The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Creativity in Babylon, 1735- 1950

Chapter 7. Shaul Abdullah Yosef: A Scholar of Medieval Hebrew Poetry

157 Chapter 7: Shaul Abdullah Yosef: A Scholar of Medieval Hebrew Poetry I found it necessary to comment that this is the rule, that any time our European brethren wanted to interpret some matters that concern us, the Near Eastern Jews, our brethren did not plunge into the depth of the matter and they only judged and discussed it from their point of view. Shaul Yosef, in a letter dated Jan. 27, 1896 A. Shaul Yosef’s Literary Activities In a previous chapter, I presented Shaul Yosef’s world of poetry. Baghdadi-born Shaul Yosef (1849-1906) settled in Hong Kong. He was a poet, a scholar of Medieval Hebrew poetics and its poetry, and could skillfully interpret its texts. Shaul Yosef felt that he understood the Arabic way of life similar to Medieval Hebrew poets who lived among Arabs and were familiar with their poets, their poetry, their style, motifs, their “ornamental speech,” metaphorical language , conventional images, and phrases. Shaul Yosef’s colleagues often behaved arrogantly toward him. Dan Pagis wrote the following excerpt about Shaul Yosef’s contribution to understanding Medieval Hebrew poetry: At the beginning of our century [20th] only two scholars rose to systematically engage in studying the foundations of Hebrew poetry’s literary expression or distinctive features. Both scholars were familiar with this poetry from childhood and remained attentive towards it until they could write similar style poetry. One of these scholars was Shaul Abdullah Yosef, a resident of Hong Kong whose birthplace was Babylon. David Yellin dedicated his book 158 Part 2: Folktales, rePortage, ePistles, research, and a story to the memory of Shaul Yosef. The second scholar was David Yellin. Yellin was more familiar than Shaul Yosef with his current readership, who were already familiar with other poetic systems and styles (see Yellin, Torat, G). Yellin praised Shaul Yosef for dedicating his life to Medieval Hebrew poetry and for making major contributions to its textual criticism. Shaul Yosef was the first person to announce finding the Divan of Todros Abulafia. He earnestly tried to “clean it and correct it with his sophisticated remarks and corrections” (see Abulafia, Gan, Vol. II, c-c1). Moses ibn Ezra (1055-1135) wrote Kitab alMuhadara wa—al-Mudhakara, a compilation of his poetry. Herein, he presented his views about the essence of poetry and its theory of ornamentation, its sources and functions. One hundred years following Shaul Yosef, Yellin was the first to reiterate that one must understand this theory to interpret Medieval Hebrew poetry of Spain (ibid., LVII). Shaul Yosef was involved in a number of intellectual areas. I will summarize his works in these areas. Shaul Yosef wrote poetry employing Medieval Hebrew poetry, its style of “ornamental speech,” metaphorical language, conventional images and phrases, and motifs. He published a variety of articles, particularly about the poetics of Medieval Hebrew poetry, its interpretations, and errors made by its interpreters. As of 1887, Shaul Yosef’s articles were published in Ha-Tsefira, Perah, and Maggid Mesharim. Some of his articles appeared in periodicals, while some of them remained unpublished. He also wrote an article about the influence of Arabic poetry on Medieval Hebrew poetry. Shaul Yosef discovered and interpreted the Diwan of Todros Joseph Halevi Abulafia (Abulafia, 1220-1298), Gan Ha-Meshalim Ve-Ha-Hidot. It was published in Shaul Yosef’s handwriting and later by Yellin, who also contrasted it with similar manuscripts. Yellin reiterated numerous comments made by Shaul Yosef in writing his textbook (Yosef, Gan). Yellin left behind interpretations to poems of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Levi and to Sefer Ha-Tarshish of Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra, which were published in two books by Samuel Krauss (Yosef, Giv’at; Yosef, Mishbetset). Shaul Yosef also left biblical commentaries, including comments about sections of the Psalms. He helped increase the number of subscribers to the periodical Ha-Tsefira and to Mekitseh Nirdamim. Shaul Yosef’s literary estate included a dictionary of Arabic poetry and poetics. He was familiar with the Badi’a (“marvellows,” “’ilm al-badi’a,” which means the art of beautiful style, a branch of Arabic rhetoric). Yosef’s dictionary included poetic terminology, their interpretations, and illustrations from Arabic poetry. In addition, he left a manuscript about Arabic poetics and explicated images from Medieval Hebrew poetry by pointing out their Arabic source. He also left clarifications to biblical words and works in Hebrew, Arabic, and English about Arabic and Hebrew prosody. chapter 7 159...