Hartwig Hirschfeld

{{Short description|Prussian-born British Orientalist and educator (1854–1934)}}

{{Infobox academic

| name=Hartwig Hirschfeld

| image=

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| birth_date={{birth date|1854|12|18|df=y}}

| birth_place=Thorn, Province of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia

| death_date={{death date and age|1934|01|10|1854|12|18|df=y}}

| death_place=London, England, United Kingdom

| nationality=British

| occupation=

| spouse= {{marriage|Pauline Loewe|1890|1929|end=d.}}

| children= Louis Hirschfeld (1893–1898){{cite news|title=Communal Announcements|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YeO9D2qxuiQC&pg=PA221|newspaper=The Jewish World|date=17 June 1898}}
Rosamund Hirschfeld ({{abbr|b.|born}} 1895)
Beatrice Amelie Hirschfeld ({{abbr|b.|born}} 1897)
Dorothy Hirschfeld

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| alma_mater=University of Strasburg

| thesis_title=Jüdische elemente im Ḳorân: Ein beitrag zur Ḳorânforschung

| thesis_url=http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/judaica//urn/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-180012484004

| thesis_year=1878

| doctoral_advisor=Theodor Nöldeke

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| workplaces=Judith Lady Montefiore College
Jews' College
University College London

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| main_interests=Oriental studies

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}}

Hartwig Hirschfeld {{small|MRAS}} ({{Langx|he|נַפְתָּלִי הַארְטְוִויג בֵּן אַהֲרֹן הִירְשְׁפֵלְד}}; 18 December 1854 – 10 January 1934) was a Prussian-born British Orientalist, bibliographer, and educator. His particular scholarly interest lay in Arabic Jewish literature and in the relationship between Jewish and Arab cultures.{{r|palgrave}} He is best known for his editions of Judah Halevi's Kuzari—which he published in its original Judeo-Arabic and in Hebrew, German and English translations—and his studies on the Cairo Geniza.{{cite web|url=https://dbs.bh.org.il/luminary/hirschfeld-hartwig|title=Hirschfeld, Hartwig|access-date=15 April 2019|website=The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot}}{{cite encyclopedia|title=Torun (I) | editor-last=Spector | editor-first=Shmuel | editor2-last=Wigoder | editor2-first=Geoffrey | encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust | volume=3| location=Jerusalem| publisher=Yad Vashem | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-8147-9378-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tumlOiOZvSUC&pg=PA1316 | page=1316}}

Biography

Hartwig Hirschfeld was born to a Jewish family in Thorn, Prussia. His father, Dr. Aron Hirschfeld, was a rabbi from Dirschau, and his maternal grandfather was the distinguished rabbi Salomon Plessner.{{cite book | editor-last=Brocke | editor-first=Michael |editor2-first=Julius|editor2-last=Carlebach| title=Die Rabbiner der Emanzipationszeit in den deutschen, böhmischen und großpolnischen Ländern 1781–1871|trans-title=Rabbis of the Emancipation Era in the German, Bohemian and Greater Polish Territories, 1781–1871|series=Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner | publisher=De Gruyter | location=Munich | year=2004 | isbn=978-3-11-023232-5 | oclc=644583327 | language=de | page=447|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxCyVb2eKo0C&pg=PA447}} After graduating from the Royal Marien Gymnasium in Posen, Hirschfeld studied Oriental languages and philosophy at the University of Berlin, at the same time attending lectures at Azriel Hildesheimer's Rabbiner-Seminar.{{r|harris}} He received his doctorate from the University of Strasburg in 1878 and, after a year's compulsory service in the Prussian Army, he obtained a travelling scholarship in 1882 which enabled him to study Arabic and Hebrew at Paris under Joseph Derenbourg.{{r|gaster}}

After teaching in Posen for a few years, Hirschfeld immigrated to England in 1889, where he became professor of Biblical exegesis, Semitic languages, and philosophy at the Montefiore College.{{r|gaster}} In 1901, he was invited by the Syndicate of Cambridge University to examine the Arabic fragments in the Taylor-Schechter collection.{{r|harris}} That same year, he was appointed librarian and professor of Semitic languages at Jews' College, a position he occupied until 1929. At the same time, he became a lecturer in Semitic epigraphy at University College London in 1903, a lecturer in Ethiopic in 1906, and full professor and Goldsmid Lecturer in Hebrew there in 1924.

Publications

Hirschfeld's publications include a German translation of Judah Halevi's Kuzari, relying on the Arabic original (1885); a critical edition of the Arabic text and the Hebrew translation by Judah ibn Tibbon (1887); an English translation (1905), of which a revised edition appeared in 1932;{{cite journal | last=Kohler | first=George Y. | title=The Captivating Beauty of the Divine Spark—Breslau and the Reception of Yehuda Halevi's Sefer Kuzari (1877–1911) | journal=Transversal: Journal for Jewish Studies | publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH | volume=14 | issue=1 | date=2016 | issn=2391-7385 | doi=10.1515/tra-2016-0004 | pages=26–34|url=https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/tra/14/1/article-p26.xml| doi-access=free }} Arabic Chrestomathy in Hebrew Characters (1892); the Al-Sab'iniyya, an Arabic philosophic poem by Musa ibn Tubi (1894); Beiträge zur Erklärung des Koran (1886), elaborated into New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Koran (1902); the Hebrew translation of the Book of Definitions by Isaac Israeli (1896); Yefet ben Ali's commentary on the Book of Nahum (1911); Sketch of Hebrew Grammar (1913); Qirqisānī Studies (1918); An Ethiopic-Falasi Glossary (1921); Commentary on Deuteronomy (1925); and Literary History of Hebrew Grammarians and Lexicographers (1926). Among his bibliographical writings are a Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew MSS. of the Montefiore Library (1904). Hirschfeld also contributed articles to numerous periodicals, most notably a series of essays on the Arabic fragments in the Cairo Geniza in the Jewish Quarterly Review (1903–1908).{{r|EJ}}

References

{{Jewish Encyclopedia|article=Hirschfeld, Hartwig|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7756-hirschfeld-hartwig|first1=Joseph|last1=Jacobs|first2=Victor Rousseau|last2=Emanuel|volume=6|page=420}}

{{Reflist|refs={{cite book|title=History of Jews' College: November 11th 1855 – November 10th 1905|first=Isidore|last=Harris|location=London|publisher=Luzac & Co.|date=1906|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofjewscol00jewsiala/|pages=112–116}}

{{cite book | editor1-last=Rubinstein | editor1-first=William D.|editor1-link=William Rubinstein|editor2-last=Jolles|editor2-first=Michael A.|editor3-last=Rubinstein|editor3-first=Hillary L.| title=The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | location=London | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-230-30466-6 | oclc=793104984 | page=429|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hJc8afOZV0QC&pg=PA429}}

{{cite EJ|title= Hirschfeld, Hartwig|first= |last= |volume=9|page=137–138|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hirschfeld-hartwig}}

{{cite journal|title=Obituary Notices: Dr. Hartwig Hirschfeld |first=Moses|last=Gaster |author-link=Moses Gaster|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=67|number=1 | year=1935 | url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.283410/page/n255 | pages=229–230|issn=1356-1863|doi=10.1017/S0035869X0008391X|doi-access=free}}

}}

External links

{{URL|1=http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Hirschfeld%2C%20Hartwig%2C%201854%2D1934|2=Works of Hartwig Hirschfeld}} at the Online Books Page
{{URL|1=https://www.sefaria.org/Kuzari|2=Kuzari with English Translation}} on Sefaria

Category:1853 births

Category:1934 deaths

Category:19th-century Prussian military personnel

Category:19th-century Prussian people

Category:Academic librarians

Category:Academics of University College London

Category:Arabic–English translators

Category:Arabic–German translators

Category:Bible commentators

Category:British bibliographers

Category:Bibliographers of Hebrew literature

Category:British Arabists