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Senior Sachs

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Russian-French Hebrew writer (1816–1892)
Senior Sachs
BornShneur ben Tzemaḥ Zaks
(1816-06-17)17 June 1816
Kaidany, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire
Died18 November 1892(1892-11-18) (aged 76)
Paris, France
LanguageHebrew
Literary movementHaskalah
Signature

Senior Sachs (Hebrew: שניאור זק״ש, romanized: Shneur Zaks; 17 June 1816 – 18 November 1892), also known as the Or shani (אור שני), was a Russo-French Hebrew writer and scholar.

Biography

Early life and education

Senior Sachs was born to a Jewish family in Kaidany, Kovno Governorate. He was raised in Zhagory, where his father, Tzemaḥ Sachs, was appointed rabbi when Senior was one and one-half years old. He studied Hebrew and Talmud under his father's tutelage, and while still a boy, manifested a predilection for Hebrew literature.

Sachs became acquainted with the parnas of the Kaidany community, who introduced him to Maskilic literature, including the works of Isaac Erter. Erter's writings so impressed him that he considered immediately moving to Brody in order to study under him, but Sachs' early marriage, in accordance with the custom of that time, prevented him. Instead, he studied for one year on a scholarship in the Wasilishok bet ha-midrash and taught for a year in Dubno. In around 1839 Sachs moved to Brody, where Erter assisted him in finding employment teaching Hebrew. Meanwhile, he studied German and Syriac, and devoted the greater part of his time to reading scientific and philosophical works.

Career

Title page of Ha-Yonah (1851).

Sachs remained two years in Brody, and while there wrote an article in Hebrew on Russo-Hebrew scholars and on the education of the Jews in Russia; this he sent to Isaak Markus Jost, who translated it into German, and published it anonymously in his Israelitische Annalen (1840, nos. 4–10). His parents having requested him to return home, Sachs set out on his journey, but, having no passport, was arrested on the Russian frontier. He was brought to Kremenets, where he was thrown into prison, remaining in confinement five months, when he was liberated through the efforts of Isaac Baer Levinsohn. Sachs stayed at Zhagory six months, when he was invited to teach at Rossiena, where he befriended novelist Abraham Mapu. He remained there until the end of 1843. At length he went to Berlin (1844), where he entered the university, attending particularly the lectures of Schelling and Althaus. In 1856 Sachs was invited to Paris by Baron Joseph Günzburg to become his private librarian and the tutor of his children.

In Paris Sachs displayed great activity in various branches of Hebrew literature, but as he occupied himself with different subjects at one and the same time, most of his works remained unfinished. While in Berlin he had begun to edit literary periodicals, the first of which was Ha-Teḥiyyah, treating chiefly of medieval religious philosophy. Only two numbers were issued, the first in 1850 and the second in 1857. In 1850 Sachs edited also Leopold Zunz's Ha-Palit, an index of valuable Hebrew manuscripts, with biographical notes on some of the authors. Of his Ha-Yonah only one number appeared (Berlin, 1851); it contains among other things an article by Hayyim Selig Slonimski on the Jewish calendar according to the ancient Talmudists. Sachs then undertook to continue the publication of the Kerem Ḥemed [he], editing the eighth and ninth volumes (Berlin, 1854 and 1856).

Sachs also researched and uncovered the wrongful attribution of twenty-one philosophical works of Solomon ibn Gabirol to the biblical King Solomon.

Bibliography

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rosenthal, Herman; Seligsohn, M. (1905). "Sachs, Senior". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 613–614.

  1. Viezel, Eran (2016). "Radical Jewish Study of the Masoretic Text during the Enlightenment Period: Joshua Heschel Schorr, Abraham Krochmal, and Elimelech Bezredḳi". European Journal of Jewish Studies. 10 (1): 50–78. doi:10.1163/1872471X-12341286.
  2. ^ "Chronique". Revue des études juives (in French). 26 (51). Paris: A. Durlacher: 157. 1893.
  3. ^ Sokolow, Naḥum (1889). Sefer zikaron le-sofrei Israel ha-ḥayim itanu ka-yom [Memoir Book of Contemporary Jewish Writers] (in Hebrew). Warsaw. pp. 42–43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. Kressel, Getzel (2007). "Sachs, Senior". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  5. Raisin, Max (1919). A History of the Jews in Modern Times. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company. p. 15.
  6. Zunz, Leopold (1850). Zaks, Shneur (ed.). Ha-Palit (in Hebrew). Berlin: S. Löwenherz. hdl:2027/hvd.hnk49j.
  7. ^ Zeitlin, William (1890). "Sachs, Senior". Bibliotheca hebraica post-Mendelssohniana (in German). Leipzig: K. F. Koehler's Antiquarium. pp. 326–328.
  8. Menda-Levy, Oded (2008). "Kerem Ḥemed". In Hundert, Gershon (ed.). YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Translated by Hann, Rami. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  9. Davidson, Israel (1924). Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol. Schiff Library of Jewish Classics. Translated by Zangwill, Israel. Philadelphia: JPS. p. 247. ISBN 0-8276-0060-7. LCCN 73-2210.
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