The Hebrew Who Turned Christian: The First Translator of Shakespeare into the Holy Tongue

Summary

The first two translations of plays by Shakespeare into the Holy Tongue were the work of a convert, a Hebrew who did indeed turn Christian. He not only converted, but became a Presbyterian minister and a missionary to the Jews. It is thanks to his unique life-story that the first translations of complete plays were made directly from the English rather than from Russian or German, the languages more familiar to nineteenth-century Jewish intellectuals, and from which most of the early Hebrew and Yiddish translations were made.

In this article, I shall investigate the connection between this translator's personal religious biography and the first Shakespeare play he chose to translate. I shall argue that this translation reflects his own spiritual journey and forms an integral part of his missionary work. Furthermore, I shall suggest that the clue to its appreciation is viewing the transformation of Shakespeare into biblical Hebrew as a textual conversion. So, it is within the religious discourse of conversion that I shall consider the first translation of Shakespeare into Hebrew.

Isaac Edward Salkinson was born in a small shtetl in Belorussia, within the Jewish Pale of Settlement, in 1820. His parents were orthodox and he received a traditional Jewish education. He was orphaned young, but carried on his religious studies in various yeshivas.