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January 13, 2020

Robinson Crusoe’s Many Jewish Incarnations

Alter Leyb Robinson and his friend, Shabbos.

First published in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was translated into numerous Jewish languages between 1784 and the early 20th century: Judeo-German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic (in Tunisia), and Ladino. In some of these languages, it was translated multiple times, and many of the translators took liberties with the text, sometimes working not from the English original but from an 18th-century German adaptation. Perhaps the most transformed, writes Chen Malul, was Yosef Vitlin’s Yiddish version:

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January 13, 2020

  1. In Its Latest Confrontation with the United States, Iran Has Backed Down

    But its efforts to expel the U.S. from Iraq will continue.

  2. Israel Must Call More Attention to Hizballah’s Failure to Comply with the 2006 Cease-Fire

    A UN report only acknowledges the tip of the iceberg.

  3. Socialists Are Content to Blame Anti-Semitism on Everyone but the Anti-Semites

    Among the blamed are the victims themselves.

  4. Can Judaism Thrive If Cut Off from Its Talmudic Roots?

    Thoughts on daily Talmud study not conducted “in the spirit of a believer.”

  5. Robinson Crusoe’s Many Jewish Incarnations

    Alter Leyb Robinson and his friend, Shabbos.