ISRAELSOHN, JACOB IZRAILEVICH

ISRAELSOHN, JACOB IZRAILEVICH (1856–1924), Russian Semitic scholar. Born in Mitau (Jelgava), Latvia, Israelsohn received a traditional Jewish education with secular training in German and Russian. He studied at St. Petersburg (1876–83), specializing in Arabic, in particular Jewish-Arabic literature. However, he could not get an academic appointment because he was Jewish and had to earn his livelihood as a journalist (writing mainly for Voskhod), translator, encyclopedia contributor, secretary to the Jewish community of St. Petersburg, and philanthropy assistant to the Polyakov family in Moscow and later in Kiev. In 1922 he moved to Brussels. Israelsohn assisted D. Chwolson in translating his work from German to Russian, and during a sojourn in France, assisted Joseph *Derenbourg in his research into Judeo-Arabic material. Israelsohn played a very important, behind-the-scenes role in preparing the scholarly aspect of the defense in the *Beilis trial. It was he who induced the Russian Hebraists I. Troitski and P. *Kokowzoff to give evidence as experts. Possibly it was this activity that inclined him toward studying the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe. He was held in high esteem for his modesty, warmth, and kindness.

Israelsohn's publications include a Russian translation, with introduction, of Josephus' Jewish War and part of Against Apion (1895); an edition of Samuel b. Hophni's Arabic commentary on the end of Genesis (1886); of Yahya ibn Bal'am's commentary on Jeremiah (in Festschrift… A. Harkavy (1908), 273–308 (Heb. sect.)), cf. A. Marx, in: jqr, 1 (1910/11), 430; and a chapter on Nathan Neta Hannover's life and works in the yivo publication Gzeyres Takh ("The 1648/49 Massacres," 1938).

bibliography:

B. Dinur, Bi-Ymei Milḥamah u-Mahpekhah (1961), 376–8, 393–5, 411; E.E. Friedman, Sefer Zikhronot (1926), 372–3; S. Ginzburg, Historiste Verk, 1 (1944), 174; 2 (1946), 146, 154; I. Markon, in: Yevreyskaya Letopis, 4 (1926), 197.

[Moshe Perlmann]