Solomon Ettinger

Solomon Ettinger (also: Solomon Ettinger or Solomon Ettinger, * 1803 in Warsaw, † in Szadonow near Zamość, where he worked as a physician in 1856 ) was a creative linguistic Yiddish writers from very respected Jewish family, although he also German wrote, kept his Yiddish of Germanisms free. It is known as the great-grandfather of Yiddish literature (as Grandfather applies Mendele Moicher Sforim ).

Life and work

Solomon Ettinger was orphaned early, was then brought up by his grandfather, Rabbi Mendl Ettinger, in Lentschitz. Only 17 years old he married, lived first in Zamość with his father and went to his financial ruin to Odessa, where he found no job, then studied in Lviv medicine after successful completion, back in Zamość, for many years an extensive to operate medical practice and at the same time indulge his literary inclinations.

He wrote fables and parables ( the first scattered appeared in various journals, 1889 then collected in St. Petersburg under the title Mescholim un Lidelach edited by his son Wilhelm Ettinger ) whose ideas and subjects he took Schiller, Lessing, Heine and others in but the form of brief, concise, perceptive, humorous, while rich in imagery and quite independently are; wrote epigrams, poems ( including Rachel at their child's grave ), ballads ( Walheid ) and dramas ( two of which fragments are preserved ).

His arisen under the influence of Haskalah movement (although he is not to be counted in the series of " reconnaissance " ) play in five acts Serkele ( Serkale or years after a Brider, printed for the first time in Johannesburg in 1861, a second edition then again in 1874 Warsaw, premiere 1862 holds promoted by the then government rabbis School of Zhitomir, in gold thread the role of Serkele played, an " uneducated ", but live virtuous woman that her " students " man by all sorts of tricks and scams on water) 1923 was performed by the director S. Turkow with great success at the Warsaw Theatre Central, probably the first Yiddish theater piece (the dramatic works Aksenfelds were meant to be used for private reading - circle ).

Solomon Ettinger also wrote aphorisms and a larger, more influenced by Schiller's Song of the bell seal Dus Lecht.

A critical edition of the Collected Works Salomon Ettinger was founded in 1925 in Warsaw by Max Weinreich published in two volumes (including introduction to the life and work, bibliography and selected letters ).