Humblerudition

This is Gotthard Deutsch replying to Lewis Dembitz in the American Hebrew, 1904.

Love the שור הבר and קדיש דרבנן stuff. Humblerudition.

The end of חושן משפט in Germany

1854.

Mussar from Reform over חוקת הגוים

Excerpt from the American Israelite, from 1857:

In the polemics over Reform, the representatives of Reform took endless delight in pointing out innovations accepted by the Orthodox in one place, but not in others. 

Bonus points because "Rhinehessia" is a pretty cool name.

Rav Gifter's youthful 'ambition' and more

Hirshel Tzig posts this fantastic find, Rabbi Mordechai Gifter's yearbook photo in the 1933 edition of the Elchanite.

The rather interesting inside joke says that his ambition is to the "Chief Rabbi of the Hitler regime."

In the class Who's Who, he's listed as the "Class socialist," which apparently sheds light on his 1933 politics.

Here's a very interesting account by R. Gifter's son about his father's transition to MTA from a Baltimore public high school, and success once there, link:

“My father told me that he knew only one blatt of Gemorah when he went to New York to be tested for admission,” Reb Binyamin Gifter related. “However, he progressed so quickly that he was soon attending the shiurim of HaRav Moshe HaLevi Soloveitchik.” 

The YU yearbooks on archive.org are fascinating. For example, here we see that Rabbi Robert Gordis' nickname in high school was "Bob the Gob" (Elchanite 1923):

The same volume used the frontispiece for the Vilna Shas printed by the Romm company for its title page:

These volumes can be pored over for many, many interesting historical and sociological finds, and are well worth perusing. Here's one last item, an excerpt from the 1925 Elchanite, Dr. Pinchas Churgin, Principal of the Teacher's Institute of the Yeshivah (later president of Bar Ilan) gives a Hebraist angle to the value of yeshivas in the modern revival of the Hebrew language:

World War I humor for German troops at the front

This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. This is from a German magazine provided to troops for relaxation and entertainment during WWI. Dated June 19, 1915, this is from the Humor column, of Die Wacht im Osten. 

And the little anecdote is, a very pious Jewish guy goes to the Wonder-rabbi of Sadagora and asks him who is going to win the war. The rabbi replies, God - Gott. "Gott," asks the man. "Explain it to me?" The rabbi replies, yes, Gott - it stands for G/ermanen O/sterreicher and T/uerkishchen T/rupen.

Before Jenny McCarthy

This was printed on December 19, 1896 in the Daily Mail.

For more info about the reception of vaccines among Jews, see Ruderman, David B. "Some Jewish Responses to Smallpox Prevention in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A New Perspective on the Modernization of European Jewry." Aleph (2002): 111-144.

Cholent nostalgia, 1929

Vintage Agudath Israel

Regardless of your politics or religious affiliation, I think you'll agree, that this is the funniest subheadline, maybe, ever. 

Because it's from 1914.

Feb. 13, 1914, the Jewish Advocate.

An affair that made a great noise in Amsterdam

This is 1762, and what happened was, a bunch of Jews beat up a Calvinist apostate Jew in Amsterdam. As it happens, he was a sailor, and his fellow sailors went ashore to beat up the Jews who beat up the sailor. However, they were outnumbered, and were beaten up by even more Jews.  

From The London Chronicle, Or, Universal Evening Post.

Better in the company of Shadal...

Here's a rather interesting little postscript to an 1860* letter from Jonas Bondi to Isaac Leeser:

It says, "In Jeschurun I am in the company of Luzzatto, better than Szold, Wise and Illoway."

This refers to the Jeschurun published by Joseph Kobak, not Samson Raphael Hirsch (of whom Bondi was a critic). And he is talking smack about some famous names among the American rabbis of his day - one of whom - Wise - would become his son-in-law! Apparently he liked the company in Jeschurun, but not the American Jewish publications of the day.

* Not 1865, as in the transcription here.

An English letter from Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer from 1865

This is an interesting piece that I found on the Isaac Leeser digital archive (link), a handwritten letter from Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer to the Occident, dated 26 Adar 5625. The letter asks Leeser to print an English version of an account on behalf of the "Central Committee for Building Dwellings for the Poor and Pilgrims in Jerusalem," of which Rabbi Hildesheimer was a member, along with Rabbis Jacob Ettlinger of Altona and Joseph Hirsch of Halberstadt.

Here are two excerpts from the piece, as printed in the Occident, at Rabbi Hildesheimer's request:

Below is the transcription from the site, with some corrections of my own. (If you can make corrections to make the poor English-or should I say, Englisch-in the final line intelligible, here is the link, to the letter.) 

I don't know for sure if this is Rabbi Hildesheimer's own English, but I'd say - chances are.

***

ב"ה

To the rev. editor of the Occident
Philadelphia 

Eisenstadt 26 Adar 5625. 

Since the great interest which you have always shown for the 

wellfare (sic) of our brethren in all countries and particularly the unfor- 

tunate Jews of the Holy Land is known to me I have the liberty to 

send you the enclosed statutes etc of the dwellings which we are arecting (sic) on the holy ground and pray you to give insertion to it in your esteemed 

journal in at possible great parties. 

I have the honour to sign 

your humble
Dr. Hildesheimer
Rabbi

The only english Jew that ever wore his Beard

Here is a postscript from an 1853 letter from Samuel Hyman Cohen to Isaac Leeser. Writing from California, Cohen tells Leeser which family he is from, that he is the nephew of "Moses Eliezer Solomons 'ר משה עליעזר זלמן" [sic] "of London and the only english Jew that ever wore his Beard."

"Moses Eliezer Solomons" appears to be the father of Henry Naphthali Solomon (1796-1881), a pioneer in Jewish education in England - and the first cousin of this Samuel Hyman Cohen. The rest of the letter is fascinating, as he had spent several years in China, and tells Leeser about his contact with a Chinese Jew. At first the Jew did not believe he was Jewish, because he did not know שחיטה! But:

"I was verry (sic) ancious (sic) to obtain from him Information respecting the Jews and after showing him my מחזורים מזוזת ערבה כנפוס תפלין and explaining them to him, he said that he was satisfied that I was a Jew, he give me a Invitation to come out to see him..." 

Read the entire letter here.

An ardent admirer of Jewish physiognomy

This guy *really* likes how Chasidim/ traditional east European Jewish men looked.

Adam Neale, writing in 1818, in his Travels through some parts of Germany, Poland, Moldavia, and Turkey.

A Messianic prophecy for 1840-1, Pt. II

Here's an update to this post, about a 17th century Messianic prophecy for the year 1840-1, apparently predicting the French Revolution, some kind of Russian revolution, Jewish independence, and then the Messiah. This is a copy of the document discussed in that post, copied for some reason, by Isaac Leeser's. See here. Leeser must have had hopes for the year 5601.

This is interesting; an entry for Brian Walton's 1653 - 56 London Polyglot Bible in Kohelet Shlomo - Collectio Davidis, the catalog of Rabbi David Oppenheim's famous library. Interesting, because it includes the New Testament, and the catalog says it was the complete six volumes.

Passover products circa 1842

Here's a nice ad for Passover products from 1842, under the rabbinic supervision of Rabbi Solomon Hirschell (1862-1842). From the Voice of Jacob.

British wine!

"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.'