Mordecai Plungian

Mordecai Plungian
Born13 September 1814 
Died27 November 1883  (aged 69)

Mordecai Plungian (Marcus Plungianski; 1814-1883) was a Lithuanian rabbi, Talmudist, and Hebrew author associated with the maskilim, or the writers of the haskalah movement (the Jewish enlightenment).[1][2][3][4][5]

Biography

He was born in Plungė and built a reputation as a Talmudist at a young age before moving to Troki, where his new ideas offended the ultra-conservatives, so he moved to Wilna, where he gave rabbinical lectures and began secular studies, including European literature and languages. He got a job as a high school teacher before becoming an instructor of Talmud at the rabbinical seminary in 1867. The seminary closed in 1873, and he worked as a corrector in a printing office.[6]

Plungian was a descendant of Mordecai Jaffe.[7][8] He was a friend of Alexander Harkavy.[1]

Plungian was accused by the liberals of being a conservative, but angered the Orthodox as well who accused him of heresy.[6] His 1856 book Ben Porat was the subject of a censorship controversy, but he received assistance from Abraham Firkovich.[9] The work was a biography of Manasseh of Ilya.[2][10]

He died in Wilna in 1883.[6]

Works and further reading

  • Talpiyyot (Wilna, 1849), on the hermeneutic rule Gezerah Shawah in the Babylonian Talmud
  • Ben Porat (1856), biography of Manasseh of Ilya
  • Shebeṭ Eloah (ib. 1862), arguments against blood libel
  • Or Boḳer (ib. 1868), critical treatises on the Masorah as interpreted in the Talmud
  • Kerem li-Shelomoh (1857), a commentary on Kohelet[11]
    • Plungian, Mordecai (1837). כרם לשלמה (in Hebrew). Rom.
    • "A vineyard for Solomon by Mordechai ben Rabbi Shlomo Plungian כרם לשלמה -- פלונגיאן, מרדכי ב"ר שלמה". HebrewBooks.org (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  • "מרדכי פלונגיאן - דף יוצר - פרויקט בן־יהודה Mordechai Plongian". benyehuda.org (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  • "Mordechai Plungian (1814-1883), 1878, notebook of sermons, poems, commentary". Center for Jewish History. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  • National Library of Israel

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

  • Ha-Shaḥar, xi. 635;
  • N. Nathanson, Sefat Emet, Warsaw, 1887;
  • Zeitlin, Bibl. Post-Mendels. p. 272;
  • Kerem Ḥemed, ix. 136;
  • Ha-Meliẓ, 1883, Nos. 89, 91.

References

  1. ^ a b Richards, Bernard G. (1940). "Alexander Harkavy". The American Jewish Year Book. 42: 153–164. ISSN 0065-8987. JSTOR 23602425.
  2. ^ a b Barzilay, Isaac E. (1984). "Manasseh of Ilya (1767-1831) as Talmudist". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 74 (4): 345–378. doi:10.2307/1454276. ISSN 0021-6682. JSTOR 1454276.
  3. ^ Chernick, Michael (1990). "Internal Restraints on Gezerah Shawah's Application". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 80 (3/4): 253–282. doi:10.2307/1454971. ISSN 0021-6682. JSTOR 1454971.
  4. ^ Feiner, Shmuel (2001-11-01). Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness. Liverpool University Press. p. 247. ISBN 978-1-909821-32-3.
  5. ^ Zeitlin, William. Bibliotheca hebraica post-Mendelssohniana (in German). Georg Olms Verlag. p. 272. ISBN 978-3-487-41315-0.
  6. ^ a b c "PLUNGIAN (PLUNGIANSKI), MORDE-CAI (MARCUS) - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  7. ^ Rottenberg, Dan (1986). Finding Our Fathers: A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 312. ISBN 978-0-8063-1151-7.
  8. ^ Lillevik, Raymond (2014-07-03). Apostates, Hybrids, or True Jews?: Jewish Christians and Jewish Identity in Eastern Europe, 1860-1914. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-62564-530-2.
  9. ^ Akhiezer, Golda (2017-12-18). Historical Consciousness, Haskalah, and Nationalism among the Karaites of Eastern Europe: Karaite Texts and Studies, Volume 10. BRILL. p. 262. ISBN 978-90-04-36058-7.
  10. ^ Barzilay, Isaac (1983). "The Life of Menashe of Ilya (1767-1831)". Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research. 50: 1–35. doi:10.2307/3622687. ISSN 0065-6798. JSTOR 3622687.
  11. ^ Sæbø, Magne (2012-12-05). Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part I: The Nineteenth Century - a Century of Modernism and Historicism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 301. ISBN 978-3-647-54021-4.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainSinger, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "PLUNGIAN (PLUNGIANSKI), MORDE-CAI (MARCUS)". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.