JACK LUNZER, CustodianTHE VALMADONNA TRUST LIBRARYOpening remarks by Arthur Kiron, University of Pennsylvania. The Valmadonna Trust Library, located in London, is the world’s foremost private collection of rare Hebraica and the most comprehensive collection of early books printed in Italy. THURSDAY, APRIL 27 at 7:00 pm Center for Jewish History – 15 West 16 Street – New York CityFor more information see here
In 1988, Rabbi Nosson Dovid Rabinowich published a book titled Talmudic Terminology. However, as was noted in brief by Dr. Marc Shapiro, this was plagiarized from Moses Mielziner’s Introduction to the Talmud, first published in 1894. This omission, however, has been corrected in Rabinowich’s reprints of his Talmudic Terminology where the title now reads that Rabinowich’s work is “adapted” from Mielziner’s. While this would appear to be the end of the matter it is not. Dr. Shapiro has investigated this…
A reader has sent me the following letter from R. Kamenstky discussing the possiblity of a ban on the improved edition of MOAG. The letter says “if people will come to complain to R. Eliasiv about the new edition and say such and such is written there, he will not listen to them until he first calls me, and I will need to present when they translate my book for him.” Additionally, I have received the following relevant information. “The…
As some of you have brought up in the comments regarding other works that had been plagiarized I thought it would be appropriate to discuss some of the more famous and those less so of instances of plagiarism. The first example, is perhaps the most well-known one, that of the work Mekore Minhagim. This work which in question and answer form, discusses the sources and reasons for various customs was first printed in 1846 in Berlin by R. Avrohom Lewysohn…
An astute reader emailed me that it appears the new and improved edition of Making of a Godol has been banned. Although this edition attempted to “fix” some of the “problems” of the first, it appears that it has not satisfied it detractors. See here. I hope to get a copy of the letter referenced in the article, when I do I will post it.
While I don’t have the time to go through the entire Dei’ah veDibur article and demonstrate the extant of the copying, I will provide some of the more egreious examples. Here is a quote from the Dei’ah veDibur article (in italics) with the orginal Hebrew intersperced and my commnets in bold. One should remember that the original article was written in first person. The first manuscript that the Romm family obtained was Rabbenu Chananel’s commentary which now appears alongside the…
