Naphtali Keller
Encyclopedia
Naphtali Keller was an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n scholar. son of Israel Mendel Keller, a well-to-do innkeeper.

Naphtali as a mere youth practised speaking Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 with his friend M. Weissmann and began to write poems in that language. He also acquired a certain amount of modern culture by means of Hebrew educational literature. After losing in business the marriage portion given him by his father-in-law, he went with his wife and four children to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, and there eked out a toilsome existence as a broker
Broker
A broker is a party that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller, and gets a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal...

.

In 1864 he published with great care and impartiality the first volume of the Hebrew periodical Bikkurim. In the spring of 1865, on the advice of his physician, he went to Rožnov, a watering-place, to seek relief from an illness which had attacked him in the previous year; but he died there.

Keller was the author of 2 stories:
  • (1) "Sullam ha-Haẓlaḥah", written in imitation of the "David Barnay" of Julius Rodenberg
    Julius Rodenberg
    Julius Rodenberg was a German Jewish poet and author.He studied law at the universities of Heidelberg, Göttingen, Berlin, and Marburg, but soon abandoned jurisprudence for literature. In 1851 his first poem, "Dornröschen", appeared in Bremen. This poem was soon followed by many others...

    , and 1st printed in "Ha-Maggid" (1863)
  • (2) "Debek lo Tob", a tale of Galicia
    Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
    The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria–Hungary from 1772 to 1918 .This historical region in eastern Central Europe is currently divided between Poland and Ukraine...

    n Jewish life, which first appeared in Bikkurim (1866).


These stories were published at Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

in 1880 under the collective title Sippure Naftali.
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