Israel Frenkel

Israel Frenkel
ישראל פרענקעל
Born(1853-09-18)18 September 1853
Radom, Russian Poland
Died1890(1890-00-00) (aged 36–37)
Spouse
Shprintze Kirschenbaum
​
​
(m. 1872)​
Writing career
LanguageHebrew
Movement
Haskalah

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

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.

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, Frenkel became close friends with Mohilever, as well as with Haim Yehiel Bornstein [Wikidata] and Nahum Sokolow. he founded a Talmud Torah in Radom in 1882, which emphasized the study of both Judaic and secular subjects.

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 [Wikidata]'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. Frenkel was also regular contributor to Ha-Tsfira, Ha-Shaḥar, Ha-Melitz, Ha-Maggid, and other Maskilic publications.

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

Partial bibliography

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. 1 2 3 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. 1 2 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. 1 2 Tidhar, David (1949). Entsiklopedyah le-halutse ha-yishuv u-vonav [Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel] (in Hebrew). Vol. 3. p. 1310.