No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This chapter takes a look at Rabbi Judah Leo Landau’s poem, ‘Ahavat yehonatan’. Landau was a Hebrew poet and one of the fathers of modern Hebrew drama. ‘Ahavat yehonatan’ is based on a folk tale about the life of King Jan Sobieski. It relates the story of how Jan Sobieski was abandoned as a young boy and then brought up in the home of the rich Jew Bezalel, the leader of the Jewish community. The poem opens with a powerful description of the dark and stormy night when the J Bezalel, walking alone through the deserted streets in the Jewish quarter, discovers Jonathan (Jan) lying weak and abandoned next to a Jewish home. This dramatic description, in the pseudo-biblical style of the Haskalah, is characteristic of Landau’s later work and demonstrates a remarkable lyricism.

No abstract