Judah Leib Gordon

Judah Leib Gordon, also called Leon
Gordon, byname Yalag (b. Dec. 7, 1830,
Vilnius, Lithuania—d. Sept. 16, 1892,
St. Petersburg, Russia), Jewish poet,
essayist, and novelist, the leading poet
of the Hebrew Enlightenment (Haskala),
whose use of biblical and postbiblical
Hebrew resulted in a new and influential
style of Hebrew-language poetry.
After
he left Lithuania, Gordon was imprisoned
as a political conspirator by the
Russian government. After his release he
became editor of Ha-Melitz. His early
poems dealing with biblical subjects
were followed by powerful satires in
verse aimed against the harsher aspects
of rabbinic Judaism. His last poems
reflect bitter disillusionment with the
ideals of Haskala, or Jewish
Enlightenment. Although of limited
poetic talent, Gordon’s advocacy of
social and religious reforms proved
widely influential, and his skillful use
of postbiblical idiom increased the
flexibility of modern Hebrew. His poems
were collected in Kol Shire Yehuda
(1883–84) and his stories in Kol Kithbe
Yehuda (1889).