"Adam and Abraham, not "Odam and Afroom" - on an 18th century attempt to prove the correct Hebrew pronunciation tradition

This is really cool. This is a leaf from a manuscript called Sukkat David. It's a notebook of David Franco Mendes, 18th century Hebrew writer and poet of Amsterdam. He is best known (to me, anyway) for being a close friend and disciple of Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzzatto when the latter lived in Amsterdam, and also for being one of the original Meassefim, a contributor to the first periodical of the Berlin Haskalah, where he contributed poems and biographical articles about gedolei yisrael.

This excerpt is from an essay where he is trying to prove that the correct pronunciation of the קמץ is that of the Sephardim (A) and not the Ashkenazim. He offers several proofs, one of which is the way names like Adam and Abraham are transliterated in Greek letters in Josephus, which he points out, is from the last days of the Temple. Being this old, this is a proof that the A pronunciation is correct, while the pronunciation of the Ashkenazim as - wait for it - Odam and Afroom is not.

Check out the other proofs. It's on page 29.

I learned of this page in Berger, Shlomo. "Remus, Romulus and Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam." Studia Rosenthaliana (1992): 38-45, but finally the manuscript has actually been digitized by the amazing Ets Haim Library. Much valuable material can be gleaned from this manuscript and the wealth of others on this site.

http://www.etshaimmanuscripts.nl/portfolio/eh-47-a-26/

On Solomon Dubno's library

The Freimann-Sammlung digital library at the University of Frankfurt recently added some fantastic bibliographies, including this important one - the catalog that was prepared for the 1814 auction of Solomon Dubno's library (link).

For those who want to make inferences about contents of libraries, his includes Hameasseph, in case anyone is wondering (p. 46, 57.)

Here is the title page.

Can you help me? (No $!)

Reader request: 

If you go to Columbia University, or Harvard or Yale and you are a fan of this blog (sounds so swell-headed, but what can I say?) it is possible you could give me a hand in supporting scholarship. So if this is you, please email me ( db min9@aol .com ) and I will tell you how you can help, ask for it, and you can decide if you'd like to do so. No pressure before, during, or after. Responses themselves are highly appreciated.

Many thanks!

Yours,

S.

The stone in question

Many thanks to Michael Brocke for his cogent remarks on my post on a gravestone from Regensburg (link). Michael followed it up by sending me a photograph of the stone, with some additional remarks on the name and date.

He informs me that after the expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg in 1519 this stone, as many others, were appropriated as trophies. I don't think you can see it so well in the picture, but he says that below the inscription is the coat-of-arms of the new 'owner.'

On an interesting gravestone from 1463

I was looking through a book called Das jetzt Anno 1723 lebende Regensburg... which is, as you surmise, about the history of Regensburg. I noticed at the end it has a number of transcriptions of gravestones in the Jewish cemetery. All are worth looking at, but here is one that caught my interest, because it calls the young woman "הבחורה." At first I thought that could have been a transcription error - there are others - and it may have actually said "הבתולה." I think this usage is interesting. Perhaps it was common, but I've not come across it before. In any case, another stone in the book, for a married woman, uses it; Justina bat Rabbi Schelomia, which one imagines, was the 15th century diminutive of Shelomo, eshet Rabbi Menachem.

Here is my translation:

Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night (Jer. 8:23)
On the passing of the modest lass ("בחורה"), Miss Gutrut,
Daughter of Rabbi Jacob Halin, [her] slumber was requested from Heaven*, on Friday,
The 24th of Kislev (Dec. 15), in the year
224 (1463)

*If I got that right.

It is worth noting that the verse in Jeremiah ends with the phrase "for the slain of the daughter of my people," so one wonders if it was left off because Miss Gertrude died of natural causes or if, to the contrary, this verse was chosen because she was, indeed, slain.

One final note. Another grave, from 1540, is from a woman named Blume (that's how the German translator understood it) and here is how it is written in Hebrew letters: פלומא.

On decrees concerning rabbinic ordination from 1603

In 1603 rabbis in Germany[1] held a synod in Frankfurt, where they enacted takkanot. The takkanot were translated into German (three separates ones, according to Rabbi Marcus Horovitz[1]) since, in the prior century, various rabbinic synods were treated highly suspiciously by the non-Jews. 

Many of these takkanot are of interest (such as #6, which comes down harshly against coin counterfeiting and the forging of debt documents, stating that much harm has come to the Jews because of this, and decreeing both herem and turning counterfeiters over to the king). But I want to highlight #5, because I came across a summary of it in English in a book from only a few years later, which is interesting to see.

Here is the text of the takkana, as printed by Horovitz. It concerns the manner in which rabbis can be ordained in Germany (and, incidentally, we see that the term bahur was used even for a young married man).

And here is how it is summarized in Purchas his Pilgrimage, v.5, (London 1626).[3] As you can see, he refers to this very takkana, enacted by the "Chief RR [=rabbis] of Frankford":

Since Purchas, in his attempt to explain the Jewish forms of ordination then in vogue, the titles Morenu, Chaver, and Bachur, relates them to the Christian university degrees of Doctor, Licentiate and Bachelour, I thought it worth highlighting an interesting couple of sentences from Abarbanel's commentary to Mishna Avot that I was recently looking at (link). He writes that in Spain and the places of its exiles, they did not ordain rabbis, following the old practice not to ordain outside of the and of Israel. He continues as follows:

"But after arriving in Italy I found there a widespread custom to ordain one another. I saw that the Ashkenazim had all been ordained, and ordained others, as rabbis, and I do not know who gave them permission to do so. [I thought] perhaps they had followed the gentiles in making themselves Doctors."

And since we mention Italy, here is how Rabbi Leon Modena described ordination in his Riti (1650 English translation:

[1] Obviously not in the modern sense. For example, Takkana 12 concerns printing, and refers to Basel, then a major center of Hebrew printing, and juxtaposes it with "or another city in Ashkenaz." Basel, in Switzerland, was in "Germany."

[2] Die Frankfurter rabbinerversammlung vom jahre 1603, p. 5. See also Louis Finkelstein Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, Chapter 8, on the 1603 Frankfurt synod and the takkanas.

[3] The full title of this book, by Samuel Purchas, is: Purchas his Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in all Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation unto this Present. And since this continues for a paragraph, here is the title page:

A 21st century responsum - the Shabbos Blettel asks if it is permitted to lie on a school's internet questionnaire

One of the more interesting, creative works I've seen in the past couple of years is the Shabbos Blettel, which is an incredible (mostly) Yiddish periodical published online.

After a hiatus, there is a new issue (#11) and it contains the following responsum concerning the question of whether or not it is permitted to lie on a Chareidi school's questionnaire about technology use. These invasive questionnaires are increasingly standard, requiring parents to respond. But with only one kind of answer acceptable, parents who own devices such as smartphones generally feel compelled to answer untruthfully, or invite scrutiny that they do not need. Currently, these questionnaires mostly rely on some form of the honor system (with caveats). So, is it permissible to lie?

Here is the responsum:

Here is a link to a pdf of this responsum: link

And to the entire issue: link

A beautiful translation of a Gordon poem; a guest post

I would like to post this wonderful free translation of the first part of Yehuda Leib Gordon's 1875 poem Kotzo Shel Yud. This was originally posted by my talented friend הערשי at Kave Shtiebel, and he gave me permission to post it here:

Jewish wife, who shall know your life?

It comes in the dark, and leaves no mark

Your joys and your anguishes, your hopes and your wishes

In your heart born, and in your heart worn

The world and all the pleasure

For others to treasure

The life of the Jewess a perpetual grind

Forever in her house confined

Bear, deliver, rear, and litter

Bake, and make, and wither

So what if you’re blessed, beauty you possessed

A heart refined, a keen mind

Study is bane, beauty vain

Talent a defect, knowledge abject

Your voice is crude, your hair lewd

You are naught, a goatskin filled with blood and rot

The Serpent’s pest, in you rests

Like the infected, by your own kin rejected

From scholarship, and from the house of worship

In the houses of merriment, you but lament

Good you don't master, the tongue of you ancestor

Thus you are barred, from the Lord’s yard

And you don't hear, the blessing the jeer

“Lord we bless, for not creating us a lass”

Like the heathen and the slave you are rated

Like a hen to breed fated

A heifer threshes, milk gives the cow

What use is it with knowledge to endow?

Why waste time you to rear

Those who follow your counsel in hell will sear

Not only has God closed your womb

Took your husband in your bloom

The cream of your days you while through

But you await your husband’s brother to pull his shoe

On your fathers bed you most grieved

From his inheritance nothing received

They deprive you not only the material

But keep from you the ministerial

For themselves commandments two forty eight

Only three for poor you, said the cheapskate

You are miserable so, Jewess!

You crave to know, to live, but alas

God’s sprout, wilting in drought

Not by sun rays dry, but away from the eye

Fertile soil, bearing luscious fruit with toil

For want of plow, grows weed now

Ere you matured into a conscious soul

You were thrust into a motherly role

Before they taught her, to be a daughter

She married, and her own children carried

Wed him, have you even met him?

Love him, aye; have you cast an eye?

You’re loved, what? Wretched, you know not

Love is apart, from the Jewish heart?

Forty days before, her mother bore

Her match-maker, destined her taker

What good will it do, to take a view

What will it add, to see the lad?

What’s love? Our mothers knew not

We shall not put off, our sister a slut

Head furled, face shrouded in veil

Hair curled, to the razor avail

Why have you eyed, who stands by your side

Whether crippled or bald, whether young or old

It’s all to the same use, you don’t get to choose

Your father will accord, he is your lord

Like chattel sold, from hold to hold

Are they like Aramites to inquire, after the girl’s desire?

As a maiden, your father is your warden

Your husband you please, under his auspices.

Your husband knows no art, he is not skilled

Never planted a vineyard, nor a house built

When the dowry is drawn

The family spawn

He sets looking for a trade

Dejected and dismayed

With options few, he has no clue

He runs away in the night, and leaves you chained in plight.

This is the story, of the Jewess’ glory.

"This is the story of the uncovering of the hair of Jewish women..."

This is a fascinating anecdote I came across in R. Chizkiya Feivel Plaut's biography of the Chasam Sofer included in his Likutei Chever Ben Chayim (link).

The story, as told to the author by Rabbi Daniel Prosstitz (a close friend of the Chasam Sofer) takes place in 1785, when the 23 year old Moses Sofer accompanied his rebbe Rabbi Nathan Adler on his journey to Baskowitz, where he was to become rabbi. When in Vienna, they stayed in the home of a wealthy man, Reb Nathan Arnstein - who was none other than the banking giant Adam Isaac von Arnstein (1715-1785).[1] Rabbi Nathan Adler has sent young Moshe out on some errand, and when he returned, he stumbled into a room where the host's daughter-in-law was sitting, bareheaded, having her hair done in a "frisiere" - her hair was being styled. Fuming, the boy berated the hostess, "Is this how a married Jewish woman goes?" Not surprisingly, she told her husband's father that if the guests are not thrown out immediately then she was going - to Berlin, to her father's home. (Her father was Daniel Itzig (Jaffe) in Berlin, an interesting personality in his own right, how maintained a Beit Midrash in his home, which luminaries such as the Peri Megadim frequented.)

So - and one imagines this part of the story is either imagined in the retelling, on behalf of the kind man who hosted great rabbis, or was meant to soften the blow to the guests - Nathan Adam von Arnstein approached them, thanked the young man for chastising his son's wife, and asked them if they would remove themselves to another apartment of his, a better one, so that his wife would not travel on the holiday, as it was Pesach.

Concludes the teller, Rabbi Plaut, go check if Reb Nathan Arnstein has any Jewish descendants! And this is the story of the uncovering of the hair of Jewish women...

The woman? Fanny von Arnstein, whose Wikipedia page says "In 1814, Fanny von Arnstein introduced a new custom from Berlin, hitherto unknown in Vienna: the Christmas tree."

This, presumably, is what the young Chasam Sofer found, when he wound up in the wrong room:



[1] Actually, Fanny's husband was Nathan Adam von Arnstein - I assume that in the story the son and father's names were confused.

On fundraising for fake, or at least unknown, yeshivas and institutions in 1924

This fascinating article by Rabbi S. Felix Mendelsohn discusses a fundraising letter for a "Yeshivah Rabbi Akiba Eiger" of which it wasn't entirely clear if it actually existed. But even if it did, the point was that the provenance of the institution which was "unauthorized and superfluous" was simply unknown and suspect. Mendelsohn is particularly perturbed that 29 names of officers and directors are listed on the stationary, 6 being rabbis, and not one of them was known. And he also cannot forgive the name - Yeshivah, rather than Yeshivath.

From the Sentinel May 15, 1924.

The rise of Kashrut observance noted in 1935

This interesting note is from the Telling It In Gath column by Rabbi Louis I. Newman in the Sentinel, a Jewish newspaper based in Chicago (4.11.1935 issue).

Irony

Link

Warren G. Harding's Zionistic Rosh Hashanah greeting, 1922

The ban on the pietistic activities of Rabbi Nosson Adler of Frankfurt

A friend wanted to see the actual writ of excommunication against Rabbi Nathan Adler of Frankfurt. Here it is.

And here's a very high res image (click for full size):

See Rachel Elior's article on R. Nosson Adler (here), which describes the circumstances and includes a transcription of the text, with notes.

Lithuania in New York - a rabbinic visit to Syracuse in 1929

Here's a notice about Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz's visit to Syracuse in July 1929, with his son-in-law R. Reuven Grozovski.

Their portrait appeared in the Syracuse Herald in July 1926 as well:

An imaginary portrait of the Ramchal as a young man

I mocked up this whimsical portrait of Rabbi Moses Hayyim Luzzatto to hang up in your Sukkah. Sadly, no true portrait of this personality exists - I took some (some??) poetic license in imagining him. This actually is a Northern Italian youth, albeit one born 200 years before Ramhal. Something about his face made him seem appropriate, even if the clothes aren't. The other elements are... at least from the 18th century.

Gut yontif, Chag sameach!

Beards and beardlessness in Italian Jewish history, Pt. II

See Part I.*

Here's a beautiful depiction of prayer for the sick, captioned by Psalm 34:23, and one imagines, of contemporary Italian Jews. This is from Imre Lev (Asti 1852, a compendium of prayers translated into Italian by Rabbi Marco Tedeschi (1817 - 1869), future Chief Rabbi of Trieste.

Note the facial hair on many of the men, even though Italian Jews had long been known for being clean-shaven (and obviously some did grow beards). I think in the mid-19th century beards had been making a fashionable comeback, and that is the likely explanation. c.f. the facial hair on Ohev Ger Luzzatto, a young man born in 1830, as compared to his father born in 1800. Ohev Ger (below) died in 1854, around this time. 

And here is Tedeschi himself, incidentally, also a student of Shadal. By the look of the man, this is presumably in the 1860s (and see here, for another portrait of him in canonicals):

See here for an earlier post about how the German fashion of growing facial hair was perceived in England in 1848.

* Hope it holds up!

A new Chief Rabbi of the UK

http://www.vosizneias.com/140354/2013/09/02/2219-london-britains-new-chief-rabbi-sworn-in-replacing-long-serving-sacks/

Mazal Tov, Rabbi Mirvis. Some lofty shoes to fill.

Contemporary Hasidic audodidactism

This is an incredibly interesting and poignant audio piece by Frimet Goldberger about the thirst for education among Chasidim, and how they overcame - and are still overcoming - hurdles to get it. 

Great interview material, and all I can say is that I wish I could hear the uncut interviews with each subject. It's less than 20 minutes, and really left me wanting much more. A must listen. Really.

http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/182999/struggle-and-triumph-of-college-for-hasidim/

It is an audio piece, so be sure to listen and not just read the summary.

PS I was inspired by this - this was absolutely worth coming out of hibernation for. I will be back to regular posting. Really.

A baal shem and his bochurim

I'll be back. But I'm taking a break from my break to post this incredible photo (I'd never seen it) of R. Elia Guttmacher. Terminus post quem - 1874.

This photo appears in Rev. Samuel Marcus Gollancz's Biographical Sketches and Selected Verses (London 1930).