LEDA (Lederer), EDUARD

LEDA (Lederer), EDUARD (1859–1944), Czech author and one of the leaders of Jewish assimilation in Czechoslovakia. Leda was born in Chotoviny, Bohemia. In his novels and short stories Leda portrayed many Jewish characters, often expressing through them his own thoughts on various aspects of the Jewish problem. The best known are Zápisky hrbáčovy ("Diary of a Hunchback," 1923), Rakušák ("The Austrophile," 1942),   and Lelíček Redivivus (1928). He also wrote two biblical plays, Mojžíš ("Moses," 1919) and Zrádce ("The Traitor," 1921), the latter intended as a vindication of Judas Iscariot. He wrote several books on the Jewish question: Německý a český anti-semitismus ("German and Czech Anti-Semitism," 1899), Českožidovská otázka ("The Czech-Jewish Question," 1899), Židé v dnešní společnosti ("Jews in Modern Society," 1902), and Kapitoly o židovství a židovstvu ("Chapter on Judaism and Jewry," 1925). In all of these he was an uncompromising advocate of assimilation. Leda died in Theresienstadt. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: O. Donath, Židé a židovství v české literatuře 19. a 20. století (1930); Hostovský, in: Jews of Czechoslovakia (1967), 446. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lexikon české literatury 2/II (1993); A. Mikulášek, Literatura s hvězdou Davidovou, vol. 1 (1998) (Avigdor Dagan / Milos Pojar (2nd ed.)