Memoirs of a Jewish Adventurer. From the Shtetl of Lithuania to the Mahdi's Sudan.
Editions of the brilliance| N° d'inventaire | 23553 |
| Format | 15 x 22 |
| Détails | 320 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782841625062 |
A child prodigy born in Riteve, Lithuania, in 1855, Getzel Selikovich was sent to Paris where he studied Semitic languages and Egyptology, and began an extraordinary journey that took him to Africa, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, each time leading to numerous encounters. A "great reporter" before his time, a student of Ernest Renan and Gaston Maspero at the Collège de France, and unwittingly the inspiration for the revival of spoken Hebrew during his meeting with Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, he left for Cairo under circumstances that remain unclear. He participated in a military mission to Sudan to save the English general "Gordon Pocha", fought the troops of the pseudo-Muslim prophet Muhammad Abdallah at Abu Qalya, helped a young girl escape from the Sultan's Harem in Istanbul and was involved in a political assassination which he reported on in various Hebrew and French newspapers to the point that one of his articles in L'intransigeant almost provoked a war between France and Great Britain. Having probably become persona non grata on French soil, he finally emigrated to the USA where he died in 1926. His Memoirs, which appeared in serial form in the New York Yiddish press between 1919 and 1920, reveal a personality rich in color, such as the intelligentsia of the early 20th century could still count on, mixing an immoderate taste for adventure with certain talents as a travel journalist enhanced by a fine polyglot erudition.
A child prodigy born in Riteve, Lithuania, in 1855, Getzel Selikovich was sent to Paris where he studied Semitic languages and Egyptology, and began an extraordinary journey that took him to Africa, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, each time leading to numerous encounters. A "great reporter" before his time, a student of Ernest Renan and Gaston Maspero at the Collège de France, and unwittingly the inspiration for the revival of spoken Hebrew during his meeting with Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, he left for Cairo under circumstances that remain unclear. He participated in a military mission to Sudan to save the English general "Gordon Pocha", fought the troops of the pseudo-Muslim prophet Muhammad Abdallah at Abu Qalya, helped a young girl escape from the Sultan's Harem in Istanbul and was involved in a political assassination which he reported on in various Hebrew and French newspapers to the point that one of his articles in L'intransigeant almost provoked a war between France and Great Britain. Having probably become persona non grata on French soil, he finally emigrated to the USA where he died in 1926. His Memoirs, which appeared in serial form in the New York Yiddish press between 1919 and 1920, reveal a personality rich in color, such as the intelligentsia of the early 20th century could still count on, mixing an immoderate taste for adventure with certain talents as a travel journalist enhanced by a fine polyglot erudition.