Gans, David

Abstract

David Gans (1541, Lippstadt – 1613 Prague) was an Ashkenazi Jewish polyhistor active chiefly in Prague at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is known first and foremost as the author of two books: (1) Tsemah David, a Hebrew chronicle describing Jewish history and general history from the beginnings to the author’s days (published in Prague, 1592), and (2) Nehmad va-na‘im a manual of astronomy based on the Ptolemaic system but quoting some of the opinions of Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Tycho Brahe (published in Jessnitz, 1743).

Gans was not a cutting-edge historian such as his Italian Jewish contemporary, Azariah de’ Rossi, who questioned the historicity of some post-biblical Jewish legends. Neither was he a cutting-edge astronomer as Kepler, who advanced the heliocentric model of the universe. Gans endorsed conservative, traditionalist positions in historical and astronomical questions. Nevertheless, his works were important cultural innovations within the context of early modern Ashkenazi Jewish culture. His books on historiography and astronomy enriched the Ashkenazi Jewish cultural repertoire by introducing subject matters to the Jewish public which were usually ignored in Ashkenazi tradition. Therefore, some scholars consider Gans as a forerunner of modern Jewish culture that began to emerge during the second half of the eighteenth century.