Max (Meïr Halevi or Myer Levi) Letteris (b. September 13, 1800, Zolkiev, Poland; d. Vienna, May 19, 1871) was an Austrian Jewish scholar and the foremost poet of the Galician Haskala.
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Letteris was a member of a family of printers that originally came from Amsterdam. At the age of twelve he sent a Hebrew poem to Nachman Krochmal, who was then living at Zolkiev. Subsequently he made the acquaintance of Krochmal, who encouraged him in his study of German, French, and Latin literature. In 1826, he entered the University of Lemberg, where for four years he studied philosophy and Oriental languages. In 1831, he went to Berlin as Hebrew corrector in a printing establishment, and later in a similar capacity to Presburg, where he edited a large number of valuable manuscripts, and to Prague, where he received the degree of Ph. D. (1844). In 1848 he settled finally in Vienna.
Letteris' chief poetical work in German, Sagen aus dem Orient (Carlsruhe 1847), consisting of poetic renderings of Talmudic and other legends, secured for him, though for a short time, the post of librarian in the Oriental department of the Vienna Imperial Library. His reputation as the foremost poet of the Galician school is based on his volume of poems Tofes Kinnor we-'Ugab (Vienna, 1860), and especially on his Hebrew version of "Faust," entitled "Ben Abuya" (ib. 1865). He exerted a considerable influence on Hebrew poetry. One of his best poems is his Zionistic song Yonah Ḥomiyyah, became very popular. His numerous translations are of value, but his original poems are as a rule prolix. His Hebrew prose is correct, though heavy.
In his Hebrew version of Faust, Faust is replaced by the Jewish heretic Elisha ben Abuyah. For the infidelity of his "translation" to Goethe's original, Letteris was the object of a blistering attack by the young Peretz Smolenskin.[1]
In 1852, during a period in which he faced financial difficulties, he agreed to edit an edition of the masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible for a Christian missionary organization, the British and Foreign Bible Society.
This edition (Vienna, 1852) became very popular, and was widely reprinted in both Jewish circles (often accompanied by a translation on facing pages) and in Christian circles (with the addition of the New Testament).
Besides the works already mentioned the following deserve special notice:
He was the editor of Wiener Vierteljahrsschrift, with a Hebrew supplement, Abne Nezer (ib. 1853), and of Wiener Monatsblätter für Kunst und Litteratur(ib. 1853).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906.