The October 1765 issue of The Jester's Magazine featured the following anecdote—which admittedly feels incomplete—about a Jewish father and son ensnared by the Spanish Inquisition.
British periodicals of the era enjoyed reporting on the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. For example, here's something from 1731:
Getting back to the story in the Jester's Magazine, it's interesting mainly for how . . . pointless it seems. I mean, it's a nice story. Father and son are in a dungeon, son escapes, but returns to save his father. The point seems to be the "Generosity that would have done Credit to a Christian," that is the mussar point that it was a Jew who was demonstrating such selfless filial piety. While the stories are entirely different, I feel slightly reminded of the Talmudic story of Dama ben Nethina, a gentile whose demonstration of filial devotion so impressed the rabbis.
This is a partial repost. Quite often I find that little details in part of a much larger issue are interesting and worth paying attention to. A few months ago I posted about the Tosaphist apparently named Peter (or not; see here) and I also included a discussion about a whimsical article written by Reform Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal in 1889 contending that a Talmudic rabbi was named Patrick. In presenting his evidence, he invented three men, probably common Jewish types in Chicago in 1889, immigrants from Germany, Galicia and Lithuania. His Litvak, "Berish Warshawski" attended Volozhin in his younger days (along with his name, this is one of the stereotypical aspects of this designed character). Here is the full quote:
"I agree with you, Mr. Falkenstein [i.e., the German; that he's never heard of a rabbi named Patrick, and Felsenthal must be kidding]," says Mr. Berush Warshawski. "You know I am a Lithuak by birth, and in my younger days I attended the Yeshibhah in Wolosin, and there I read the entire Talmud over and over again. But that I ever found the name Rabbi Patrick in it, this is more than I can say. Or should m memory have ceased to serve me?"
After presenting some evidence, Warshawski the Litvak mounts a challenge:
Mr. Warshawski rises to remark, that the older form of the name was Patricius, not Patrick. How, then, he says, can the Hebrew letter Koph be justified in the transliteration?
Felsenthal then proceeds to deliver a lesson, explaining that the ancient c was always pronounced hard. (Kikero, Kaesar, not Cicero, Caesar as Sisero, Saesar.)
I find this interesting because evidently for Felsenthal part of the stereotype of the former Volozhiner student was that he'd recognize "the older form of the name was Patricius," a bit of erudition — but not too much, since he needs to be told that ancient Latin consonants are not identical with their modern sound values. It's pointless to speculate that the real Warshawski the Wolosiner hardly needed to be reminded of ק'סר, and that if he know "Patricius" he also should have known ק'סר was Casesar. Truthfully, many people probably know ק'סר but never thought about the implications for how the Romans pronounced their consonant c (which was changed from the Greek gamma, derived from gimmel, because Latin received their alphabet via the Etruscans, who did not have that hard /g/ sound, and instead adopted the gamma as a hard c). And of course there were doubtlessly many former Volozhiners who could have out-aleph-protheticaed Felsenthal himself (do read the article for the complete context). But it's interesting to focus a lens onto a stereotype of a kind of Litvak one could meet in Chicago in 1889, a Volozhiner no less. When one reads the article and compares it with the other two types, it becomes even more clear how deliberate he was in constructing them.
As you can see, the founder of the Manischewitz dynasty is called "Dave Behr," which of course is simply the Lithuanian pronunciation of "Dov Behr."
It's from a 1918 book called Prominent Jews of America: A Collection of Biographical Sketches of Jews Who Have Distinguished Themselves in Commercial, Professional and Religious Endeavor. The entries are pretty interesting, especially because of all the yichus banter. This one is a descendant of "Elijah Wilner Gaon" through his son Abraham, that one is a descendant of Jonathan Eibschutz on his mother's side, and yet another one is a grandson (!) of "Jacob Emden ben Zwi Yawitz". This one's father was a dayan, etc. It also always mentions when they are a "former Yeshiba Bochur," or "Shomer shabas," and if they gave or are giving their children a "thorough Jewish education." One Hungarian immigrant to Ohio's views are described as follows:
"He is Orthodox in his religious views and is particularly interested in the education of children, He believes that by giving them two hours of daily Hebrew instruction, with a cantor to give them fifteen to twenty minutes of chanting, if applied to children between six and twelve, will produce a lasting influence and make them so profoundly religious that nothing on earth will ever change them. In his Talmud Torah, situated in Scovill avenue and East 55th street, 1,600 seats are provided for the children, who receive their Hebrew instruction in the method "Ibrit b'Ibrith," with services on Friday evening and Saturday morning and afternoon."
1600?!?!
It is remarked about another, whom it is marveled that he and his two brothers remain Orthodox despite being born in the United States:
Mr. Harry Roggen was born July 4, 1880. He was married to Miss Hattie Goldberg at the Hotel Majestic in 1908 and they had the distinction of having the first wedding where Bnschen caps were distributed to the guests. This custom has since become quite general at Orthodox weddings in our large hotels.
Apparently this was all crucial information about moderately successful American Jewish businessmen of mostly Eastern European stock, a goodly number living in Ohio.
In case you are wondering at the name "Ettlingen," seeing as how the aforementioned rabbi is normally known as Ettlinger, a quote from the very first page of text of Dr. Judith Bleich's dissertation on him is in order:
"In his youth he signed his name Yukov Ettlingen, Yukov being an affectionate cognomen for Ya' akov (Jacob) and Ettlingen, the name of the small town in which his forebears had at one time resided and from which the family surname was probably derived. It is in this form that his name appears in his first published work, Bikkurei Ya'akov [Altona, 1836]."
She further reveals that critics of Bernays challenged the fact that he had received rabbinic ordination. In an article in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums of February 26, 1842 an anonymous correspondent relates that in the 1820s "a satiric limerick regarding Bernays mocked his usage of the title Hakham rather than Chochom in light of the fact that Bernays had neither adopted the Sephardic pronunciation nor had he received rabbinic ordination.
Here is that piece:
Note: Bernays had in fact received semicha from Rabbi Abraham Bing, same as Rabbi Ettlinger. Bleich notes that Bernays was recommended for his rabbinic post in Hamburg by Rabbi Bing, and in addition he served as dayyan in Wuerzburg during Bing's incumbency. Thus, the charges that he never received ordination must be pure fabrication, although there is no documentary proof of his ordination extant.
The issue itself reminds me of another one which occurred only a decade later in the United States. In the 1850s a bitter war of words raged between American Reform Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise and indefatigable and archetypal spokesman and teacher of American Orthodoxy, the Reverend Isaac Leeser. Wise "smeared" Leeser as never having been ordained. Leeser, however, had never claimed to be ordained, and freely admitted that he wasn't. However, he countered, Wise claims to have been ordained by Prague's Chief Rabbi Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport. Where was Wise's certificate of ordination? Wise never did, and maybe never could, produce it.
The Jewish national treasure Hebrewbooks.org has an update with some real gems, two of which I will highlight.
Under the name חומש עבריא you can download a Hutter Bible in four volumes (Pentateuch, Early Prophets, Later Prophets, and Hagiographa). This is not the first edition of the Hutter Bible, rather this was the fourth edition printed in Cologne in 1603. Here you can see a set (bound in one volume) offered for sale for $6500. So a great thanks is owed to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research which allowed Hebrewbooks to scan their copy, and to Hebrewbooks itself for making it available.
Dr. S. Z. Leiman describes this Bible in this post at Seforim:
Elias Hutter (circa 1553-1609), a pious Christian, studied Oriental languages at the University of Jena and was appointed Professor of Hebrew at the University of Leipzig. His fame rests not so much on his scholarly research as it does on his career as an editor and publisher. He published a series of polyglot editions of the Bible, as well as editions of the Hebrew Bible alone. He is perhaps most famous for his Hamburg, 1587 edition of the Hebrew Bible. Usually bound in one thick folio volume, it is distinguished by the large font he used for the Hebrew letters. Moreover, he printed the root letters of every Hebrew word in the Bible in thick, heavily inked font. In contrast, he printed the non-root letters (such as “vav” copula “and”; or “vav” consecutive, which changes the tense of the verb) in a hollowed-out outline form. Thus, he introduced a major educational tool where a simple glance at the printed biblical text enabled the reader to recognize the root letters of any Hebrew word.
The title page itself describes it in a Latin which is not hard to understand:
BIBLIA EBRAEA Eleganti er Maiu- scula Characterium For- ma, qua ad facilem sanctae linguae & scri- pturae intelligentiam primo sta- tim intuitu literae RADICALES & SERVILES, DEFICIENTES & QVIESCENTES, &c. situ & colore discer- nuntur.
Here is a sample page (it's not printed on blue paper. I like blue, so my revisionist image is blue, as they often are):
The brilliance of this simple, yet potent idea has not diminished in 400 years. I'm sure it would be interesting to examine it carefully and catch mistakes, or at least which etymological interpretation Hutter accepted in cases of controversies about roots.
Also, there's one volume of an Italian machzor printed in 1711 in Venice. How's this for a title page?
Turns out I had already photographed this title page (see here):
When the Days of Awe approach and it's time to open up the machzor, that title page will scare anyone straight!
Then as you begin shacharis:
These nymphs, or whatever the technical term for them are, look . . . cold.
In 1867 Adolf Jellinek published the following anecdote in the Viennese periodical Die Neuzeit (#46) about the recently deceased Galician scholar, Prague's Chief Rabbi Solomon J. Rapoport (Shir, 1790-1867). I haven;t seen the original, but it was translated into French and published under the title Un Officier er R. Saadia Gaon (pp. 1136-36 in Archives israélites Vol. 28, December of the same year. If your French is up to par, you can read it. If not, below is R. Sabato Morais's English translation as it appeared in the July 2, 1869 issue of the Jewish Messenger:
Obviously this is just a story; see Morais's note on the side. In Bernfeld's Toldos Shir pg. 8 he puts it this way: לא נדע אם ממקור נאמן שאכם או הם רק ספורי אגדה.
No one is paying me to do this. In fact, someone associated with the site emailed me to promote it a little while ago (albeit I have reason to think he just sent it to his address book, not that he marked me specifically). I finally took a look at it, and lo and behold it's actually a really nice site with some interesting content. So go check out Jewish Ideas Daily . com.
Michael Levi Rodkinson (1845-1904) was quite a character. The title of Marvin J. Heller's essay about him says plenty: "Michael Levi Rodkinson - The Life and Literary Career of a Jewish Scoundrel Revisited." A Jewish scoundrel! There's enough about him available online (you can start by googling [rodkinson +rohling +bloch]), so I won't get into that, but the point of this post is the great derision his "translation" of the Talmud received (according to JD Eisenstein "his" should be in quotes, too; he alleged that Rodkinson was such a lousy scholar that he engaged poor young men to translate it into Yiddish. He'd then tell them they did a lousy job, fire them without paying, and translated their translation into English).
In any case, he forever made his mark on history by his abridged translation of much of the Talmud, which can be read in its entirety here. A nice overview of the issues surrounding this translation can be read in Rabbi Adam Mintz's articles The Talmud in Translation and Words, Meaning and Spirit: The Talmud in Translation.
The Rosh Hashanah volume was published in 1895, and included the following letters and testimonials in the beginning:
Having published two volumes, his work came in from some devastating critique from Kaufmann Kohler in the American Hebrew in 1896; one notes that he seems to use the Rodkinson Talmud as a cudgel with which to beat Isaac M. Wise with. Yet the critique is highly substantive, and gives us some memorable lines. Taking Rodkinson to task for the most absurd uses of modern terms to translate Talmudic expressions, he suggests that he may as well translate מעשה מרכבה as "Torah on bicycles!" Kohler notes that any child who knows the Pesach Haggadah will not translate "B'ne B'rak" as "the children of Barak":
Kaufmann Kohler, incidentally, in his youth was a student of Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch. Like many a young man of his era, Rabbi Hirsch's influence kept him Orthodox. Until it didn't. In his 'Personal Reminiscences of My Early Life' he writes "My Arabic studies under Prof. Mueller in Munich at once undermined the exegetical system of S. R. Hirsch, built upon the assumption that Hebrew was the original language, and the philosophical and historical lectures I attended knocked the bottom out of his whole theology. I passed days and weeks of indescribable woe and despondency ; the heavens seemed to fall down upon me and crush me; and the strange tone of my letters puzzled my dear parents so as to make them suspect me of having fallen into bad company. I rallied strength and traveled to Frankfurt to lay my doubts and scruples before my revered teacher; but instead of having these satisfactorily removed, I received the remarkable answer: "My dear Kohler, he who wants to journey around the world must also pass the torrid zone; proceed and you will come back safely." I proceeded in my studies, but did not come back to where I started from. I only felt that having eaten of the thus long forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, my eyes opened and I was driven out of the paradise of my childhood. " Thus was made one of the great American Reform rabbis.
In any event Rodkinson lamely tried to reply:
And Kohler replied to him:
Immediately following Kohler's reply in the American Hebrew was a small piece which had appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of London on August 21, 1896, the original below:
In 1897 the following appeared in the Jewish Chronicle's Books and Bookmen column (the entire series should be collected and published as a book):
And a note in the same column from 1895:
(The 1895 one was written by Solomon Schechter, the one from 1897 by Israel Abrahams. As you can see, Schechter has a problem with an abridgment of the Talmud per se, unlike Marcus Jastrow -- see below. Interestingly he chose to contrast the Talmud -- a record -- with the Shulchan Aruch -- a code -- of which an abridgment is appropriate [ala the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch]. In an early column in 1892, Schechter had taken Rodkinson to task for his book on Tefillin, 'History of Amulets, Charms and Talismans,' in which he asserted that the practice was dropped in the times of the later Amoraim, only to be resumed in the period of the Geonim in opposition to the Karaites.)
When he died in 1904 the nicest thing the Jewish Chronicle could say about him was that he was entitled to some recognition and that, well, his translation was a fait accompli.
Here is J.D. Eisenstein's devastating (and delightfully interesting) review:
My thanks to my friend Wolf of Ishim Ve-shitos for sending me a letter of Rodkinson's to Steinschneider. I figure if anyone plans to post or publish it, it should be him. So all you get is this sample of his holy handwriting.
When all is said and done, I feel like he needs a sympathetic word so I'll have to think about that and perhaps produce a second part to this post.
See Manuscript Boy's post on Rodkinson's Talmud from 2006.
The Jerusalem Talmud: a gem from the Leiden Hebrew collections
The Talmud is the great repository of the Jewish rabbinic tradition. The most prominent collection originated in ‘Babylonia’ (Mesopotamia) in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, but a second, less voluminous collection was compiled in Palestine, the so-called Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud.
The first edition was printed in Venice in 1523-1524 by Daniel van Bomberghen from Antwerp, more commonly known as Daniel Bomberg, who was active in Venice between 1511 and 1538.
This codex in two volumes, Leiden Or. 4720, is the only surviving manuscript that was used by Bomberg for his edition, and indeed the only complete manuscript of the text to have come down to us at all. Written on parchment and dated in the year 5049 of the Jewish calendar (1289 CE), it was made by the copyist and scholar Jechiel ben Jekutiel ha-Rofe, most probably in Rome.
In the mid-sixteenth century the manuscript was bought from Bomberg by the French ambassador and bibliophile Jean Hurault de Boistailler, who paid twelve gold pieces for his prize. After his death it passed into the hands of the famous humanist scholar Josephus Justus Scaliger, who moved from his native France to Leiden in 1593 and died there in 1609. It now rests among Scaliger’s bequest of Oriental manuscripts and books.
In the early 1970s the manuscript was lovingly restored by sister Lucie Gimbrère, who replaced the old, but not original vellum binding with one of sturdy oak boards. Now, for the first time, this literally unique manuscript is available online to the scholarly community.
Posts
