Description

Izaak Cylkow (1841-1908) – prominent rabbi, social activist and translator. He played a key role in bringing Jewish culture to Polish society. The first rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Warsaw, he was the author of translations of many books of the Old Testament into Polish, but this translation of the Pentateuch can be considered the most important undertaking in his translation activities.

Cylkow’s Torah is historically the first Polish translation of the Five Books of Moses made from the original Hebrew. All previous translations were based on translations from Latin. Czeslaw Milosz claimed that this translation is both poetically very beautiful and extremely faithful. According to Milosz, Cylkov tried, wherever possible, to preserve the word order of the original. Milosz also notes that Cylkov, “sensitive to the modulations of the Hebrew phrase, shapes the verse somewhat differently than Bibles, both Catholic and Protestant, always do…. influenced by Latin syntax.”

A copy in the original half-leather binding.