Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A Chief Rabbi's bookplate in a 19th century art magazine.

Here's an article about the bookplate used by British Chief Rabbi Naphtali Hermann Nathan Adler.

This is from The Studio v. 8 1896 (pg. 43):



This is the same Rabbi Adler who is acknowledged on the very last page of the very last massekhes of the Romm Edition of the Talmud (Vilna, 1886):

3 comments:

  1. What about Devash/Date-Honey?

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you count, there are seven so the dates are there. I think they just missed it by mistake, either by overlooking or ignorance.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Crown of the sun"? "Zephellah"?

    It's quite like that it's Hermann Adler who's referenced in the very first Sherlock Holmes story, "A Scandal in Bohemia":
    --------------------
    “Then, pray consult,” said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.

    “The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.”

    “Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor,” murmured Holmes, without opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish information. In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew Rabbi and that of a staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep sea fishes.

    “Let me see?” said Holmes. “Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back.”
    --------------------
    The story was published in 1891, the year the younger Adler took over as Chief Rabbi, but is set a few years earlier. Of course, Hermann was famous for at least a decade before he became Chief Rabbi, and, to clinch it, "H" comes before "I" whereas "N" does not.

    ReplyDelete

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