Turkish censors of Armenian Bible, remove the tale of Joseph "out of consideration for Mrs. Potiphar," in 1893

This fascinating article is from the NY Herald, 1893. It must be noted - since not everyone reads to the end - that on protest by the British, the Grand Vizier reversed the order.

Who was the 6' 3" tall, 103 year-old, clear-sighted, ascetic rabbi in Dublin in 1771?

Any ideas?

From Hoey's Dublin Mercury Dec 5, 1771.

Happy Anniversary, me

May is about the time of year when I started On the Main Line. I don't know the exact date, because the April before is when I started blogging someplace else. And when I switched, I moved some of the old posts, recopied them. So either May 9 or 10 is the day I started On the Main Line. A pretty long time ago in the blogging world. To see an infant with eyes fused shut, soft and pink and squishy, covered in down and adorable turn into an immature, bright 8-year old! I love it.

in which I may present my thoughts and my own particular mishuggassen

Friday, 24 May 2005 I've moved I can be found at http://onthemainline.blogspot.com">On the Main Line Thanks, if anyone is reading.

I suppose I should reflect once a year. I'm not sure what to say. A lot of good things came about for me because of blogging. I got to know so many of you via email, and also in person, and made some dear friends. I have had my eyes and mind opened in so many ways. I learned a lot. Discovered some interesting research methods. You know, independently inventing the Digital Humanities. Kidding, a little. 

I want to thank everyone, the hundreds of people who read every day, on every continent (except the proverbial Antarctica, at least so far). It's especially gratifying to me when I can see a referrer and that a person was looking at one of my posts through Google Translate. I'd like to thank the people who find the blog using funny keywords, the people who ask questions with some kind of confidence that I know or could find the answer. I have learned so much from readers, anonymous commenters, emailers - some of you don't realize how intimidating your depth and breadth of knowledge is!  I'm sorry about the drowning in email problem, and my resolution for the next 8 years is to try to become better with that. In my defense, generally I want to give queries the attention it deserves and sometimes I get overwhelmed. I will try better. I also want to thank each and every one of you who came to help when I was drowning in financial woes. I am sometimes shy, but I want to tell you very clearly: you helped me and my family survive at times. Literally. And I will never, ever forget that. 

I also want to thank those of you who keep pointing out when I did a post with a Part I, and never got around to doing a Part II. The explanation is that when I post like that, I'm trying to set a goal for myself, trying to make a placeholder. Sometimes the Part II happens, sometimes not. Part IIs may always end up happening, even it takes a long time! I also want to thank readers who have never failed to inform me when I am quoted, cited or - yup, ripped off - in various periodicals or blogs, in which I may never have realized. 

I want to reflect a little on why I blog, and why I pushed myself through funks, moments completely lacking in inspiration, and times where my interests shifted from the topics I blog about. The reason is quite simple: so I could sit here today and write this! Most blogs are short-lived, even the ones that burn bright for a time. Blogging itself may be, or supposedly is, dead. And I know that I have to adapt. My vast numbers of comments dried up years ago, even as each year my daily hits increase. So look for some changes, at least aesthetic changes, to come - hopefully soon. I have plans, publications, etc. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I am glad I persevered. To give myself a pat on the back, I learned that I have good instincts for what others' find intriguing: it's what I find intriguing! And there are all sorts of little crumbs, some just bits of gold dust, others well-known gems, and still others rare, unknown gems which are scattered all over our vast literature, the treasures of the Jewish people. So it's been very gratifying to discover some of them, and popularize them and bring them to light. 

A few things I have learned: 

- there is no end to such treasures.

- truth is as strange as fiction.

- things were on the one hand very different in the past,

- and on the other, they were and remain exactly the same

And I almost forgot! Thanks to all the libraries and companies that digitize books and journals in free and other kinds of databases. I of course especially mean Google and Hebrewbooks.org, but there are many, many others. Growing up, I never dreamed that I would have a library with easily tens of thousands of books and/or sforim, each one highly interesting to me. And now I do. Millions actually, only some more or less interesting.

I also want to thank two individuals who helped me gain access to - well, I don't know if I can talk about it openly - but their confidence in me enabled an endless flow for me, to be able to access resources which I need and which I was only able access before their help, in inconvenient ways. We may not have communicated about it for a long time - but thank you.

ETA: (I wish I had remembered that I planned to include this!) I have to give thanks and public recognition to three individuals. Two of them have helped me personally, and inspired me in different ways, and one died more than a century before I was born. I mean to thank (in age order) Shadal himself, a great man whose example taught me much about intellectual honesty (striving for) and most importantly, the importance of helping others' in their scholarship. Secondly, Professor Shnayer Leiman, who while he could not teach one to be a genius, taught me something about humility, something about critical thinking, and something about checking sources, always. In addition, he has personally helped me in a very significant way. Thirdly, Prof. Marc Shapiro, who in addition to helping me more than one time in a significant way, has been a very good friend.

Oh, and Google AdSense, please explain to me how exactly I violate copyright and why you don't let me place ads on the blog? Thank you. Your automated reply won't tell me a thing.

Well, keep reading. I'd like to think that as long as there is someone to read, I will keep researching and posting. Thank you, and enjoy!

A pair of ads about New York's bleeding cattle controversy, 1861

Here are a pair of ads from The Jewish Messenger in 1861, concerning a famous episode in the history of kashrut in America, that arose in the 1850s. 

As you can see, the first ad is a public notice that anyone casting doubt on the kashrut of calves slaughtered after having been bled (see below) has only the right to be machmir on himself, but great authorities permit it. Anyone violating this is causing a loss to butchers, is liable according to the Shulchan Aruch - and the law of the land (they can be sued). It is signed J. Middleman. 

Below it is an unsigned ad stating that Middleman is wrong about the view of the Chasam Sofer, and so is R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn, if that's what he said: ""Rabbi Nathanson may be, nevertheless, a very illustrious man, but errare est humanum..." It continues to say that it considers the threat of recourse to the laws of the United States in preventing him from speaking out is - mesirah, and furthermore Middleman shall be remembered in the blessing Velamalshinim.

Explanation below:

The issue concerned the lovely practice of bleeding cattle, which amounted to draining them of most of the blood in their body from the jugular - while alive - before slaughter.  Descriptions of the process are horrible. The better to have whiter veal. Cruelty aside, naturally, the question was whether the practice renders the animal trefa. A shochet of pious reputation named Aaron Tzvi Friedman (1822-76), newly arrived in America, discovered that this was a regular procedure here, and was shocked. 

So he asked R. Judah Middleman in New York ("Yudel"; an interesting figure who, among other things, wrote a reply to Alexander M'Caul's infamous missionary tract Netivot Olam-Old Paths; Mittleman's book was called Netivot Emet-True Paths, and was translated into English in the 1840s). Mittleman was originally from Lemberg, and he asked a friend of his, perhaps Galicia's greatest posek, R. Joseph Saul Nathansohn, who replied that it is permissible, and the Chasam Sofer already permitted it, but it can only be done by an expert, so it doesn't render the animal trefa. I admit here that I didn't do my homework yet (=look in the primary sources), but according to others who have, the Chasam Sofer only permitted bleeding cattle for the health of the animal itself, not indiscriminately. 

Here is Rabbi Friedman's account of it in his Chein Tov, including the letter from R. Yoseph Shaul (note that Friedman cites the heter he received from "Rabbi Shlomo Adler of London," but he almost certainly meant Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler):

The above work was part of a series of pamphlets on shechita author by Friedman, best known as Tuv Ta'am, the first part of which was translated to English, written as and used as a defense of shechita from attack (English, here).

Here is, incidentally, a wonderful blog by a descendant of R. A. Z. Friedman, the shochet in this story, who posted many facts about his ancestor, as well as these two wonderful portraits kept in the family, of Friedman and his second wife (link).

Apropos, there are a number of responsa from R. Nathanson to R. Middleman, including one interesting one regarding whether or not a church can be converted into a synagogue. For those interested in seeing an English name of a Church explained in a teshuva, here it is, "Written in English 'Welsh-Scottish Methodist Church.' This means, of those from Wales, joined with people of Scots Land, Lutheran church." Then he describes their service, and the beliefs of Protestants generally. See Otzar Yisrael Vol. 2 pg. 246, entry on R. Avraham  Yoseph Asch (link).

The Shabbos Goy in an English-Dutch dictionary from 1766

Here's a fine entry in Sewel's Compleat dictionary English and Dutch (Amsterdam 1766 ed.).

A 1793 review of a Jewish prostitute in London

This account of a Jewish prostitute in London is from the 1793 edition Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies: Or, Man of Pleasure's Kalendar, the notorious guidebook giving addresses and reviews of the London, err, nightlife. 

A different kind of Lag B'omer yahrzeit celebration in 1865

R. Moshe Issserles. From The Jewish Messenger, Sep. 8, 1865.

c.f. this footnote in Lev Ha-ivri (Ungvar 1864) by R. Akiva Joseph Schlessinjer.

And in Y. M. Zunz's Ir Ha-zedek (Lemberg 1864):

Intellectual honesty - making a public correction to a book in 1876

This appeared in the June 16, 1876 issue of The Jewish Times; the author of this book wished to call attention to an error - a"blunder" as he put it - in his book, concerning the identity of the Rabbi Hillel  mentioned in the Talmud who taught that there would be no future Messiah, as he had already come in the days of King Hezekiah. The author writes that he omitted the title "Rabbi" and so presented this Talmud figure as if he were Hillel the Elder.

Here's the footnote to which the author, Max Schlesinger, was referring. And I have to say - I am impressed that Schlesinger noted that he thought it was the 1st century Hillel, not the 3rd - he could have only said he omitted the honorific. Admitting this degree of error in so public a fashion is a breath of fresh air, fresh, 137-years old air.

A 19th century letter concerning the Baal Shem of London

Here's my almost-but-not-quite-perfect transcription of a letter to Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain concerning the Baal Shem of London. Adler wrote a fascinating paper on Chaim Shemuel Yaakov Falk, the aforementioned Baal Shem (of Dr. Falk, as he was known). Evidently this letter was part of his research - fully 8 years before he read the results of his research, which you can read here - consisting of various inquiries that he made of old timers and people with connections to those who did remember Jewish London in the 18th century. 

Unfortunately, I cannot make out the signature here, but I believe the man is surnamed either Myers or Alexander on the basis of some hopeful searches of his street address. He refers to his grandfather, evidently a rabbi, active in the 1850s 1820s (see plausible correction in the comments). Alexander seems the likelier candidate, perhaps because a Rabbi Michael Myers (d. 1814) actually knew the Baal Shem, and while not all Myers would be related, one surmises that this writer would surely have mentioned the aforementioned Myers who knew the Baal Shem personally. And if I am wrong, and if I've made mistakes in the transcription - please let me know.

ETA: I would like to thank Simon, Marc Kirschbaum, and David Wolfson for their helpful corrections and suggestions. Go crowdsourcing!

24 Sandy's Row

Bishopsgate. E 

Nov 8, 1895 

Dear Rev Sir 

In answer to your enquiry regarding facts connected with Dr. Falk the בעל שם I am sorry that I cannot furnish you with any that I can rely upon as such. I have heard the late Dr. Hirschell ז'ל refer to him but he seemed very reticent to state anything of him as facts. 

,,Facts are stubborn things" is the common Aphorism. They are sometimes so stubborn that [they?] cannot be easily brought out from their hidden places, such I believe to be the case with respect to Dr. Falk - the legend of his repleneshing his Coal Cellar without any of his servants knowing how they came there, you know doubt have heard before now. My grandfather ז'ל did speak of him

P.T.O. (=Please Turn Over.) 

as having been in his house in Devonshire Square and that no one knew from where he obtained the means up living up to the stile of a respectable Merchant - of course suspicions of his having discovered the Philosopher's Stone &c. gained hold upon some minds, but Dr. Hirschell himself generally spoke of his, Dr. Falk's performance with a decided sneer - If I recollect rightly Dr. Hirschell did not obtain the כתבים but found them among his father ר' הירש בערלינרs books and manuscripts. In my own time about 40 years ago I went with my grandfather to visit a dying man named ר' שמואל שעטע who was a former משרת of the בעל שם  When we left him he gave my grandfather a slip of paper with the verse ולבני הפילגשים אשר לאברהם נתן אברהם מתנת וישלחם וגו which was a permit for us to be מתעשק ? unto him when he died. This man was reputed to have known most of the בעל שםs performances. In fact he stood in the same station to the בעל שם as the Scriptural גיחזי stood to אלישע but I never recollect meeting any one who could state any thing of the בעל שם as First hand Facts. 

I am sorry that I cannot furnish you with anything more tangible on the subject but I think that the majority of his reputed miracles are like the Epitaph on his מצבה neither legible nor plausible. 

with profound respect

I beg to remain

Dear Rev. Sir

Yours truly

J. (?) Myers (?)

Couple of notes. It's interesting how Falk's writings wound up in possession of Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschell - through his father, no less. This rabbinic family was closely related to R. Jacob Emden, who condemned Falk as a Sabbatian (see here). It is hardly surprising, yet interesting, to see Hirschell remembered referring to Falk with "a decided sneer." Secondly, it is also interesting that the writer names a servant of Falk, R' Shmuel Schotte (?), whom he says died about 1855. Falk died in 1782! So an old man this Shmuel Schotte must have been - and to be compared to Gehazi no less! If anyone can make heads or tails out of the strange amulet this Schotte gave the writer's grandfather, please do tell.

The source for this letter is here.

The En Kelohenu is trefah - a Reform polemic against Orthodoxy's Inconsistency from 1919

"Amendment one of the Constitution of the United States guarantees to every citizen full freedom to decide whether En Kelohenu shall be babbled off or sung." So allows the writer in the American Israelite, even as he critiques the decision against singing En Kelohenu by Rabbi Avraham Gershon Lesser (1834-1924) an American Orthodox rabbi in Cincinnati, president of the Agudas Harabbonim, and active Mizrachi leader.

Attacking Orthodoxy for inconsistency in fealty to halacha was a typical and constant Reform polemic against Orthodox Judaism. Sometimes the argument would be, our people profane the Sabbath, and so do the Orthodox laymen - but only the Orthodox laymen are opposed to omitting a piyut. This was a charge constantly leveled at the types of modern or Neo-Orthodoxy which did make some compromises against the strictest possible approaches, while remaining strict about other things (e.g., head-covering). 

Interestingly, here the attack is on this stringency - not to sing En Kelohenu because it may lead to... English - because in other cases, this same rabbi was lenient or permitted or ignored things blatantly against halacha. In this case, the argument is that the same synagogue presided over by a rabbi who decided against singing En Kelohenu hosts mixed dances. 

He goes on to expose other inconsistencies, where Rabbi Lesser had permitted mild Reforms of the type vehemently opposed by authorities like the Chasam Sofer. And as you can see, by the sources he quotes, this particular writer was keeping very much abreast of current rabbinic scholarship, quoting rabbinic journals of the time, such as Veyelaket Yoseph of Bonyhad, Hungary where current rabbinic scholarship was constantly published.

Finally, he closes by claiming that "even the so-called strictest orthodoxy that boasts of its consistency, that invents constantly new laws on Shehitah or on Mazzot is expediency, measured by the standards of the codes and the authorities which it never tires of proclaiming as infallible guides."

מלחמות השם

A JTA release from April 22, 1927 concerning the battles between the Chassidim and the rebbes of Muncacz and Belz. M. A. Tennenblatt was the Vienna correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Click to enlarge, or try this. 

Bar Yochaiiana in honor of Lag B'omer

This content is being reposted.

Here is an interesting letter from H. Guedalia to the Jewish Standard (December 7, 1888) concerning the hymn Bar Yochai. He asks whether anyone knows if it was ever translated into another language. So after five generations I answer H. Guedalia's question and I say, yes, it was. Oluf Gerhard Tychsen translated it to Latin in 1763, an "Elegia elegans e terra Israel" in honor of "R. Schimenois Filii Iochai,"and he should see my post (link).

He also has some interesting comments about how he supports memorial celebrations like Lag B'omer.

Comments

As you can see, I changed commenting platforms to Disqus. I hope this will solve the spam problem. Old comments are still importing, and I hope that everything will be retained. Thank you for bearing with me in this trying time. I mean, I'm working on it.

A defense of Cecil Roth against the charge of heresy

Here's an interesting article about the Cecil Roth heresy scandal at Bar-Ilan University in 1964. The author is Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of South Africa. Jerusalem Post, Nov. 11, 1964.

I once picked up a Jewish Observer for sale at Pinter's for something like fifty cents, attacking Cecil Roth. I don't know where my sense was, because I didn't buy it.

Lewis Dembitz's 1892 article on Yiddish-Zhargon

Here is an interesting article about Yiddish from the American Hebrew (May 6, 1892). It's got everything you could want; condescension toward "Jargon," historical and contemporary social information. The author - more about him in a moment - endorses the proposal that the eastern Yiddish word for prayer, to daven, comes from the Aramaic daf (folio). He also gives an etymology for nebbich. Finally, despite Yiddish's "degrading ugliness," he sees the bright side that it has done for the Jews. Even though being bred on Yiddish makes it extremely difficult to learn a correct, unaccented German, when a Polish or Russian Jew emigrates, he finds himself well off with his "poor German" where he can better succeed in either western Europe or America; if he spoke only Russian or Polish, not so much. However, because his German is so poor, it induces him to learn English and speak it at home right away.

The author is Lewish Nathan Dembitz (1833-1907) of Louisville. Among other things, like a distinguished legal career, the Posen-born Dembitz is also known for his German translation Onkel Tom's Hutte.

A 12th century visit to Meron

Here is Benjamin of Tudela's 12th century account of visiting Meron, and you could see he visited the kivrei tzaddikim:

"...and Jewish sepulchres. R. Johanan ben Zakkai and R. Jehudah[1] Halevi are buried here. All these places are situated in Lower Galilee. From here is is two days to Tymin or Timnathah, where Simon the Just and many Israelites are buried, and thence three parasangs to Medon or Meron.[2] In the neighbourhood there is a cave in which are the sepulchres of Hillel and Shammai. Here also are twenty sepulchres of disciples, including the sepulchres of R. Benjamin ben Japheth, and of R. Jehudah ben Bethera."

[1] I used the image from the 1633 edition, because I like it, and as you can see, it says Jonathan. But in Marcus Nathan Adler's critical edition the text has Jehudah on the authority of two good manuscripts, while two others which he used have Jonathan. Adler writes that as R. Yehudah Ha-levi died 30 years before Rabbi Benjamin visited, "the question of the burial-place of our great national poet is thus finally settled," contra the suggestions of earlier scholars (e.g., Shadal) that R. Yehuda Ha-levi didn't really reach Eretz Yisrael, much less die there. And see these two posts by Eliezer Brodt (here and here).

[2] He cites the manuscripts, and the better reading is "Medon, that is Meron."

On hearing and meeting Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber

Thinking out loud. Thursday night I attended a fascinating lecture by Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber at the home of Dr. Shlomo Sprecher (as advertised here, on the Seforim Blog). I think there were about 50 people there, a few had to stand. I've been an admirer of Rabbi Goldhaber's articles for some time, but to be honest, it was a pleasure to hear him speak and to meet him. Although doubtlessly many readers of this blog are already familiar with him, I would like to describe him as a special hybrid of a talmid chochom and an academic scholar. He is rigorous and critical and fascinating, and seemed to possess one of the finest qualities which I admire in a scholar: humbleness. 

The topic which he discussed - the Zohar's influence on halacha - drew all kinds of like-minded people out of the woodwork, scholars and dabblers alike, which was a pleasure to see. As someone told me, it was nice to see a room full of people who do not hold naive assumptions about the historical development of kabbalah. Rabbi Goldhaber commands his topic, is highly organized, and you can tell he is an original researcher, not merely an aggregator of scholarship (although clearly he is abreast of the scholarship as well).   In this case, while modestly disclaiming tons of knowledge of the Zohar per se, this is a man who knows Shulchan Aruch and, to be honest, he knows Zohar too. A nice moment for me was when he mentioned the National Library in Israel which, I guess, is a place he enjoys very much, and his face was positively glowing. 

After the lecture, I had a somewhat unique opportunity to meet a number of people who read this blog, and it was a pleasure to meet you (you're reading this, right?). The unanimous consensus was that I was taller than they thought, and my hair was redder. Or maybe not. 

Anyway... I'm not sure how long Rabbi Goldhaber is in the States, but the bottom line: get to know him if you can, if you see him advertised as speaking somewhere - go.

See here for how to buy or order his latest book, Konditon, in two parts - a lengthy research on the Titanic disaster, in all its Jewish angles, as well as an essay on the alleged herem of dwelling in Spain that offers much original research on a topic that was not put to rest by Cecil Roth or Marc B. Shapiro in their excellent essays on the same.

My thanks to Simcha S. for sending me this photo:

Trying to make a ba'al teshuva out of a Christian missionary over kugel in the 1820s

Yesterday I posted about Joseph Wolff's interaction with a Jerusalem Ba'al Shem in 1823. Having previously posted several times about his talks with Rabbi Mendel of Shklov, who was if not the most famous student of the Vilna Ga'on after Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, certainly in the top five, I thought of posting something interesting about R. Mendel which I don't think is to be found in Wolff's Missionary Journal. Rather, this is from an oral conversation Wolff had with John Cam Hobhouse, Lord Broughton (1786-1869).

Lord Broughton's daughter published four volumes of his memoirs, called Recollections of a Long Life. In Volume 3, pp. 171 - 172, Broughton discusses Wolff, whom he met in 1827. He tells an anecdote about Rabbi Mendel, which he may have read in Wolff's Journal, since it is brought there. The anecdote is that after Wolff told Rabbi Mendel that he could achieve peace by converting to Christianity, the rabbi took Wolff to a window and pointed to Mount Calvary, and pointed out the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And he said to him, In this monastery, Armenians, Catholics, and other Christians are daily quarreling, and would kill each other, if not for the swords of the Muslims who keep the tensions in check and preserves some order.

As you can see in Wolff's Journal, in these conversations two things were going on. He was trying to convince Rabbi Mendel of the truth of Christianity, and Rabbi Mendel was trying to make a ba'al teshuva out of Wolff.

On this, Broughton quotes Wolff further.

You call it "plumb pudding," I call it "kugel." Rabbi Mendel of Shklov was trying to get Wolff to say or feel something nice about the Talmud over kugel, and the nice experience of a shabbos se'udah, and Wolff said: "'Tis a lie in spite of your plumb pudding."

Jerusalem missionary Joseph Wolff's conversation with a Ba'al Shem of 180 years ago, and his basic Hebrew mistake

This is an interesting excerpt from Joseph Wolff's Missionary Journals, his diaries from his period in the Holy Land in the early 1820s. It concerns his meeting with Rabbi Joseph Marcowitz and their discussion of the 72 letter name of God, and Marcowitz's alleged use of it in performing a miraculous exorcism in Constantinople. 

Marcowitz is identified by Wolff as 80 years old, from Poland, and regarded by the Jews as a Ba'al Shem. Later in his journal he writes that the Sephardic Jews became angry with Marcowitz for teaching the 72 letter Name to Wolff. In other places in the journal, Wolff writes about various discussions about passages in the Talmud which he had with Marcowitz, including an instance of a fantastic aggadah which other Jews were annoyed at Marcowitz for showing him, because, writes Wolff, it would make the Talmud appear ridiculous to him.

All of it is interesting and worth a read, but the part I like best is a little mistake that Wolff makes, so I will highlight at the top:

As you can see, Wolff writes that Marcowitz showed him a copy of the Sefer Raziel Ha-malach, and he translates the title page. In doing so, Wolff identifies the edition; Amsterdam 1701. And as you can see, he rather clumsily misconstrued the name of the printer, who was not Moses Ben Ayeshish, but Moses ben ha-yashish [=the aged] and honorable gentleman Abraham Mendes Coutinho z"l. What is strange about this is the way the names are actually set apart in large type, so not only is this Wolff not understanding the Hebrew word הישיש, for some inexplicable reason he failed to notice the last two lines which give the printer's complete name. Maybe he copied wrong, or didn't see it fast enough to get all of it. Who can tell?

A brief account of the traditional Orthodox synagogue and new Reform temple in Hamburg from 1820

From George Downes's Letters from Mecklenburg and Holstein; comprising an account of the free cities Hamburg and Lübeck written in the summer of 1820 (London 1822).

This account, all too brief, is interesting because it comes so shortly after the establishment of the controversial Temple (1818) and only just before the appointment of Chacham Isaac Bernays, a modern (small m) Orthodox rabbi (1821) as Chief Rabbi of Hamburg.

In his account, Downes describes the hats worn by "the rabbies" (more likely, the rabbi and community notables) and which is probably the schabbes deckel, as I posted about here. He describes the bowing gesticulations of the cantor, presumably at the end of the Amidah.

He also contrasts the lighting in the old and new synagogue. In the old one, ten yellow tapers stood on each side of the pulpit. In the Temple, the lighting consisted of candlesticks painted blue and gilt. He also describes part of the prayer service, which consisted of German hymns, with occasional Hebrew and Aramaic phrases.

Rav Isser Zalman's funeral

Here's an account of Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer's funeral from the Jerusalem Post, November 18, 1953.