Naftali Imber

Nextbook.org relaunched its publication(s) in June. Instead of publishing the Nextbook Reader paper, It now has an online magazine called Tablet. All the content of past Nextbook Reader issues have been moved to the new venture. You can read more about the changes here.

This week Tablet magazine ran the profile of Naftali Imber, mostly known as the poet who wrote HaTikvah. He was much more colorful character than anauthor of a national anthem people think would be. He made prophetic announcements, some of which actually turned out to be accurate. He was also an alcoholic who made a living via occult sessions. According to the article he was known as the “apostle of the Kabbalah and the Emissary of the 37 masters”. Unfortunately I didn’t find any of his Kabbalistic writings, if he had any. As far as I can tell a full biography of Imber has not been published in English yet. Maybe when it will be we will have more access to his Kabbalistic ideas too.