiya [Frenchmen in Russia] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus M. Rom. 1842.
• Maggid emet [Herald of Truth] (in Hebrew). Leipzig: C. L. Fritzsche. 1843. A refutation of Max Lilienthal's Maggid Yeshu'ah.
• Devir [Inner Sanctum] (in Hebrew). Vol. 1. Vilna: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1844. hdl:2027/nnc1.0026859629.
• Pi ha-ḥerut [Voices of Freedom] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Menaḥem Man ve-Simḥah Zimel. 1844.
• Sefer yemei ha-dor [Days of the Generation] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Yosef Reʼuven Rom. 1860. A history of Europe from 1770 to 1812.
• Ḥamat Dammeshek [The Wrath of Damascus] (in Hebrew). Königsberg. 1860. hdl:2027/njp.32101076527512.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Devir [Inner Sanctum] (in Hebrew). Vol. 2. Vilna: Defus Shmuel Yosef Finn ve-Avraham Tzvi Rosenkranz. 1861. hdl:2027/uc1.ax0001254127.
• Aviezer; hu sefer toldot ish ram ha-maʻalah asher katav be-etsem yado [Abiezer] (Autobiography) (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Shmuel Yosef Fin ve-Avrohom Tzvi Rozenkrantz. 1863.
• Tikkun Lavan ha-Arami: shir sipuri neged ha-ḥasidim [Righting Lavan the Aramæan] (in Hebrew). Vilna: Defus Halter ve-Eisenstadt. 1894 [1864].
• Ha-Moriyyah [Moriah] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Druk fun Aleksander Ginz. 1878. hdl:2027/nnc1.cu58952225.
• Leil shimmurim [Watch-night] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Defus Yosef Unterhendler. 1883.