R. Nathan Marcus Adler's Parliementary response on education

In 1859, the Education Commissioners of the British Parliament's House of Commons inquired of many prominent British personalities into the manner of popular education in England at the time. They hoped that in this way they could keep an ear to the ground and improve education for all classes.



(If you click the image above, you will be directed to the complete text of the questions submitted to these persons.)

One of the respondents was none other than my favorite British Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, and he had some interesting things to say. His full response is eight and a half pages long:



The second section discusses the actual state of education among poorer British Jews:



He reminds Parliament than in Germany education is free:



While he says, this:



Don't judge him too harshly. He could hardly avoid being a man of 1860, and beside, read the full context. He's actually advocating a very good and comprehensive education, even if he knows it must end at age 14.

And much more. Worth a read, as are many of the other responses, although none are of specifically Jewish interest.



Incidentally, several volumes of R. Adler's edition of a Mikra Gedolah Chumash, printed in Vilna, the Toras Elohim (with Pathshegen on Targum Onqelos, as well as his own Targum commentary the Nesina L'ger) are now available for your pleasure.

Whatever happened to 1965?

Rav Gifter used to write Hashkofo articles in this publication? And, K? What's a K? The Jewish Observer, we hardly knew ye.

Rashi script

From time to time the so-called Rashi script comes up here. Rashi script denotes, narrowly speaking, the Rabbinic semi-cursive Hebrew used in many printed works, as well as the cursive handwriting-script used, broadly speaking, by Sefardic Jews. The designation, named after Rashi, is the popular one, while it technically has another name used by Hebrew paleographers, mashait. (For an 18th century look at the topic, see this post.)

Here's an example from a printed book of Central Europe, 1839, :



Eastern Europe, 1873:



And Israel, 2002:



When Rav Kook wrote letters to Sefaradim, to show respect and esteem he would use this script (following in the beautiful tradition of Abarbanel, who penned a famous, lengthy letter to an Ashkenazi rabbi in his script). Here's R. Kook's signature:

The following excerpts are from the Encylopedia Judaica (2nd ed.):

MASHAIT SCRIPT

Cursive was sometimes used as a book hand when, of course, more care was taken with the writing. But this did not involve an approximation to the square; it led to elaboration and ornamentality of a different kind, and thus to the shaping of a new style, the mashait script (incorrectly designated "rabbinic").
. . .
The usual, but incorrect, designation for it is "Rashi script," obviously because *Rashi's commentaries on the Bible and Talmud – the books which everybody was constantly handling from boyhood to old age – were printed in (Sephardic) mashait. Rashi himself, naturally, wrote in Ẓarphatic (see below).

There are things to quibble with in the above, but as a standing description it will do.

(Here is the EJ's example of Zarphatic, from 1182:

)

Why do scholars call the script mashait? They are following the original name that this script was known in days gone by.

The first to inquire as to the meaning of the name is Elijah Levita. The following is from his Sefer Tishby pg 105 (1541, Isny edition):


As you can see, his entry has it as "mashqeit." He was informed that it was Arabic, but after inquiry learned that was not the case. He asked many Jews of different ethnicities; Italians, French, Spanish, Greek and Arab. All used the name, but not could explain it's meaning. He further informs that Ashkenazim call it "masheit," and of course they do not know why either.

As it turns out, there is another place where Levita discusses the word, in a letter written in 1531 to Sebastian Muenster ("איש נבון וחכם אדוני זיבאשטיאנוש מונשטירוש"). Published by Moritz Peritz in MGWJ 1894 pp. 252-267).

His treatment in this letter is as follows:


Here he claimed that משקיט is definitely Arabic and means small and thin, a reference to the alphabet's appearance (relative to the normal square Hebrew, one presumes).

I'm not sure when the Tishby was written, although I know (via C.D. Ginsburg) that Tishby was one of three manuscripts Levita took with him when he moved from Venice to Isny (1540). In any case, I am pretty sure it was written after 1531 (date of the letter to Muenster). It would be nice to know precisely what led him to change his mind about it being Arabic.

In any case, H.J. Zimmels collected the references to the script in many responsa and other sources, and found the following:

Among Sefardim the script is called משקא, משקייט, משקיט, משקי ,מאשק and משק, as well as other names which are not relevant because they are entirely different names.

Among Ashkenazic sources, the following variants are found: משיט, משיטא, משייט, מעשיט, משטיט, גימשיט, מעשוט and משיטה.

Chida cites an early source for the association of this script with Rashi:



Interestingly enough, this source is not Ashkenazic, רדב"ז having been born in Spain in 1479. After the Spanish exile, he spent the rest of his life in Morocco, Egypt and Eretz Yisrael.

So where does that leave us? We still don't know the precise meaning (or I don't). However, I did see a suggestion that it actually does come from the Arabic סקט سقط , meaning some variation of fall, downgrade or to degenerate. Perhaps it referred to the status of this alphabet as the vulgar script. C.f. the reasons given by Maimonides (the cursive enabled people to write profanely, reserving the square Hebrew for sacred texts only) and Rema (the cursive was ideal for writing down Oral Torah, which really should not be written at all, hence the development of an alternative, vulgar script.)

In any case, I see no reason why it can't also be called Rashi script. It might be a quirk of history that it has no true association with Rashi, but what a fitting honor that the Rabbinical script came to be known after him!

How should one spell Methuselah? Too good not to read.

The fact is there really is nothing funnier than an exchange of letters in 19th century British periodicals. So I present the following, from an 1851 issue of The Musical World:




As you can see, the playwright Charles Mathews was criticized for having a character called Methusalem in his play Ringdoves. I would love to have seen the original criticism, but alas, I have not.

Apparently too much nonsense for a סופר סת"ם from Manchester, probably Michael Hart Simonson, who writes:



Mathews, by the way, was a comedian, in case it wasn't obvious from his reply (as it might not have been to M.H.S. ).

Some Google Books gems

(I'm trying to avoid posting things that are to be found online in other places. Thus, while it is great that the Dikduke Soferim and Arukh Ha-shalem are now appearing on Google Books, both are available elsewhere.)

1) Benjamin Blayney's edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch in Hebrew letters, Pentateuchus hebreao-samaritanus, charactere hebraeo-chaldaico, 1790.

2) Transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrim (not a typo), 1807.

3) The American Hebrew issues of 1896.

4) Several issues of Bickure Ha-ittim

5) The original 1839 edition of Ha-kesav ve-ha-kabbalah; same commentary, different introduction.

6) Torah She-be'al Peh, subtitled "Is the Oral Law of Divine Origin and Therefore Binding Upon the Jews?", 1842, by an anonymous British would-be Reformer of Judaism. However, Cecil Roth revealed that the author was Benjamin Elkin. This book is bound together with some highly interesting materials, not to be missed.

7) If your French is good, enjoy this discussion from 1782 which mentions the Chida ("du rabbin Haim-Joseph Azulai") and Noda Be-yehuda ("Ezechiel Lande, grand rabbin de Pragues") (link).

8) Samuel Aaron Romanelli's Grammatica ragionata Italiana ed Ebraica, or Hebrew grammar in Italian, 1799; mostly because I love the English quote that adorns the :



Actually, I love appearances of English in old books in other languages. I always wonder if the author knew English or was just pretending. In Romanelli's case, I truly don't know. He is primarily known for his adventures in Morocco. Read about him here.

Here is an excerpt for his lament for Mendelssohn:



9) Three volumes (so far) of Joh. Chris. Wolff's landmark Bibliotheca Hebraea, 1720s-30s.

10) The most famous 19th century Karaite Abraham Firkowitsch's Masah u-meriva, 1838. Interesting in itself, but people who enjoy lists will love the appended list of subscribers, perhaps two hundred Karaites. It would have been nice to find a name like "Akiva" slipped in, but true to form, every name is Biblical, or at least neutral ("Simcha" is quite popular). However, there are a couple of Rabbanites snuck in there, or at least that's what I suspect. You tell me what "Yosef Sissmann ben Simcha Rothmann" sounds like.

11) A short account of Lord George Gordon (previously posted about here) that actually mentions the name of his mohel, of all things,1851:



and here's part of a poem about Gordon (1793):




12) The American Phrenological Journal, 1868, has some biographical information about American rabbis, and, of course, their heads:



Finally, it would be fun if this Moses Schreiber, given here in 1779, was the Chasam Sofer but it's not. (It's from a list of early 17th century burghers.)

Rarely seen images of Shir (R. Solomon Judah Leib Rapoport)

Thanks to Wolf2191 for drawing my attention to this one:



And to Dan Rabinowitz, for this one, which is from page 3 of this book):



More typically seen is this painting:



and this from the Jewish Encyclopedia:

"It is a prohibited to study Hebrew and the Bible" -- a Crimean story from 1892, with an encounter with the Sde Chemed.

During the 19th century the following trope appears about the Jewish masses (and Talmud scholars) of Eastern Europe: that the study of the Bible and Hebrew language was not only neglected, but frowned upon at best and regarded as downright heretical at worst. Like many stereotypes, this was both exaggerated as well as partly (some would say largely) true. In actual fact, neglect of Talmud and halakhah study in favor of Bible and Hebrew language study was regarded as an unworthy use of time and was frowned upon. The study of Scripture in new ways and without the aid of a specific canon of 'authorized' interpreters was viewed with suspicion by many. On the other hand, some of the most vital Jewish Bible exegesis in centuries came from highly traditionalist sources in the 19th century, from within exactly those societies where mastery of Bible and Hebrew was suspected. The reason for this suspicion, to the extent that it did exist, was threefold.

One, a historic Ashkenazic ambivalence toward spending any significant amount of time in study that was not related to Talmud and halakhah. Traces of this can be found in the accepted interpretation of the Talmudic expression מנעו בניכם מן ההגיון (Berachos 28b; mentioned in the article below). Rashi regards הגיון as too much Bible study. Rabbenu Tam famously permitted the neglect of Bible study, seemingly, by defining Talmud study as encompassing Bible, Mishnah and Talmud (and therefore one could fulfill the Talmudic dictum that one should divide one's study in thirds). In view of the fact that both Rashi and Rabbenu Tam were masters of the Bible and Hebrew language, no one should regard the simple meaning of their words as prescriptive, and besides, other interpretations have been offered. For example, perhaps Rashi meant that "too much Bible" is more than its allotted third of one's time. Mendelssohn proposed, without evidence, that Rashi meant the detailed study of massoretic minutiae, such that one shouldn't spend most of one's time delving into Bible text criticism of the sort that exults in making discoveries about a single letter. In any case, Rabbenu Tam certainly did not envision ignorance of the content of the Bible or the language. His suggestion is that Talmud study encompasses both of these (along with "Mishnah"), and certainly one who possessed neither is deficient in his Talmud study; obviously he wasn't suggesting one pretend that ignorance of the subjects is acceptable, so long as one spends the time studying the Talmud.

In any case, there are numerous other example that can be marshaled to show the place that Bible and Hebrew study occupied on the totem pole of Jewish learning. For example, the Bach has an aside (שו"ת ב"ח החדשות סימן מב) a

שאינו אלא כאחד מהתלמידים שכל כוחו אינו אלא במקרא ובטעמים ואפשר שכל ימיו לא למד אפילו הלכה אחת בתלמוד

It sounds like he's describing a professor at Bresslau or the Hebrew University, but he died in 1640!

These examples can be multiplied. On the other hand, in general the rabbinic literature from this period certainly shows mastery of, or at least familiarity with, Hebrew language and Bible. In addition, until Hebraists of the caliber of Sebastian Muenster and the Buxtorfs established Christian independence in Hebrew studies, instruction from Jewish teachers and books were a necessity, and these were never in short supply. In short, the neglect and de-emphasis of Bible and formal Hebrew study was only relatively speaking, but neither was it a complete myth.

The second reason, was the rise of a class of modern Jewish Bible scholars (ie, maskilim) and their struggle with the old order and rabbinic class. The more serious study of the Bible and its language was adopted by those viewed as outside or hostile to the tradition, the more it was suspected and neglected on principle. A subset of this reason was missionary activity among Jews and the distribution of Hebrew Bibles printed without an authorized rabbinic commentary like Rashi. In short, study of the Bible and its language was no longer associated with piety.

The third reason, I'll save for the comments.

In any case, on one point both maskilim and missionaries were in agreement: that the Jews purposely neglected these subjects, because if they had cultivated them then they would have no choice but to adopt their respective points of view. Numerous maskilic writings testify to personal experiences from their youth of getting in trouble or accused of heresy for being discovered reading this or that Bible commentary or book of Hebrew grammar. Furthermore, one of their chief complaints against their greatest antagonists, Hasidic society, was that ignorance of Bible and Hebrew was itself regarded as a pious act!

Although there is no question that there is some, perhaps even much, truth to these testimonies--and in fact plenty of people today, in 2009, can testify to this attitude from their own personal experiences--many of them seem to be exaggerated or even parodic. For example, in SJ Fuenn's Ha-karmel (#49, 1861) a letter appears from a writer living in Uman. He writes that he is intellectually lonely, everyone around him regards someone who reads a newspaper as a heretic, one would be persecuted if seen reading from a Chumash with Biur (ie, Mendelssohn's edition). None of this seems in any way implausible, however in the 7th issue of the paper in 1862 a reply from people in Uman appears, which defends the honor of the townspeople as pious and upstanding individuals who certainly adhere to the rabbinic dictum שאסור לאדם ללמד את בנו מקרא! Being that this is a) not true and b) a parody of a true (and some would say highly unfortunate) rabbinic statement I conclude that the writer of that letter was not of the simple pious townsmen of Uman, but making fun of them. (Fake letters to the editor weren't invented by the Yated.) If this seems obvious to the reader, it didn't seem obvious to the original readers of Ha-karmel, nor to Israel Zinberg, who takes it at face value!

As for Christian missionaries, their journals were full of notices in this regard.

So it is below that I reproduce a translation of a page from Yehuda Leib Gordon's newspaper Ha-meliz. This appears in the Jewish Missionary Intelligencer published by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. The article was written by Tzvi Kasdoi (1862-1937), then a Jewish traveler in the Crimea. He discusses an encounter at the home of one of the most celebrated rabbis of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, R. Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini, a Jerusalem rabbi who spent many years in Crimea ministering to the local Jews (who were known as Krymchaks) who had been largely ignorant of how to properly practice traditional Judaism. He personally taught them and raised their level of observance. In addition, as readers surely know, he is famous for writing the encyclopedic Sde Chemed. As a preface I will note that he was a renaissance sort of rabbi and it is very difficult to square the attitude below with the historic Hacham Medini (although I will offer a couple of suggestions below).

But, first, R. Medini:



Download שדי חמד I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX.




Here is it in the original. First a key excerpt:



Then the entire article (click to enlarge):



Could this be true? There are three possibilities: total untruth, partial truth and completely true. As I said, it is hard to square this with the historical author of the Sde Chemed. If it is entirely true, I might suggest that this was something he was teaching to the ignorant population in his charge while he was trying to strengthen their faith and knowledge of Jewish tradition, and probably to insulate them from Christian missionaries. If so, then this was a kind of horaah shaah. Not necessarily any less shocking, or even outrageous, but at least that's an explanation. If entirely false, nothing more need said except that it is hard to believe that--the writer quotes him and asserts it is a direct quote--לשונו ממש! The editor of Ha-meliz was Yehuda Leib Gordon, who had a major bone to pick with Orthodox rabbis who were moderately touched by Haskalah. It seems that he regarded them not as moderates, but as radical, reactionary, fundamentalists. It was in that spirit that he brutally skewered R. Yosef Zechariah Stern as the cruel "Vafsi Ha-kuzari" who would allow a Jewish women to be chained as an agunah because of a missing jot in the smallest of letters in her bill of divorce (the poem is called Kotzo shel yud). Yet R. Stern was actually not a great representative of fanatical Orthodoxy at all. Similarly, R. Medini quotes Haskalah sources in his Sde Chemed, was personally friendly with maskilim, etc. Perhaps Gordon ran the article as written because it placed Medini in just such a context that made him look bad, and that was fine because he did not like rabbis of Medini's ilk.

A final possibility is that Medini's student was, well, a dope and did not accurately represent his views. However, Medini himself responded as he did without really having heard the conversation between Kasdoi and the student, except in the retelling. Then, sizing Kasdoi up as he did (fairly or not) he responded with a spirited defense of traditional Judaism.

Finally, lest readers accuse me of apologetic tendencies, it is surely possible that the story occurs in all it's exact detailing and it means just what it means. All in all, how interesting!

What the Romm printing press of Vilna was selling in 1892

This is cool. Like the title says, it's the catalog for the most famous Jewish printing press of the 19th and 20th centuries.


(Click image to for the full catalog.)

Noda Be-yehuda's grandson

M.I. Landau (1788-1852), Prague communal bigshot, publisher, author, editor and translator of the Arukh. (The Yiddish terms in some modern editions of the Arukh are his.)

Giving the remnants of Judaism a decent burial

See.

Advice from William Wotton on how a Christian should study the Mishnah

William Wotton (1666-1727) had an interesting approach to Jewish texts, and himself translated and annotated two mishnah tractates into English (see here). He did not originate this perspective (he refers to the Latin translation of the Mishnah with the commentaries of Bertinoro and Maimonides by Surenhusius (1664-1729), who preceded him), but was a premiere advocate of it in England. In essence, he believed that the Mishnah is "a noble and authentic collection of what the Jews have built upon Moses's law in every particular" and could be reliably depended upon with a firm historical basis, and because of that be used to illuminate the meaning of the Pentateuch and many passages, customs and words that are found in the New Testament.

As for his suggestion to avoid the order of the tractates, it should be noted that in Jewish study the order of the Mishnah tractates are generally paid no heed as well, unless someone is particularly attempting to study them all.

For more info, consult David B. Ruderman's work.

Solomon Dubno in Yated Ne'eman; how to make a maskil a rabbi*

*And I don't mean Dubno--read on.

I had previously posted a small excerpt from a fascinating article (from 2000) about שלמה מדובנא, also known as Solomon (or Salomo) Dubno (1738-1813). He was one of many Polish scholars living in 18th century Germany, where it was easier to make a living teaching Jewish children, than it was in any fashion at home. In contemporary sources much scorn is directed at these men, most of whom taught in Yiddish to German-speaking children, and did not use modern educational methods. This was seen by would-be educational reformers as a continuing problem for Jewish society. However, some of these Polish-born teachers were very erudite scholars, our subject being one of them. He was an expert Hebrew grammarian, Bible exegete and bibliophile. Like many, if not most, rabbis of his time he was pious as well as learned. It happened that he was employed by Moses Mendelssohn to teach his son (at that time he had only one living son), and a friendship developed between them. The specifics surrounding their decision to collaborate on a Pentateuch translation, with commentary is not directly relevant, but ostensibly the project was initiated by Mendelssohn for the benefit of his own child, although sometimes he claimed (admitted?) that it would also serve the education of children generally, allowing them to read a *Jewish* Bible translation in their own language, instead of Christian ones.

In any event, the plan was for Mendelssohn to do the translation and Dubno to write the Hebrew commentary which could explain the choices in the translation (essentially peshat-oriented gleanings from Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak and Ramban) as well as appending a technical massoretic commentary, to be called Tikkun Soferim, which would be derived in large part from earlier massoretic works like Syag le-Torah, Ohr Torah and Minchas Shai.

As was the custom in those days, preparing a new book required advanced subscriptions for financing. The best way to sign people up was to have a sample product to show, so they planned one with some sample pages of translation and commentary, as well as an introduction, penned by Dubno. It was released under the title עלים לתרופה. In addition, Dubno was to pen an introduction to the Pentateuch, to be included in the final product. This he did, however Mendelssohn felt it was too arcane and technical and refused to allow it to be used as the introduction. In addition, he realized that the commentary work was too much for one person, so he enlisted others (see below). Dubno insisted his introduction be used, they fought, Dubno said "See ya," and Mendelssohn wrote his own introduction (which also contained a technical section, based on Dubno's introduction) called אור לנתיבה (A Light for the Path, relating to the name of the Pentateuch itself, נתיבות שלום, Paths of Peace).

Dubno had already written the Genesis commentary, as well as most of Exodus. I am not sure what the story with intellectual propery was in those days, but evidently Mendelssohn had the Genesis commentary, he completed and edited the Exodus commentary himself, and received a Leviticus commentary from his friend Hartwig Wessely, and commissioned one on Numbers from the little-known Aaron Freudenthal of Jaroslav, and a commentary on Deuteronomy from a later-to-be-well-known Herz Homburg. The edition was published with 750 advance subscribtions sold (including, incidentally, one to Dubno). A great to-do ensued, with censures and near-bans and (reported) burnings, mainly having to do with the perception that the German translation was intended to teach literary German to uncorrupted Jewish youth, but also because Mendelssohn had failed to seek rabbinic approbation for the prospectus (the Pentateuch itself came with approbations). In fact, it seems the only reason why it wasn't banned by one of Mendelssohn's chief antagonists, R. Rafael Ha-kohen of Hamburg, was because one of the subscribers was the king of Denmark. As Hamburg was then under the Danish crown, it was impossible for a rabbi to ban a work that has been subscribed to by the king. In any case, despite this it was a success (in all senses of the term, including actually teaching many an eastern European student in the 19th century German) and went through many editions and reprints over the next 125 years.

Meanwhile, Dubno had removed to Vilna. Being a great scholar and having written excellent commentaries, he decided to publish his own edition of the Pentateuch. For this he received much rabbinic acclaim and gathered many outstanding approbations. To the present-day yeshiva world, one of those approbations stands out, namely that of R. Chaim of Volozhin, outstanding pupil of the Gaon of Vilna and founder of the modern yeshiva. Although Dubno had split with Mendelssohn, this fact remains jarring to whomever from within that world knew it. Associates of Mendelssohn, and a Bi'urist, would not seem to merit approval from the greatest representatives of the Lithuanian yeshiva world. And yet.

Until-- a new interpretation of Dubno's split with Mendelssohn was able to be propounded, based on a re-examination of materials relating to Dubno; a letter from him to Wolf Heidenheim, and an approbation for his Pentateuch.

Essentially, the interpretation is as follows: Dubno was a good guy who got involved with a bad one. Eventually (perhaps due to the influence of his own rabbi) he decided he needed to part company from Mendelssohn. For his part, Mendelssohn also really felt that Dubno was "too frum," and he too really wanted to push him out, so he made up excuses about Dubno's introduction being too technical to publish.

With that neatly in place, everything is explained.

Now, the author of this theory, R. Dov Eliach, is not a simple person. He knows how to conduct original research and to consult primary sources. My issue here is how he chose to skew them to bolster his interpretation. In his article we find SJ Fuenn subjected to scorn. Fuenn was a moderate maskil from Vilna, but like almost all maskilim, he was a huge fan of Mendelssohn, and tried to publicize the rabbinic perspectives that were favorable toward him (much the way Meir Hildesheimer's excellent and comprehensive articles on Mendelssohn in the eyes of 19th century rabbis were, with a crucial difference: not having a personal stake in it and not being a Lithuanian maskil, Hildesheimer illustrated all perspectives, positive and negative). this included publishing the approbations for Dubno's Pentateuch, which were in his possession. Eliach notes that Fuenn withheld all the approbations.

Here are typical examples of Fuenn's treatment of Dubno:

From his periodical Ha-Karmel:



Approbation in his Kirya Ne'emana:


Which approbations were not printed? Ones which mentioned the scandal in Germany, where rabbis were displeased with the Bi'ur. In addition, these approbations posit that Dubno's edition could limit the reach of Mendelssohn's. Fuenn's purpose was to show leading Lithuanian rabbis and students of the Gaon of Vilna favoring Dubno whose association with Mendelssohn was well known. Presumably mention of the scandal did not serve this purpose. Eliach is certainly correct that this is why Fuenn did not print such approbations.

Now, Eliach wrote this article in response to an accusation that HE withheld any mention of Dubno's receiving a haskamah from R. Chaim Volozhiner in a prior article so as not to publicize the association of Dubno with a student of the Gaon like R. Chaim. In other words, he was accused of doing just what Fuenn did. In this article it seems that Eliach came to appreciate Dubno, so his tactic was to sever him from Mendelssohn (using facts and interpretations). However, it seems his preference was to not mention Dubno to begin with! When pressed to do so, you have the above article.

In closing, Eliach gives the reason why he did not mention R. Chaim's haskamah to Dubno: at the time he didn't trust Fuenn, and needed to confirm it from another source! And a source he did find afterwards. Unfortunately, this second source is a maskil, so rather than denigrate him like he does Fuenn, Eliach chose to pretend that this second source is not maskilic, but that of a traditional rabbi, and presumably the vast, vast majority of the readers of Yated Ne'eman would have no idea whatsoever.

Therefore Eliach portrays another figure, who also published approbations, in an entirely different light. SJ Fuenn is not a "R'" or a "Reb," of course. But the other fellow, Gabriel Jacob Polak from Amsterdam is "R' Gavriel Falk[sic]"¹.



Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Polak, but to Eliach there ought to be! Namely, he was just as much a maskil as Fuenn. Polak, a printer and scholar in Amsterdam, was not a Chareidi rabbi, nor was he a kind of Hirschian rabbi. He was a participant in the literary republic of 19th century European haskalah, and of course did not pretend otherwise. However, he lived in Amsterdam and not Vilna.

So, Polak (or "R' Gavriel Falk") published the approbations "in his sefer, Ben Gorny." It's true that the book is actually titled "Sefer Ben Gorny," but come on--Eliach would not refer to another maskil's "sefer, X" unless he wanted the reader to view the work as a sefer and not a bukh. (Come to think of it, this might be an editorial/ translator's decision and not Eliach's, see fn. below.)

And here begins the section on Dubno in Ben Gorny:


As you can see, Polak calls Mendelssohn הרב הרמב"מן ז"ל. This isn't proof that he was a maskil (which he was)-- it just illustrates the point.

What is the motivation to portray Gabriel Polak as "R' Gavriel [Polak] of Amsterdam"?

The result of this is to authenticate both ledgers which place Reb Shlomo Dubno in his correct light, exonerating his character and repudiating Sha"Y Fein's accusation that the Gaon and his circle admired haskalah.

It is unclear why it took another source for the approbations to write about how they existed at all. It is further unclear why Gabriel Polak is a clean, corroberating source to someone who automatically suspects people like him and Fuenn. Of course, it is a neat trick to simply call him R' Gavriel Falk and then that problem isn't there.

Another piece of the article which deserves notice is this:

It is known that all the individual members of the Berlin haskalah were tainted with either false ideas, Bible criticism, reform-style demands for change, or a combination of these. Reb Shlomo Dubno however, has never been accused of harboring any such ideas. His sole occupation was with Torah, either in explaining the pesukim according to the rishonim or studying their grammar and the traditions for reading them. Throughout his life, he was scrupulous in his mitzvah observance. A list of the volumes and manuscripts in Dubno's library, which was published prior to the library's sale in Amsterdam in 5574 (1875), contains the names of many works on kabolo, which their owner studied during his lifetime. This is further evidence of his dissimilarity from his former colleagues, who denied the authenticity of the kabolo to a man. (This was pointed out to me by my friend Rabbi Dovid Kamenetsky.

I'm sure the examination of Gershom Scholem's library would show many works of kabolo, too. In addition to kabbalists, two other kinds of people would possess kabbalistic works: people with an academic interest in kabbalah, and people with an ideological hostility to it.

In any case, is it true that Dubno's former colleagues "denied the authenticity of the kabolo to a man"? Certainly Yitzchak Satanow didn't, being as he was an enthusiast of kabbalah who even defended the antiquity of the Zohar against R. Yaavet"z Embden. A quote from him: ""This Book of Zohar is great and vast. There are in it allusions and uncountable items of divine information built on the foundations of true intellect . . . which were spoken in divine secret with greater force and greater strength than what philosophical speculation spoke, as is known to one who contemplated them with reader and knowledge of their inner intention according to their truth, and the words are ancient." I've never heard of Wessely voicing a complaint against kabbalah. It is certainly true that stereotypical maskilim denied the authenticity of kabbalah, but it cannot be said that this applies to a man. Furthermore, Dubno's possession of those texts prove nothing regarding his attitude toward kabbalah.

Edit 2011: See this post where I more thoroughly attempt to debunk Eliach's point here, by noting that Mendelssohn himself apparently upheld the authenticity of the Kabbalah.

(Discussion about Dubno's letter to Wolf Heidenheim to come.)

¹ The article, incidentally, was apparently translated from Hebrew. The translator made certain errors which are not Eliachs fault. For example, Shmuel Yosef Fuenn [or Finn] became "Fein" in this article, because the translator had no idea how to read פין, presumably having never heard of this person. In edition, Gavriel J. Polak became "Falk," because פלאק was misunderstood for the same reason. However, the latter error is more easily understandable. See the title page shown above: someone actually crossed out "פאלק" and penciled in "פולאק."

Two Christian approaches to Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi)

By the first half of the 19th century, Christian appreciation for Jewish Bible exegetes, as well as their Christian opponents, were well-established traditions.

The former impulse continued to motivate Christians to translate Jewish works to make them available to a broader audience. It is because of this that Alexander McCaul published his translation of Radak's Commentary to Zechariah.



McCaul (1799-1863)

Below are two contemporary reviews (1837) expressing two opposite attitudes to Jewish exegesis in general:


From the Church of England Quarterly Review.

Below is a gentlemanly review from The Gentleman's Magazine:



McCaul is known to Jewish history as an active missionary to the Jews, and the author of a book called נתיבות עולם, or Old¹ Paths, Or, A Comparison of the Principles and Doctrines of Modern Judaism with the Religion of Moses and the Prophets. This book, an attack on Judaism from a Christian perspective, using the method of comtrasting Rabbinic Judaism with the Bible, was widely distributed among Jews in England, and translated into other languages, such as:

Hebrew, 1839.
German, 1855.
Yiddish, 1876.

With the publication of the Hebrew version (to say nothing of it's later availability in Yiddish) it could be used in eastern Europe, and it quickly became a thorn in the side of Jews there. The Hebrew version was produced by a man named Yechezkel Stanislaus Hoga, a Polish Jew who had converted to Christianity, and was living in England. He had been a follower of the Hasidic rebbe the Chozeh of Lublin for a time in his youth, supposedly leaving him after testing, and duping, him (for info on this, see). Before moving to England, he worked as a censor of Hebrew books, and interestingly played the role of defender of the Chasidim before the government. (While Jewish apostates who became enemies of the Jews are well known, another type, which remained friendly to Jews and Jewish interests, are found in the 19th century. Another example of this type is Daniel Chwolson in Russia.)

However, sticking up for the Jews is not the same thing as refraining from promoting Christianity among them, and in England Hoga translated McCaul's Old Paths. (See, as well, his שירי ציון, a collection of his Hebrew poems and songs to Jesus from 1846. In addition, his translation of the New Testament.) Incidentally, it should be noted that rumor had it that Hoga had actually written Old Paths, or at least the bulk of it, and it was McCaul who produced the English version based on his work, more on that below.

You can listen to a great lecture by Sid Leiman about him, and his eventual reversion to Judaism, as well as his place in Jewish folklore of the 19th and 20th century.

Suffice it to say, by 1847 the following advertisement appeared in the London Jewish Chronicle:



Below is a summary of the notice in the Isaac Leeser's American Jewish periodical The Occident:

A very extraordinary advertisement appears in No. 79 of the Jewish Chronicle, issued by Stanislaus Hoga, proposing a “new Jewish monthly publication, in Hebrew and English, to be called ציד נאמן ‘The Faithful Missionary.’” The programme set forth, which occupies two columns and a half, promises an expose of operations of the “London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews.” It appears that this Mr. Hoga, who is admitted to be the greatest Hebrew scholar in England, was formerly in the employ of this society; but, either from conviction of his errors, or through some misunderstanding with his employers, he seems to have declared war against them, and promises to expose their machinations, which he threatens in such language as the following, which is No. 4 of the twenty-three things he proposes to do. “4. He will give full information of the commencement, progress. and conduct of the society; how this adulterous child was born, by whom it was cradled and fostered, until (as the present traders it) apostacy tell their dupes) ‘Kings are become its nourishing fathers, and queens its nourishing mothers.’” Besides this he proposes to refute attacks against Judaism by professors of Christianity, and to explain the history and character of both. There is no doubt that this extraordinary publication, if it ever do come to anything, will create considerable agitation and alarm among the officers and dependents of the “London Society,” whose situations will be jeopardized by some of the revelations promised to its patrons and supporters. The Jews will look on with some interest, and regard the affair as a “pretty quarrel as it stands.” I see that the “Voice of Jacob,” does not admit the advertisement, but takes notice of the matter as a piece of news only.

Regarding the rumor that Hoga had written נתיבות עולם, below is the text of a letter sent to the editor of the Jewish Chronicle in 1907:

Sir.-

. . .

The reminiscences of the venerable Professor Marks, given in your issue of the 11th, have interested me exceedingly, and you will, feel sure, allow me to make a few remarks upon points within my personal knowledge as to my late father, the Rev. Dr. Alexander McCaul, and Mr. Stanislaus Hoga, whom I knew well.

When Mr. Hoga came to England from Warsaw, he informed us that he had been baptised in the Roman Catholic church in Poland, and he certainly had not received any religious instruction from my father. He received no salary from any Christian mission, his income being derived from a very different source. He translated Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," but neither he nor anyone else assisted my fatherin writing "The Old Paths." I was almost always in the room with my father while he was at work on each weekly number, and have a vivid recollection of him with his huge Hebrew volumes around him. Mr. Hoga afterwards translated "The Old Paths" into Hebrew.

Neither was Mr. Hoga one of those who translated our Book of Common Prayer into Hebrew : they were my father and only two others, who used to meet in a room adjoining that in which my mother and I sat. The progress of the work excited the keenest interest in us. Mr. Hoga pursued various scientific studies, and I well remember his exhibiting his invention for signaling at night by means of coloured lenses.

. . .

Yours obediantly,

E. A. Finn
(nee McCaul)

Finally, see below for a response to a letter from Hoga to the Jewish Chronicle (March 1847). Here Hoga attacks a Christian interpretation and defends the Jewish interpretation, of the meaning of the use of plural in the divine name אלהים



¹ Hebraists will note the interesting choice to render "old," עולם. While "old" is a legitimate usage, עולם also --and probably more often-- would mean "eternal." Thus נתיבות עולם = "Eternal Paths."

If you're Korean and want to hone your English, why not use a fairly obscure hundred year old text about the flowering of modern Hebrew literature?

Wow, this is weird.

"Webster's edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of difficult and potentially ambiguous English words. Rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority compared to "difficult, yet commonly used" words. Rather than supply a single translation, many words are translated for a variety of meanings in Korean, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of English, and avoid using the notes as a pure translation crutch. Having the reader decipher a word's meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not translated on a page, chances are that it has been translated on a previous page."

The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) by Nahum Slouschz (Webster's Korean Thesaurus Edition)