To Adolf, from Cecil

by Menachem Butler

During a Sunday afternoon trip to Biegeleisen in Boro Park, I came across 650-page collection of rare letters from the personal collection of R. David Solomon Sassoon (of Jerusalem, Israel) that has just been published in Israel,[1] I hope to discuss this new publication in some detail in the following weeks, however, I did want to first make mention of the 1941 biography of the Sassoon family, written by British scholar and Oxford-trained historian Prof. Cecil Roth.

In the short official obituary for Dr. Cecil Roth in the London Jewish Chronicle following his passing in Jerusalem in June 1970, there is a short and peculiar reference to Roth’s study of the famed Sassoon merchant family. The brief mention within the obituary refers not to the contents of his “comprehensive history” of the renown Bombay-born and London-based Jewish family, [2] where he dispels the notion that the Sassoon family were simply to be considered “the Rothschilds of the East,”[3] but rather to his unfathomable inscription of the work to Adolf Hitler.[4]

The following is Cecil Roth’s inscription to The Sassoon Family:[5]

 

To Adolf Hitler
Fuehrer of the German Reich

For two reasons I desire to inscribe your name at the beginning of this book. The first is, that I consider its topic to be a useful object-lesson to the unfortunate people whom you have misled into thinking themselves a pure and superior “race” (whatever that may mean). The most rudimentary political commonsense should make it obvious that the absorption of gifted foreign families cannot be other than an advantage for a civilized state. England and English life have in particular been enriched for centuries past by receiving fresh elements from other sources, and there can surely be no reason to regret a liberality that has endowed her with soldiers, philanthropists and poets such as the Sassoon family and many life it have produced. Germany under you guidance has deliberately set herself on the path not merely of self-destruction (which while her present temper lasts would be a peculiar book to humanity at large) but of self-dementation.

In the second place, I am happy to have this opportunity to express once again, as publicly as I may, my profound execration and abhorrence, not merely as a Jew and an Englishman but as a human being, of you, your ideals, your ideas, your methods and all that you stand for. Should God punish the sins of the world by allowing you a momentary victory, I trust that this declaration will bring upon me the honour of the most drastic attention of your nauseous tools, for life in such circumstances would not be worth the having.

Cecil Roth

Sources:
[1] Nahalat Avot: Teshuvot, Michtavim, Tefillot, Minhagim (Yad Samuel Franco, 2007); published on the occasion of Chanah Sassoon’s recent wedding to R. Yehuda Michel Nissel.
[2] In 1968, a later work on the Sassoon family [Stanley Jackson, The Sassoons (London, 1968)] appeared and “superseded” the earlier work by Roth, as the author of this later work “had a clear advantage” as he had access to the personal papers of many Sassoon family members. See London Jewish Chronicle (May 3, 1968), 25. Notwithstanding this criticism, it was already noted in a 1941 review of Roth’s book that he had “not been granted access to ‘family’ records… [and] gathered a vast amount of authentic information, including many delightful stories, that has enabled him to present a comprehensive history of the Sassoon clan with his customary literary skill and thoroughness.” See London Jewish Chronicle(May 30, 1941), 22.
[3] For early uses of this phrase, see, for example, London Jewish Chronicle (April 19, 1907), 21; ibid, (March 22, 1912), 16.
[4] “Obituary: Dr. Cecil Roth,” London Jewish Chronicle (June 26, 1970), 38.
[5] The dedication appears in Cecil Roth, The Sassoon Family (London, 1941) and I thank Joshua Lovinger for kindly directing me towards this fascinating and little-known source.

Dr. Neil Rosenstein, who has already published some rather important works on Jewish genealogy generally, as well as on R. Elijah Gaon of Vilna, has published a new book, devoted to R. Saul (Wahl) Katzenellenbogen. His earlier two-volume landmark work, The Unbroken Chain: Biographical Sketches and Genealogy of Illustrious Jewish Families from the 15th-20th Century, lists in great detail, the descendants of R. Saul (Wahl) Katzenellenbogen. R. Saul is best known for the legend that he became king for a day over Poland. The story goes that that after the Polish king died, the nobles were unable to come to an agreement who would replace him. The law, however, mandated that there not be a day go by without a king in place. The nobles decided to temporarily grant R. Saul Wahl the kingship until they could come to a consensus. In the end, R. Saul Wahl remained king for one day and during that time enacted various law for the benefit of the Jews.

Dr. Rosenstein, has now collected in English for the first time, just about everything there is about this legend and more generally about Saul Wahl (including Saul Wahl’s library). He uncovered a document which has bearing on the dating of Saul Wahl’s death date as well as much other primary material. Additionally, he includes an extensive discussion about how this legend developed, as well as an article (by Professor S. A. Bershadsky) about Saul Wahl, as recorded in Polish and Russian literature. As Dr. Rosenstein is an expert in Jewish Genealogy and on the Katzenellenbogen family, he includes an extensive genealogy of Saul Wahl and his family. The book also includes about the history of the some of the figures involved in the Saul Wahl king story as well as more general history of the time. Most everything in the book includes photocopies of either the relevant documents or materials.

While the book contains much fascinating material on Saul Wahl, I think that it is worthwhile to make note of a few things that Dr. Rosenstein was apparently unaware of their existence. Dr. Rosenstein notes the first mention of Saul Wahl being king, there were prior mentions of Saul Wahl and his standing, but not the king legend – and Rosenstein includes these earlier mentions as well – appears in the work Yesh M’Nechalin (previously touched upon at the Seforim blog here) authored by R. Pinchas Katzenellenbogen (no. 53-55), a descendant of Saul Wahl. But, Rosenstein appears to be unaware that this book is actually published; he notes that it remains in manuscript form, but never notes that in fact it has been printed in 1986! While obviously there is nothing wrong with going to the source – here, the manuscript – it helps the reader to know that they can also view the details somewhere for themselves.

Another omission is Dr. Rosenstein includes a discussion of the medical school in Padua but appears to be unaware that this school and its Jewish connection and graduates was discussed extensively by Prof. David Ruderman (Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe [Yale University, 1995], esp. pp. 100-118) and Dr. Ruderman’s discussion would enhance Dr. Rosenstein’s considerably.

The book is available at Beigeleisen, as well as here.

Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet. Rabbi Prof. Mordechai (ben Shamshon) Breuer (also here), scion of the prominent German rabbinical family and world expert on Tanakh and on the Aleppo Codex, has passed away in Yerushalayim. (He was a cousin to the noted Jewish Historian, who shares his same name.)

An appreciation to Rabbi Breuer and his work appeared in the Orthodox Forum volume, Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations (Jason Aronson, 1996), a project of Yeshiva University. He received the Israel Prize for Torah Studies in 1999.

Hamakom yenacheim etchem betoch shaar avelei tziyon v’yerushalayim.

ManuscriptBoy has an interesting post on photocopying manuscripts from the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Givat Ram campus).

Read all about it here.

Hagahot notes the appearance of a new study by two Tel Aviv University scholars, Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels, “A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic Consequences,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 16:2 (2007): 91-137, wherein the authors demonstrate

that the Jewish diaspora in Europe basically disappeared after the destruction of the Second Temple. Probably, they felt cut off from the spiritual center in Jerusalem, and eventually melded into their host culture.

This is very significant for medieval Jewish history, especially those interested in the roots of Ashkenazic halakhah. The Jewish settlement along the Rhine identified itself as being rooted in Northern Italy, and when it first surfaces in literary form, the Ashkenazic halakhah is already a hoary tradition. On the other hand, while we have extensive epigraphical remains from the Jews of Roman Italy, they don’t reflect what we know about rabbinic Judaism. So this theory suggests that there was a break between Roman Italy and early medieval Italy, with the later Jewish population coming from a totally different, more rabbinic culture.

For those interested, the abstract of this article reads:

This article proposes that a language divide and two systems of communication have brought to a serious gap between the western Jewish Diaspora and the eastern one. Thus the western Greek-speaking Jews lost touch with the Halakhah and the Rabbis, a condition that had far-reaching consequences on Jewish history thereafter. The Rabbis paid a high price for keeping their Halakhah in oral form, losing in consequence half of their constituency. An oral law did not develop in the western diaspora, whereas the existing eastern one was not translated into Greek. Hence it is not surprising that western Jews contributed nothing to the development of the oral law in the east. The Jewish communities that were isolated from the Rabbinic network served as a receptive basis for the development of an alternative Christian network by Paul and the apostles, which enabled it to spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The Jews that remained ‘biblical’ surfaced in Europe in the Middle Ages.

What follows is a short essay by Prof. Shnayer Leiman, whose article on this topic, “The Adventure of the Maharal of Prague in London: R. Yudl Rosenberg and the Golem of Prague,” appeared in Tradition 36:1 (2002): 26-58 [PDF].

I. In March 2006, Dei’ah VeDibur, a Charedi internet newsletter, published an essay on the Maharal and the Golem. Its conclusion was that “it is unclear whether or not the Maharal ever made a golem.”[1]

At the time, I responded on the internet with a congratulatory note praising Dei’ah VeDibur for its sober assessment of the evidence, and for its readiness to admit that it may be that the Maharal did not create a Golem.[2]

Shortly thereafter I received what appeared to be an angry email note from a distinguished academician at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It read

“You still haven’t responded to the evidence that a talmid of the Maharal is known to have created a Golem and that this factoid is documented.”

Since I had never claimed that a disciple of the Maharal either did or did not create a Golem, it was unclear to me why I had to respond to such a claim. Nonetheless, I knew precisely what my academic colleague had in mind. The author of the Dei’ah VeDibur essay mentioned in passing that the story connecting the Maharal to the making of a Golem was ”invented at some stage or, alternatively , it was mistakenly attributed to the Maharal while in fact it was his talmid HaRav Eliyahu Baal Shem of Chelm who made a golem (though the Maharal might have played a part).”[3]

Alas, we know precious little about R. Eliyahu (b. R. Aharon Yehudah) Ba’al Shem of Chelm (16th century).[4] In 1564, he joined a coalition of distinguished rabbis including R. Solomon Luria (the Maharshal, d. 1574) — that permitted an agunah to remarry.[5] Most importantly, he was an ancestor of R. Yaakov Emden (d.1776), who preserved the following tradition about him:[6]

As an aside, I’ll mention here what I heard from my father’s holy mouth regarding the Golem created by his ancestor, the Gaon R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face.

Thus, there clearly existed a 16th century rabbi by the name of R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm (contemporary sources prove this), and the creation of a Golem was ascribed to him (so according to 17th and 18th century sources).[7] Not a word is mentioned about his being a disciple of the Maharal.

So I sent off a note to my academic colleague in Jerusalem. It read in part:

“There is no evidence that any talmid of the Maharal created a Golem. You write: “this factoid is documented.” Let me assure you that no such “factoid” is documented. The claim has been made – I am well aware of that, but the claim is based on a misreading of texts that I plan to expose in a footnote or essay in a future publication.”

The remainder of this essay is devoted to fulfilling the promise I made to my academic colleague in Jerusalem.

II. The claim that a disciple of the Maharal created a Golem appears most prominently in an essay published by a close friend — and scholarly colleague – of mine, Dr. Shlomo Sprecher, in the Torah periodical Yeshurun. [8] I am certain he will forgive me for correcting him, if I am right. And if I am wrong, I urge him to correct my error publicly, thereby advancing discussion, and pray that he forgives my indiscretion.

The ישורון essay reads in part:[9]

“Regarding R. Eliyahu of Chelm, we know that he studied Torah under the Maharal and that he was a colleague of the Rabbi, author of the Tosafot Yom Tov…. The “true” Golem — according to a reconstruction based upon trustworthy sources — was the creation of R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem, Chief Rabbi of Chelm, who was a disciple of the Maharal (as mentioned earlier). For whatever reason, the Master and the disciple were confused, with the resulting confusion [as to who created the Golem.]”

In fact, R. Eliyahu of Chelm was neither a student of the Maharal nor a colleague of the Tosafot Yom Tov. Sprecher can hardly be faulted; he was misled by the source he quotes, namely R. Menahem Mendel Krengil (d. 1930) in his commentary to R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai’s Shem Ha-Gedolim.[10] In turn, Krengil was misled by the source he quotes, R. Yitzhok Shlomo of Ozorkov’s introduction to Mikhlol Yofi (Warsaw, 1883).[11] In turn, R. Yitzhok Shlomo was misled by the source he quotes, R. Yehiel Heilprin’s (d. 1746), Seder Ha-Dorot.[12] In common, all these sources – and others not mentioned here – confused two different rabbis with the same name and cognomen, Eliyahu Ba’al Shem, and compressed them into one person. Despite the best efforts of nineteenth and twentieth century Jewish historians to expose this error,[13] shabashta keyvan d’al ‘al.

The above-mentioned R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm, the ancestor of R. Jacob Emden, may have created a Golem. But he was not a disciple of the Maharal, and he was not a colleague of the Tosafot Yom Tov, and — so far as anyone knows – he never set foot in Prague. Yet another R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem was R. Eliyahu (b. R. Moshe) Loanz (1564-1636) of Worms.[14] Distinguished kabbalist and author, he was a disciple of the Maharal[15] and a colleague of the Tosafot Yom Tov, but no one ever suggested that he created a Golem! This is not even a case of the proverbial “two Yosef b. Shimons.” For R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm’s father’s name was R. Aharon Yehudah, whereas R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Worms’ father’s name was R. Moshe.[16] Moreover, each was buried in the city where he served as Rabbi. Pilgrimages to the grave of R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm — in Chelm –were commonplace until World War II.[17] The tombstone inscription on the grave of R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Worms – in Worms – was published in the nineteenth century.[18]

Other famous disciples of the Maharal include his son, R. Bezalel; his son-in-law, R. Yitzhok b. R. Shimshon; R. Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, author of Tosafot Yom Tov; and R. David Ganz, author of Tzemah David.[19] No source prior to the twentieth century ever imagined that these — or any other – disciples of the Maharal were involved in creating a Golem. In sum, until new evidence is forthcoming, the answer to the question raised in the title of this note appears to be: “No.”

Notes:

[1] B.Y. Rabinowitz, “The Golem of Prague – Fact or Fiction?” Dei’ah VeDibur, March 1, 2006.

[2] Posting on Mail-Jewish, March 6, 2006.

[3] See note 1.

[4] In general, see J. Günzig, Die Wundermänner in jüdischen Volk, Antwerpen, 1921, pp. 24-26; A. Brik, “רבי אליהו בעל שם זצ”ל מחעלם,” Moriah 7 (1977), n. 6-7, 79-85; and M.D. Tzitzik, “מהר”ר אליהו בעל שם מחעלם,” Yeshurun 17 (2006), 644-667.

שו”ת ב”ח החדשות, ס’ ע”ז [5]

[6]

שו”ת שאילת יעב”ץ, ח”ב, ס’ פ”ב. Cf. his בירת מגדל עוז, Altona, 1748, p. 259a; מטפחת ספרים, Altona, 1768, p. 45a; and מגילת ספר, ed. Kahana, Warsaw, 1896, p. 4. See also שו”ת חכם צבי, ס’ צ”ג, and the references cited in שו”ת חכם צבי עם ליקוטי הערות, Jerusalem, 1998, vol. 1, p. 421 and in the periodical כפר חב”ד, number 351 (1988), p. 51.

[7] See the sources cited by M. Idel, גולם, Tel Aviv, 1996, pp. 181-184 (English edition: Golem, Albany, 1990, pp. 207-212).

[8] S. Sprecher, בסתר בצל’:קווים לדמותו הסמויה של הג”ר בצלאל בנו יחידו של המהר”למפראג זצ”ל in Yeshurun 2 (1997), 623-634.

[9] See the text on p. 629; and the end of note 24 on p. 632.

[10] R. Menahem Mendel Krengil, ed., שם הגדולים השלם, Podgorze, 1905, vol. 1, p. 11b, n. 85. Cf. Krengil’s remarks at p. 12a, n. 90, and at p.117a, n. 12.

[11] R. Eliyahu Loanz, מכלול יופי, Warsaw, 1883, introduction. R. Yitzhok Shlomo of Ozorkov (near Lodz), who wrote the introduction, arranged for this reissue of R. Eliyahu Loanz’ commentary on Koheleth. The introduction is particularly confused and misleading.

[12] סדר הדורות , Karlsruhe, 1769, p. 64a. Cf. סדר הדורות השלם, Jerusalem, 1985, part 1, p.248. The passage reads:

[13] See, e.g., H.N. Dembitzer, כלילת יופי , Cracow, 1888, part 1, pp. 78b-79a; H. Michael, אור החיים , Frankfurt, 1891, pp. 170-171; and E.L. Gartenhaus, אשל הגדולים, Brooklyn, 1958, pp. 92-94.

[14] See J. Günzig, op. cit. (above, note 4), pp. 37-39; N.Y. Ha-Kohen, אוצר הגדולים, Haifa, 1966, vol. 2, p. 184; and the entry in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 11, column 420.

[15] See R. Barukh b. R. David of Gniezno, גדולת מרדכי, Hanau, 1615, letters of approbation (reissued: Jerusalem, 1991, p. 3). R. Eliyahu Loanz, in his letter of approbation to this volume, writes:

“ והנה ידוע שמ”ו ה”ה הגאון מהר”ר ליווא מפראג היתה תורתו אומנותו מיום הכיר את בוראו.”

For legendary accounts of R. Eliyahu Loanz and his meetings with the Maharal of Prague and the author of the Tosafot Yom Tov, see R. Moshe Hillel, בעלי שם, Jerusalem, 1993, pp. 10-87.

[16] Already noted by A. Brik (above, note 4), p. 81.

[17] A. Brik (above, note 4), p. 85. Cf. J. Günzig, op. cit., p. 26.

[18] L. Lewysohn, נפשות צדיקים, Frankfurt, 1855, p. 59-60. Cf. E.M. Pinner, כתבי יד, Berlin, 1861, p. 166 and notes.

[19] See A. Gottesdiener, המהר”ל מפראג, Jerusalem, 1976, pp. 88-97.