Jewish Poet in Muslim Egypt: Moses Dar'ī's Hebrew Collection (review)

Abstract

Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 343 Reviews the English reader nothing except that the work's title has been translated into English (there is no translation of poetry, no analysis in English and often no English abstract). Thus the reader unfamiliar with Hebrew learns little except that an unapproachable work has been written. If the aim of the bibliography is to include works for readers of Hebrew, then why exclude the vast corpus of Hebrew scholarship lacking translated titles? More useful would be a complete bibliography of Ibn Gabirol's poetry with search indices in Hebrew and English. Goldberg's bibliography is intended as a "test-case" for forthcoming bibliographies on translations of poetry by other major medieval Hebrew poets such as Samuel ha-Nagid, Judah ha-Levi, and Moses Ibn Ezra. The scope of such an endeavor is truly daunting. Because the unit of study-tbe poem, or a section thereof.-is so small, compiling all references to all poems would seem a nearly intractable project. While beginning witll a single poet to be followed by other individual poets seems a logical method of progression, we must consider the ramifications for the field of medieval Hebrew literature. The approach of scholars of literature has long been to document chronologically the contributions of "great men" to Jewish intellectual history. The approach disregards the contributions of "lesser poets" and more importantly, privileges the field of Jewish history over literary studies, perpetuating the marginal status of medieval Hebrew literature (and particularly its literary study) within the scholarly canon. Still, Goldberg's bibliography is extremely thorough and is an invaluable contribution to the field, both on the levels of research and pedagogy. As we look forward to forthcoming volumes on other poets, we wonder if there are plans for updating the bibliography or digitizing the project. Jonathan P. Deeter The Jewish Theological Seminary New York. NY 10027 jodecter@jtsa.edu JEWISH POET IN MUSLIM EGYPT: MOSES DARci's HEBREW COLLECTION. By Leon J. Weinberger. pp. 43 (English) + 526 (Hebrew). Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama, 1998. Cloth, $176.00. Hebrew poetry employing Arabic prosody and dealing with themes adopted from Arabic poetry was written in all the Arabic-speaking lands Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 344 Reviews during the great age of Judeo-Arabic civilization; it was, indeed, a key feature of that civilization. Unfortunately, the magnificent achievements of the Hebrew poets of al-Andalus in the Golden Age (tenth to twelfth centuries), as well as the enthusiasm for Spain evinced by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish scholarship of western European provenance have tended to obscure the production of Hebrew poetry in Arabic-speaking Sicily, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One eastern diwan-that of Eleazar ben Jacob of Baghdad-bas long been available in a critical edition by H. Brody (1934/5), but not a single study of it ever seems to have been published. Portions of the diwiin of Joseph ben Tanhum Yerushalmi have been published, but this major collection of poetry and rhymed prose epistles is still far from from being available to sc~olar1y research. The works of another major Eastern Hebrew poet, Moses DarI, an Egyptian Hebrew poet of Moroccan origin who is thought to have lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, have only been available in selections published by S~a Pinsker in his Liqute qadmoniyot (1860) and by Davidson in articles published in 1927 and 1936. A few of his poems in English translation were included in Leon Nemoy~s Karaite Anthology, and one in Ted Canni's Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse. It is gratifying, therefore, that the bulk of DarI's dfwiin has now been edited and published with an introduction, notes, and variant readings by Leon J. Weinberger. Like the other Hebrew poets of the Judeo-Arabic sphere, Dari follows closely the traditions of the Golden Age poets, an aspect of his work highlighted by Weinberger in his English introduction. But Dari is also capable of going his own way in treating traditional themes and of inventing some new ones. Thus, in the love poetry, he refers more explicitly to sexual intercourse than we are used to from Golden...