Ithiel HaKushi MeVenezia / Othello the Moor of Venice by Shakspeare [sic!]. Translated into Hebrew by J. E. Salkinson. Edited by Peretz Smolenskin.

SHAKESPEARE, WILLLIAM.

Spitzer & Holzwarth Jun.

Vienna

1874

FIRST HEBREW EDITION. Titles in Hebrew and English.

THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF ANY OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS INTO THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. Smolenskin writes in the the introduction: “Shakespeare’s plays in the Holy Tongue! …what a great prize the translator of these plays has brought into the treasure-house of our [Hebrew] language.” See EJ, Vol. XIV, cols. 1262-3. (There is an old Jewish joke about a Yiddish translation of Shakespeare on whose title-page appear the words “ibergezetzt un farbessert” (“translated and improved.”) The present translation makes no such claim!).