Rahel Morpugo and Contemporary Hebrew Poets in Italy.
[Judaica]. Salaman, Nina. Rahel Morpugo and Contemporary Hebrew Poets in Italy. With a foreword by The Very Rev. The Chief Rabbi. And an afterward by Herbert Loewe, M. A. Lecturer in Rabbinic Hebrew in the University of Oxford. London: George Allen & Unwin, (1924).
12mo.; a small sticker on the front pastedown; orange wrappers, tender and chipped at edges, spine stained and mostly worn away.
First edition of this lecture published, though not given, as the sixth Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture, established in 1917 under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Society of England “with the object of fostering Hebraic thought and learning in honour of an unworldly scholar.” The introductory note continues: “The Lecture is to be given annually in the anniversary week of his death, and the lectureship is to be open to men or women of any race or creed, who are to have absolute liberty in the treatment of their subject.” A presentation copy, inscribed: To Mabel and Philip with love & good wishes from Nina, dated at the bottom of the page: December 1924.
Nina Salaman herself was a noted poet, with a “passionate love of the Hebrew language,” a “deep religious feeling, . . . love of Zion, . . . faith in Zion’s future,” all characteristics she shares with her subject. Salaman writes about Rahel Morpurgo and her family, particularly Moses and Samuel Luzzatto who were also poets. Morpurgo (1790-1871) was the extremely rare woman schooled in Talmud. Many of her relatives were major religious figures—Moses Luzzatto was not only the father of modern Hebrew humanism but also a revered mystic. His legacy can be seen in the Messianic hopes that suffuse Morpurgo’s verse. Salaman preserves the sense of her deep faith as well as her formal artistry in the translations that are mixed in with biographical information and analysis.
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