Heinrich Josefsohn

{{Short description|Bible translator from Prague (c.1770–1840)}}

File:Heinrich Josefson handwriting.jpg

Heinrich Josefsohn (Hebrew: צבי יאזאפזאהן; {{circa|1770|1840}}) was a Hebrew Bible translator, poet, dramatist from Prague. He was member of the Biurists and the Me'assfim, continuing the Hebrew literary work of Moses Mendelssohn and Hebrew literary figures in Berlin.{{Cite book |last=Josefsohn |first=H. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011641347 |title=Shivʻah medore gehenom = Fegfeuer's sieben Abtheilungen |date=1870 |publisher=M. Belinsohn |series=Fegfeuer's sieben Abtheilungen |location=Odessa}}

Josefson was more religious in philosophy than his peers, specifically David Friedländer, Isaac Satanow and Herz Homberg. He composed a manuscript of a Mendelssohn-style Be'ur on the Book of Isaiah with the Judeo-German translation of Meir Obornik, censored and signed by Carolus (Karl) Fischer, a Semitic scholar and censor in Prague. Josefson criticizes Friedländer harshly in the introduction to the manuscript; unfortunately, this manuscript was never brought to print, despite intentions and work to do so (possibly through repression).{{Cite web |title=Book of Isaiah. Judeo-German translation, with Hebrew commentary |url=https://www.kestenbaum.net/auction/lot/auction-44/044-294/ |access-date=2022-03-09 |website=www.kestenbaum.net}} This manuscript today is at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries cited as UPenn CAJS Rar Ms. 537.{{Cite book |url=https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9977926229603681 |title=Judeo-German Isaiah and Be'ur}} Josefsohn appears to have been in the camps of such as Heinrich Graetz, in direct opposition to Friedländer, who sought a form of conversion of German Jews to Lutheranism,{{Cite book |title=Lowenstein, Steven M.:The Jewishness of David Friedländer and the crisis of Berlin Jewry. Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan Univ., 1994. (Braun lectures in the history of the Jews in Prussia ; no. 3)}} which may explain his repression and obscurity today, despite talent as a poet, Bible translator and elucidator, and author; William Zeitlin did not know of Josefsohn's Biblical work in his citation of his work,{{Cite book |last=Zeitlin |first=William |url=http://archive.org/details/kiryatseferbibl00zeitgoog |title=Kiryat sefer. Bibliotheca hebraica post-Mendelssohniana |date=1891 |publisher=Leipzig, K. F. Koehler |others=unknown library |pages=162}} indicating possibly repression by those cohorted with David Friedländer.

The only work of Josefsohn to be printed today is a two-part novel called Fegfeuer's sieben Abtheilungen / Shiv'ah midore Gehinom ("The seven degrees of Hell"), printed after his death in Odessa 1870 (the printing had a patron named Jacob Neusatz in Iași). The narrative often pauses for verse and resumes after (in the style of an opera), and the Western-Maskilic adaptation of this style Josefsohn seems to have perfected.{{Cite book |last=Zedner, Van Straalen |title=Catalogue of the Hebrew books in the library of the British Museum. |year=1897 |pages=110 |language=English}}