Till 250-årsminnet av Aaron Isaacs födelse

Abstract

The present article concentrates on one of the two extant poems preserved from the “pre-Swedish period” of Aaron Isaac, otherwise known as the founding father of Swedish Jewry. The poem is presented here in a form as close as possible to the original manuscript which is kept in the University Library of Rostock. However, it has been transcribed into Latin letters so as to make it more easily accessible&&and the present writer has even ventured into a Swedish rendering of the text. The poem is a panegyric dedicated to Marcus Moses, who had recently been promoted physician&&it is one of those occasional products which would probably have vanished, were it not for some fortuitous event, in this case represented by professor Tychsen, an intimate friend of Aaron Isaac. The author of the poem has been reproached of badly flowing metre. But, in the present writer’s view, rhymes mattered more than metre to Aaron Isaac as well as to Jewish prosody in general&&moreover, judged by Germanic standards, the poem may seem faulty in more than one respect, but the fact is that the poem is modelled on Semitic rather than Germanic patters, and this is, among other things, borne out clearly by the alphabetical arrangement of the verses.