• 1 Ivre-taytsh (עבֿרי־טײַטש) is an archaic name for Yiddish, especially when referring to the languag (...)

1In an article from 1947, entitled “Der goen fun ivre-taytsh” (The Genious of Ivre-Taytsh1), the bibliographer Moyshe Shtarkman (1906–1975) has tried to reclaim for Yoysef Meyer Yavets his due place in the history of modern Yiddish literature:

• 3 For the continuous wide circulation of Yavets’s work in the United States, see Byalostotski, 1956, (...)

2Yet, despite Yavets’s monumental corpus of Yiddish translations for some of the most classical sacred Jewish books (sforim), and notwithstanding the great popularity and wide circulation of his works3 (some of which continue to be reprinted today by orthodox publishers), Yoysef Meyer Yavets’s name had been largely forgotten. His biography remains obscure and his work has so far received very little attention from scholars, let alone a comprehensive bibliography. The present paper is a first step towards filling this lacuna.

• 4 Maggid, 1900, p. 275, n. 1. According to his great-grandson, Shloyme Zalmen Yavets, Shmuel Yitskho (...)
• 5 Shmuel-Yitskhok’s son from his second marriage, Dovid Yavets Broyde, died on June 1st 1896 at the (...)
• 6 Maggid, 1900, p. 275–277.

4His father, Shmuel-Yitskhok, an erudite Jew, knew several European languages.4 Yoysef Meyer’s mother was the daughter of Rabbi Hillel Finkelshteytn of Aleksot (Aleksotas Borough of Kaunas, today in Lithuania). After her death, Shmuel-Yitskhok remarried and moved from Tiktin to Vilnius in about 1840,5 where he enjoyed both wealth and prestige. His prominent position as a community leader in Vilnius has earned Shmuel-Yitskhok a place in the Hebrew biographical lexicon Ir vilna compiled by the genealogist Hillel Noah Maggid (also known as Hillel Steinschneider; 1829–1903), which included three hundred of Vilnius’ most prominent Jews.6

• 7 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 63.
• 8 Reyzen, 1929, p. 1276.
• 9 Fuenn, 1886, p. 301f.
• 10 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 63; Oyerbakh et al., 1961, p. 273.
• 11 Maggid, 1900, p. 275, n. 1.

5Shmuel-Yitskhok Yavets did not take his eight-year-old son with him to Vilnius,7 and according to the biographer Zalmen Reyzen (1887–1941), Yoysef Meyer was raised by his paternal grandfather,8 Moyshe Zeev (Wolf) ben Eliezer of Grodne (Hrodna, today in Belarus), an author of a number of sforim and a rabbi first in Tiktin, and later in Bialystok.9 However, this biographical detail, which was copied by later bio-bibliographers,10 raises a chronological problem, for Yoysef Meyer was born over a year after Moyshe Zeev’s death on December 30th 1829.11

• 12 “Shmuel-Yitskhok did not take his boy with him to Vilnius, but left him with his grandfather, the (...)
• 13 Yavets, 1926. For Shloyme Zalmen Yavets’s biography, see Tidhar, 1949, p. 147.

6The inaccurate detail about Yoysef Meyer growing up with his paternal grandfather, a detail that has been extrapolated to speculative proportions by Moyshe Shtarkman,12 might have stemmed from the biographical notes that Zalmen Reyzen received for his Leksikon from Yoysef Meyer’s grandson, Shloyme Zalmen Yavets.13

• 14 Yavets, 1962, p. 389.

7According to Shloyme Zalmen Yavets, his grandfather was an excellent talmudic student, but did not wish to become a rabbi.14 He married Sore Hadase, the daughter of Meshulem Zalmen Epshteyn Halevi, an erudite and honourable resident of Grodne, and tried his luck as a merchant.

• 15 Yavets’s only known address in Warsaw is Dzika 31, in which he lived in 1907 (Yavets, 1907, titlep (...)
• 16 Yavets, 1926.

8In 1861 the couple had a son, Yisroel Iser, who would later become the rabbi of Hrubieshov (Hrubieszów, today in Poland). The couple divorced the same year and Yoysef Meyer, at the age of 29, moved to Warsaw,15 in which he would spend the remaining 53 years of his life.16

• 17 The narrative similarity between this detail and the inaccurate detail regarding Yoysef Meyer’s ch (...)
• 18 Shtarkman writes that his second wife’s name was Sore Hadase, but this is most probably a mistake, (...)
• 19 Yatskan, 1914a, p. 1.
• 20 Reyzen’s claim that Yavets’s work as a merchant was unsuccessful (Reyzen, 1929, p. 1276) may or may (...)

9Yoysef Meyer’s son, Yisroel Iser, stayed in Grodne and grew up with his mother at her father’s house.17 In Warsaw, Yavets remarried,18 had at least one daughter from his second wife,19 and began working as a proofreader.20

• 21 Goldman, 1872, p. x2.
• 22 Cohen, 2015, p. 183f.
• 23 Maggid, 1900, p. 277, n. 11, המגיה הראשי בווארשא.

10In 1872, Yavets was praised for his excellent proofreading and great erudition by his employer, the prominent Hebrew printer Yitskhok Goldman,21 whose printing house in Warsaw was deemed the largest Jewish printing house in the city. Goldman, like Yavets, was a Litvak who moved to Warsaw to become a key figure in its emerging book market.22 By the end of the century, Yavets was described as “the chief proofreader in Warsaw.”23

• 24 Yavets, 1926; Yavets, 1962, p. 389. In his obituary in the Warsaw daily Haynt, Yavets’s name was f (...)
• 25 Yavets, 1962, p. 389.
• 26 Reyzen, 1929, p. 1276.

11Alongside his work as a proofreader, Yavets also excelled as a preacher, holding sermons in “Warsaw’s biggest synagogues.”24 However, both occupations – of a proofreader and a preacher – were eclipsed by his extraordinarily productive work as translator into Yiddish of sacred Jewish books (sforim). Indeed, according to Shloyme Zalmen, his grandfather “was occupied for most hours of the day in translating the Mishnah, Ein ya’akov, Midrash rabbah, Rashi, Ḥok le-yisrael, and other sforim into Yiddish.”25 It was thanks to his translations of the classical rabbinical literature, Zalmen Reyzen writes that Yavets acquired his fame “in the orthodox world.”26

• 27 Slonimski, 1884, p. 162.
• 28 Cohen, 2015, p. 188f. Cohen does not mention Alapin’s work as a publisher of sforim.

12Yavets’s earliest published translation was already in itself an impressive undertaking. Between 1876 and 1879 he published in Yiddish the six orders of the Mishnah in six separate volumes, a translation which seamlessly incorporates Bartenura’s classical commentary from the 15th century. The volumes were published in Warsaw by Khayim Kelter, whose printing house was founded in 1857 by the same Yitskhok Goldman,27 and in the printing house of Yisrael Borukh Hacohen Alapin, yet another Litvak who settled in Warsaw at the time and published both scientific books and sforim.28

• 29 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 63.
• 30 Fuks, 1968, p. 566. Shemen confuses Tsigler’s Yiddish translation of Seder zeraim with Isaak Marku (...)
• 31 Tsigler, 1861, p. vi.

13Shtarkman has already observed that Yavets’s Mishnah project was, in fact, based on the work of a previous ivre-taytsh translator.29 In 1840, a certain Daniel Tsigler, a teacher from Staropolye (Ukraine), published in Königsberg (Kaliningrad, today in Russia) a Yiddish translation of the first order of the Mishnah, Seder zeraim, on which he “worked for many years.”30 In 1861, a second edition was published, also in Königsberg. In the rabbinic approvals (haskamot) section of the 1861 edition, the publisher promises that more rabbinic approvals “will appear, God willing, in subsequent orders.”31 Yet the Königsberg ivre-taytsh project did not continue beyond Seder zeraim. Instead, Yavets integrated this partial translation into his own project, slightly editing Tsigler’s prose for the first volume and providing his own translation for the remaining five volumes.

• 32 Yavets, 1879b, p. 814.

14There is no mention in Yavets’s Mishnah to the fact that the first order was copied from a previous work, nor any credit is given there to Daniel Tsigler. There is also no mention of Yavets’s name in the first three volumes either. His signature appears for the first time at the end of volume four, Seder nezikin, and is loosely encoded within a rhymed praise to God for having helped him complete the translation (figure 2). At the end of volume six, Seder taharot, a second signature appears in the form of an acrostic poem.32 While both signature texts avoid explicitly claiming that Yavets translated all six orders of the Mishnah, the reader is left to infer as much.

• 35 Yavets, 1876, p. 2.

17This disclaimer appears only in the Hebrew introduction, printed in Rashi script, and is omitted from the shorter Yiddish introduction that follows it.35 As women and less educated men would probably be expected to skip the Hebrew introduction, the disclaimer should rather be taken as a reassuring answer to potential critics of the translation, rather than a means of restricting the readership of the translation.

• 36 Tsigler, 1861, p. vii.

18The intentionality behind this democratisation of knowledge is attested by comparing the Yiddish introduction to Yavets’ Mishnah with that of Tsigler’s from 1861. Indeed, Yavets copied Tsigler’s introduction almost word for word, but omitted warnings and disclaimers, including the one regarding the necessity of using the translation only as a pedagogical tool for repeating formal study with a proper teacher.36

• 40 Ben-Yehuda, 1948b, p. 3210.

21In modern Yiddish usage, the terms maytik (translator) and hatoke (translation) were mostly replaced by iberzetser and iberzetsung (or metargm and tirgum/targum in Hebrew). The word maytek, both in Hebrew and in Yiddish, has a strong archaic or traditionalist connotation, and is usually reserved for the translation of sforim. Etymologically, it originates in the Hebrew scientific vocabulary developed in mediaeval Spain and Provence, its literal meaning being “one who moves something from one place to another.” According to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s Hebrew dictionary, the word was first used to describe “the sages of the Talmud” who “transferred and transmitted the Oral Torah from generation to generation.” Another mediaeval meaning of maytek was of a person “who copies from one book to another,” a copyist. From there, maytek also became the term for a person who translates from one language to another: a translator.40

• 41 Ben-Yehuda, 1948a, p. 1147–1149.

22Hatoke (or ha’ataka), the action of the maytek or its result, similarly stood since the Middle Ages for: 1. moving or shifting (i.e. the shifting of the sun, but also the shifting of vowels in linguistic morphology); 2. tradition (that is, the transmission from one generation to the next); 3. reincarnation of the soul; 4. translation from one language to another; 5. copying a text; and hence 6. a single copy of a text or a book.41

• 42 Oyerbakh et al., 1961, p. 273.

23The Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature inaccurately claims that Yavets “used to sign his works with his own name and with the pseudonym ‘The Maytek.’”42 In fact, the epithet maytek never appears as a pseudonym per se, but is usually followed by the titles of the major works Yavets translated. Its function, it appears, was of legitimization and branding, rather than of disguising his identity.

• 44 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 66.

25Finally, Yavets’s Ein ya’akov was published in 6 volumes from 1885 to 1887, also in Alapin’s printing house. By translating Ein ya’akov into Yiddish, Moyshe Shtarkman remarks, “Yavets translated thirty percent of the Talmud, and in addition to that, he inscribed for generations the style (nusekh) of Talmud-teaching among Eastern-european Jews.”44

• 45 Sofer, 1929, p. 41f.

26Rabbinical authorities in the 19th century were divided on whether the translation of Ein ya’akov into Yiddish should be permitted. Only twenty years earlier, Shimon Sofer, the Chatam Sofer’s son, sent a letter to Chaim Halberstam, the founding Rebbe of the Tsanz Hasidic dynasty, criticising the Rebbe’s decision to allow such a translation. According to Shimon Sofer, a translation of Ein ya’akov should be avoided, “for the uneducated will read the legends of our sages, and according to the coarseness of their minds they will only understand things at face value.” Such translations, he claims, “are nothing but the printers’ ruse to accumulate wealth.”45

• 47 Yavets, 1883.
• 48 Yavets, 1911.
• 49 A justification for this omission is provided for Shevile ha-melamdim in a short Hebrew notice by (...)

30At least two more titles signed by Yavets – Shevile ha-melamdim47 and the biblical play Seyfer gdules Dovid umlukhes Shoel48 – were adaptations of already existing Yiddish translations from Hebrew. In both, Yavets’s name appears alone as the translator of the work, and no credit is given to the original translator.49

• 50 Kadishsohn, 1899, p. 372.

32The work was published in Warsaw between 1896 and 1898 in five volumes, divided into 28 booklets.50 In the Hebrew introduction to the first published volume, Sefer vayikra, Kadishsohn writes:

• 52 Ibid., p. 6.
• 53 Kadishsohn, 1899, p. 372.

33Yavets, again, is not credited by name in any of the volumes of Ḥok le-yisrael themselves, and is only referred to by Kadishson as “the translator who, with the help of God blessed be He, already translated these sacred and precious books – six orders of the Mishnah, Ein ya’akov, Midrash rabbah, Shevile ha-melamdim – and now finished translating Ḥok le-yisrael.”52 Only after the publication of the volumes, Kadishson gave explicit credit to his partner in an advertisement he placed in the daily Hebrew newspaper Ha-Tsefira.53

• 54 Yavets, 1898.
• 55 Peretz, 1900. The publisher Tursh was particularly hated by Peretz and his intellectual circle in (...)
• 56 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 64.

34Shortly after the publication of Ḥok le-yisrael, Yavets translated the Hebrew besteller Seyfer habris by Pinchas Eliyahu Horowitz, a hodgepodge of history, geography, natural sciences, philosophy, halakha, ethics and mysticism.54 Two years later, this translation was venomously attacked by Yitskhok-Leybush Peretz, who concentrated his criticism against the Warsaw printer, Doberish Tursh, for spreading backward obscurantism among his readers.55 Nevertheless, Shtarkman remarks that linguistically, Seyfer habris was written in a much lighter and more idiomatic Yiddish prose than the scientific popularizations supported by Peretz at the time, which were written in a “hard, Germanized, and often unintelligible language.”56

• 57 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 64.
• 58 Shtarkman, 1947, p. 64.

35Yavets’s last grand project was the translation of Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch. Between 1903 and 1905, the Vilnius printing house of Yehuda Leib Mats published Khumesh beys yehude, a Pentateuch accompanied with a variety of commentaries. It stands out as a great technical typographical achievement, one of the “the most beautiful specimens of the Jewish printing technique in old Russia and Poland.”57 Among the various commentaries printed alongside the biblical text is an ivre-taytsh version of Rashi’s commentary, contributed by Yavets. This translation, often referred to simply as Beys yehude, combines a translation of the biblical verses in question with a translation of Rashi’s commentary on these verses and Yavets’s original interpretations and explanatory notes. While Yavets’s authorship of the text is confirmed, here again, the translator is not credited by name in the volumes themselves. It remains uncertain whether other ivre-taytsh commentaries included in Khumesh beys yehuda were also authored by Yavets or not.58

• 59 Yavets, 1899.
• 60 Yavets, 1901a.
• 61 Yavets, 1901b.
• 62 Yavets, 1907.
• 63 Yavets, 1909a.
• 64 Yavets, 1909b.
• 65 Yavets, 1914.

36Besides the aforementioned books, Yavets published throughout his life dozens of other works, both large and small, including Shulkhn orekh: oyrekh khayim, Medresh tankhume, Seyfer nikhum aveylim,59 Seyfer khupes khasanim,60 Seyfer sheviley oylem,61 Seyfer ben sira,62 Sipure nifloes fun groysn tane rebe akive,63 Seyfer nekhames tsiyen virusholayim,64 Seyfer khokhmes shloyme65 and more.