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Simon Bacher

BACHER, SIMON (1823–1891), poet and Hebrew translator. Bacher was born in Szent Miklos, Hungary, and was the father of the Orientalist Wilhelm *Bacher and a descendant of Jair Ḥayyim *Bacharach. When writing in Hebrew, he used the latter's surname. In 1867 he moved to Budapest, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. From 1874 until his death he served as the treasurer of the Jewish community. Bacher wrote poetry in the flowery style of the Haskalah and also translated German and Hungarian poetry into Hebrew. He was a regular contributor to the Hebrew periodicals Ha-Ḥavaẓẓelet and Kokhevei Yiẓḥak. In 1865 his Hebrew translation of Lessing's Nathan der Weise appeared in Vienna, and in 1868 he published Zemirot ha-Areẓ ("Songs of the Land"), an anthology of translations from Hungarian poetry. His selected works, Sha'ar Shimon (3 vols., 1894), were published posthumously by his son.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

W. Bacher, in: Sha'ar Shimon, 1 (1894), 9–36; J. Patai, Mi-Sefunei ha-Shirah (1939), 31–35.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.