Monday, November 05, 2012

'A Bon Mot of Mendelssohn' concerning a shul window donated by a less-than-honorable wealthy man.


















From the Voice of Jacob December 23, 1841.
Posted by at

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:27 PM, November 05, 2012

    That's your entrance after a 3 week hiatus?
    Hope all is well (and dry).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phil8:46 PM, November 05, 2012

    I'm impressed by how clear the paper and the printing is, considering the age.

    ReplyDelete
  3. S.11:42 AM, November 06, 2012

    Thanks for the good wishes anon.

    Phil, truth is I did tinker with the levels on Photoshop. However, yes, the paper and printing is beautiful. If I'm not mistaken, in 1841 all paper had to be rag, which is fantastic paper. However, even then there were differences in quality, to say nothing of ink, type, press, etc. So the Voice of Jacob (which was bought by and turned into the Jewish Chronicle) was printed beautifully. And surviving copies look very nice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:47 AM, November 06, 2012

    Mehh. All these stories are made up. Someone sees a passuk and thinks of a cute story in which to insert it. Like painting the bullseye around the arrow.

    Agreed with first commenter anon. THIS is your grand triumphant return after a three-week world tour? What, you couldnt find a nice gematriya to post?

    (grin)

    ReplyDelete
  5. S.11:49 AM, November 06, 2012

    Of course it's made up. The only surprise to me was that this isn't also a Reb Yonasan Eybeschutz story.

    ReplyDelete
  6. JXG4:41 AM, November 07, 2012

    I thought all quips like that were from the Chida...

    Also the story with Frederick the second wouldn't work with any other character but Mendelssohn.

    "Mendelssohn ist ein Esel. --Friedrich der Zweite."

    The end of that story ought to be, Frederick wanted to behead Mendelssohn, but thought it would be bad politics.

    ReplyDelete
  7. S.11:06 AM, November 07, 2012

    There's some kind of Mendelssohn-Frederick story that is also told over about various baalei mussar.

    The kernel of truth is that Mendelssohn critiqued Fred's French poems.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails
'