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The People of the Song
Biblical Poetry, Translation, and the Reception of Moses Mendelssohn in the Berlin Haskalah
Series: - Studies in Jewish History and Culture, Volume: 80
Author:
When, in 1783, Moses Mendelssohn’s German Psalms translation was published in Berlin, forward-thinking ideologues of Jewish cultural revival rendered its translator a redeemer of the songs of King David from exilic desolation. The People of the Song is the first study to examine Mendelssohn’s conception of biblical Hebrew poetry as a particular manifestation of Judaism’s universalism. The author traces how it helped forge a new foundational narrative that imagined Israel’s covenant with God in sacred song, not in revealed law, portrayed King David as a bard, not a military leader, and envisioned national redemption of modern Jews as an aesthetic, not a political, revival.
Yael Sela (D.Phil. Oxford 2010), Humboldt Research Fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt, has authored studies on aesthetics and poetry in modern German Jewish thought, including an annotated translation of the 1791
Book of the Songs of Israel (Brill, 2024).
Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Translation and Editorial Policy
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Found in Translation
1 Joel Bril (Löwe): an Inadvertent Innovator of Hebrew Literary Theory
2 Chapter Outline
1 Moses Mendelssohn’s Psalms Translation and the Aesthetics of Salvation
1 Mendelssohn’s Aesthetics of Translation
2 From Moses to David
3 Hearing Psalms in Jerusalem
4 The Sacred and the Lyrical
5 “A More Noble Excellence”
6 Exilic Loss and the Emancipatory Power of Story
2 Disseminating Redemption in Book Form: Sefer Zemirot Yisra’el
1 Mendelssohn’s Translation Elucidated
2 Redemption in Book Form
3 The Design of the Book
4 The Songs of Israel among Other Nations
5 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Redemption: the Hebrew Commentaries
6 Hearing the Song of Zion in Jewish Imagination: the Title Page of Sefer Zemirot Yisra’el
7 Redemption through Translation
3 “For the Weal of Our Nation”: the Aesthetic Revival of the Berlin Haskalah
1 National Revival in Arts and Letters: the Society for the Promotion of the Good and the Beneficent
2 Printed Books, Translations, and the Poetry of Hebrew Scripture
3 Introductions to Maskilim’s Bible Translations: Melitsah and the Aesthetics of Hebrew Scripture
4 From Introduction to Book
5 1791
4 Toward a Mythology of the People of the Song
1 Bril’s Textual Models
2 On Hebrew Melitsah and the Correct Translation
3 The Poiesis of a Nation
4 Re-sounding the Lost Art of Music
5 The Aesthetic Mediation of Natural Knowledge: the Prophet and Prophecy
6 King David and the Lyric Code of the Temple State
7 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Revival: on the Practice of Singing Psalms
Epilogue: from David to Moses
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
A Note on Translation and Editorial Policy
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Found in Translation
1 Joel Bril (Löwe): an Inadvertent Innovator of Hebrew Literary Theory
2 Chapter Outline
1 Moses Mendelssohn’s Psalms Translation and the Aesthetics of Salvation
1 Mendelssohn’s Aesthetics of Translation
2 From Moses to David
3 Hearing Psalms in Jerusalem
4 The Sacred and the Lyrical
5 “A More Noble Excellence”
6 Exilic Loss and the Emancipatory Power of Story
2 Disseminating Redemption in Book Form: Sefer Zemirot Yisra’el
1 Mendelssohn’s Translation Elucidated
2 Redemption in Book Form
3 The Design of the Book
4 The Songs of Israel among Other Nations
5 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Redemption: the Hebrew Commentaries
6 Hearing the Song of Zion in Jewish Imagination: the Title Page of Sefer Zemirot Yisra’el
7 Redemption through Translation
3 “For the Weal of Our Nation”: the Aesthetic Revival of the Berlin Haskalah
1 National Revival in Arts and Letters: the Society for the Promotion of the Good and the Beneficent
2 Printed Books, Translations, and the Poetry of Hebrew Scripture
3 Introductions to Maskilim’s Bible Translations: Melitsah and the Aesthetics of Hebrew Scripture
4 From Introduction to Book
5 1791
4 Toward a Mythology of the People of the Song
1 Bril’s Textual Models
2 On Hebrew Melitsah and the Correct Translation
3 The Poiesis of a Nation
4 Re-sounding the Lost Art of Music
5 The Aesthetic Mediation of Natural Knowledge: the Prophet and Prophecy
6 King David and the Lyric Code of the Temple State
7 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Revival: on the Practice of Singing Psalms
Epilogue: from David to Moses
Bibliography
Scholars, researchers, and graduate students of Moses Mendelssohn, Haskalah, modern Jewish history, German Jewish intellectual history, history of Jewish Bible translation. Primary relevance: scholars, researchers, students, and university libraries. Secondary relevance: broader readership interested in Jewish cultural history and Jewish nationalism.