Leopold Dukes

Born in Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), Leopold Dukes was a historian and critic of Jewish literature. He was first educated in the traditional manner at Rabbi Moses Sofer’s yeshiva in Pressburg; then he received a broader education in Würzburg, Germany. After a brief return to Pressburg, Dukes lived in Germany, France, and England (the latter for some two decades), where he researched Hebrew manuscripts and wrote about philology, rabbinic proverbs, aggadic literature, biblical exegesis, and medieval Hebrew-language Spanish Jewish poetry (especially that of Solomon ibn Gabirol).