JOHLSON, JOSEPH (Asher ben Joseph Fulda):

By: Isidore Singer, Meyer Kayserling

German Bible translator and writer on educational topics; born in 1777 at Fulda; died atFrankfort-on-the-Main June 13, 1851. He was sometimes called "Fulda," after his native place, where his father was acting rabbi. In 1813 he was called to Frankfort as teacher at the Philanthropin, the recently founded Jewish school. He introduced systematic religious instruction, and in 1814, devotional exercises in connection with the school. He published the Twelve Minor Prophets, Carlsruhe, 1827, and "Die Heiligen Schriften der Israeliten: Nach dem Masoretischen Texte Wortgetreu Uebersetzt" (Genesis to Kings, 1831-36). Johlson's chief work was "Alume Yosef," an elementary book for Jewish schools, consisting of: (a) "Shoroshe ha-Dat," lessons in the Mosaic religion, 1814 (4th ed. 1840); (b) "Shire Yeshurun," Hebrew hymn-book, 1816 (4th ed., containing 600 hymns, 1840); (c) "Toledot Abot," a chronologically arranged Bible history, 1820 (2d ed., 1839). He wrote also: "Yesod ha-Lashon," a Hebrew grammar for schools (1833); "'Erek Millin," a Biblical Hebrew dictionary, with the corresponding synonyms, 1840; and, under the pen-name "Bar Amittai," "Ueber die Beschneidung in Historischer und Dogmatischer Hinsicht" (1843). Several letters addressed by him to L. Zunz have been published by S. Maybaum in the twelfth report of the "Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums in Berlin."

S. M. K.