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Moses Lemans

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Moses Lemans
BornNovember 5, 1785
Naarden, Netherlands
DiedOctober 17, 1832
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Moses Lemans (November 5, 1785, Naarden, Netherlands – October 17, 1832, Amsterdam, Netherlands) was a Dutch-Jewish Hebraist and mathematician, and a leader of the Haskalah movement in Holland. He was a founder of the Jewish Mathematicians' Association, Mathesis Artium Genetrix, and published a number of works on Hebrew grammar and mathematics.[1]

Born in Naarden, Lemans was educated by his father and (in mathematics) by Judah Littwack. He helped found Hanokh la na'ar al pi darkho, a society for reform in Jewish education, for which he published a number of Hebrew textbooks. In 1818 he was appointed head of the first school for needy Jews in Amsterdam, and in 1828 teacher of mathematics in the Amsterdam gymnasium.

Works

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In 1808 he published Ma'amar Imrah Ẓerufah (Article on Pure Speech), in which he advocated for the abandonment of Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew in favour of the Sephardi one,[2] and some years later a Hebrew grammar, Rudimenta (1820). In collaboration with Samuel Israel Mulder he published a Hebrew-Dutch dictionary in 1829-1831. The most notable of his Hebrew poems is an epic on the Belgian Revolution.

Lemans was also involved in efforts to propagate among Jews of the Netherlands a knowledge of the Dutch language, by translating prayer-books into Dutch.

References

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  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainIsidore Singer and E. Slijper (1901–1906). "Lemans, Moses". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  1. ^ "Lemans, Moses". Encyclopaedia Judaica.
  2. ^ Rädecker, T. S. (2015). "Making Jews Dutch: Secular discourse and Jewish responses, 1796-1848". Groningen: University of Groningen.

Further reading

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  • A. Dellavilla (1852), Allon Muẓẓav.
  • Michman-Melkman (1967), Leshonenu la-Am, 18, 76–90, 120–35.
  • Teisjure l'Ange (1833), Algemeene Konst-en-Letterbode, ii., Nos. 37, 38.
  • Ulman (1836), Jaarboeken voor de Israëliten in Nederland, 2 (1836), 297–312.