The Jewish Review of Books recently published its Fall issue, which features several excellent articles, including a discussion of the recently published Chaim Grade novel. Below is a reprint of an article from their Summer issue, “Golden Ledgers” by Dan Rabinowitz, with a short postscript.
Seforim Blog readers can get a 50% discount on a subscription to the Jewish Review of Books by using this link. 

Golden Ledgers
by: Dan Rabinowitz

To get to the Judaica Research Centre archives in the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, you have to navigate through a series of passageways, across dark, empty rooms, and step over high thresholds. As your eyes adjust to the light, you are welcomed by rows of metal shelves filled with stacks of thousands of documents and dozens of bankers boxes overflowing with papers.

I was there again last summer looking for new material about Vilna’s Strashun Bibliotek, the first Jewish public library. I wrote a book about the Strashun Library a few years ago, but I was sure that there was more to learn. Lara Lempertiene, the director of Judaica, had set aside some correspondence related to the library for me, along with four large volumes. There didn’t seem to be much in the letters, so I turned to the books. They were ledgers, really, two of which bore some kind of Russian governmental red wax seal on the title page. The other two were water stained, and the cover of one was severely warped. My hands quickly blackened with dust and dirt accumulated over decades as I turned the books’ pages. They appeared to record a partial listing of the Strashun Library’s holdings, which had begun with a bequest from an erudite, idiosyncratic Torah scholar named Mattityahu Strashun. At first glance, these lists were interesting in the variety of books listed but didn’t seem to yield anything new.

 By then, it was almost time for my lunch date with Andrius Romanovskis at the Neringa Hotel, a recently restored midcentury modern building from the Soviet era (and a one-time favorite of the KGB). Andrius runs a lobbying firm, and his glamorous wife, Irina Rybakova, works in the fashion industry. Between the two of them, they seem to know everyone who is anyone in the city. Whenever we sit down for coffee, the acquaintances stop by our table—Lithuania’s former interim president; a TV broadcaster; a hipster couple; a photographer; the curator of MO, Vilnius’s museum of modern art; a government studies student; and a leading professor of modern propaganda. But Andrius, who comes from a Turkish Karaite family (the community has been in Lithuania since the fourteenth century), is deeply interested in Lithuania’s Jews, and after lunch we decided to walk back to the center.

I introduced Andrius to Lara, but, of course, they were already acquainted. We opened one of the large black books with the dramatic wax seals. On the title page was a handwritten Cyrillic inscription, which Andrius quickly translated as “A Ledger to Record All Printed Works, Without Exception, Issued for Reading from the Library of the Reading Room Located in the Building of the Vilna Main Synagogue.” When he did so, we suddenly realized what we actually had before us. These ledgers did not record the books on the shelves. Their thousands of pages were a daily record of every patron at the Strashun Library and the books they had requested for the day. What we had discovered was not a catalog of books; it was a lost catalog of Jewish intellectual culture in action.

In 1895, Russian government censors began monitoring library reading rooms throughout the empire for subversive literature. When the Strashun Library opened to the public in 1902, it was no exception. The wax seals I had seen on the title page of the volumes were from the censor’s office. Librarians were required to maintain a ledger documenting every patron and the books they read in the library’s reading room; it wasn’t a lending library—all books had to be read at one of two long tables, with chairs available on a democratic first-come-first-served basis. Even after the fall of the Russian Empire, the librarians maintained the ledger system.

The library opened its doors on November 14, 1902. According to the ledger, the first book requested was Otzar Lashon Hakodesh by Julius Fürst, a German Jewish Hebraist who had studied with Hegel and Gesenius. A patron named Aaron Spiro requested the book, which was from Strashun’s original collection and probably could not have been found anywhere else in the city, certainly not in any Vilna yeshiva or beit midrash. The fifty-six other books requested that day included kabbalistic works by Chaim Vital, Heinrich Graetz’s History of the Jews, and the Hebrew writer Abraham Mapu’s second novel.

In 1902, only a few women came to the library, but their numbers steadily grew. By January 17, 1934, the third ledger records forty-five women among the 150 patrons. A woman named Shayna checked out Jabotinsky’s historical novel Samson, Zipporah studied Dubnow’s History of the Jews in Yiddish, and Shoshana read Max Nordau’s play about intermarriage. Two women, Gita and Rivkah, took out Yiddish translations of novels by the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun.

In September 1939, following the Nazis’ invasion of Poland from the west and the Soviet Union’s invasion from the east, the Soviets briefly occupied Vilna. However, a few months later, they withdrew, and Vilna became the capital of an independent Lithuania. Tens of thousands of Jews from Poland, Lithuania, and Russia fled there, hoping to eventually escape the continent entirely. Briefly, improbably, Jewish life flourished.

Yitzhak Ze’ev Soloveitchik, known as Reb Velvel or the Brisker Rov, was one of those refugees and one of many new scholars in the library. His father, Chaim, had revolutionized Talmud study with his method of conceptual analysis, brilliantly exemplified in his commentary on Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, and Reb Velvel had followed in his analytical path. On the afternoon of October 1, 1940, Reb Velvel came to the Strashun Library with his teenage son Raphael. Raphael checked out Iggeret Ha-Shemad, Maimonides’s impassioned defense of his fellow Spanish Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam. This is the kind of book one might expect Reb Chaim Brisker’s grandson to borrow at that particularly fraught time—a deeply relevant Maimonidean work that one couldn’t find on the shelves of a beit midrash. His father’s reading for the day was more surprising: I. L. Peretz’s short stories about Hasidim, perhaps the most famous of which was Oyb nisht nokh hekher (If Not Higher), which depicts a skeptical Litvak who comes to appreciate a Hasidic rebbe but also mocks Hasidic miracles. From the yeshivish hagiographies that were later written about Reb Velvel, one would never guess that the Litvak rosh yeshiva would read fiction by a radical secularist about the virtues of Hasidim. But the history of actual human lives is always more interesting than hagiography.

The Brisker Rov sat at the reading room table with his Peretz stories alongside the mixed multitude of Jewish readers that day. Two of them were a couple, Hayim and Hanna, who were reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in Yiddish. Another was Dovid, who was studying the Minhat Hinukh, a commentary on a classic exposition of the commandments. A fourth reader had Graetz’s History. A few months later, Reb Velvel and his son succeeded in escaping Europe for Palestine. He founded the Brisk Yeshivah in Jerusalem and was never seen again in the company of such a diverse group.

The final book ledger concludes on October 31, 1940, with 128 books requested, including Shakespeare’s Complete Dramatic Works in English, several dozen rabbinic books—among them Chaim Soloveitchik’s Chidushei Rav Chaim ha-Levi, a Yiddish translation of Tolstoy’s Resurrection, Yosef Klausner’s Hebrew biography of Jesus, and a handful of Hebrew newspapers.

The last book—the 35,844th, borrowed in 1940—was a Yiddish biography of Joseph Stalin. It was borrowed by Zalman Raynus (Reinus). All of Raynus’s numerous previous requests were for traditional rabbinic works. Did he choose to read about Stalin to understand what was coming? Whatever the reason behind Raynus’s reading of Stalin’s biography, the dictator’s policies led to the shuttering of the Strashun Library. I know of no other historical trace of Zalman Raynus. He does not appear in any state archival or genealogical records, nor is he listed among the murdered Jews.

When the Nazis entered Vilna the following summer of 1941, they murdered most of Vilna’s Jews in the Ponary massacre and pillaged the library. But even as Nazis tore through the library and the community, courageous Jews hid thousands of books in secret spots, basements, and makeshift bunkers throughout the Vilna Ghetto. Among these were the ledgers that, improbably, now sat before us.

A ledger that did not survive the Gestapo’s brutal purge of the library was a VIP guest log called the Golden Book (Sefer ha-zahav). Among those who had signed it over the years were the writers Chaim Nachman Bialik, Chaim Grade, and Abraham Sutzkever (who was among the heroes who saved and recovered some of the Strashun’s holdings); artist Marc Chagall; the “Chofetz Chaim” Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan; Berl Katznelson, the founder of the Labor movement; and many, many others. But these ledgers, records of the reading habits of ordinary Jews across a broad cross section of Ashkenazi society, are even more valuable. They preserve actual data from an otherwise lost history of Jewish culture and raise a host of fascinating questions, which are now being investigated by a working group, the Strashun Library Ledger Project, which includes scholars and librarians from the National Library of Lithuania, Yale University, Haifa University’s e-Lijah Lab for Digital Humanities, and elsewhere. Most of the ledgers are still missing, although a small ledger from 1920 was recently found. It seems unlikely that we’ll discover the rest, but who knows what treasures may be hidden in bankers boxes and yellowing stacks of paper.

In her memoir of her visit to Vilna in 1938, the historian Lucy Dawidowicz described the Strashun Library:

On any day you could see, seated at the two long tables in the reading room, venerable long-bearded men, wearing hats, studying Talmudic texts, elbow to elbow with bareheaded young men and even young women, bare-armed sometimes on warm days, studying their texts.

Each of the thousands of pages of the library’s ledgers is a data-rich snapshot of such a scene—and one in which the actual reading choices of those venerable rabbis, bareheaded young men, and bare-armed young women may well surprise us.

Postscript:

One account of the Brisker Rav’s time in Vilna alludes to his time at the Strashun Library. As yeshiva leaders debated whether to flee to the United States or to Palestine, supporters of the former emphasized how far removed they were from the Hitlerian threat, compared to Palestine, where Rommel was rapidly approaching. The Brisker Rav, however, argued in favor of Palestine as a place better suited for the full practice of Judaism. He based his view on Maimonides’ Ma’amar Kiddush Hashem (included with Iggeret ha-SheMad), the same work Raphael had requested from the library. The report notes that he “relied upon the Rambam that he held in his hands (she’amad ne’ged eynav).” See R Shimon Yosef Miller, Uvdot ve-Hanhagot le-Bet Brisk (Jerusalem, 1999), vol. 1, 27. Although the ledgers only record that he read Peretz, it is reasonable to assume he also consulted Raphael’s selection. (For additional information regarding the exodus to Vilna and the debate about a final destination, see Ben-Tsiyon Klibansky, The Golden Age of the Lithuanian Yeshivas (Bloomington, 2022), 265-289.) 

When refugees from Yeshivas arrived in Vilna in late 1939 and 1940, they were cared for by the Va’ad HaYeshivos. Many of the lists of those students and families are preserved in the same archive as the Strashun Ledgers at the Lithuanian National Library. Below are two documents from that archive. The first is a document that lists some of the most important rabbis, including the Brisker Rav, and their addresses in Vilna. The second document is a page from the list of students from Keltsk.

The Ghetto Library and Daily Life Under the Nazis

In giving the public this opportunity to learn more about the spiritual resistance of the Vilna Ghetto, we seek to immortalize the moral heroism of the victims of the Holocaust. And bring to light the phenomenon of the vitality and endurance of the Jewish people – throughout their long existence, laden with suffering and restrictions, it has forced them not to give up but to seek the means of self-expression and foster their traditions and culture no matter what adversity they faced.
Jevgenija Biber, “To the Reader,” Vilna Ghetto Posters

During the Holocaust, resistance took on many forms. In some instances, it was armed resistance, such as in the Warsaw ghetto and the Vilna ghetto uprisings. Other types were religious or spiritual, such as Jews performing mitzvahs or studying Torah in the most horrific situations and, for example, refusing to eat on Yom Kippur in concentration camps where their food rations were already placing them at risk of starvation. However, there is another type, and that was refusing to allow the Nazis to control everyday life. After the Soviets re-entered Vilna in 1944, among the few survivors, some began collecting whatever documents and other materials that they could regarding Jewish life before the war. Eventually, this would form the core collection of a short-lived Jewish Museum. The museum operated until 1948 when the Soviet-controlled government confiscated all the materials and dumped them into a repurposed church. It would be decades before they were placed in more appropriate locations. A portion of those documents went to the Lithuanian Central State Archives. 

Among those in the Archive are posters and broadsides from the Vilna Ghetto period. These are evidence of continuing daily life even after there had been massive deportations and murders of Jews. Nonetheless, when the opportunity presented itself, whether for intellectual events, concerts, or even sports, the Jews ferociously fought to continue to live their lives. 2005, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius published some of these Vilna Ghetto Posters, compiled by Jevgenija Biber, Rocha Kostanian, and Judita Rozina. (Unfortunately, as far as we know, the book is only available at the Museum’s bookstore in Vilnius.)

For example, one poster announces a basketball tournament that includes men, women, and seniors. Another announces the opening of the Jewish ghetto theater, whereas others announce specific plays and other cultural events, such as a night commemorating Haim Nahum Bialik. The theater hall also housed Yom Kippur services in 1942.

On the intellectual side, there were lectures on Jewish history, one on the zugos, and the pairs of Rabbis in the Mishna. Another was an announcement of sermons delivered on the Yom Tefillah that was declared in February 1942.

One of the most astounding documents was an announcement that on Sunday, December 13, 1942, at noon, a “Celebration of one hundred thousand books loaned by the Ghetto library” since it opened in September 1941. The ghetto library was in the former Mefitsei Haskalah Library. That library was among the three largest in Vilna. The other two, the Strashun Library and the YIVO Library were closed by the Nazis. This was nearly the same circulation numbers, 90,000 yearly, as before the Nazi invasion and ghettoization of the Vilna’s Jews. Most recently, in the portion of the pre-war documents now at the Judaica Centre at the Lithuanian National Library, a reader’s library card was discovered that slightly pre-dates the formation of the ghetto library. This card, from February 21, 1941, provides the library’s rules, including an admonishment not to leave the books in rain or snow, how to calculate due dates, and fines for overdue books.  

In addition to the poster is a highly detailed description of the library and its operations that survived the Holocaust. In October 1942, Kruk published “The Library and Reading Room in the Vilna Ghetto, Strashun Street.” The document was originally in Yiddish (and the original is at the YIVO Institute in New York, available here), but Zachary Baker translated it into English and added notes. (See Herman Kruk, “Library and Reading Room in the Vilna Ghetto, Strashun Street 6,” translated by Zachary Baker, in The Holocaust and the Book, Destruction and Preservation, ed. Jonathan Rose, University of Massachusetts Press, 2001, 171-200). 

Kruk provides a prehistory and then specifically recounts the library’s activities since it reopened in September 1941. Among other details, before the war, there were 2,000 subscribers, and in 1940-41, with the influx of Jews from all over Eastern Europe, that number doubled. By September 1941, there were 4,700 subscribers. Men and women were represented almost equally, although women had a slight advantage. The fact that the library reached 100,000 books by December is especially remarkable, in that it was closed for several months as it was too cold to operate. 

Kruk notes significant changes in subject matter and books during this period. For example, there was a 600% increase in readership for War and Peace, and books on war, such as All is Quiet on the Western Front and Emile Zola’s War, were also in high demand. The library’s readers of history were focused on books regarding the Crusades and other martyrdom literature. However, there have been significant changes to the library since before the war. Most notably, 15-30-year-olds made up the bulk of readers during the pre-war period, while in 1942, that number had dropped precipitously. Kruk explains that age groups bearing the brunt of forced labor were too tired to contemplate reading at the end of an exhausting day. 

Kruk summarizes the popularity of libraries and readings, even in the face of death: “A human being can endure hunger, poverty, pain, and suffering, but he cannot tolerate isolation. Then, more than in normal times, the attraction of books and reading is almost indescribable.” 

Some Highlights of the Upcoming Taj Art Auction*

With the proliferation of auction houses and the centralized platform of Bidspirit, there are auctions of Judaica and Hebraica on a weekly, if not more frequent, basis. One of the more recent entrants into this arena is Taj Art, founded in 2021 by Tomer Rosenfeld and Aron Orzel. This Sunday, December 24th, at 7 pm Israel time, Taj Art will be hosting their 11^th auction, which includes some items of particular bibliographical and historical note.

The full catalog is available here, and a pdf of the highlights brochure is here.

The first (lot 9) is a work that appears in a story that is a touchstone for the modern feminist agenda.

According to R. Barkuh HaLevi Epstein, he maintained a regular dialogue with Netziv’s first wife, Rayna Batya. Among the topics of conversation was the issue of women studying Jewish literature. Rayna was well-versed and regularly studied an impressive array of Jewish books.

Epstein, in his Mekor Barukh, attempts to place Rayna as less of an anomaly but more as one within a chain, albeit small of women throughout Jewish history that similarly shared Rayna’s interest and erudition of Jewish texts. While there is little doubt that there are examples of such women, many of Epstein’s examples are corrupt at best and deliberate misreading of the sources at worst. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that Rayna was an erudite woman. According to Epstein, Rayna eventually won him over to her position when she identified a responsa that provided that women could study traditional texts. The source was Ma’ayan Ganim. Epstein repeats the position of Ma’ayan Ganim in his commentary on the Torah, Torah Temimah (although without reference to Rayna or a particular episode).

First, we should note that Marc Shapiro has questioned the veracity of the entire story in his article on this site, which is subject to a rebuttal by Y. Lander. Eliyana Adler’s article, “Reading Rayna Batya: The Rebellious Rebbitzen as Self-Reflection,” (available here), collects additional discussions regarding the event and provides her approach to the story. While one can debate the merit and implications for Jewish feminism, it is worth briefly discussing the obscure work Ma’ayan Ganim.

The Ma’ayan Ganim, authored by the Italian rabbi Shmuel Archovalti, was published in 1553 in a small format and consisted of 50 letters intended to guide effective communication. Unlike many other legal systems, Jewish law largely relies on responsa, letters from rabbis in response to queries (although, in some instances, contrived rather than actual). Despite the format, not all letters are legal, and certainly, a text with sample letters intending to serve as a writing tool does not qualify as legally binding. Irrespective of the purpose, the letters demonstrate an interest in the issue that held the interest of many rabbis and others. Similarly, whether or not Epstein created the entire episode or embellished parts of it does not detract from his position that encouraged women’s study of Jewish texts.

While Rayna Batya has enjoyed questionable notoriety, it is disappointing that a woman whose advocacy for women’s study and Jewish women’s rights was well documented and received the respect of leading Jewish rabbis and scholars is today nearly forgotten. Ironically, as Dr. Leiman highlights, the New Jewish Encyclopedia notes that prior Encyclopedias Jewish women were marginalized, it too fails to record Esther. The one exception to this forgetfulness is the Encyclopedia for the Zionist Leaders, which records Esther and some of her accomplishments. Today, however, there is a very robust discussion of many of Esther’s unique contributions and essential ideas that appeared here: https://mizrachi.org/hamizrachi/the-time-of-our-freedom/

It includes translating one of Esther’s articles that appeared in the Jewish press.

Two books are written by R. Yitzhak Chaim Kohen MeChazanim (Cantarini), Et Kets and Pachad Yitzhak (Lot 22). The former was published in 1710 and the latter in 1685. Despite the gap in time, both contain a fully illustrated page that precedes the title page and depicts the Akadeh. Et Kets discusses the messianic era, while Pachad Yitzhak is devoted to discussing the Jews of Padua, avoiding being massacred by an angry mob. Despite the same iconography, the two illustrations were likely done by two different artists and contain subtle but important differences.

The overall depictions are of two different time periods of the Akedah episode. In the first, the illustrations depict Abraham just as he was about to slaughter Isaac and the angel calling to stop him. But, in the second, the illustration is of Abraham going after the ram, not Isaac. The significance of this is tied to the actual books. In Pachad Yitzhak, the book discusses a terrific threat to the Jews and their salvation. Thus, the illustration is similar – the terrific threat to Isaac and salvation. The second work, Et Kets, is a much more positive book. This work has no fear of the prior; instead, it is fully devoted to the Messiah, and thus, the illustration is only of the ram and its sacrifice. Lot 22 is Pachad Yitzhak, the rarer of the two.

Further, different Hebrew words appear in both illustrations. On the first, the word ערכה (prepared or set up) appears across Abraham’s chest. This word expresses Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice Isaac. It would seem, similarly, that the Jews of Padua were willing to sacrifice themselves for God. But the word ערכה only means to prepare and not actually to sacrifice. Thus, Isaac was only prepared but not sacrificed, and so too, the Jews of Padua were placed in danger but ultimately redeemed.

In Et Kets, the words ירא יראה appear. These words reference what Abraham called the place where the Akedah took place. Importantly, Abraham uttered these words after the entire episode. These were words of jubilation on his passing his test and Isaac’s redemption. Again, these words fit well with the content of Et Kets.

These allusions are unsurprising, considering the style of R. Dr. Cantarini. His books are written rather cryptically, with many allusions to Biblical and other themes throughout. (See our fuller discussion here.)

Many Hebrew books include a depiction of the Temple Mount, represented by the Dome of the Rock. However, Lot 43, Zikrohn Yerushalim, published in 1742, consists of a depiction of the Dome of the Rock (surrounded by a Medieval wall and town) but broke new ground in depicting the Kotel to represent the Jewish Temple. This is the first time the Kotel ever appeared in a Jewish book. Yet, only in the 19^th century did the Jewish books fully transition to the Kotel rather than the Dome of the Rock.

There are two notable works by R. Emden, his Siddur, (lot 52), and R. Azreil Hildeshiemer’s copy of Meor u-Ketziah (lot 175). This edition of the Siddur is especially important as most of the reprints (until recently) only included the commentary, and the actual text of the Siddur did not reflect many of R. Emden’s approaches and, frequently, a direct conflict between the commentary and the text.

There are some very rare antiquarian books, an incunabulum from Radak, (lot 149), published in 1486 by Soncino. Lot 148 is a leaf from a manuscript of Rambam’s commentary of the Mishna dated to 1222 and transcribed in Yemen. One of the rarest Bomberg volumes of the Talmud is Mesechet Avodah Zarah, lot 32. Of course, because this tractate discusses non-Jews and their relationship to Jews, it was particularly fraught. Indeed, after the resumption of the printing of the Talmud in Basel after the ban in the early 16^th century, it omitted this tractate entirely. (There are also two other Bomberg volumes, lots 33–34).

Eliyahu HaBakhur (Elia Levita) wrote one of the earliest grammar and dictionaries of Hebrew and Aramaic in the modern period. Lot 86, is the first edition of his Sefer HaBakhur, Isny, 1541.  A more recent reprint was subject to censorship due to including a particular commentary.  See our discussion, “A New Book Censored.”

There are also a few books that contain noteworthy illustrations. Lot 87 is Tzurat ha-Arets, Basel, 1546, which includes astronomical images. Lot 89, is an edition of the fundamental kabbalistic work, Razeil ha-Malakh, that depicts the star of David and kabbalistic amulets.

The issue of rabbinic pay appears to have affected even the greatest of rabbis. Lot 205 is a letter from R. Chaim Ozer to the Vilna community pleading for a raise because he is so destitute that “he will not have money for rent or food.”

In all, there are a number of highly collectible items, and the catalog is certainly worth a closer look.

*This is part our series on upcoming auctions, “Auction Highlights.” These provide the opportunity to revisit previous posts and provide short notes about books and other related items.

Legacy Auctions: Romm Press, Haggadah Art, Controversial Books, and other Bibliographical Historica

Legacy Judaica’s fall auction is next week, September 13, and we wanted to highlight some bibliographical historica.  Lot 95 is Elbona shel Torah, (Berlin, 1929), by R. Shmuel Shraga Feigneshon, known as Safan ha-Sofer.  He helmed the operations of the Romm Press in Vilna.  During his 55-year tenure, he oversaw the publication of the monumental Vilna Shas, among numerous other canonical works that became the model for all subsequent editions. He wrote a history of the press which first appeared in part in the journal HaSofer (vol. 1 27-33 and vol. 2-3 46-57, 1954-55). It was then published in its entirety in Yahadut Lita vol. 1. 1959.  This biography was plagiarized in nearly every respect by the Yated Ne’eman.  It was a near-perfect reproduction (albeit in English rather than the original Hebrew), except that certain names and select passages were omitted presumably because they reference Jewish academics or other materials deemed objectional to Haredi audiences.

In Elbona shel Torah, (51-52), Shafan Ha-Sofer discusses the censorship of Jewish texts from non-Jewish authorities.  There were not only omissions but also additions to the text.  He identifies one of the angels mentioned in the supplications between the Shofar sets with Jesus.  He claims that “Yeshu Sa’ar ha-Pinim” is in fact Jesus of Nazareth.  Nonetheless, he notes that this passage was included in most mahzorim.  Indeed, in the first Romm edition of the Mahzor this angel appears.  He explains that after it was published a rabbi from Yemen, who was unfamiliar with the historic inclusion of the passage, was shocked when he came this passage.  He immediately set about issuing a ban on all the Romm books, classifying them within the category of a sefer torah of a heretic which is consigned to the fire.  But the ban was annulled after a Jerusalem rabbi intervened and explained to his clergy brother that in fact the Romm edition merely followed an accepted text. According to Shafan ha-Sofer, after this brush with what is described as potential financial ruin, later editions of the Vilna Mahzor omit Yeshu.

Two books feature on their title pages an immodest Venus rising.  The title page of R. Moshe Isserles, Torat ha-Hatat, Hanau, 1628, lot 33, depicts in the bottom center of page Venus with a loincloth.  Additionally, on the two sides of the pages two similarly exposed women appear in medieval costume. This particular title page was reused on at least three other books.  A similarly undressed woman appears on the title page of R. Isaac of Corbeil’s Amudei Golah, Cremona 1556, lot 1.

Naftali Hertz Wessley’s, Divrei Shalom ve-Emet, Berlin, 1782, lot 99, (volume 2), is the controversial work wherein he provides his educational program.  Although some of his other works secured the approbations of leading Orthodox rabbi, some of the more traditional rabbis were opposed to Wessley’s reforms advocated in Divrei. See our discussion here, and Moshe Samet, Hadash Assur min ha-Torah (Jerusalem, Carmel, 2005), 78-83; Edward Breuer, “Naphtali Herz Wessely and the Cultural Dislocations of an Eighteenth-Century Maskil,” in New Perspectives on the Haskalah, Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin eds., (London, Littman Library, 2001), 27-47.. Wessley advocated for the inclusion of some secular studies, separate grades for children of different ages and abilities, and satisfying testing requirements. These and many others of his suggested reforms are now commonplace in Orthodox schools. He was interested in improving all aspects of Jewish education and chided his more acculturated Jews who only adopted his policies as they related to secular subjects but did not otherwise incorporate contemporary intellectual rigor to their Jewish studies. Copies of the originals of the work are rare.

Another book that aroused a controversy is R. Zechariah Yosef Rosenfeld of St. Louis’ work, Yosef Tikva, St. Louis, 1903.  Rosenfeld defends the use of machine manufactured matzot for Passover.  There is a significant literature regarding the use of these matzot, see Hayim Gartner, “Machine Matzah, the Halakhic Controversy as a Test Case for Defining Orthodoxy,” in Orthodox Judaism: New Perspectives, (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2006), 395-425 (Hebrew) and Jonathan Sarna, How Matzah Became Square: Manischewitz and the Development of Machine-Made Matzah in the United States, (New York, Touro College, 2005) .

Another Passover item Yaakov Agam’s limited edition of the Haggadah, Paris, 1985, lot 138.  Agam adds a rich color palette to the otherwise spare style of the German illustrator, Otto Geismar. His 1928 haggadah uses minimalism to great effect and has a whimsical flair, yet at times the thick black ink figures are dark and foreboding.  Agam’s offers of a kaleidoscopic version of the haggada that is purely uplifting.

Otto Geismar, Berlin 1928

Yaakov Agam, Paris 1985

Aside from the books, one letter of note, Lot 182.  In 1933 letter from R. Hayim Ozer Grodzensky writes that he had proclaimed a fast in Vilna in response to the rise of Hitler and that “the new persecutions will cause the old to be forgotten.” Despite the fact that R. Ozer recognized almost immediately the threat of Hitler, during WWII he was not as prescient.  As late as March 1940, he was encouraging Jews to remain in Vilna. See Eliezer Rabinowitz, R. Hayim Ozer’s Prophesy for Vilna has Been Fulfilled,” Morgen Journal, May 8, 1940.

Two final items, both relate to the Volozhin yeshiva.  The first is a copy of Meil Tzedakah, Prague 1756, lot 158that belonged to R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the Bet ha-Levi, and rosh ha-yeshiva of Volozhin.  The book also belonged to the Vilna rabbi, R. Abraham Pasveller, and R. Chaim Soloveitchik.  The second, lot 166, is a letter by the R. Naftali Berlin, Netziv, the Bet Ha-Levi’s co-Rosh ha-Yeshiva and eventual disputant.  He writes to the journal HaTzfirah (see these posts (here, here and here) regarding the Netziv and reading the contemporary press), regarding 1886 fire in Volozhin Yeshiva and the rebuilding efforts. Among other things, he sought to publicizes the names of donor and provided a list from memory.  Among the donors was Yisrael Brodsky. Although Brodsky was a major donor to the Volozhin Yeshiva and a highly acculturated Orthodox Jews, some have attempted to portray him otherwise.  See our post “For the Sake of Radin!  The Sugar Magnate’s Missing Yarmulke and a Zionist Revision.”

For the Sake of Radin!  The Sugar Magnate’s Missing Yarmulke and a Zionist Revision

Israel Brodsky (1823-1888), built an empire on the sugar trade. After inheriting a substantial fortune, in 1843, he became a partner in a sugar refinery.[1] Eventually, he vertically integrated his business, and he controlled sugar beet lands, processing plants, refineries, marketing agencies, and warehouses throughout the Russian Empire. At its height, Brodsky controlled a quarter of all sugar production in the Empire and employed 10,000 people.[2] Brodsky sugar “was a household name from Tiflis to Bukhara to Vladivostok.”[3] Brodsky was a significant philanthropist, donating to Jewish and non-Jewish causes. In Kyiv, he and his sons virtually single-handedly founded the Jewish hospital, Jewish trade school, a free Jewish school, mikveh, and communal kitchen besides substantial individual donations, amounting to 1,000 rubles monthly, and donated to St. Vladimir University. Many of these institutions would bear the Brodsky name. Leading Shalom Aleichem to remark that the “the bible starts with the letter beyes and [Kyiv], you should excuse the comparison, also starts with beyes – for the Brodskys.” [4]

In addition to supporting local causes, he also helped other institutions outside of Kyiv. One was providing an endowment for a kolel at the Volozhin Yeshiva. The institution of the kolel, a communally subsidized institution that supported men after marriage, was originated by R. Yitzhak Yaakov Reines (1839-1915). Reines was a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva and would go on to establish the Mizrachi movement and the Lida Yeshiva, both of which were attacked by some in the Orthodox establishment.[5] Invoking the Talmudic passage Rehaim al Tsaverum ve-Yasku be-Torah?!, in 1875, he proposed an institution where “men of intellect . . . will gather to engage in God’s Torah until they are worthy and trained to be adorned with the crown of the rabbinate, that will match the glory of their community, to guide the holy flock in the ways of Torah and the fear of Heaven.” Without the communal funds, these “men of intellect” would “be torn away from the breasts of Torah because of the poverty and lack that oppresses them and their families.”[6] Reines intended that the kolel be associated with Volozhin. And, in 1878, an attempt to create such an institution began taking shape, with the idea to approach the Brodskys for funding. For reasons unknown, this never happened. Instead, through the generosity of Ovadiah Lachman of Berlin, the first kolel was established in 1880. The kolel opened not in Volozhin but Kovno. It would be another six years before Volozhin established its kolel.[7]

In 1886, Brodsky donated a substantial sum to create a kolel in Volozhin. He created an endowment fund that yielded 2,000 rubles annually. But unlike the Kovno kolel that produced some of the greatest rabbis and leaders of the next generation, according to one assessment the Volozhin kolel “had little influence on the yeshiva’s history” nor the general public.[8]

Comparing Brodsky’s donation to the kolel to that of his other contributions demonstrates that this donation was similar to his most significant gifts. His donation was in the form of stock, and while we don’t have an exact estimate of the value of those shares, we can extrapolate the total amount of Brodsky’s donations. Brodsky donated 60 shares of the Kyiv Land Bank, which was intended to produce 2,000 rubles per annum.[9] But the amount of the principle, the 60 stocks, is not provided in the source materials. In 1890, a  similar endowment by the Brodskys produced 3,000 rubles annually from a principle of 50,000 rubles, a 6 percent rate of return. Assuming a similar rate of return, his initial donation to the Volozhin kolel nearly 35,000 rubles. That is the similar amount that he donated to the Kyiv free Jewish school, the St. Vladimir’s University, and Kyiv’s mikve and communal kitchen that all received 40,000-ruble bequests.[10] Consequently, Brodsky’s gift of 60 shares of stock to the Volozhin kolel is comparable to Brodsky’s other institutional donations.

The Brodskys aligned with the Russian Haskalah movement that today we would likely characterize as Modern Orthodox, although admittedly, the definitions of sects are amorphous. The Russian haskalah was notable for embracing modernity while maintaining punctilious observance of halakha. One example that involved both the intersection of society at large and religious practice was that when the Governor-General invited two of Israel’s sons to a prestigious gala at his home, the Governor-General also provided the sons with kosher food.[11] Another example of the Brodskys’ Jewish outlook was their involvement in Kyiv’s Choral Synagogue. Choral synagogues were already established in other cities throughout the Russian Empire, including Warsaw, Vilna, and St. Petersburg. The synagogue, known as the Brodsky Synagogue, was built in 1898 by Israel’s son, Lazer. Modern practices were introduced to the Kyiv Choral Synagogue, but even those are within the bounds of accepted Jewish law.[12] Indeed, those new practices are today unremarkable, hiring a hazan, incorporating a choir into the service, delivering the sermon in Russian, and enforcing decorum during the prayers.[13]

The Haredi histories of Volozhin discuss Brodsky’s contributions to the kolel. But one publication decided that his reputation needed some creative airbrushing to (presumably) make his involvement more palatable to the modern Haredi audience. Despite the fact that other Haredi publications provide an unvarnished version.

One person who met Brodsky described him as resembling that of a biblical patriarch in appearance, yet at the same time non-Jewish.[14] Indeed a photo from 1880, this biblical patriarch appears bareheaded. This lack of head-covering was not an issue for some Haredi authors. For example, Dov Eliach includes this photograph in his history of the Volozhin Yeshiva.[15] In 2001, not ten years after Eliach’s book another Haredi author decided that the photo required adjustment despite sharing the same publisher as Eliach.

Menahem Mendel Flato’s book, Besheveli Radin (Radin’s Paths), devotes an entire chapter to Brodsky’s kolel, with his photograph accompanying the text. Yet, in this instance, rather than a bareheaded Brodsky, a crudely drawn yarmulke now appears on his head.[16] This is not the first time that images were doctored to depict a yarmulke where there is none.[17] Those types of alterations occur decades after the original, by different publishing houses, in different cities, and for a different audience.[18] Here, however, Avi ha-Yeshivot and Besheveli Radin share the same audience and are only separated by ten years. [19]

The alternation of Brodsky’s photo is not the only example of such censorship in Besheveli Radin. R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein studied in Volozhin and eventually went on to lead the Yeshivas Kenneset Yisrael in Slabodka. While he was in Volozhin, he was among those who established a proto-Zionist organization, Nes Tsiona. A photograph of the executive members appears in at least three places, yet only in Besheveli Radin is the connection to Nes Tsiona omitted.

In 1960 and 1970, two books published the photo from a copy in Russian Zionist Archives.[20] The 1960s’ version includes a legend that correctly identifies the photo as “the executive committee of the ‘Nes Tsiona’ in Volozhin in 1890.[21] The legend in the 1970 book contains the same language as before, indicating that it is a photograph of the Nes Tsiona executive committee and also identifies each of the men in the picture.[22] Yet, when the same photo appears in Beshvili Radin it is accompanied by an entirely different legend.[23] Instead, Beshvili Radin describes the photograph as depicting “a group of students from Volozhin from those days, R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein who eventually became the rosh yeshiva of Slaboka is sitting second from the right.” The purpose of the group photograph remains a mystery to Beshvili Radin‘s readers.

The history of Volozhin is complex and especially among Haredi writers raised issues that are uncomfortable truths.  Some of these authors responded by obscuring or entirely omitting these including the inclusion of secular studies in the curriculum, establishment and membership in non-traditional religious organizations, and the religiosity of some of its students.[24] Beshvilie Radin is but one example.  In his introduction, Flato discusses the purpose of Beshvilie Radin describing it as “providing the reader an entirely new perspective of that era.” We can now say that the “new perspective” is one that at times deviates from the historical record.

[1] Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Israel Markovich Brodsky,” (accessed November 20, 2019), https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бродский,_Израиль_Маркович (Russian).

[2] Id.; Nathan M. Meyer, Kiev: Jewish Metropolis a History, 1859-1914 (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2010), 39.

[3] Meyer, Kiev, 39.

[4] Meyer, Kiev, 39, 40, 71.

[5] For a biography of Reines see Geulah Bat Yehuda, Ish ha-Meorot: Rebi Yizhak Yaakov Reines (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1985)

[6] Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century: Creating a Tradition of Learning, trans. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz (Oxford, 2015) (original work published 1995 (Hebrew)), 338 (quoting Yitzhak Yaakov Reines, Hotam Tokhnit, vol. 1 (1880), 17n4). For sources regarding the Lida Yeshiva see Eliezer Brodt, “Introduction,” in Mevhar Ketavim m’et R. Moshe Reines ben HaGoan Rebi Yitzhak Yaakov (2018), 12n42. See id. 354-61 for correspondence between the Netziv to R. Yitzhak Yaakov Reines regarding the establishment of a kolel.

[7] Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas, 337-40. One possibility regarding the failure to start the kolel at that time in Volozhin might be attributable to Reines’ recognition that governmental approval was necessary to establish the kolel.  Volozhin had a difficult relationship with the Tsarist authorities.  See id. at 191-98. Adding a new institution might have been seen as a risk to the operation of the Volozhin yeshiva itself.

[8] Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas, 358-59.  Among the conditions of the donation was that during the first year after his death ten men were selected and were required to visit the grave R. Hayim Volozhin’s and leading the prayers, and the recitation of the mourner’s kaddish, in addition to daily study of the mishnayot with the commentary of the Vilna Gaon, and leading the services.  The same was done on the yahrzeit of Brodsky’s wife, “ha-Tzkaniyot ha-Meforsemet, Haya.”  Dov Eliach, Avi ha-Yeshivot: MaRan Rabbenu Hayim Volozhin (Jerusalem, Machon Moreshet Ashkenaz, 2011) (second revised edition), 600-01.  (Thanks to Eliezer Brodt for calling this source to my attention).  The manuscript recording the conditions of Brodsky’s gift is currently in the possession of R. Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik and portions are reproduced by Eliach.  See id. 601,634-35.

[9] The Land Bank was created in 1877. Michael H. Hamm, Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 10-11. The influence of the Brodskys was such that six members of the family were on the board of an earlier established bank, the Kiev Industrial Bank, (1871). This led some to remark that the bank should be referred to as the “Brodsky Family Bank.” Meyer, Kiev, 40. It is unclear if Israel also sat on the Land Bank board or was just an investor.

[10] Meyer, Kiev, 71.

[11] Meyer, Kiev, 40.

[12] Meyer, Kiev, 171-72. For a discussion of Vilna’s Choral Synagogue and its influence on Vilna’s maskilim see Mordechai Zalkin, “The Synagogue as Social Arena:  The Maskilic Synagogue Taharat ha-Kodesh in Vilna,” (Hebrew), in Yashan me-Peni Hadash: Shai le-Emmanuel Etkes, vol. 2, 385-403; see also D. Rabinowitz, “Kol Nidrei, Choirs, and Beethoven:  The Eternity of the Jewish Musical Tradition,” Seforimblog, Sept. 18, 2018.

[13] While today, these practices are unremarkable; at that time, there were some who opposed these changes. See generally Moshe Samet, Ha-Hadah Asur min ha-Torah: Perakim be-Toldot ha-Orthodoxiah (Jerusalem: Karmel, 2005). For an earlier discussion of the propriety of choirs and incorporating music in Jewish religious practices see R. Leon Modena, She’lot ve-Teshuvot Ziknei Yehuda, Shlomo Simonson ed. (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1957, 15-20.

[14] Sergey Yulievich Vitte, Childhood During the Reigns of Alexander II and Alexander III (Russian) at 160.

[15] Dov Eliach, Avi ha-Yeshivot: MaRan Rabbenu Hayim mi-Volozhin (Jerusalem: Machon Moreshet HaYeshivot, 1991), 269. This photograph remains in Eliach’s second and updated version of Avi ha-Yeshivot printed in 2011.  See Eliach, Avi ha-Yeshivot: MaRan Rabbenu Hayim me-Volozhin (Jerusalem: Machon HaYeshivot, 2011), 292.  Although there are two changes in this version.  First, the “well-known philanthropist” becomes a “Rebi” and conveniently the top of the Rebi’s head is cut off so that one can’t tell if the Rebi is wearing a yarmulke.

[16] Menahem Mendel Flato, Besheveli Radin… ([Petach Tikvah]:  Machon beSheveli haYeshivos, 2001), 31; Marc Shapiro, Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (Oxford: Littman Library, 2015), 136. Flato combines both of Eliach’s honorifics into “the philanthropist Rebi Yisrael Brodsky.”

[17] See Dan Rabinowitz, “Yarlmuke: A Historic Coverup?,” Hakirah vol. 4 (2007), 229-38.

[18] For examples see Shapiro, Changing the Immutable.

[19] Another Haredi history of Volozhin published the same year as Beshvili Radin also includes the unaltered photograph.  Tanhum Frank, Toledot Beit HaShem be-Volozhin (Jerusalem, 2001), 254.

[20] Yahadut Lita vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: 1960), 507; Eliezer Leone, Volozhin: Sefrah shel ha-Ir ve-shel Yeshivat Ets Hayim (Tel Aviv: Naot, 1970), 121. Despite the attribution to the Russian Jewish Archive there is no other information regarding this archive.

[21] Yahadut Lita, 507. Regarding Nes Tsiona see Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas, 170-72

[22] Leone, Volozhin, 121.

[23] Another Haredi history of Volozhin also uses the same photograph but crops out all but just Epstein. See Frank, Toledot, 256. But in that instance the photo is used as part of a collage of rabbinic figures and explains why the other people are missing.

[24] Stampfer, Lithuanain Yeshivas, 43, 206-07, (secular studies), 167-178 (societies), Abba Bolsher, “Yeshivas Volozhin be-Tukufat Bialik,” in Yeshivas Lita: Perkei Zikronot, eds. Emmanuel Etkes and Shlomo Tikochinski (Jerusalem:  Zalman Shazer Center, 2004, Menahem Mendel Zlotkin, “Yeshivas Volozhin be-Tekufat Bialik,” in Etkes, Perkei, 182-92 (histories of Volozhin’s perhaps most well-known black sheep during his time there).