Chanukah Controversies, Customs and Scholarship: A Roundup & Update

Chanukah Controversies, Customs and Scholarship: A Roundup & Update

We are working on creating a better system to navigate past posts [please contact us at Seforimblog-at-gmail if you are interested in volunteering]. In the interim, here is a collection of Chanukah-related posts along with some new material:

(As an aside, the Seforimblog’s internal style guide uses the Ashkenazic transliteration of the holiday name. Nonetheless, each author has the freedom to use whichever they prefer.)

Controversies and Contested History

Nearly every aspect of Chanukah has sparked debate. The holiday’s most famous miracle, the oil burning for eight days, became the center of a 19th-century controversy involving the polyglot Chaim Zelig Slonimsky. Both Zerachya Licht (“חז״ל ופולמס חנוכה“) and Marc Shapiro (“The Hanukkah Miracle“) examine this dispute and whether the eight-day miracle was authentic or constructed. Licht explores Slonimsky’s fascinating life in greater detail in his two-part series on “Chaim Zelig Slonimsky and the Diskin Family” (part 1 and part 2). Slonimsky’s other Chanukah legacy, coining the Hebrew term sivivovon for dreidel, is discussed in this post (it pre-dated Ben Yehuda). Other linguistic terms are discussed with characteristic thoroughness by Mitchell First, tracing both “The Identity and Meaning of the Chashmonai” and “The Meaning of the Name Maccabee.” For an earlier treatment of the latter term, see Dan Rabinowitz’s post here. Meanwhile, the divergence between Ashkenazic and Sephardic practices extends even to the menorah lighting ritual itself. Zachary Rothblatt traces “The History behind the Askenazi/Sephardi Divide Concerning Lighting Chanukah Candles.” Reuven Kimmelman’s “The Books of Maccabees and the Al HaNissim Prayer for Hanukah” reveals how the liturgy itself represents a melding of different historical traditions. While Marc covers another liturgical item, a potential Maccabean Psalm (here), which opens another window into the holiday’s ancient textual layers.

Games, Mathematics, and Mythmaking

The dreidel’s supposedly ancient Jewish pedigree is thoroughly debunked in “April Fools! Tracing the History of Dreidel Among Neo-Traditionalists and Neo-Hebraists.” Despite persistent legends that brave Jews used dreidels to disguise Torah study during Greek persecution, the game has no such heroic origins. That hasn’t stopped it from generating interesting mathematical questions: which player has the best advantage? How long does a typical game last? Thomas Robinson and Sujith Vijay tackle the latter in “Dreidel Lasts O(n²) Spins.”

Dreidel wasn’t the only Chanukah game. Card-playing customs are explored in “The Custom of Playing Cards on Chanukah,” which highlights an often-overlooked source for Jewish practice: Pauline Wengeroff’s Rememberings: The World of a Russian-Jewish Women in the Nineteenth Century.

Customs, Food, and Forgotten Practices

Many Chanukah customs center on food and celebration. Eliezer Brodt surveys these in “The Customs Associated with Joy and their More Obscure Sources,” and discusses the distribution of real and chocolate coins at the end of this post. But not all customs have survived or been remembered. Eliezer’s very first post for Seforimblog back in 2006, “A Forgotten Work on Chanukah, חנוכת הבית,” examined an obscure Chanukah text, Chanukas ha-Bayis, cited by Magen Avraham. (That initial post launched a prolific collaboration—Eliezer has since contributed dozens of articles, completed his Ph.D. dissertation on the Magen Avraham, and published many books.) His “The Chanukah Omission” identifies a missing tractate, with an update available in his recent talk here, along with a discussion of another lesser-known tractate that touches on Chanukah and involves censorship.

The Menorah in Text and Image

The menorah has been reproduced in countless forms, from the famous depiction on the Arch of Titus to manuscripts, printed books, and ephemera. Steven Fine’s The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Harvard, 2016) offers the most comprehensive treatment of how this symbol shaped Jewish identity, and Fine continues to publish on the topic, recent articles are available on his Academia page. The exhibition catalog In the Light of the Menorah: Story of a Symbol (Israel Museum, 1998) contains excellent essays in both Hebrew and English, though oddly, the English version omits nearly all the notes. Another strange omission mars L. Yardeni’s earlier The Tree of Light: A Study of the Menorah (1971): Daniel Sperber notes in his Minhagei Yisrael (vol. 5, 171*) that Yardeni drew extensively on his Journal of Jewish Studies article but credited him only sporadically.

None of these works, however, addresses the menorah in early Hebrew printed books. For that, see our article “The Image of the Menorah in the Early Printed Hebrew,” along with the comments adding further examples.

New and Notable

Daniel Sperber has just published Mei Chanukah, a new work on the berita associated with Chanukah. Due to timing, it will likely only be available in Israel this year. If anyone knows of US distributors, please note them in the comments.

Not all recent scholarship meets the same standard. Akiva Shamesh’s review highlights serious deficiencies in Mitzva Ner Ish u-Beyoto. In another review, “Yemi Shemonah,” Shamesh addresses the “famous” Bet Yosef question: why eight nights of Chanukah rather than seven?

Sefer Minhagim, 1724, Gross Family Collection

Chanukah Samach!

Pesach, Haggadah, Art & Sundry Matters: A Recap of Important Seforimblog Articles

Pesach, Haggadah, Art & Sundry Matters: A Recap of Important Seforimblog Articles

Among the more interesting aspects of the history of Haggados, is the inclusion of illustrations. This practice dates back to the Medieval period and, with the introduction of printing, was incorporated into that medium. Marc Michael Epstein’s excellent book regarding four seminal Haggadah manuscripts, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination, was reviewed here, and a number of those illustrations, were analyzed in “Everything is Illuminated: Mining the Art of IllustratedHaggadah Manuscripts for Meaning.” Epstein edited and wrote an introduction to the recently published facsimile edition of the Brother Haggadah, which resides in the British Library. This is the first reproduction in full color of this important manuscript. Another recent reproduction of a manuscript Haggadah is Joel ben Simon’s Washington Haggadah. This Haggadah is particularly relevant this year, as it contains an alternative text for Eruv Tavshilin blessing. Whether or not this was deliberate was the subject of some controversy, see “Eruv Tavshilin: A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation?”

The first illustrated printed Haggadah, Prague, 1526, introduced new illustrations and recycled and referenced some of the common ones in manuscripts (see here for a brief discussion and here for Eliezer Brodt’s longer treatment). That edition would serve as a model for many subsequent illustrated Haggados but also contains surprising elements, at least in some religious circles, regarding the depiction of women, and was subsequently censored to conform with the revisionist approach to Jewish art. See, “A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah,” and Elliot Horowitz’s response, “Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography.” The Schecter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary, a contemporary treatment of the art and the Haggadah, (for Elli Fischer’s review, see here), that unintentionally reproduced a version of one of the censored images in the first edition. It was restored in subsequent editions. Women appear in other contexts in illustrated Haggados. The most infamous example is the “custom” that implies a connection between one’s spouse and marror (discussed here), but our article, “Haggadah and the Mingling of the Sexes” documents more positive and inclusive examples of women’s participation in the various Passover rituals in printed Haggados. Similarly, the c. 1300 Birds Head Haggadah has an image of female figures in snoods preparing the matza and a woman at the center of Seder table.

As detailed in chapter 8 of Epstein’s Medieval Haggadah, the early 14th Century Golden Haggadah is perhaps the most female-centric Haggadah and may have been commissioned for a woman. That manuscript emphasizes the unique, positive, and critical role women played in the Exodus narrative. Although it also depicts the practice of overzealous cleaning with a woman sweeping the ceiling. The 1430 Darmstadt Haggadah has a full-page illumination of women teachers, but its connection to the text is opaque. Finally, we argue that one printed Haggadah uses a subtle element in explicating the midrashic understanding of the separation of couples as part of the Egyptian experience.

One of the most creative contemporary Haggados was produced by the artist, David Moss. Moss was commissioned by David Levy to create a Haggadah, on vellum in the tradition of Medieval Jewish manuscripts. Moss worked for years on the project the result surely equals, if not surpasses, many of the well-known Medieval haggados, both artistically and its ability to bring deeper meaning to the text. The manuscript is adorned with gold and silver leaf and contains many paper-cuts (technically vellum-cuts). One of the most striking examples of the silver decoration is the mirrors that accompany the passage that “in each and every generation one is obligated to regard himself as though he personally came out of Egypt.” The mirrors appear on facing pages, interspersed with one with male and the other with female figures in historically accurate attire from Egypt to the modern period. Because the portraits are staggered when the page opens, each image is reflected on the opposite page, and when it is completely opened, the reader’s reflection literally appears in the Haggadah — a physical manifestation of the requirement to insert oneself into the story. The page is available as a separate print.

After completing the Haggadah, Moss was asked to reproduce it, and, with Levy’s permission, produced, what the former Librarian of Congress, Daniel Bornstein, described as one of the greatest examples of 20th-century printing. The reproduction, on vellum, nearly perfectly replicates the handmade one. This edition was limited to 500 copies, all of which were sold. From time to time, these copies appear at auction and are offered by private dealers, a recent copy sold for $35,000. President Regan presented one of these copies to the former President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, when he visited the White House in 1987. While that is out of reach for many, this version is housed at many libraries, and if one is in Israel, one can visit Moss at his workshop in the artist colony in Jerusalem, where he continues to produce exceptional works of Judaica and view the reproduction. There is also a highly accurate reproduction, on paper that is available (deluxe edition) and retains the many papercuts and some of the other original elements, that is still available. This edition also contains a separate commentary volume, in Hebrew and English. (There is also one other available version that simply reproduces the pages, but lacks the papercuts.)

While the entire Moss Haggadah is worth study, a few examples. One paper-cut is comprised of eight panels, each depicting the process of brick making, the verso, using the same cuttings, depicts the matza baking process, literally transforming bricks into matza. The first panel of the matza baking is taken from Nuremberg II Haggadah, which we previously discussed here, and demonstrated that it preserves the Ashkenazi practice of only requiring supervision from the time of milling and not when the wheat was cut.

The illustration accompanying the section of Shefokh, reuses the illustrations of Eliyahu from the Prague 1526 and the Mantua 1528 Haggados to great effect. In the original and vellum reproduction, the cup of Eliyahu physically turns without any visible connection to the page — an extraordinary technical achievement. This section and the illustrations were discussed by Eliezer Brodt in “The Cup of the Visitor: What Lies Behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu, and, in this post, he identified an otherwise unknown work relating to the topic, for another article on the topic, see Tal Goiten’s “The Pouring of Elijah’s Cup (Hebrew).” Eliezer revisited the topic in (here) his conversations with Rabbi Moshe Schwed, in the series, Al Ha-Daf. In last year’s conversation, he discussed a number of other elements of the history of the Haggadah, and three years ago the controversy surrounding machine produced matza. (All of the episodes are also streaming on Apple Podcasts, Spotify & 24Six.) Additionally, he authored “An Initial Bibliography of Important Haggadah Literature,” and two articles related to newly published Haggados, “Elazar Fleckeles’s Haggadah Maaseh BR’ Elazar ” and XXI. Rabbi Eliezer Brodt on Haggadah shel Pesach: Reflections on the Past and Present ,” regarding Rabbi Yedidya Tia Weil’s (the son of R. Rabbi Netanel Weil author of “Korban Netanel”) edition, and a review of David Henshke’s monumental work, Mah Nistanna.

In one of the first haggadot printed in the United State published in 1886 Haggadah contains a depiction of the four sons. Depicting the four sons is very common in the illustrated manuscripts and printed haggadot. In this instance, the wicked son’s disdain for the seder proceedings shows him leaning back on his chair and smoking a cigarette. According to many halakhic authorities, smoking is permitted on Yom Tov, nonetheless, the illustration demonstrates that at least in the late 19th-century smoking was not an acceptable practice in formal settings. (For a discussion of smoking on Yom Tov, see R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Mo’adim be-Halakha (Jerusalem: Mechon Talmud Hayisraeli, 1983), 7-8).

The cup of Eliyahu is but one of many Passover food-related elements. The identification of Marror with the artichoke in Medieval Haggados, is debated by Dan Rabinowitz and Leor Jacobi , while Susan Weingarten provides an overview of the vegetable, in “The Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources.” Jacobi also discusses the fifth cup in his article, “Mysteries of the Magical Fifth Passover Cup II, The Great Disappearing Act and this printed article. The history of the restriction of Kitniyot and the development of the practice of selling hametz is discussed in our article, “Kitniyot and Mechirat Chametz: Paradoxical Approaches to the Chametz Prohibition,” and was revisited on Rabbi Drew Kaplan’s Jewish Drinking podcast (and in an audio version on apple podcasts and spotify). Another guest was Marc Epstein, discussing his book on Medieval Haggados, and Dr. Jontahan Sarna where he gives an overview of the use of raisin wine for the kiddush and the four cups, based on his article, “Passover Raisin Wine,” as was the frequent contributor to the Seforimblog, Dr. Marc Shapiro. His interview, like many of his posts and his book, Changing the Immutable, discusses censorship and, in particular, the censored resposum of R. Moshe Isserles regarding taboo wine (also briefly touched upon in Changing the Immutable, 81-82, and for a more comprehensive discussion of the responsum, see Daniel Sperber, Nitevot Pesikah, 104-113). For another wine related post, see Isaiah Cox’s article, “Wine Strength and Dilution.” The history of Jewish drinking and Kiddush Clubs was briefly discussed here.

Whether coffee, marijuana and other stimulants falls within the Kitniyot category appears here. Marc Shapiro’s article, “R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Kitniyot, R. Judah Mintz, and More,” regarding Artscroll’s manipulation of R. Zevin’s Moadim be-Halakha regarding kitniyot. Another coffee related article explores the history and commercial relationship between the Maxwell House Haggadah. Finally, the last (pun intended) food discussion centers on the custom of stealing the afikoman.

The Amsterdam 1695 Haggadah was an important milestone in the history of printed illustrated Haggados, it was the first to employ copperplates rather than woodcuts. This new technique enabled much sharper and elaborate illustrations than in past Haggados. While some of the images can be traced to earlier Jewish Haggados, many were taken from the Christian illustrator, Mathis Marin. It also was the first to include a map. As we demonstrated that map, however, is sourced from a work that was a early and egregious example of forgery of Hebrew texts. For an Pesach related plagiarism, see “Pesach Journals, Had Gadyah, Plagiarism & Bibliographical Errors.” Kedem’s upcoming auction of the Gross Family collection includes, with an estimate of $80,00-$100,000, one of the rarest, beautiful, and expensive illustrations of Had Gadya by El Lissitzky published by Kultur Lige, Kiev, 1919. Eli Genauer reviews another number related edition, not in price, but convention, “The Gematriya Haggadah.”

There are two articles regarding the Haggadah text, David Farkes’ “A New Perspective on the Story of R. Eliezer in the Haggadah Shel Pesach,” and Mitchell First’s “Some Observations Regarding the Mah Nishtannah.” First’s other article, “The Date of Exodus: A Guide to the Orthodox Perplexed,” is also timely.

Finally, Shaul Seidler-Feller’s translation of Eli Wiesel’s article, “Passover with Apostates: A Concert in Spain and a Seder in the Middle of the Ocean,” tells the story of an unusual Pesach seder. Siedler-Feller most recently collaborated on the two most recent Sotheby’s Judaica catalogs of the Halpern collection.

Chag kasher ve-sameach!

Kabbala, Halakha and Kugel: The Case of the Two Handed Blessing

Kabbala, Halakha and Kugel: The Case of the Two Handed Blessing*

In parshat Vayehi, Yaakov simultaneously blesses his two grandchildren, Ephraim and Menashe by placing one hand upon each of their heads. Today, there is a widespread custom of blessing one own’s children on Friday night (although some only do it on the eve of Yom Kippur). This custom most likely originated with the Hasedi Ashkenaz in the 14th century but quickly spread to the rest of Europe, including France, Spain, and Italy.[1] The exact details of the blessing, however, are subject to some variation.

The earliest sources mention only the priestly blessing and not Yaakov’s.[2] It was not until the 18th century, R. Yaakov Emden propose the specific usage of Yaakov’s blessing to his grandsons “God shall make you like Ephraim and Menashe.” Likewise, even within those sources they are inconsistent as to whether both hands are to be used or only one. Some provide that one hand should be used because it has 15 joints the same number of words as in the priestly blessing, while others urge two hands because they contain 60 bones which corresponds to the word “סמך” “somekh” “to lay hands” to be read as the letter “סמ״ך” “samach” and correspond to the numerical value of sixty rather than the literal translation equaling the number of letters in Birkat Kohanim. These sources disagree because of the symbolic nature of the hands vis-à-vis the blessing.

The anonymous book, Hemdat Yamim, states that one should only use the right hand to bless. Likewise, R. Yitzhak Lampronti records that some refrain from using two hands to avoid “mixing hesed with din” corresponding to the right and left hands respectively. But he rejects that and he used both hands.

R. Emden firmly rejects the idea of singlehanded blessings. He explains that Moshe and others used two. Yaakov was but an exception as he wanted to bless both of his grandsons simultaneously because he was already changing the order and wanted to minimize, as much as possible, the differences between the two. Further blessing the younger before the older would be an unforgivable insult. Thus, this was a special case where he was compelled to use one hand.[3] But in the late 19th century, a one handed blessing was suggested because of halakhic reasons.

In 1779, R. Yehezkel Landau was born in Vilna. In 1793 he married his cousin, the daughter of Tzvi Hirsch and Mushka Zalkind, Haye Sorah.[4] Unexpectedly, an event surrounding Landau’s wedding would become a touchstone for birkat ha-banim.

R. Landau was among those who were privileged to study with the Gaon and received his particular form of learning that eschewed pilpul and focused on peshat.[5] Additionally, R. Landau considered himself a talmid muvhak of and prayed in the same synagogue as R. Hayyim Volozhin.[6] That synagogue, the Parnes Kloyz, also claimed a number of other important members including R. Avraham Abele Poswoler, R. Landau’s brother-in-law.[7] With the death of R. Abele in 1806 R. Landau took over the position as Rosh Av bet Din of Vilna.[8] The position was first offered to R. Akiva Eiger but he turned it down.[9] R. Landau held that position until his death in 1870.

Until this point the discussion regarding whether to use two hands or one is limited to symbolic or kabalistic reasons. But there are those who argue that there is a legal issue with using two hands and they attribute this view to the Gaon. Determining the Gaon’s practices is a very difficult task, he did not write a book of customs and instead most of what we have is from second hand or third hand sources, many of which are contradictory or unsupportable.[10]

Close to one hundred years after the Gaon died, the siddur, Siddur ha-Gaon be-Nigleh u-Nistar, was published by Naftali Hertz, and for the first time it is recorded that the Gaon only used one hand for a blessing. The source for this practice is unclear. The “Nigleh” portion is generally taken from Ma’ashe Rav and Likutei Dinim meha-Gra, neither of which records this practice.

R. Barukh ha-Levi Epstein, however, records a story about that Gaon that is related to the prohibition of a non-kohen reciting the priestly blessings in the synagogue. In Epstein’s commentary on the Torah, Torah Temimah, he posits a novel ruling that not only is a non-kohen prohibited from blessing the congregation but is prohibited from ever using two hands – like the priests – to bless anyone. According to Epstein, such a practice would violate a biblical commandment. But he wanted to address as to why he is the first to raise this issue and rather than concede that he is the source of this innovative ruling he records a story from “a trustworthy source” that “when the Gaon of Vilna blessed R. Yehezkel Landau the Moreh Tzedek of Vilna at his huppa, the Gaon only placed one hand on R. Landau’s head during the blessing. Those present asked the Gaon to explain his practice and he replied that only the priests in the temple can use two hands.”[11] Thus, R. Epstein is able to “toleh atsmo be-ilan gadol” (one should hang themselves on a big tree).

Indeed, R. Epstein’s version of the Gaon’s position is still accepted today. Two siddurim that were recently published based upon the Gaon’s practices both record that it was his opinion that one must only use one hand because “only the priests in the temple were permitted to use two hands.” Both cite R. Epstein as their source.[12]

That R. Landua received the Gaon’s blessing is attested to on his epithet.

“חן הוצק בשפתיך כי גברה עליך ברכת אליהו גאון ישראל.”

“Grace was placed upon his lips because he was overtaken by the blessing of Eliyahu Gaon of Israel.”[13] Nonetheless, the exact details of that blessing are not as clear. Indeed, the details of R. Epstein’s version that was transmitted by a “trustworthy source” seem somewhat suspect. First, R. Landau would not have been referred to as a מו״ץ because he oversaw the entire bet din system in Vilna and controlled all of the moreh tzedeks. Hence R. Landau was referred to as Rosh Av Bet Din “Ravad” or ראב״ד.[14] Second, the Gaon was not known for getting out much. He no longer studied at all in what was known as the Gaon’s kloyz that was located in the Great Synagogue Courtyard (shulhoyf) but studied in the same house he lived in, a location known as the Slutzki building.[15] While R. Landau was well-regarded none of the other histories of Vilna that discuss R. Landau and mention the he studied with the Gaon or the Gaon’s blessing also include the Gaon’s attendance at the wedding.[16] Finally, the Gaon’s commentary to Shulchan Orakh does not mention any issue with a non-kohen using two hands, nor does it appear in any of the books collecting the Gaon’s customs.[17]

While admittedly none of the above issues are dispostive, there is a far better reason to discount R. Epstein’s version because there is a more reliable alternative version of the story that R. Epstein records, and according to this version, there is nothing to suggest that the Gaon deliberately avoided using two hands nor that there is any reason to do so. Indeed, stories that are attributed to the Gaon are notoriously unreliable. Already with the first “biography” of the Gaon, R. Dovid Luria cautioned that “the greatness of my teacher, Rabbenu ha-Gadol z’l [ha-Gaon] is such that there are many stories and legends attesting to that greatness there are as many variations, embellishments and deficiencies in every story.” In this instance, however, we have the benefit of hearing the story directly from the protagonist, R. Landau.

R. Ben-Tzion Alfes

Ben-Tzion Alfes was born in Vilna in 1851 and when he was a young boy spent time in the Gaon’s Kloyz and met R. Landau. Alfes records in his autobiography that “R. Landau recalled that the Shabbat after he was married, his father-in-law brought him to the Gaon to receive a blessing. When he arrived the Gaon was in the middle of his lunch meal, eating kugel.[18] R. Landau was wearing the new fur hat he received for his wedding and when the Gaon went to place his hands on R. Landau’s head, he turned away so that the Gaon wouldn’t dirty the fur hat with his greasy hands. The Gaon ended up just putting one hand on the hat and blessed R. Landau. R. Landau lived very long, over ninety and never required eyeglasses, and for the rest of his life he was disappointed regarding his small mindedness of valuing the hat more than the hands of the Gaon.”[19]

כשהייתי בן עשר דרנו בחדר אצל אחד שהיה לו סבא זקן שהיה מכיר את הגאון רבנו אליהו מווילנא זצ”ל, ונהניתי מאד בשעה שאבי ז”ל ישב אצלו לשמוע ספורים מהגר”א, וכאשר אחרי נשואי קבעתי מקומי ללמוד ולהתפלל בקלויז הגר”א, הכרתי שם זקן אחד שהיה חתן הגאון ר’ אברהם (בעל מעלות התורה) אחי הגר”א, וכן הכרתי את הגאון ר’ יחזקאל לנדא אב”ד דווילנא שכאשר נעשה חתן הביא אותו מחותנו בשבת לפני הגר”א שיברך אותו, והגר”א ז”ל ישב בסעודה שניה של שבת ואכל את הקוגל, והחתן היה מלובש בשטריימיל ורצה הגאון להניח ידיו על ראש החתן לברכו ונסוג החתן לאחוריו שלא ישמין הגאון את השטריימיל בידיו השמנות מהפשטידא, והניח הגר”א ידו אחת על השטריימיל וברכו, והאריך ימים ולמד עד יומו האחרון בלי משקפים, והצטער רבי יחזקאל לנדא כל ימיו, על קטנות המוח שלו שהוקיר את השטריימיל יותר מידיו של הגר”א

According to R. Landau it was his own fault that the Gaon only used one hand and it had nothing to do with symbolism, kabbala and certainly not because of a halakhic concern. It came down to kugel and fur hats.[20]

* A different version of this article previously appeared in Or HaMizrach in Hebrew. Dan Rabinowitz, “Birkat ha-Banim be-Sheti Yadim: Mesoret ha-Gra be-Nedon,” Or HaMizrach 51, 3-4 (2006), 181-85. Additionally, Professor Daniel Sperber modified and added additional materials to it for Bar Ilan’s Shabbat Torah pamphlet. Daniel Sperber, “Al Birkat ha-Banim,” Daf Shevoei (University Bar Ilan) Parshat Vehi, 2008, no. 735.

[1] See Yecheil Goldhaver, Be’er Sheva, in Bunim Yoel Tevesig, Minhagei ha-Kehilot (Jerusalem: Le’or, 2005), 186-89. See also, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Alpa Beta Kadmeta (Jerusalem, 2010), 207-09.

[2] R. Eliyahu Dovid Rabinowich Toemim, however, incorrectly asserts that the priestly blessing was not part of the blessing of the children. Instead, he suggests that since the inception of the custom on Yaakov’s blessing was used. Eliyahu Dovid Rabinowich Teomim, Shu”t Ma’aneh Eliyahu (Jerusalem: Yeshiva Har Etzion, 2003), no. 122, 349.

[3] Hemdat Yamim, (Venice, 1812), Helek Shabbat, chapter 7, 48; Yitzhak Lamporti, Pahad Yitzhak ha-Shalem (Jerusalem, 1998), ma’arekhet ha”Bet,” 52; Yaakov Emden, Siddur Ya’avetz (Jerusalem, 1992), 564-65. See Goldhaver who provides many of these sources and the additions of Eliezer Brodt in Yerushatanu 2 (2008), 205-206 (Eliezer also kindly provided additional sources for this post). For an example of a death bed blessing see Michel Hakohen Brever, Zikhronot Av u-Beno (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1966) 122

[4] The Zalkinds would later establish a kloyz, with a women’s section, that was alternatively referred to by Reb Herschel Zalkinds Kloyz and perhaps more notably by his wife’s name: Mushke Leybele Zalkinds kloyz. The kloyz is no longer extant but was located in Vilna’s Old Jewish quarter on what is today Šv. Mikalojaus Street. Synagogues in Lithuania, N-Z: A Catalogue, eds. Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, Sergey Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin, et.al. (Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 2012) 312.

[5] Shmuel Yosef Fuenn, Kenest Yisrael: Zikhronot le-Toldot Gedolei Yisrael ha-No’adim le-shem be-Torotum, be-Hokhatum, ube-Ma’asehem (Warsaw, 1886), 517.

[6] Hillel Noach Steinschneider, Ir Vilna (Vilna, 1900), 32.

[7] For a biography of R. Abele, see Ir Vilna, 19-29. His third wife, Fagie, was R. Landau’s sister. For more about the Kloyz see Cohen-Mushlin, Synagogues in Lithuania N-Z, 308 and for more details on the building and the Parnes see Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Houses that Talk: Sketches of Vokiečiu Street in the Nineteenth Century (Vilnius: Auko Žuvys, 2015), 91-95.

[8] Ir Vilna, 32.

[9] Ir Vilna, 30-31.

[10] See the comments of R. David Luria, “the greatness of my teacher, Rabbenu ha-Gadol z’l [ha-Gaon] is such that there are many stories and legends attesting to that there are as many variations, embellishments and deficiencies in every story.” R. David Luria, “Letter from ha-Gaon ha-Rav RD”L,” in Yeshua Heschel Levin, Aliyot Eliyahu (Vilna, 1857), 4.

[11] Barukh Halevi Epstein, Torah Temimah: Bamidbar 6:33.

[12] Siddur Aliyot Eliyahu (Machon Ma’dani Asher, 1999); Siddur Ezer Eliyahu (Jerusalem: Kerem Eliyahu, 1998).

[13] Ir Vilna, 35.

[14] See Ir Vilna, 102.

[15] For more on this building and the history of it and the Gaon’s kloyz see Shlomo Zalman Havlin, “ ‘Ha-Kloyz’ shel ha-Gaon me-Vilna Zts”l, Helek shel ‘Pinkas ha-Kloyz,’” in Yeshurun 6 (1999), 678-85; Dan Rabinowitz, The Lost Library: The Legacy of Vilna’s Strashun Library in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2018), 55-58.

[16] See, e.g. Ir Vilna, 32; Keneset Yisrael, 517-18.

[17] Even the siddur that does provide that the Gaon’s custom was to use just one hand there is no mention that the practice was because of potentially violating a biblical commandment.

[18] Kugel was among the customary foods eaten on Shabbat across Europe. Herman Pollack, Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands (1648-1806): Studies in Aspects of Daily Life (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1971), 112, 275n39.
Hasidic thought imbued kugel with special powers and it occupied a lofty place in its rituals. See Allan Nadler, “Holy Kugel: The Sanctification of Ashkenazic Ethnic Foods in Hasidism,” in Food and Judaism: A Special Issue of Studies in Jewish Civilization 15 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 193-214 (my thanks to Shaul Stampfer for calling this source to my attention). See also Joan Nathan, “Kugel Unraveled,” New York Times Sept. 28, 2005, F1.
Kugel was one of the foods that originated in Germany and spread to eastern Europe and both Jews and non-Jews ate it. See Pollack, Jewish Folkways, 112. Other traditional foods include fish, cholent, tsimes, farfl, kneydlekh, kikhelekh, lokshn and kasha. For fish see Moshe Hallamish, Ha-Kabbalah be-Tefilah be-Halakha, u-be-Minhag (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000), 486-506; for the others see Pollack, Jewish Folkways, 100-112.

[19] Ben Tzion Alfes, Ma’ashe Alfas: Tolodah u-Zikhronot (Jerusalem, 1941), 9-10.

[20] Today if one wants to combine the two, there is a recipe for striemel kugel here.

The First Artichoke Controversy of 2012

The First Artichoke Controversy of 2012

By Leor Jacobi

Recently a kashrut controversy surrounding traditional Italian fried artichokes has received major media coverage in the New York Times and the Seforim Blog (twice, in chronological order, not order of importance). In order to prove the antiquity of Jewish artichoke consumption, depictions of artichokes in medieval illuminated haggadot have been adduced. These were the topic of a lesser-known artichoke controversy in 2012 here in the comments section of the Seforim Blog, which can be as nasty and difficult to find as artichoke bugs.

The Controversy: Do Catalonian medieval Haggadot portray maror as an artichoke? Were artichokes actually consumed in fulfillment of the rabbinic requirement to consume bitter herbs found in the Mishnah and Tosefta?

“Brother Haggadah”, BL Oriental 1404, f. 18

Here’s the story behind the scenes as it occurred in real time, during the Pessah season of 2012. I was scheduled to deliver a talk on chrayn at a rabbinic conference on the Hebrew language organized by Yitzhak Frank on April 10, Chol ha-Moed Pessah. In the course of some late preparatory research (= Googling) on April 5 (13 Nissan, the day of bedikat chametz) I came across a fascinating responsum on maror by David Golinkin that had just been published on April 2, 2012. Struck by the reliance on visual evidence from illustrated manuscripts in establishing a medieval custom to consume artichokes as maror, I sent the post to Marc Michael Epstein of Vassar College for comment. Within an hour he replied:

I don’t believe the Sephardic mss show an artichoke, rather they depict an entire head of romaine lettuce. The way to prove or disprove this would be to compare contemporary or roughly contemporary botanical mss.

I immediately began “intensive research” (= more Googling) and discovered that the artichoke question was (probably first) posed by Yoel Finkelman and his parents in 2005. Significantly, they already collected the three examples cited by Golinkin: the Rylands, Brother, and Sarajevo Haggadot. Finkelman states that his father circulated the query widely.

Rylands Haggadah, 1988 facsimile edition, f. 31v

The next day, April 6, Erev Pessah, I emailed Golinkin directly, requesting sources for his identifications. He replied on the same day that artichokes are definitely depicted in the three illuminated haggadot and that artichokes were probably identified as one of the five plant species mentioned in the Mishnah (Pesahim 2:6). Indeed, in Golinkin’s own post of April 2:

Rabbi Natan ben Yehiel of Rome (1035-ca. 1110) says in his Talmudic dictionary (ed. Kohut, Vol. 8, p. 245) that tamkha is cardo, which is cardoon. Prof. Feliks says that this is carduus argentatus or silver thistle, while Dr. Schaffer says that it is cynara cardunculus or artichoke thistle.

Cardoon Artichoke Thistle. a painting by Elizabeth H Tudor

So, textual and visual evidence interlock to support the conclusion that artichokes were used as Maror. However, the textual evidence is weak. Sefer Ha’arukh is a dictionary, not a responsum, a legal code or a gloss to one, like Hagahot Maimoniyot which identifies tamkha as horseradish – chrayn, associated with an actual custom. The definition of Ha’arukh is not a singular, definitive identification (yesh ‘omrim: marrobio, another species, also Rashi’s identification), and according to Prof. Jehudah Feliks cardo does not describe artichokes at all.

Opposite this scanty textual evidence stands a mountain of Rabbinic silence. As far as I am aware, nowhere in any codes, Haggadas, commentaries, or anywhere else do we find even a hint that artichokes were ever used as maror. There are limits to what can be learned ex silentio but we are discussing thousands of sources. If artichokes were used, we would expect a mention somewhere.

As for the visual information, we have “two witnesses and three witnesses”: The Rylands and Brother Haggadahs should be considered one witness because one is copied from the other. Bezalel Narkiss designated the name “The Brother Haggadah” (along with a lot of other names of Haggadah, most of which have stuck, for better or worse) because it is the “brother” copied from the Rylands Haggadah. According to Katrin Kogman-Appel, the Brother was more likely the original from which the Rylands was copied. For our purposes, the direction of the copying makes no difference. Just as the Rosh and Tur can’t really be counted as two legal authorities, these two sources are reflections of one another. What about the other witness, the Sarajevo Haggadah?

I do not think that there is even a remote possibility that the Sarajevo Haggadah depicts an artichoke:

The leaves are ridged but all species of artichoke leaves are smooth save for the thorn in the middle. An artist whose intention was to depict artichokes would not draw them in this manner. Moreover, Epstein, (in personal correspondence) adds that the “artichoke” leaves are “veined” like lettuce leaves, and bound together with a cord at the base.

Israeli Artichoke, Photo: Leor Jacobi, April 20, 2012

The same day, April 6, Erev Pessah, I communicated my skepticism back to Golinkin, especially regarding the depiction in the Sarajevo Haggadah. Golinkin’s April 2 post had already inspired creative contemporary midrash by April 9 (the truth of which in revealing hidden aspects of the divine plan should be judged independently of the historical claims.) Clearly these progressive folk placed artichokes on their seder plate on seder night, April 6 or 7, 2012, and were already expounding homiletically on the custom they had only learned about on April 2 at the earliest. Epstein notes that this an excellent example in “real time” of a minhag in development thanks to what he calls “the heter of the Internet.”

I gave the Chrayn talk on April 10 and the very next day, April 11, a long and fascinating Seforim blog post by Dan Rabinowitz was published, wherein, inter alia, he stated:

In the Brother to the Rylands Haggadah, marror is depicted as an artichoke, as is in the case with the Sarajevo Haggadah.

Golinkin wasn’t cited but it’s doubtful that his April 2 post is the source — perhaps serendipity. After some discussion in the comments, Marc Epstein wrote:

Rabbosai (and Marasai): A manuscript is NOT a mirror. Jews depict themselves in their art (or commission art that depicts them) not as they were, but as they desired to be seen. Please please please do not engage in the typical Wissenschaft strategy of looking at illuminated manuscripts for “clues to Jewish life in the Middle Ages” or even to Jewish history. What we can learn from them is histoire des Mentalites, but even that takes a lot of work to get to.

Re: the “artichoke”: I don’t believe the Sephardic mss show an artichoke, rather they depict an entire head of romaine lettuce. The way to prove or disprove this would be to compare contemporary or roughly contemporary botanical mss. It may have been “misunderstood” by some illuminators as an artichoke, but not corrected by the recipients of the manuscript because if you are not looking for an artichoke it seems totally absurd that an artichoke would be used as maror, You don’t SEE an artichoke, but a head of Romaine lettuce, no matter how “artichoke-like” it seems to us in 5772.

Also, because a head of Romaine is SHOWN in the haggadah it doesn’t mean that there a head of (possible unchecked-for-bugs) Romaine on the table. Every image is not a snapshot, but a representation — a combination of the real, the general, the ideal and the symbolic. Showing the head is a way of REPRESENTING Romaine — it says, “We use a type of lettuce that grows with leaves together in a head like this.” It does NOT necessarily mean “We use complete heads of Romaine at the Seder, like this.” Do you see the difference? A representation must shorthand its descriptions for clarity: If you showed individual artichoke leaves, for instance, it would be difficult to ascertain that the plant was an artichoke. Artichoke leaves are shaped like baby spinach leaves, though baby spinach is more pliable. If a leaf of that shape was shown, what would distinguish the artichoke leaves? Showing an artichoke in its entire, thistly configuration makes it indisputable that it is an artichoke.

Epstein’s points are compelling. How does one portray lettuce in an illustration? For example, this modern lettuce clip-art isn’t much more lettuce-like than the illustration in the Brother Haggadah:

After Pessah, on April 22, I received an additional reply from Golinkin with more sources. The entry for maror in the first edition of Encyclopedia Judaica was written by Jehudah Feliks (pp. 1014-5). The entry includes an image of the maror depiction from the Sarajevo Haggadah with a caption:

According to this astounding caption, lettuce is depicted in the Sarajevo Haggadah but the claim is that it can still be supposed that the artichoke-like shape of the lettuce reflects an old custom of eating artichokes as maror. This custom had already been lost in the 14th century, but was preserved in the form of illustrations of maror in haggadot! (We find something similar in the illustrations of maror in the Prague Haggadah. According to Rav Peles, the custom of pointing at the wife when stating “this bitter[ness/Bitter Herb]” had already disappeared, but was preserved in the caption to themaror illustration in the Haggadah; see also here). However, note that above, in Golinkin’s post, Feliks did not identify the Arukh’s cardo as artichokes. It is not entirely clear that Feliks composed this caption. Bezalel Narkiss served as IIlustrations Consultant on the first edition (sadly most illustrations were cut from the second edition, including this one and the caption).

As Narkiss was then the acknowledged expert in medieval illuminated manuscripts, it stands to reason that he may have either selected the illustration or wrote the caption, either alone or in consultaion with Feliks. In any case, the author(s) of the caption maintain that lettuce is depicted even if the rest of their proposal is extremely speculative.

For the Rylands Haggadah, Golinkin cited the Raphael Loewe facsimile, Steimatzky, 1988: “The bitter herb is intended to be lettuce, despite its artichoke-like compactness.” This pithy source contradicts Golinkin’s identification, and suggests a practical explanation for this lettuce design.

As for the Brother Haggadah, Golinkin wrote that he learned about this from an expert on Jewish art. However, as far as I can tell this expert does not deal primarily with interpretation of medieval art. Theories are tested by evidence. Thus, it remains that if someone wishes to argue that these images depict artichokes the best way to advance the thesis would be by means of comparisons with contemporary illustrations of artichokes, as Marc Epstein advises.

Finally, an image of maror from the Barcelona Haggadah, folio 62, illustrates how creative illustrations of lettuce (?) could get and how dangerous it would be to try to learn history from them as if they were snapshots.

Adapted from Evelyn Cohen’s description in the facsimile volume:

Verso, The scribe left almost the whole of the page for a depiction of the bitter herbs, but the crude illustration we now see was not executed in the Middle Ages, although it may have been based on models from the fourteenth century. The vegetable, commonly portrayed in a highly stylized manner, was no longer understandable to the later artist, and the red holder with which it is sometimes shown seems to have been misunderstood by the artist, who interpreted it as a red crescent.

The post-medieval illustrator here may have utilized haggadah depictions of artichoky lettuce as a model and was probably as bewildered by them as we are. In note 39 Cohen lists the Hispano-Moresque, Graziano, Golden, and Sister Haggadas as displaying maror holders. The matzot in these haggadot look nothing like real matzot, with elaborate color and geometric designs. The entire maror holder could be a design element in this vein, so that the maror is grounded and not floating in space.

Graziano Haggadah

Sister Haggadah

‘Hispano-Moresque’ Haggadah

Golden Haggadah

Epstein adds (personal correspondence) that we should be wary of concluding on the basis of these images that Jews of Medieval Spain had actual red maror holders. They may have developed from an earlier model like the Golden Haggadah, which only meant to portray a reddish-yellow color which develops towards the base:

I certainly hope enterprising Judaica forgers, the creators of “Marrano cups” and such don’t get wind of this, or appraisers, experts and curators will have a whole new wave of fake “authentic” pre-Expulsion Sephardi ritual items to deal with. Indeed Romaine lettuce is most suitable for maror because it generates increasing bitterness the longer one chews the leaves, and the closer one gets to that all-important base. Romaine is appropriate for maror in metaphoric terms: like the servitude in Egypt, which started out as a “public works” project with the full participation even of Pharaoh, and ended up as the most abject of slavery, a torture inflicted exclusively upon the Israelites. When one first begins to chew the leaves Romaine lettuce, one could think one was eating a lovely salad. More chewing, and getting eventually to the lower “spine,” however, makes the experience increasingly bitter. The rabbis understood that unlike the consistent blast of heat one experiences with horseradish and other truly bitter plants, it is in the initially non-bitter, even pleasant, but then the increasing nature of the bitterness of Romaine that the precise metaphor for the Egyptian servitude is experienced.

It is notable that per Kogman Appel’s dating, the Golden Haggadah is earlier (c. 1320) than some of the examples brought above (c. 1350-), and may have served as their model in some sense, including the fact that whatever we are seeing, (whether the “veins” in a single lettuce leaf, or the ruffled leaves in the head when cut open and depicted laterally, like the Chinese cabbage shown below,) gives the leaf/leaves a “spiky” appearance. (If there is a lateral view here, the question, of course, is why such a view was taken. Most authorities prefer whole Romaine leaves for maror, so a view “cutting through” the head might be confusing, although some advocate the consumption of only, or primarily the spines.)

The more I think about it, although links and distinctions have been made between the opening sequence of biblical narrative illuminations in the Golden, Sister and Sarajevo Haggadot and the Rylands/Brother Haggadot, the TEXT illustrations (matzah, maror etc.) may have more mutual influence and cross-influence, and relate also to those in the Barcelona Haggadah and others. Since the GH was earlier than the Sarajevo, Rylands/Brother Haggadot, the image of the maror there, clearly— though stylized—Romaine may have influenced, been misunderstood by the artists of the later ms. In other words, the veiny (or the lateral, or side-viewed, rippling) leaves of Romaine could have been mistaken for the “spiky” leaves of an artichoke and thus been illustrated. (The Sarajevo artist, for instance, depicted the “artichoke” leaves not only as serrated but with “veins” more typical of lettuce.)

The Sarajevo, Rylands/Brother ARTISTS misunderstanding the [veined single lettuce leaf or laterally viewed or cut head of] lettuce in the Golden Haggadah or a similar model, might have thought they were illustrating an artichoke. The PATRONS did not “correct” this because OBVIOUSLY the vegetable could not have been an artichoke as there was no massoret of the use of that vegetable for maror. There for they accepted the “artichoke” of the artists as the “lettuce” of halakhah.

While we can never recover the actual conversation that precipitated the visual result, both consideration of the near-instantaneous creation via “the heter of the Internet” of the minhag of placing artichokes on the seder plate, and the spinning of homiletics around that minhag; and the invention of the “maror holder”are reflections—within our present conversation!—of the kinds of transmission problems ever present in such conversations in any time or place. This whole adventure has, for me, been very important in thinking about artist-patron relationships.

Cohen adds an interesting point (personal correspondence):

I found other manuscripts where there was a blank space where the image of the maror should have been placed, while all the other areas left blank by the scribe contained illustrations. This lead me to believe that the appearance of the maror was sometimes customized based on the minhag of the patron, who for whatever reason never had it added.

These are fascinating questions. The goal of the artists was to produce art which resonated with their patrons symbolically and aesthetically. By misinterpreting these images as snapshots of historical reality, we can invent artichokes and maror holders. One could just as well conclude that it was customary to only sit on one side of the Seder table!

Fast forward to May, 2018, we find ourselves embroiled in a new artichoke controversy and the Seforim Blog is back with artichokes in the Haggadah. This is a fascinating little post on kashrut and custom, but nothing about ancient or medieval practices can be proven from these sources. A follow-up post based on textual sources by Susan Weingarten, an expert on foods in antiquity (and incidentally, the sister of Elihu Shanun, who also spoke at the rabbinic conference on April 10, 2012 which started us off) provides a much more reliable textual path towards establishing the antiquity of artichoke consumption.

In summary, there is no evidence that Jews ever ate artichokes to fulfill the obligation of consuming maror on the Passover Eve. Maybe b’shas hadahak, but who knows? The textual evidence and visual evidence don’t support each other to advance a radical historical claim. However, artichokes are delicious and, if clean, Kosher for Pessah. Jews very likely did consume them historically wherever they were found.

Thanks to: Marc Epstein, David Golinkin, Evelyn Cohen, Sara Offenberg, Moshe Glass, and Jean Guetta. I also wish to acknowledge the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for their support.

The Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources

The
Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources

Susan
Weingarten

Susan
Weingarten is an archaeologist and food historian living in
Jerusalem. This is an adapted extract from her paper ‘The
Rabbi and the Emperors: Artichokes and Cucumbers as Symbols of Status
in Talmudic Literature,’
in
When
West met East: the Encounter of Greece and Rome with the Jews,
Egyptians and Others: Studies presented to Ranon Katzoff on his 75th
Birthday.
Edited
by
D.
Schaps, U. Yiftach and D. Dueck.
(Trieste,
2016).

There
has been a lot of discussion of artichokes recently in the wake of
the ruling by the Israeli Rabbinate that they are not kosher. A
recent post on Seforim Blog traced their ancestry as a Jewish food
back to the 14th
century.
But we can go back further, to the talmudic literature, where
artichokes appear as qinras.
We
can identify many Greek (and fewer Latin) food-names in the Aramaic
and Hebrew of the written texts of the talmudic literature. The
rabbis sometimes use Greek terminology to explain food names. Thus,
for example, biblical regulations on agriculture include a ban on
growing two different kinds of crops together. Mishnah Kilayim
tells
us that thistles (qotzim)
are allowed in a vineyard, i.e. they are seen as wild growths, but
artichokes (qinras)
are not allowed, so that it is clear that artichokes are seen as
cultivated rather than wild growths.[1] Qotz,
the wild thistle, is a biblical Hebrew term, while the Aramaic qinras
appears
to be derived from the Greek for artichoke,
kinara
or
kynara.
Artichokes
were carefully cultivated in the Graeco-Roman world; presumably their
name came with the agricultural methods which turned wild thistles
into cultivated artichokes. It is still difficult to know whether the
artichoke proper is meant here, or rather the closely related
cardoon.[2] It is clear, however, that there were a number of edible
thistles which grew wild, and that the artichoke is a cultivated
variety. The medical writer Galen describes the artichoke as
‘overvalued.’[3] This was partly because of its negative health
properties, for he saw it as unwholesome, sometimes hard and woody,
with bitter juice. So he recommends boiling artichokes and adding
coriander if eating them with oil and garum;[4]
or frying them in a pan.

But
Galen’s objections to artichokes may not be merely medical. They
may also be an echo of the attitude we find in Pliny,[5] who tells us
that artichokes were exceptionally prized by the gourmets of Rome,
and that there was a roaring trade in them. Pliny disapproved:

‘There
still remains an extremely profitable article of trade which must be
mentioned, not without a feeling of shame. The fact is that it is
well-known that at Carthage, and particularly at Cordoba, crops of
carduos,
artichokes,
yield
a return of 6000 sesterces from small plots – since we turn even
the monstrosities of the earth to purposes of gluttony … they are
conserved in honey-vinegar with silphium and cumin, so that there
should be no day without thistles for dinner.[6]

Pliny,
writing in the first century, uses all the tricks of rhetoric to put
over his disapproval of this ridiculous fad of over-valuing
artichokes, and eating them out of season: note the alliteration and
assonance of carduos
with
Cartago and Corduba, which he presumably despised as far-away
provincial cities.[7] He is also indignant about the enormous prices
charged for them, satirising the rich who eat the artichokes as being
lower than the animals who despise them.[8] His diatribe does not
seem to have been generally successful. Artichokes were still clearly
prized in the Roman world of the third and fourth centuries: a mosaic
from the so-called ‘House of the Buffet Supper’ in Antioch shows
them on a silver tray as a first course for dinner.[9] And in a
Palestinian context, another mosaic with what look like two purplish
artichoke heads and a silver bowl, dated to the third century, has
been found recently in excavations of ancient Jerusalem – or rather
Aelia
Capitolina.[10]

The
classical picture of artichokes as food for the rich and upper
classes is confirmed by the talmudic literature. For example, Midrash
Esther Rabbah, writes:

‘Bar
Yohania made a feast for the notables of Rome … What was missing?
Only the qinras
(=artichoke).’[11]

S.
Klein in his article ‘Bar-Yohannis from Sepphoris at Rome,’
suggested
that this may be the first reference to the famous Roman Jewish
artichoke dish carciofi
alla giudia.[12]
(For a recipe see E. Servi Machlin The
Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews
[NY,1981,
1993] p. 180-1). Unfortunately there is no proof to confirm Klein’s
charming suggestion, since, as we have seen, artichokes seem to have
been famously popular among the Roman pagan nobility.[3] One of the
reasons for the perceived desirability of artichokes as food may also
have been the effort needed to prepare them – an effort usually
only available to the rich through their slaves – the poor would
have had little time for this. But one time when the poorer Jews
would have had time would be on a festival, when ordinary work was
not allowed, but food-preparation was permitted, as it contributed to
the enjoyment of the festival. The Tosefta specifically states that
while cutting vegetables was generally not allowed on a festival (in
case people actually went and cut them down in the fields), trimming
artichokes and ‘akavit/‘aqubit,
a wild thorny plant, was allowed, as this was part of the preparation
needed for cooking these prickly vegetables, which was allowed on a
festival:

‘[On
a festival] they do not cut vegetables with shears but they do trim
the qinras,
artichoke,
and the‘akavit/‘aqubit.’[14]

Whether
poorer people actually ate artichokes as special festival food, or
rather only ate the wild ‘akavit/‘aqubit
is
unclear from this source. It is also unclear what the reason for
trimming was: to remove the thorny stems or to cut off the upper part
of the leaves and remove the inedible inner part known as the
‘choke’?

The
Babylonian Talmud records that artichokes were sent over long
distances to be eaten by Rabbi Judah haNasi. A rich man called Bonias
‘sent Rabbi a measure of artichokes from Nawsah, and Rabbi
estimated it at two hundred and seventeen eggs.’[15] The eggs here
are a measure of volume: clearly there were quite a lot of
artichokes. ‘Nawsah’ may refer to a settlement on an island in
the Euphrates River outside Babylonia.[16] It was a long way from
Galilee where Rabbi lived, and only the rich could afford to pay for
the transport of these luxuries. Some way of preserving the
artichokes, like keeping them in honey-vinegar as described by Pliny
above, must have been used.

Unlike
the classical sources, there is no moral condemnation here of
artichokes as symbols of conspicuous consumption, and tampering with
nature. The rabbis of the Talmudim are generally presented as
appreciative of good food, and as seeing feasting as desirable,
rather than to be condemned.[17] Eating good food, for example, is
one of the recommended ways of celebrating or ‘honouring’ Sabbath
and festival.[18] Indeed, Rabbi himself, when looking back
nostalgically to the time when the Temple still stood, represented
his longing for it in terms of desire for the wonderful foods that
would have been available in that now legendary time.[19]

How
did Rabbi eat his cucumbers and artichokes? Unfortunately the
talmudic literature does not tell us, but there are details in some
Roman authors which may give us some idea of the possibilities.
Athenaeus tells us artichokes must be well-seasoned, or they will be
inedible. The fourth-century Roman cookery book attributed to Apicius
recommends serving artichokes with liquamen
and
oil, and either chopped boiled egg; or cumin and pepper; or pounded
green herbs with pepper and honey.[20] We have already cited Rabbi’s
contemporary, the medical writer Galen, who visited Syria and other
parts of the Near East. He sometimes describes methods of cooking
similar to those found in the talmudic literature.[21] We saw that
Galen recommends eating artichokes boiled with the addition of
coriander, garum
and
oil. He also mentions frying them. Was this the origin of carciofi
alla giudia?

[1]
Mishnah Kilayim v 8.

[2]
The identification of the Latin term cardui
with
artichokes, rather than cardoons, has recently been questioned:C.A.
Wright ‘Did the ancients know the artichoke?’
Gastronomica
9/4
(2009) 21-27.

[3]
Galen On
the powers of foods ii.

[4]
Garum
was
the famous Graeco-Roman salty fermented fish-sauce, called liquamen
by
Apicius, used widely as a condiment. R.I. Curtis Garum
and salsamenta: production and commerce in materia medica (Leiden,
1991); M. Grant Roman
Cookery
(London,
1999); S. Grainger, C.Grocock Apicius:
a critical edition,
(Totnes, 2006)373-387:
Appendix
4: Excursus on garum and liquamen.
It is found in the talmudic literature under the name of muries:
S. Weingarten ‘Mouldy bread and rotten fish: delicacies in the
ancient world,’ Food
and History
3
(2005) 61-72. Sauces combined with garum are mentioned in eg Tos
Betsah ii, 16 and in BTYoma76a, but it is not clear that Babylonian
Jews were using this term to mean the same foodstuffs as were used by
the Jews of the Land of Israel.

[5]
Pliny : NH
19,
152f.

[6]
Pliny NH
19,
152-3: certum
est quippe carduos apud Carthaginem magnam Cordubamque praecipue
sestertium sena milia e parvis redderareis, quoniam portent quoque
terrarium in ganeam vertimus, serimusque etiam ea quae refugiunt
cunctae quadrupedes …condiuntur quoque aceto melle diluto addita
laseris radice et cumino, ne quis dies sine carduo sit.

[7]
On Pliny’s distrust of the ‘foreign’ taking over the Roman, an
old Roman literary trope, see T. Murphy Pliny
the Elder’s Natural
History:
the empire in the encyclopedia (Oxford,
2004) 68ff.

[8]
On Pliny’s hostility to luxury, a traditional theme of Latin
poetry: Murphy (above n.35) 71. See also M. Beagon Roman
Nature: the thought of Pliny the Elder
(Oxford,
1992) 190: ‘moral condemnation of luxuria
is
more than a commonplace to Pliny.’

[9]
F. Cimok (ed.) Antioch
Mosaics
(Istanbul,
1995) 44-47.

[10]
The mosaic was excavated by Shlomit Wexler-Bdollach and has been
published by Rina Talgam Mosaics
of Faith (Jerusalem/Pennsylvania,
2014) p. 48 fig 70. I am grateful to both for allowing me to see
their pictures and text prior to publication.

[11]
The question of whether the midrash is to be seen as referring to a
Persian situation is beyond the scope of this paper.

[12]
BJPES
7
(1940) 47-51 (in Hebrew)

[13]
See also
I.
Löw Die
Flora
der Juden
vol
I, (Wien, 1924, repr Hildesheim, 1967) p.409.

[14]
Tosefta Beitzah [Yom Tov] iii,19 and cf BTBeitzah 34a. ‘Akavit/
‘aqubit
has
been identified with tumbleweed, Gundelia
Tourneforti,
which is a wild edible thistle still eaten in Galilee and Lebanon,
and known by its Arabic name, ‘aqub.
See
A. Shmida Mapa’s
dictionary of plants and flowers in Israel (Tel
Aviv, 2005, in Hebrew) 236; A. Helou ‘An edible wild thistle from
the Lebanese mountains’ in Susan Friedman (ed.) Vegetables:
proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2008 (Totnes,
2009) 83-4. ‘Aqub
can
still be bought in the present-day market in Tiberias in the spring,
its price depending on whether the vendor has removed the thorns or
left that pleasure to the buyer. Its taste when cooked is not unlike
artichoke.

[15]
BT Eruvin 83a (my translation).

[16]
For the identification of Nawsah see A. Oppenheimer, Babylonia
Judaica in the Talmudic Period
(Wiesbaden,
1983) pp.266-7.

[17]
This point about the generally positive attitude of the rabbis (in
this case the Babylonian rabbis) to the good things in life is made
by I.M. Gafni The
Jews of Babylonia in the talmudic era: a social and cultural history
(Jerusalem,
1990) 130 citing M. Beer Amoraei
Bavel – peraqim be-hayei ha-kalkalah
(Ramat
Gan תשל”ה
).
But having made his point, Gafni hedges here, warning against taking
a series of anecdotes from different periods as evidence. However, we
should note that this picture is consistent over both Palestinian and
Babylonian sources, and if we compare it to, say, the attitudes of
early Christian writers or Philo, we see that this trend is absent
there. See my paper ‘Magiros,
nahtom
and
women at home: cooks in the Talmud’ Journal
of Jewish Studies 56
(2005)
285-297.

[18]
For a discussion of the rabbinical requirement in both Bavli
and Yerushalmi to honour the Sabbath by eating good food, see S.J.D.
Cohen,’Dancing, clapping, meditating: Jewish and Christian observance
of the Sabbath in pseudo-Ignatius’ in B. Isaac, Y. Shahar (eds)
Judaea-Palaestina,
Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity
(Tübingen,
2012) 33-38.

[19]
Midrash Lamentations Rabbah iii, 6/17.

[20]
Apicius
3.6.

[21]
See e.g. S. Weingarten ‘Eggs in the Talmud’ in R. Hosking
(ed.) Eggs
in Cookery: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery,
2006
(Totnes,
2007) 274-276.

The Humble Artichoke

The New York Times recently discussed a novel ruling of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. The Rabbanut held that artichokes fall into the category of prohibited foods. This is not because they are listed as such in the Torah. Rather the expansion of the biblical category is because of a secondary concern, the presence of insects. Those insects may reside in the heart which without opening the tight leaves that comprise the vegetable one is unable to determine if insects are present, thus, eating artichokes whole risks also ingesting insects.

Jews in Italy, however, took issue with this ruling. They pointed to a long-standing tradition of eating artichokes whole after deep frying. That tradition places the creation of the dish sometime in the 16th century in the Jewish ghetto in Rome. Indeed, their preparation is so intertwined with Jews, in Italian it is called Jewish-style artichoke—Carciofo alla giudia. Today many travel books include this delicacy among those to try in Italy listing various kosher restaurants that offer the Jewish Artichoke. The Rabbi of Rome refused to reform the practice of Italian Jews and continues to eat and provide his hechsher to restaurants which serve this vegetable prepared in the traditional manner.[1]

The history of how the fried artichoke became associated with Jews is somewhat murky but likely dates at least to the 16th century. But we have even earlier manuscript evidence that artichokes were eaten by Jews. Indeed they were eaten at a time when Jews were especially punctilious regarding food, Pesach. A number of medieval haggadot contain illustrations of marror, most include a leafy green of some type. Two haggadot, the Rylands and the Brother, composed in the mid/late-14th century depict marror as an artichoke. [2]

[1] Regarding the autonomy of the local rabbinate see Teshuvot haRosh, Klal 21, 8-4, 9-2, and generally the sources collected in HaMahkloket beHalakha, Hanina Ben-Menahem, Neil Hecht, Shai Wosner, eds., vol. 2 (Boston: Institute of Jewish Law Boston University School of Law, 1993), 753-820.

Students of history will recall that this is not the first time that the norms and traditions of the Italian Jews came into conflict with the different prevailing norms among other groups of Jews. In the controversy engendered by the publication of the pamphlet Divrei Shalom ve-Emet by Naftali Herz Wessely in the aftermath of Emperor Joseph II’s Edict of Toleration, which called for educational reform among his Central European subjects. After his pamphlet was found objectionable and insulting by leading rabbis, Wessely wrote to rabbis in Italy, believing that many of the ideas he was advocating, like a graded curriculum, a non-exclusive emphasis on Talmud, and use of the general vernacular, were well within the norms of their tradition. In fact, with the exception of only one of the Italian rabbis, R. Ishmael Ha-kohen of Modena, all the others agreed and supported him and helped the controversy die out. These aspects of the Wessely affair are discussed in Lois C. Dubin, “Trieste and Berlin: The Italian Role in the Cultural Politics of the Haskalah,” chapter 8 in Jacob Kats, ed., “Towards Modernity: the European Jewish Model” (New York, 1987) and the series of articles by Yisrael Natan Heschel in Kovetz Beit Aharon ve-Yisrael 8 (1993) titled “דעתם של גדולי הדור במלחמתם נגד המשכיל נפתלי הירץ וויזל.”

[2] The Rylands Haggadah manuscript is discussed in Katrin Kogman-Appel, Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006) 91-97. The Brother manuscript has recently been reprinted in full with an excellent introduction by Marc Michael Epstein in addition to other relevant articles. The Brother Haggadah: A Medieval Sephardi Masterpiece in Facsimile (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2016). For a discussion of the identification of marror see Zohar Amar, Merrorim: Hameshet Minei haMarror sheAdam Yotseh Bahem Yedei Hovato bePesach (Modiin [], 2008).