The First Hebrew Shakespeare Translations

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The overarching aim of my research is to provide the first in-depth analysis of the earliest complete Shakespeare plays rendered into Hebrew, Iti'el (Othello, Vienna, 1874) and Ram veYa'el (Romeo and Juliet, Vienna, 1878). The plays were translated directly from the English by Isaac Salkinson, a Lithuanian Jew who had converted to Christianity, and form part of an ideologically loaded Jewish Enlightenment initiative to establish a modern European-style Hebrew literature in Eastern Europe at a time when the language was still almost solely a written medium prior to its large-scale revernacularisation in Palestine. Salkinson's translations are significant in several respects. Firstly, they are the earliest Hebrew versions of some of the world's most renowned dramatic works, and are therefore a key resource for the study of Hebrew translation in Eastern Europe and the origins of Modern Hebrew literature. Secondly, they paved the way for, and thus provide valuable literary and historical contextualisation for, all subsequent Hebrew Shakespeare translations. Thirdly, they offer an important and hitherto unexplored perspective on Shakespearean translation worldwide, as they constitute some of the sole examples of renditions into a largely unspoken language. Fourthly, the translations can serve as an instructive case study for specialists in translation theory in that Salkinson adopted a highly Judaising style resulting in a target text very culturally distinct from its English counterpart. This domesticating approach, to which Salkinson adhered despite his conversion to Christianity, is consistent with the dominant Jewish Enlightenment translatorial philosophy which is itself heir to a long tradition of Judaising Hebrew adaptations of European literary works dating back to the medieval period. However, despite their great significance no comprehensive study of these remarkable translations has yet been conducted. Moreover, the Hebrew plays themselves remain largely inaccessible to readers, as they have not been reissued in a modern edition and are located in only a small number of university libraries, often confined to Rare Books collections. I shall make Salkinson's pioneering work available to a wide readership via the project's main output, a book-length volume containing an introduction to the position and use of Hebrew in the Jewish Enlightenment and a biographical sketch of the translator, followed by a presentation of the two Hebrew plays alongside the English originals with a running line-by-line commentary. In order to analyse Salkinson's translatorial aims and techniques with a focus on the Judaising elements in his work, the commentary will make reference to current theory on domesticating translation; primary Jewish sources in Hebrew and Aramaic such as the Hebrew Bible, Mishnah, Talmuds, and Zohar; and the nineteenth-century Schlegel-Tieck German Shakespeare rendition. Topics to be addressed include the neutralisation of Christian and classical references; the insertion of biblical phrases and Jewish cultural motifs; and the Hebraisation/Aramaicisation of Latin and French linguistic elements. The volume will conclude with a thematic synopsis of the translation techniques discussed in the running commentary. This study, which has been accepted subject to peer review for publication by UCL Press in print and Open Access form, will fill a significant gap in the fields of Shakespeare translation and Eastern European Hebrew literature. In addition to the volume, I shall organise a major three-day international conference on Shakespeare and the Jews; hold a lecture on Salkinson's translations at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; produce a student/staff performance of Ram veYa'el; and give a series of talks to A Level English students and teachers at three Jewish schools in the London area in order to raise awareness of the work among the wider public.