A Jew takes an oath in an English court in 1783, but does not know how

In case that pathetic scene was hard to read, here is a transcript:

FOR THE PRISONER.

JOHN WATSON

(Sworn on the New Testament, but on being asked by one of the officers of the Court if he was not a Jew, he answered yes, and was then re-sworn on the Hebrew Bible, which last oath he took without putting on his hat, as is the custom of the Jews.)

Court. What do you mean by taking the oath as you did?

- I never took an oath in my life; I am a butcher; I know the prisoner: I was sitting in a publick house, and I saw this good man come in, and he says to the prisoner come here my girl, I want to speak with you, and she says, if you want to speak to me speak it out.

Court. Pray friend do not you know when people of your profession take an oath, they always put on their hats?

- I work among Englishmen, and I always was among Christians.

[Court. ] Do you mean to take the oath as a Jew or a Christian?

- I can call myself a Christian, because I am never among the Jews.

[Court. ] What do you call yourself, are you Jew or a Christian?

- I do not know, please your honour; what you please to call me.

[Court. ] I wish you would understand that it is an exceeding indecent thing in you, or any man, to come here to trifle with any religion, in the sort of way that you do?

- I follow more the Christian ways than I do the Jews.

Court. You are a good for nothing fellow, I dare say, whatever you are: stand down.

Jury to Prosecutor. Did you miss your watch directly as the woman ran from you?

- Yes, that moment; she was in sight when I missed it.

GUILTY .

To be confined to hard labour twelve months in the house of Correction .

December 10, 1783 in The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Two ways to wear a tallis in 1843

by contrast



From Moses Margoliouth's The Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaiam Investigated.

An account of a stolen sefer Torah from 1707

From the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, September 3, 1707

Rabbi Moshe Hagiz and Johann Christoph Wolff

Johann Christoph Wolff deserves a post, or several post, but this one is about R. Moshe Hagiz.

Wolff is famed for his monumental four-volume bibliographic work Bibliotheca Hebraea (1715-1733). Containing more than 5,000 pages, the nucleus of this work comes from Wolff's having read R. Shabbetai (Meshorer) Bass's bibliographic Siftei Yeshanim (on him and this work, see here) and having access to the great David Oppenheimer collection (see here. The third and fourth circumstances were his familiarity with earlier Hebrew bibliographic works by Christian scholars, and his personal relations with living rabbinic scholars.

This post concerns the last point. R. Moshe Hagiz became acquainted with him while living in Altona. The introduction to his Mishnas Chachomim discusses the meaning of an old custom of substituting the Tetragrammaton with three yuds, like this: ייי In reference to that, he writes of visting the great library at the home of יוחנן קרישטוף וואלף, and he was much impressed with the man and with his collection.



As you can see, he refers to Yochanan Christoph Wolf, the doktor-professor, the famed preacher of Hamburg, God prolong his life with good and sweet times. In God's goodness, he [ie, R. Hagiz] was able to visit his library and he saw thousands upon thousands of volumes in many languages; not only printed works, but there were many ancient Hebrew manuscripts!

For his part, R. Moshe Hagiz (or should I say Mofche Chagis) merited a five-page entry in volume iii of Wolff's Bibliotheca Hebraea (1727):



The entry ends (pg. 755), with the following appraisal of the rabbi:



Which seems to mean, simply, From our talks I know that he is an intelligent and straight man and very expert in Jewish law and history and also in various languages."

A contribution to the S"T ס"ט acronym debate

On the title page of R. Moses Edri's (see here) book תורת חיים there is something which would seem to bring some evidence to the question of the meaning of the abbreviation ס"ט following someone's name.

If you ask the average person, you are likely to hear that it stands for ספרדי טהור, Pure Sepharadi, and either means that the person is of real Sephardic ancestry on both sides, or that they are in fact descended from Spanish exiles, as opposed to Marranos, meaning Sepharadim who remained pure," as opposed to "Pure Sepharadic lineage." Many people have noticed that, at least the first interpretation, is bizarre. While Sepharadi pride was real, is real and can be shown, it would seem that this is going too far. As for the latter, while it might make sense that descendents of Jews who left Spain and Portugal rather than convert would be proud and even willing to lord it over the descendents of those who converted, there are additional problems with these possible meanings.

One such problem concerns the use of the acronym by even non-Sepharadim, such as Chacham Tzvi Ashkenazy and his son R. Jacob Emden.

See below, from H.J. Zimmels Ashkenazim and Sephardim, pp. 286-87:



As you can see, the meaning endorsed here (starting, it seems, with Zunz; see here, and below) is that it stands for סופו טוב, a sort of good wish for one's ultimate fate.

Zunz:


Marc Shapiro dealt with this subject in a typically interesting post at the Seforim Blog. There he basically endorses this interpretation, noting that an alternative meaning that is sometimes given is סין טין, an Aramaism based on Isaiah 57:20 (רפש וטיט). In this interpretation, it is a formulaic expression of the humility, equivalent to prefacing one's own name with הצעיר or הקטן. However, this interpretation is rejected by Zimmels as unlikely (in a note inserted into a revised edition of his book, see below):

However, I propose that this is actually not unlikely in light of the evidence below. This is the title page for the book by R. Edri mentioned in the first paragraph(from 1792):




and the relevant detail:



While Zimmels is right that the ו seems to be missing from the standard ס"ט, here we see what is most certainly the same acronym, only it is spelled סי"ט. Most likely this is, in fact, סין טין. Alternately, one can also admit that it is possible that the typesetter mistakenly placed a י instead of a ו, and really the acronym should read סו"ט. However, I think that is not necessary to go that far, and סי"ט was probably intended. So it doesn't exactly match the verse fragment from Isaiah? So. Neither does it's translation to Aramaic. There's no rule that acronyms must meet some degree of exactitude.

An arrogant manuscript doodler

This is from the last page of the Munich Talmud codex.



I am kidding, by the way, about the arrogance of this person. Although today שליט"א is appended to the names of others, it's really just a nice blessing and I suppose there is no reason why in the past people would not have appended it to their own name. In fact, maybe it was even this guy's name.

The image above was modified, by the way, because the library stamp really occurs much lower down on the page. Here's some of what's in the middle (enhanced for greater contrast by myself):



There's more there, too. Here's something else that's interesting, a few pages near the end:



Remember, when looking at manuscripts (including digital copies), look at every page!

Rabbis Dessler, Hertz, Schechter and Jacobs walk into a bar...

When all else fails, cite an anecdote.

The only occasion I can recall, for instance, Rabbi [Eliyahu] Dessler at the Kolel making any reference to Jewish historical studies was when he was dismissive of Dr. Hertz's Humash. "What can you expect," he remarked, "of Schechter's disciple?"

Louis Jacob's autobiography Helping With Inquiries, pg. 63.

Of course, in fact R. Hertz was not Solomon Schechter's disciple, having graduated the old JTS in 1894, and assuming his first rabbinic position in South Africa in 1898. In 1898 Solomon Schechter was still at Cambridge; he did not arrive at the JTS until 1902. Still, the principle behind the position would hardly change given a reorientation of the facts.

What happened to the Volozhiner roshei yeshiva in the aftermath of its closing?

Here's how a full-page section of the Jewish Chronicle called Darkest Russia, reporting on the manifold and severe Czarist persecution of Russian Jews, reported the aftermath of the closing of the Volozhin Yeshiva (April 22, 1892):



Here is how it reported of the Neziv's death (September 1, 1893) -- read carefully:

Baghdad in the Talmud

Did you ever wonder why Jewish newspapers don't have questions to the editor like this anymore? Although now that I think about it, a British guy keeps sending letters to Yated Neeman that remind me of this.

Jewish Chronicle 11-17-1846

The 'shaver of the essay', R. Avraham Chai Reggio

An interesting episode in the history of halacha, as well as Jewish modernity, concerns the issue of whether it is permitted to shave on חול המועד hhol ha-monged. The specifics and who aligned on what side are not important to this post. What is important is that Isaaco Samuele Reggio (known as Yashar) wrote a pamphlet called Essay on Shaving מאמר התגלחת‎, which argued that it is permissible (see below).



Incidentally, Reggio had once gotten into a chol ha-moed related kerfuffle ten years before; in a time when synagogues had strict rules, the rules in the only synagogue in his native Gorizia did not permit people who would not wear tefillin (on chol ha-moed) to pray there. Naturally, there were two camps; wearers and non-wearers, but only wearers were permitted to pray there. The issue had existed in that community at least since 1716, with responsa and intrigue (!) on both sides. By 1824, it seems that non-wearers were tacitly permitted to pray. It so happens that on Hoshana Rabba of that year, a congregant named Abram Vita Morpurgo chose to pick a fight with Reggio and another man, the two who were praying without tefillin. It seems that a commotion was caused, and calm was restored when the two men agreed to leave.

In any case, the next year he tried to get permission from the synagogue authorities for people who were not wearing tefillin to pray within. They decided to accept a ruling from his father, Gorizia's Chief Rabbi Abram Vita (אברהם חי) Reggio. As he personally favored not wearing tefillin, it is not surprising that he permitted the synagogue to revise the rule.

In any case, the elder Reggio strongly disagreed with his son and wrote a response arguing that shaving is not permitted, cleverly titled Shaving the Essay תגלחת המאמר!

Below is a rare picture of the elder Reggio, perhaps not what one expected.

Who gave R. Samson Raphael Hirsch semicha?

There was some talk recently on the Areivim list about R. Samson Raphael Hirsch's youth and education. The question of who ordained him came up (it seems the biographies are not clear about it).

What is clear is that he was ordained. While there were and are many Jewish scholars worthy of being addressed as כבוד מורנו הרב רבי yet lacking formal ordination, Rabbi Hirsch would not have been able to serve as Chief Rabbi in Oldenburg (his first שטעלע) or elsewhere (he could have gathered an informal circle of students without ordination, but he certainly could not have been a rabbi in an official capacity).

It might not come as a big surprise that he was, in fact, ordained by Isaac Bernays (picture below):



After the death of "Chief Rabbi of the German Jews in London" R. Solomon Hirschell (pictured below), several rabbis were nominated for the post, among them R. Hirsch.



Below is a blurb from The Voice of Jacob dated August 30, 1844:



As you can see, among the testimonials which he presented was his semicha, given by Isaac Bernays.

The profiles of the other candidates are part of that article, and I will post them soon.

So you know the Talmud by heart and via pin-prick, but do you also know the 5th volume of Kerem Hemed and the Czar's officer list?

Here's a thoroughly entertaining piece from the Jewish Chronicle, dated October 7, 1842:



So who was this mysterious Hirsch Doenemark (Denmark)? Haven't been able to figure that out yet. Normally that would be grounds for me to wait before posting this, but I think it's too enjoyable not to post.

See DovBear's post Shas Pollak and here as well.

Elijah Levita did convert to Christianity, but...

It was a very common name. Just kidding, kind of.

In this post at Tradition Seforim, Yitzhak of בין דין לדין reopened the did-Elijah-Levita-convert-to-Christianity-or-didn't-he issue. As I had previously posted here (and here), the great Hebrew grammarian R. Eliyah Bochur is said, in some Christian sources from the 17th and 18th centuries, to have himself eventually converted.

In my original post I assumed that this was not true, but conjectured that a confluence of circumstances contributed to the rumor. One, he had lived with a Catholic Cardinal for ten years, and had close personal associations with leading Christian Hebrew scholars. Indeed, his defense of his Jewish piety in the beginning of Massores Hamassores almost testifies that he had been thought by his fellow Jews, if not accused outright, of having converted. Secondly, he had two grandsons who converted (after his death). Thinking about it the other day, I added a third element to my conjecture, namely that his prominence and dominance in Christian scholarship needed to be explained by the Christian pious, for whom Levita was a recent teacher and authority on the Bible. Medievals like Kimhi and Aben Esdras were from the more remote past, while Levita was of the recent past. Thus, the rumor.

At the time of my original post (more than two years ago) I came across a source which stated "Elias Levita was his Grandfather by the Mother's Side, and took care of his Education. This younger Elias, who went by the Name of Joannes," but that was all that Google Books was willing to reveal at the time. This source has since become fully available for review, and here is what it says:



This excerpt, from Michel de la Roche's review of Richard Simon's Nouvelle bibliotheque choisie says it plainly: R. Elya Bachur's grandson (one of the aforementioned converts) was himself called Elias Levita. Thus, it is absolutely true that Elias Levita converted to Christianity. However, this Elias Levita was not the author of Tishby and Massores Hamassores and Methurgemann and Bovo Bukh, etc.

As for Michel de la Roche (c. 1680–1742), he "was a French Huguenot who settled in England via Holland. In 1701, he was received into the Anglican Church and naturalized as an English citizen soon after. In subsequent years, he traveled widely in Europe, sustained a long relationship with Pierre Bayle, and even translated a part of his Dictionaire into English. His primary contribution to cultural life was his literary journals produced both in French and English, serving as major conduits of scholarly information through highly informative reviews of books on the Continent for English readers and visa versa, for French readers. "

He was of the one-very-smart-guy scholarly model of the period, in which single scholars presented a great deal of learning to the public. Two-hundred-eighty years ago, you could do very well to read Michel de la Roche's Memoirs of Literature and get an idea of the contents of the major literary works of the day, and probably also to be able to pretend that you'd read them yourself.

120 year old scholarly spats buried in footnotes; Eldad ha-dani and C.D. Ginsburg

Here's a funny (and mean) footnote:



From in Adolf Neubaeur's "Where are the Ten Tribes? II Eldad the Danite" in JQR (1889) v. 1:2. The reference is to the entry on Eldad the Danite by Christian David Ginsburg here (his entries in Kitto's Cyclopaedia are signed C.D.G.).

The background concerns the legend of Eldad ha-dani (whom I was charmingly introduced to in cartoon form as a little kid in the first edition of the Jewish Kids Catalog).

Neubaeur snarks that Ginsburg (who was really disliked by fellow Jewish scholars for his apostasy and pomposity) credulously regards Eldad's tale and travels as true. Of course he does not. However, he does not feel it is necessary to add things like "Eldad claimed" or some kind of disclaimer that, of course, he does not believe it to be anything more than a legend! So a straightforward reading of his piece gives the impression that he is recounting facts. One assumes this is because C.D.G. gave credit to his readers to be able to read an account of a medieval legend without having to be specifically told that it's fiction!

In fact, at the end of the Cyclopaedia entry he writes: "Whatever we may think of his lucubrations on the ten tribes, be it remembred that the greatest Jewish writers of his time and afterwards implicitly believed these stories and others far more marvellous about their lost brethren. Graetz, is, therefore, too severe upon Eldad."

Neubaeur thus read this uncharitably, either because he disliked Ginsburg or because he detected in this last sentence, some scorn on the part of C.D.G. directed toward "the greatest Jewish writers," among them גאונים and ראשונים like אלפסי and רַשְׁ"יִ. (I think the second possibility is less likely, unless it was the first which motivated the second.)

Finally, the reference to Shapira's Deuteronomy concerns the Shapira strips (also posted about here,here and here). Ginsburg played a role in recognizing them as forgeries (some would say, highly, vastly, bloatingly overstated role; the cartoon reproduced below is . . . cartoonish).





In any case, Ginsburg seems to have viewed it at least as potentially authentic and published the text of it and encouraged buzz, seemingly in an effort to promote himself. Neubaeur was opposing the authenticity of it from the start (see this article by him dated August 13, 1883). Take note of how it begins "From the very outset, when I did not as yet know a word of the contents of Mr. Shapira's Moabite Deuteronomy . . . I held it to be a forgery." Truly, he was right, but he might have wanted to see it before holding it to be a forgery!

Given the Sambatyon-Akdamus connection, I suppose this is a Shavuos post.

An unfavorable review of Haham David Nieto's Matteh Dan-Kuzari Sheni from 1727

Here's a bit of negativity from Moses Marcus, a grandson of the famous Glikl of Hameln.




Continues in this vain for some pages. Moses Marcus' story is detailed in Elisheva Carlebach's book Divided Soul's. Although he converted to Christianity, and even wrote the book The principal motives & circumstances that induced Moses Marcus to leave the Jewish, & embrace the Christian faith: with a short account of his sufferings thereupon (where this excerpt is taken), he also later claimed to have returned to the fold. ". . . as I was born a Jew so I will die a Jew," he wrote to his parents. "I go here [in Amsterdam] to Sinagogue & Live as a Jew ought to do so I hope God Allmighty will pardon my sins likewise I beg pardon of you." (link)

The Matteh Dan of David Nieto is recommended by R. Chaim Kanievsky in his חיי עולם :

:

Read about R. Nieto's troubles with accusations of Spinozism, and his acquital by Chacham Tzvi here.

Incidentally, here is Wolff's entry on Moses Marcus's book in the 4th volume of his Bibliotheca Hebraea (1733):

"A description, not a censure of Hebrew music." What did a synagogue service sound like to an observer in 1775?

In Amsterdam; from Charles Burney's Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces: Or, the Journal of a Tour Through Those Countries, Undertaken to Collect Materials for a General History of Music.






Although Burney can't bring himself to fully commit to his goal of neutral observation, the attitude that he thinks he has taken, namely to describe and not judge, is actually quite modern.

This book preceded his real masterwork, a four volume history of music. Here is his transcription of Jewish singing in the synagogue (at the end of the section on Hebrew music, vol. I; read the notes from right to left):


This transcription is preceded by a short discussion on modern Jewish music, with an interesting anecdote.

What does a Chinese chumash look like?

Relating to the Kennicott post below, Europeans had known of the existence of Jews in China since the 16th century, when an Italian monk named Matteo Ricci, in China, received a visitor. This visitor had heard that a man from far away was in town, and from a description it appeared that he was monotheistic. Perhaps something about the man's relationship with the Bible reached his ears too, so thinking he was a fellow Jew he went to meet him. For his part, Ricci figured that the visitor was Muslim. After some time it became clear that the man was a Jew and, to the visitor, that Ricci was not. They probably had a good laugh.

In any case, from this point on Europeans were aware of contemporary Chinese Jews. Their origin, customs and knowledge of Jews and Judaism is interesting, but should wait for another time (except to generally mention that Chinese Jews seem to have their origin in Persia). What is important is that Europeans assumed that the Chinese Jews, like all Jews, had Bible manuscripts. This became particularly important in the 18th century, when great research projects probing exact text of the Hebrew Bible, based in large part on manuscripts, were attempted. It was believed that the Chinese manuscripts were most likely the least corrupted from outside influence due to the remoteness of the Chinese Jews. It was thought essential to track down and see these Chinese Bible manuscripts.

Here are Kennicott's references to sources on Chinese Bibles:



Since you and I would probably already be aware if something fantastic were discovered in Chinese Bibles, and we are not, we realize that the hopes proved entirely without merit. Chinese Bibles were . . . Bibles. Like the other Bibles. I would like to hear Chinese trop though. Look below:



From the rare volume Fac-Similes of the Hebrew Manuscripts, obtained at the Jewish Synagogue in K'ae-Fung-Foo, Shanghai 1851. Printed with wood blocks on rice paper!

It's interesting to see the appearance of the letters, which obviously are influenced by Chinese writing. This well illustrates a principle of Hebrew paleography mentioned here:

The geographical factor and the influence of imitation of other scripts. The Jewish script, and later the Hebrew script, evolved many styles due to contact with foreign scripts. Already before the dispersion of the Jews throughout the world, the Jewish script came into contact with the Greek and Latin scripts as well as the Nabatean script. In later times many new script-styles evolved among the Jewish communities in the different countries, with the influence of the foreign scripts as well as the use of different writing implements and materials. The changes in the letter-forms were sometimes due to deliberate imitation and they sometimes occurred unintentionally, mainly because the continual use of foreign scripts together with the Hebrew script occasionally caused changes in the hand-movement of bilingual scribes. Thus the Hebrew scripts in the Islamic countries show affinities with the Arabic script while the Hebrew scripts in Christian Europe show affinities with the Latin script-styles used in the different countries.

And I would add, the Hebrew script[s?] in China show affinities with the Chinese writing.

Compare:



Another practical example:

The script used in the 14th century Munich manuscript of the entire Talmud obviously show a similarity to the kind of script used in the German lands of the period, or at least it is obvious that it was produced not in Spain, but in Germany!

First Jewish polyglot Bible at JNUL

Here; the 1546 Constantinople edition which features the Arabic taphsir of Rav Saadya, a Persian translation, as well as Rashi (and Aramaic, via Onqelos). I assume this notable edition will be followed at the JNUL digital book repository with the second polyglot, the 1547 edition with Greek and Ladino.