Abraham Jacob Paperna ' onMouseout='HidePop("12679")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Minsk">Minsk
Minsk is the capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States . As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the administrative centre of Minsk...
, now Капыль in Minsk Voblast,
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
, 1840; died 1919) was a Russian Jewish educator and author.
He received a fair education, including the study of the Bible with
Moses MendelssohnMoses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted. For some he was the third Moses heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people...
's translation, Hebrew grammar,
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
, and secular literature.
Abraham Jacob Paperna ' onMouseout='HidePop("12679")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Minsk">Minsk
Minsk is the capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States . As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the administrative centre of Minsk...
, now Капыль in Minsk Voblast,
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
, 1840; died 1919) was a Russian Jewish educator and author.
He received a fair education, including the study of the Bible with
Moses MendelssohnMoses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted. For some he was the third Moses heralding a new era in the history of the Jewish people...
's translation, Hebrew grammar,
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
, and secular literature. In 1863 he entered the rabbinical school of Zhitomir, where he studied until 1865; he was then transferred to the rabbinical school of Wilna, from which he graduated in 1867.
In 1868 he was appointed teacher at the government Jewish school at
ZakroczymZakroczym is a small town in the Masovian Voivodeship, Poland. It is located at around . The Vistula River flows through the town....
, government of
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
; and in 1870 he became principal of the government Jewish school of Plotzk, government of Suwałki. He was also instructor in the Jewish religion at the gymnasium in the latter town.
Paperna was intimately connected with the Russian
HaskalahHaskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the late 18th century that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
movement in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and contributed various books and articles to Russian as well as to Hebrew literature. His first Hebrew poem, "Emet we-Emunah", appeared in "Ha-Karmel" in 1863; Paperna was a steady contributor to that periodical as well as to "Ha-Meliẓ." Critical articles by him, entitled "Ḳanḳan Ḥadash Male Yashan" (in "Ha-Karmel", 1867, and printed separately, Wilna, 1868), attracted wide attention in the circles of the Maskilim. In these articles Paperna, influenced probably by the Russian critic Pisarev, adopted modern realistic methods of criticism. He exposed the worthlessness of the pseudo-classicism in Hebrew literature, and the absurdity of the "guess-philology", in the commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud. He also ridiculed the presumption of some of the young
Maskilim, who from a desire for fame attempted to write books in Hebrew on botany, astronomy, and the other exact sciences, with which they were entirely unfamiliar.
A curious essay on the drama entitled "Ha-Drama bi-Kelal we-ha-'Ibrit bi-Peraṭ" appeared as a supplement to "Ha-Meliẓ", 1868. It called forth harsh criticism from
Abraham Dob Bär LebensohnAbraham Dob Bär Lebensohn was a Russian Hebraist, poet, and grammarian.-Life:...
in his pamphlet "Tokaḥti la-Beḳarim", written under the pseudonym "S. Friedman" (Paperna had attacked Lebensohn's "Emet we-Emunah"), and from
Joshua SteinbergJoshua Steinberg was a Russian Jewish writer and educator.-Life:He graduated from the Wilna rabbinical school, and then for a short time occupied the position of rabbi at Byelostok, being called to Wilna in 1861 to fill a similar position...
("'En Mishpaṭ"). In 1869 Paperna published an article on the Russification of the Jews, entitled "K Yevreiskomu Voprosu v Vislyanskom Kraye" (in "Den", No. 13).
He now devoted himself to educational matters, and published:
- "Mesillat ha-Limmud" (Warsaw, 1871), a Hebrew grammar in Russian
- "Kratkaya Grammatika Russkavo Yazyka" (ib. 1874)
- "More Sefat Russiya" (ib. 1876; 3d ed., 1884), Ollendorff's method for the study of the Russian language by Hebrews
- "Samoychitel Russkavo Yazyka: Meruẓ Iggerot" (ib. 1874; 3d ed., 1884), a Hebrew-Russian letter-writer.
Among his articles on education may be mentioned "O Khederakh Voobshche", etc. (Plotzk, 1884), on the
chadorimA Cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language.-History:...
. Memoirs ("Zikronot") by Paperna on the rabbinical school of Zhitomir and its professors appeared in Sokolov's "Sefer ha-Shanah", 1900, p. 60.
External links