Tobias Gutmann Feder

Tobias Gutmann Feder
Bornc. 1760
Przedbórz, Sandomierz Voivodeship, Poland
Died1817 (1818)
Ternopil, Galicia, Austrian Empire
LanguageHebrew

Tobias Gutmann Feder (Hebrew: טוביה בן צבי הירש גוטמאן פעדער, romanized: Tuviah ben Tzvi Hirsch Gutman Feder;[note 1] c. 1760, Przedbórz – 1817, Ternopil) was a Galician Maskilic writer, poet, and grammarian.

He wandered through Galicia, Poland, and Russia with his family as an itinerant scholar, supporting himself financially by working as a teacher, proofreader, merchant, scribe, cantor, and preacher.[1][2]

Work

Feder's first book, Bayit ne'eman (1794) which means in Hebrew faithful home/house, was an ethical treatise on truth. This was followed by an elegy on the death of the Vilna Gaon, entitled Kol nehi (1798). Like the Gaon, Feder was a bitter opponent of Ḥasidism and mysticism; to this end, he wrote Zemir aritzim, a satirical polemic against the Ḥasidic movement.

In 1804, Feder published Lahat ha-ḥerev, an attack on modern Biblical criticism directed against Aaron Wolfssohn and Isaac Satanov.[3] The same year he released Mevasser tov, an introduction to Hebrew grammar with a criticism of the Masorah commentary Menorat Shlomo, by Rabbi Phoebus of Dubrovno. Feder also wrote Kol meḥatzetzim ('Voice of the Archers', 1813), a bitter satire against Menachem Mendel Lefin for his Yiddish translation of the Book of Proverbs.[1][4] The controversial work circulated in manuscript among Maskilim, but was first published only in 1853 in an expurgated version.[5]

He composed two poems on the defeat of the French in Russia: Kol simḥah ve-sason (1814) which means in Hebrew a voice of happiness and joy, a song of triumph written for the Jewish community of Berdychev, and Hatzlaḥat Aleksander (1814), an ode to Alexander I of Russia.

Additional works by Feder were published after his death, including a rhymed play entitled Adam ve-Ḥavah ('Adam and Eve'), the Zohar ḥadash le-Purim, a humorous parody for Purim in Aramaic, and Shem u-she'erit, a volume of literary epistles and poems.[3]

Feder deeply influenced the literary work of the Galician Jewish poet Abraham Reif.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ Also known as טוביהו בן צבי הירש גוטמאן פעדער, romanized: Tuviahu ben Tzvi Hirsch Gutman Feder.

References

  1. ^ a b Kressel, Getzel (2007). "Feder, Tobias". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  2. ^ Fishman, Joshua A. (1991). Yiddish: Turning to Life. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 46–49. ISBN 978-90-272-7430-4.
  3. ^ a b Menda-Levy, Oded (2008). "Feder, Tuviah". In Hundert, Gershon (ed.). YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Translated by Hann, Rami. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  4. ^ Pelli, Moshe (2010). Haskalah and Beyond: The Reception of the Hebrew Enlightenment and the Emergence of Haskalah Judaism. Lanham: University Press of America. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-7618-5204-9.
  5. ^ Sinkoff, Nancy (2020). "The Linguistic Boundaries of Enlightenment: Revisiting the Language Polemic in Eastern Europe". Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies. pp. 168–202. doi:10.2307/j.ctvzpv5tn.13. ISBN 978-1-946527-96-7. JSTOR j.ctvzpv5tn.13. S2CID 241424416.
  6. ^ Margel, M. (18 April 1901). ר׳ אברהם רייף: תולדות חייו וספריו [Abraham Reif: His Life and Work]. Hamagid (in Hebrew). Vol. 10, no. 15. Vienna & Kraków. pp. 175–176.
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