Talk:Nathan ben Moses Hannover

Yeven Mezulah

This work is described here as "devoted to the persecutions of the Jews in Ukraine and Poland". Who's description is this? Is there a source for this description? I think it is misleading, the book describes the course of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, including Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Cossack and Tatar participation in the hostilities as well as their casualties and devastation (albeit from a Jewish perspective), it does not speak of persecution. In particular, there are descriptions of several instances in which Jews and Poles fought shoulder to shoulder against Cossack and Tatar attacks and inflicted reprisals.--84.108.213.97 (talk) 09:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Title Yeven Mezulah

I copied this from he-wiki: - The title comes from the line from a psalm: Hebrew: טָבַעְתִּי בִּיוֵן מְצוּלָה וְאֵין מָעֳמָד, "I drowned in the depths of a mire (beYeven Metzulah) and there is no standing"; Psalm 69, King James: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing"

Further, this auction site for the first edition says

Regarding the title of the book: “In late Hebrew "Yavan" denotes the Russians, because they belong to the Greek Catholic Church; therefore Nathan Nate Hanover calls his description of the Chmielnicki persecution "Yeven Metzulah" after Psalms LXIX.” JE

Psalm 69 translation says "flunk deep in mire" matching Hebrew source. But Google translate from Hebrew say: "I drowned  in a submerged Greek and there is no standing in the depths of the waters" -- so it is a Hebrew pun :-).

Names of the Greeks indeed says that Greece was called Yavan (יָוָן) in Biblical times.

Ukranian translation Глибокий мул , "deep mire" per psalm. Loew Galitz (talk) 01:19, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

All this makes sense, however reliable sources needed.

[2] say: "Because יונים was applied to Russians, the work Yeven Mezulah was prohibited in Russia!" I suspect some confusion in book because previous sentence says "יון had long been used as a synonym for (Eastern) Roman Empire" (Hence a chain of metomymy: ->East orthodox church->Russia)

In the introduction the author plays a little gematria: (from English translation) "TAVATI B'YAVAN M'FZULAH (I am sunk in a deep mire) is of the same numerical value as "CHMIEL VKEDAR B'YAVAN YACHDAV CHUBARU (Chmiel[nitski] and the Tartars joined together with the "Greeks").

Also Baruch Yavan "called also Baruch Meerez Yavan-Baruch of the Land of Russia"

References