Moses Samuel
Encyclopedia
Moses Samuel was a clockmaker, translator of Hebrew works and writer.

Life

His parents were Emanuel Menachem Samuel and Hanna Hinde; his father moved from Kempen in Posen in Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

 (now Kępno
Kepno
Kępno is a town in Poland. It lies on the outskirts of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, as it borders on Silesia and the Łódz Land, at the crossing point of two transport routes: north to south and east to west . As of December 31, 2009 Kępno had a population of 14,760...

 in Poland) to London. Moses with his mother moved to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 around 1805. He went into business, not with any great success, but founding what later became the H. Samuel
H. Samuel
H. Samuel is a mass-market jewellery chain, operating in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It is the number one middle mass-market jewellery store in the United Kingdom. There are 375 stores as at 23rd Feb 2008. An increasing number of the chain's stores trade in a new format known...

 chain.

Works

He was the originally anonymous translator of the Italian Jewish kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

 text Book of Jasher (Venice, 1625)
Sefer haYashar (midrash)
The Sefer haYashar is a Hebrew midrash also known as the Toledot Adam and Dibre ha-Yamim be-'Aruk. It is known in English translation mostly as The Book of Jasher...

 which later became a para-canonical text in the Church of Latter-day Saints. He later wrote "I did not put my name to it as my Patron and myself differed about its authenticity". The patron was Mordecai Noah, the New York publisher, who purchased the text after the Royal Asiatic Society
Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established, according to its Royal Charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia." From its incorporation the Society...

 declined it.

He also translated works of Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

 (notably Jerusalem, London, 1838) into English. An orthodox Jew, he campaigned against both the Reform Jewish movement, and as author of An Address to the Missionaries of Great Britain against Christian efforts to proselytize Jews
Christian mission to Jews
Christian mission to Jews, or evangelism among Jews, or proselytism to Jews is a subset of Christian mission activity aimed specifically at practising believers in Judaism.-The primitive church:...

. He co-edited The Cup of Salvation - Kos Yeshuot, a magazine in Hebrew and English, with D. M. Isaacs.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK