STEINBERG, JOSHUA

STEINBERG, JOSHUA (1825–1908), Hebrew writer, linguist, and teacher, son-in-law of A.B. Lebensohn (Adam ha-Kohen). A graduate of the Vilna Government Rabbinical Seminary, Steinberg served as a government-appointed rabbi in Bialystok and Vilna (1860–66), and was active in the establishment of governmental Russian-Jewish schools. In 1867 he was appointed lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at the Vilna Rabbinical Seminary and was censor of Hebrew books from 1883 to 1905. From time to time Steinberg wrote articles in which he preached the ideas of the Haskalah. The body of his work was connected with the study of Hebrew and its grammar. He wrote textbooks in Russian for the study of Hebrew and Aramaic; translated the Pentateuch and several books of the Prophets into Russian with Hebrew and Russian commentary; compiled a Russian-Hebrew dictionary (1880), and a frequently reprinted Russian-Hebrew pocket dictionary. In his book of grammar, Ma'arekhei Leshon Ever (1884), he employed his own method, whose main principle was the acceptance of the Ashkenazi pronunciation of vowels and the use of two- and three-letter roots. His biblical dictionary, Mishpat ha-Urim (1891; revised edition, Millon ha-Tanakh, 1940), has retained its value. Steinberg was a scrupulous purist who wrote only in the biblical idiom. Aḥad Ha-Am, who printed his article "Toledot ha-Safah ve-Torat Darwin" ("History of Language and Darwin's Theory," in: Ha-Shilo'aḥ (2 (1897), 24–37)), referred to his writings as examples of the inability of biblical style to express modern scientific thought. Steinberg greatly influenced the methods of teaching Hebrew language and grammar.

His works also include: translation of M.J. Lebensohn's poems into German, Gesaenge Zions (Vilna, 1859); epigrams and proverbs, Or la-Yesharim (1865); and three chapters of Sybilline Oracles translated into Hebrew in Ha-Me'assef (Warsaw, 1886).

bibliography:

H.Y. Katznelson, in: Hadoar, 11, nos. 11, 12 (1932), 173–4.

[Yehuda Slutsky]