Isaac Erter was born at Koniuszek, Galicia. The first part of his life was full of struggles and hardships. After having associated for many years with the Hasidim, he settled at Lemberg; and through the efforts of some of his friends, such as Rapoport, Krochmal, and others, he obtained pupils whom he instructed in Hebrew language and other subjects. This comparatively happy state lasted for only three years. Jacob Orenstein, chief rabbi of Lemberg, having been apprised of the existence among his flock of a small band occupied with the study of secular subjects, excommunicated them all. Deprived thus of his pupils, the only means of his subsistence, he settled in the neighboringtown of Brody. There he struggled for a while, until he resolved to study medicine. Erter entered the University of Budapest, where he studied medicine for five years and passed all the prescribed examinations; he then practised his new profession in various Galician towns, including Brody, where he made himself especially popular among the poor and needy, who found in him a kindly benefactor. He died at Brody.
Work
Isaac Erter composed a number of Hebrew satires, which have procured for him a prominent place among modern Hebrew satirists. For a time he edited a Hebrew periodical entitled "He-Halutz," which was intended chiefly to promote culture and enlightenment among the Galician Jews. The periodical also advocated the establishment in Galicia of agricultural colonies for the employment and benefit of young Jews, and received some support from Vienna. Erter's fame rests chiefly on his satires, published under the title "Ha-Tzofeh le-Bet Yisrael", with a biography of the author and introduction by Max Letteris. They are six in number, and are admirable in form and style. Their titles are: "Mozne Mishqal"; "Ha-Tzofeh be-Shubo mi-Karlsbad"; "Gilgul ha-Nefesh"; "Tashlikh"; "Telunat Sani we-Sansani we-Samangaluf"; "Ḥasidut we-Ḥokmah." The most attractive of these is "Gilgul ha-Nefesh," the story of the many adventures of a soul during a long earthly career; how it frequently passed from one body into another, and how it had once left the body of an ass for that of a physician. The soul gives the author the following six rules, by observing which he might succeed in his profession: Erter also wrote some Hebrew verse; but this won little acclaim compared to his prose, which Heinrich Grätz described as comparable in many points to that of Heinrich Heine.
