Rebekah Hyneman

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Rebekah Hyneman
BornRebekah Gumpert
(1812-09-08)8 September 1812
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died10 September 1875(1875-09-10) (aged 63)
Notable worksThe Leper and Other Poems (1853)
Spouse
Benjamin Hyneman
​
​
(m. 1835; died 1839)​

Rebekah Hyneman (née Gumpert) (Hebrew: רבקה הינמן; 8 September 1812 – 10 September 1875) was an American Jewish author and poet, best known for her 1853 work The Leper and Other Poems.

Biography[edit]

Rebekah Hyneman was born in Philadelphia in 1812 to Abraham Gumpert (né Gumpertz), a Jewish-German storekeeper, and a gentile mother.[1] Raised in Bucks County, where there were no facilities for formal education, she became proficient in English composition and mastered French, German, and Hebrew through self-study.[2]

In 1835, she married Jewish jewellery peddler Benjamin Hyneman.[3] They had two children, Elias Leon (born in 1837) and Samuel (born in 1839).[1] She was left a widow after five years of married life when in 1839, while she was pregnant with Samuel, Benjamin disappeared on a business trip to Texas and was presumed murdered.[4][5] Rebekah and her sons formally converted to Judaism in 1845 under the aegis of Rabbi Isaac Leeser.[6]

Hyneman turned to writing, becoming a regular contributor to The Occident and American Jewish Advocate and The Masonic Mirror and Keystone, founded by prominent Freemason Leon Hyneman, brother of her late husband and husband of her sister Sarah.[7] She wrote for these periodicals a number of original stories, essays, and poems, and frequently presented translations from the works of different foreign authors.[8] Her poetry and fiction were mainly on Jewish themes,[9] and often dealt with the need to resist assimilation.[10] Between 1846 and 1850, she published in The Occident “Female Scriptural Characters,” a series of poems paying homage to fourteen women of the Bible and the Apocrypha, including Ruth, Esther, Deborah, Judith, and the Matriarchs.[7][11] A collection of over eighty poems entitled The Leper and Other Poems appeared in 1853, which included her best-known poems “The Leper,” “Zara,” “Livia," and “The Muses”.[3][12]

Hyneman's son Samuel died in 1864 from a chronic condition which finally proved fatal.[13] Shortly thereafter, her son Elias, a volunteer in the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment during the American Civil War, died on 7 January 1865 from starvation after six months in the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville Prison.[14][15] She died on 10 September 1875.

Partial bibliography[edit]

  • Hyneman, Rebekah (1846–1850). "Female Scriptural Characters". The Occident and American Jewish Advocate.
  • Hyneman, Rebekah (1853). The Leper, and Other Poems. Philadelphia: A. Hart.
  • Hyneman, Rebekah (1853). "The Fatal Cosmetic: Mystery Novella". The Masonic Mirror and Keystone.
  • Hyneman, Rebekah (1860). "The Doctor". The Masonic Mirror and Keystone.
  • Hyneman, Rebekah (March–July 1862). "The Lost Diamond". The Occident and American Jewish Advocate.

References[edit]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Adler, Cyrus; Vizetelly, Frank H. (1904). "Hyneman". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 513.

  1. ^ a b "Poetry and Fiction by Rebekah Hyneman (1816-1875)". Jewish-American History Foundation. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  2. ^ "Rebekah Hyneman (1812–1875)". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  3. ^ a b Morais, Henry Samuel (1879). Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth Century: A Series of Biographical Sketches. E. Stern & Company. pp. 149–153.
  4. ^ Taylor, Marion Ann; Weir, Heather E. (2006). Let Her Speak for Herself: Nineteenth-century Women Writing on the Women of Genesis. Baylor University Press. pp. 138–139. ISBN 978-1-932792-53-9.
  5. ^ Marcus, Jacob Rader (1981). The American Jewish Woman: A Documentary History. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. pp. 183–185. ISBN 978-0-87068-752-5.
  6. ^ "Rebekah Hyneman to Be Admitted as Convert" (24 August 1845). Isaac Leeser Collection. Philadelphia: Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
  7. ^ a b Lichtenstein, Diane. "Rebekah Gumpert Hyneman". The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  8. ^  Adler, Cyrus; Vizetelly, Frank H. (1904). "Hyneman". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 513.
  9. ^ Lichtenstein, Diane (Spring 1988). "Fannie Hurst and Her Nineteenth-Century Predecessors". Studies in American Jewish Literature. 7 (1): 26–39. JSTOR 41205672.
  10. ^ By Dawn's Early Light: Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the Nation's Founding to the Civil War (PDF) (exhibition catalogue). New York: American Jewish Historical Society. 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  11. ^ "Rebekah Gumpert Hyneman". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  12. ^ Rabinovich, Irina (May 2014). "Rebekah Hyneman's Poetry: A Portrait of the Artist as "The Mother and Wife in Israel"" (PDF). Sjani: Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature. 15: 82–95. ISSN 1512-2514.
  13. ^ Morais, Henry Samuel (1894). The Jews of Philadelphia: Their History from the Earliest Settlements to the Present Time. Philadelphia: Levytype Company. pp. 329–331.
  14. ^ Rhine, Alice Hyneman (December 1888). Peixotto, Benjamin Franklin (ed.). "An American Hebrew's Heroic Life: A Reminiscence of Andersonville Prison". The Menorah: A Monthly Magazine for the Jewish Home. 5 (6). New York: Menorah Publishing Company: 343–352.
  15. ^ Schwartz, Matthew B. (2009). Jews in America: The First 500 Years. Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-5326-4411-5.
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