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Elsie Davis (translation)

Elsie Naomi Davis Schryver (1876-1933), born in Derby, England, was a Jewish translator of liturgy and a mother. She was born at Friarfield House, Derby, the oldest of two children of Louisa (née Jonas) and Arthur Davis. Her father's family were secular Jewish precision instrument makers, who had immigrated to England from Bavaria in the early nineteenth century. A civil engineer by trade, Arthur Davis became religiously observant and mastered the Hebrew language, becoming an accomplished Hebraist noted for his study of cantillation marks in the Tanakh. The family moved to Kilburn, London when Nina was six weeks old, later settling in Bayswater. There, Davis gave his daughters an intensive scholarly education in Hebrew and Jewish studies, teaching them himself each morning before breakfast from the age of four, and taking them regularly to the synagogue. The Davis's moved in learned Jewish circles, and friends of Nina's parents included the families of Nathan Adler, Simeon Singer, Claude Montefiore, Solomon Schechter, Herbert Bentwich, and Elkan Adler. Arthur Davis was one of the "Kilburn Wanderers"—a group of Anglo-Jewish intellectuals that formed around Solomon Schechter in the 1880s—members of which took an interest in Nina's work and helped her find publication for her writings. Eleven of Elsie's translations of piyyutim are credited in the maḥzorim of Herbert Adler and her father Arthur Davis. With her husband, Samuel Barnett Schryver, she was the parent of two daughters, Rosalind Leah Schryver and Priscilla Naomi Schryver. Elsie was the older sister of Nina Salaman Davis (1877-1925), who also translated medieval piyyutim.

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The Confession, an excerpt from Kether Malkhut (Crown of Royalty) by Shlomo ibn Gabirol adapted by Elsie Davis

Contributed by: Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Elsie Davis (translation), Shlomo ibn Gabirol

An adaptation in rhymed English verse of an excerpt of Shlomo ibn Gabirol’s Keter Malkhut Elsie Davis. First published in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 7, No. 3 (April 1895), pp. 461-464. The adaptation begins with section 34 of the piyyut.



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