Israel Frenkel

Israel Frenkel (Hebrew: ישראל פרענקעל; 18 September 1853 – 1890) was a Polish-Jewish Hebraist, translator, and educator.

Israel Frenkel
Native name
ישראל פרענקעל
Born(1853-09-18)18 September 1853
Radom, Russian Poland
Died1890(1890-00-00) (aged 36–37)
LanguageHebrew
Literary movementHaskalah
Spouse
Shprintze Kirschenbaum
​
​
(m. 1872)​

Biography

Frenkel was born in Radom, Poland in 1853. His mother, Neḥama née Potashnik, was a descendant of Yaakov Yitzḥak of Lublin, and his father, Shraga Frenkel, came from a scholarly Hasidic family.[1]

He studied Talmudic literature under Rabbi Samuel Mohilever, at the same time studying Hebrew, German, and French. An early member of the Hibbat Zion movement,[2] Frenkel became close friends with Mohilever, as well as with Haim Yehiel Bornstein and Nahum Sokolow.[1] he founded a Talmud Torah in Radom in 1882, which emphasized the study of both Judaic and secular subjects.[3]

His translations into Hebrew include Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Miss Sara Sampson, under the title Sara bat Shimshon (Warsaw, 1887); the songs in metric verse in David Radner's translation of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (Vilna, 1878); and Stanisław Gabriel Kozłowski's drama Esterka, under the title Masʾa Ester (Warsaw, 1889), the heroine of which is Esterka, the mythical Jewish mistress of Casimir III the Great.[4][5] Frenkel was also regular contributor to Ha-Tsfira, Ha-Shaḥar, Ha-Melitz, Ha-Maggid, and other Maskilic publications.[3][6]

He died at age 37 during the 1889–1890 flu pandemic.[1] His son Yechiel Frenkel would become a prominent writer and Zionist activist.[6]

Partial bibliography
  • Kozłowski, Stanisław Gabriel (1889). Translated by Frenkel, Israel. "Masʾa Ester: ḥizayon be-shesh maʿarkhot yesodoto be-divrei ha-yamim me-et ha-sofer ha-polani Kozlovski" [Esther’s Burden: A spectacle in six acts, based on the history by the Polish writer Kozłowski]. Ha-Asif (in Hebrew). 5: 1–108.
  • Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1887). Sara bat Shimshon [Miss Sara Sampson]. Translated by Frenkel, Israel. Warsaw.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rosenthal, Herman; Seligsohn, M. (1903). "Frenkel, Israel". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 507–508.

  1. Lipson, Alfred, ed. (1963). "Modern Currents". The Book of Radom: The Story of a Jewish Community in Poland Destroyed by the Nazis. Translated by Lipson, Alfred. New York: United Radomer Relief of the United States and Canada. pp. 12–13.
  2. "Frenkel". ANU Museum of the Jewish People. Beit Hatfutsot. 264549. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  3. Gal (Fogelman), Pinchas (1961). "Di deraberungen fun der Haskoloh". In Perlow, Yitzchok (ed.). Sefer Radom (in Yiddish). Vol. 2. Tel Aviv: Irgune yotsʼe Radom be-Yisraʼel uva-tefutsot. pp. 101–102.
  4. Cohen, Nathan (2015). "The Love Story of Esterke and Kazimierz, King of Poland—New Perspectives". European Journal of Jewish Studies. 9 (2): 178. doi:10.1163/1872471X-12341280.
  5. Zeitlin, William (1890). Bibliotheca hebraica post-Mendelssohniana (in German). Leipzig: K. F. Koehler's Antiquarium. pp. 93, 286, 437.
  6. Tidhar, David (1949). Entsiklopedyah le-halutse ha-yishuv u-vonav [Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel] (in Hebrew). Vol. 3. p. 1310.
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