| Mendl Lefin was one
of the outstanding figures of the Enlightenment, an associate of Moses
Mendelssohn, translator-adapter of contemporary books on medicine and
geography, author of philosophic works and translator of the Tanakh (The
Hebrew Scriptures) into colloquial Yiddish. "Lefin's greatness lies
in his linguistic achievements. For the first time ordinary daily speech
entered into the sphere of the sacred and there showed its beauty and
charm." (Yankev Birnboym, Nayer leksikon fun der yidisher literature
5:352) Lefin strove to make written Yiddish an accurate reflection of
the spoken language. Only a few of his Tanakh translations have come down
to us. His Koheleth was first published after his death in Odessa in 1873.
We give that version as presented by Zalmen Reyzen in his Fun mendelson
biz mendele (Warsaw 1923, pp. 163-179). We also give the first chapter
of the Tarnopol manuscript (1819) as reprinted by the Yivo in 1930, and
in Standard Yiddish orthography as well. |
Texts prepared by Roland Gruschka. |