The Image of the Menorah in the Early Printed Hebrew Book

By Dan Rabinowitz

The menorah is one of the most recognizable Jewish symbols. Today it has been adopted by the State of Israel as her official symbol, and throughout history there are numerous examples of its use. Coins, headstones, paintings and synagogue walls etchings, lamps, mosaics, manuscripts, and books, all provide examples of the widespread usage and mediums. Many of these examples have been addressed by scholars, but there is a lacuna regarding the depiction of the menorah in the Hebrew book.[1]

Despite that it is one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous symbols, the image of the menorah barely makes an appearance on Hebrew books. The first appearance of the menorah in a Hebrew book was Yosef Yikhya’s, Torah Or, Bologna, 1538. There is appears on the verso of the titlepage. The menorah is created via micrography and extols the value of the work. The designer even correctly places the menorah on a stand (and not a solid base as shown in the Arch of Titus). [2] 

From the inception of printing, Hebrew printers, like others, created and populated their works with their unique marks. These symbols served advertising for the publisher. Perhaps the only other symbol with such wide resonance and connection to the Jews as the Menorah is the star of David. There are over 200 printers’ marks, or emblems, close to 20 examples of the Magen David, and multiple appearances of other Jewish symbols, lions, David, Solomon, eagles, but two only of a menorah. [3]

Meir ben Jacob Parenzo, (aka Parentio, Parintz, or Maggius Parentinus), operated in Venice from 1545 until his death in 1575. He apprenticed in Daniel Bomberg’s printing shop, and in 1545 he began working for the Venetian printer, Cornelio Adelkind. Although most of his career was in the service of others, he did publish a handful of books on his own. He did not own a press and likely used Bomberg’s Press. All of these books bear Parenzo’s printers mark, a menorah. Whatever ambiguity there is about his surname, his personal name, Meir, alludes to lighting, thus a natural connection to the menorah. On either side of the menorah, “This is Meir’s menorah, he is the son of Yaakov Parenzo.”

Parnezo’s mark comprises around half of the title page. This grotesque design was called out for being unique among his contemporaries, but that it was “a pathetic bid for immortality.” As a measure of divine justice, according one scholar of Hebrew Italian printing, that “Meir Parenzo, notwithstanding his hope for immortality, is completely forgotten except for a small circle of Hebrew bibliographers, who, although conscious that the individual contributions of the men they commemorate are negligible in the great current of human affairs as it flows majestically down through the ages, nevertheless handing down (or transmitting) the knowledge of the existence of so many faithful men who have contributed their share to the enlightenment of the world.” [4] 

Another printer, also a Meir, incorporated the menorah into his mark, although on a much smaller scale. Meir ben Yaakob Ibn Ya’ir, here too, the surname, Ibn Ya’ir, references light. The menorah appears inside a border, flanked by olive trees surrounded by four verses, all mentioning either oil or light. Meir was active between 1552 and 1555. He published a few books abridged books on the laws of shehitah, as well as a work on Hebrew grammar, all exceedingly rare. [5]

The menorah next makes an appearance in Moshe Cordovero’s, (1522-1570), first book, Pardes Rimonim. This illustration is not of the biblical menorah, rather it is a kabbalistic representation of the sefirot overlaid on the menorah frame. This illustration was printed in most subsequent editions of Pardes Rimonim, although not as an exact reprint of the first edition.

The first illustration of the menorah that was an attempt to depict and elucidate complexities of the biblical menorah only occurred in 1593. There were two books that include the illustration, Biurim and Omek Halakha.

R. Yaakov ben Shmuel Bunim Koppelman, (1555-1594) studied with R. Mordechai Jaffe, author of the Levush. In addition to traditional subjects, he was also well-versed in (my astronomy and mathematics. He published Omek Halakha in Cracow, 1593, a commentary on the Talmud. This slim volume of just 95 pages, is rich in illustrations, which appear on nearly every page. For example, there is a thirteen page an in-depth discussion of astrology with two full page diagrams of the lunar paths and many of the other pages include multiple illustrations. Koppelman includes a detailed diagram of the menorah with an accompanying commentary. [6]

The Biurim on Rashi was published in 1593 in Venice and attributed to R. Nathan Shapira. Shapira had died in 1577; his work includes three illustrations, the menorah, a map of Israel, and a diagram of how the spies carried the large bunch of grapes. This is the first Hebrew book to contain a map.

The book is one of the handful of examples of literary forgeries in Hebrew books. R. Shapira’s son, Yitzhak, published his father’s comments on Rashi in 1597 in a work titled Imrei Shefer. In the introduction he explains why there are two books that are attributed to his father on the same topic published within a few years of one another.

ואתם קדושי עליון אל תתמהו על החפץ שזה שתנים ימים יצא בדפוס איזה ביאורים הנקראים על שם הגאון אדוני אבי ז”ל, כי המציאוהו אנשים, אנשי בלי עול מלכות שמים, חיבור אשר מצאו, ומי יודע המחבר אם נער כתבו ורצו לתלותו באילן גדול אדני אבי ז”ל, חלילה לפה קדוש להוציא מפיו דברים אשר אין בהם ממש, כי הכל תוהו ובוהו ומזויף מתוכו, כלו עלו קמשונים כסו פניו חרולים. וכאשר הגיעו הספרים ההם בגלילות אלו הכרוז בהסכמת כל רבני ורשאי המדינות שלא ומכרו ויהיו בבל יראה ובבבל ימצא בכל ארצות אלו. ואשר קנו מהם יחזר להם המעות ולא ימצא בביתך עולה

[“Do not wonder why I am publishing what was published just two years ago, the Biurim, in my father’s name. As wicked people, people who found a book, a book which may have been written by a child. However, they wanted to use my father’s good name to publish their work. But, my father would never say such stupidities which appear in that book, their book is worthless and a forgery. When this was discovered all the Rabbis agreed that this book [Biurim] should be under a ban, no one should be allowed to keep it. Whomever purchased it should have their money returned, they should not allow a stumbling block into their home.”]

According to R. Shapiro’s son, the Biurim, is illicitly associated with his father. His son was not the only one to question the authenticity of the Biurim. R. Yissachar Bear Ellenburg in his Be’er Sheva and in his Tzedah L’Derekh states unequivocally that R. Shapiro did not write the Biurim.

The diagram of the menorah does not appear in Imrei Shefer. [7]

The diagram of the menorah appears in Yosef Da’at printed in Prague in 1609 by Rabbi Yosef ben Issachar Miklish (1580 -1654). He was a student of the Maharal of Prague and of Rabbi Ephraim Lonchitz, the author of the Klai Yakar. The purpose of the book was to correct errors in Rashi’s commentary. He used a 14^th century manuscript to make those corrections. To better facilitate studying Rashi, the book includes illustrations including the menorah. This a full page with detailed descriptions of each part of the menorah. Interestingly, the base seems to combine two different approaches, one that has three legs and the other with a solid base. Miklish reproduces a solid base on top of three legs.

In 1656/57 Yalkut Shimoni with the commentary of Berit Avraham was published in Livorno, Italy. This one includes a menorah created via micrography, but unlike the others that appear at the front of the books, this one appears at the end. It is a colophon.

A unique example of the menorah appears in the 1684 edition of the Humash. It is the sole illustration on the title page. When the menorah appears on the title page, it is almost always in conjunction with other vessels or other symbols. This is perhaps the only instance of a stand-alone menorah on a title page.

The next appearance is the first time it illustrated a titlepage, in R. Shabbati ben Joseph Meshorer Bass’s (1641-1718), most well-known work, his commentary on Rashi, Siftei Hakhamim. This edition was published in Dyhernfurth, Germany at Bass’s press. This was the second edition of the work, (the first was published in 1680 in Amsterdam), and includes one of the most unusual Hebrew titlepages.

The titlepage depicts Moshe and Aaron, with the ark and other temple vessels, and prominently, and occupying the bottom third of the page, a menorah. Bass makes multiple luminary allusions on the title page. This edition includes

“.עם תרגום אנקלוס וביאור מאור הגדול רש״י ז״ל: ועליו מפרשי דבריו ככוכבים יזהירו: ובש״בעה נרות יאירו”

The menorah makes another appearance on the next page. Like the Torah Or, Bass uses micrography, in praise of the book, to form the shape of the menorah.

Aside from the figurative arts there was also a musical component to the page. This is not surprising as Shabbati was a musician and singer, and a noted bassist singer, hence the “Meshorrer”/“Bass” surname. On the bottom of the page, in the left corner, appears “Az Yashir Moshe” the beginning of the one of the fundamental Jewish musical pieces, and musical notes appear at the bottom of the page, in what appears to be a composition of sorts. This is one of the few times musical notations appears in early Hebrew religious books. Another is Immanuel Hayi Ricci’s commentary on the Mishna, Hon Ashir, printed in Amsterdam in 1731. Appended to the end of the book are three songs, two set to music with notation.

Another menorah appears in Bass’s edition. On the next page, like the Torah Or, the menorah is comprised of micrography extoling this edition with the commentary. [8]

In 1694, R. Avraham Tzahalon published a portion of his grandfather’s, R. Yom Tov Tzahalon’s (c. 1559-1638), responsa. R. Yom Tov was a child prodigy, only eighteen when he published his first work. That same year he was included in granting an approbation alongside R. Moshe Tarani (Mahrit) and R. Moshe Alschech. R. Yom Tov was no shrinking violet. And he had a dim view of R. Yosef Karo’s Shulhan Arukh. He belittled it, calling it only fit for children. The title page and the verso of the 1694 edition include depictions of the temple vessels and specifically the menorah. But his responsa do not discuss the temple vessels and this was included, “to beautify and embellish the title page of the book in a manner fit for print; the students illustrated holy concepts, the form of the Tabernacle and the Third Temple.” A rare of example of acknowledging the aesthetic beauty in the Hebrew book.

Three years later, the Italian scholar, Moshe Hafetz, (1663-1711), (aka Moses Gentili) published Hannukat ha-Bayit which discusses the Temple in great detail and includes numerous illustrations. Because of the illustrations, the book was printed in two parts. First all the text was printed with space left for the illustrations and illustrations were then added using etched copperplates.

His other work, Melekhet Mahshevet, includes his portrait, the first rabbinic portrait included in a Hebrew book, which is somewhat controversial because he is bareheaded. In a 19^th century edition, a yarmulke was drawn on his head.[9]

The Bass titlepage served as the model for another lavishly illustrated titlepage. Although it served as a model, it was only a model and not a perfect facsimile. This was intentional. In this instance, the Menorah was the most important visual element of the titlepage and therefore is significantly larger than before and is in the center not the bottom of the page. Of course, this is because the book’s title includes menorah, Menorat haMeor. The book’s structure is based upon the biblical menorah and divided into seven parts, like the seven branches of the menorah. The title page was likely executed by the well-known engraver, Avraham ben Jacob, whose lavishly illustrated 1695 edition of the Haggadah, remains among the most remarkable illustrated haggadot and served as a model for dozens of other illustrated haggadot. Like in the Biruim, Jacob also produced a map, this one much more refined than the basic one in the Biruim. It is a large fold-out map of the Jews travels from Egypt to Israel. Most of his illustrations are copied from the Mathis Maren, a Christian, whose biblical illustrations were very popular. [10]

The illustration was reused by another Amsterdam printer, Solomon Proops, in 1723. Thus, this is one of the few instances of Hebrew titlepage images reflecting the title or the work itself rather than serving a mere ornamental purpose. The titlepage imagery was reused for a 1755 edition of the Torah. This time the menorah is significantly reduced in size.

While these menorahs depicted in Hebrew books, might differ in small details, they are consistent in depicting curved, and not straight, arm. Nearly every manuscript and all the archeological finds similarly depict the curved branches. Of late, this is subject to controversy. The Lubavitcher Rebbe heavily promoted his position that the arms of the biblical menorah were straight and not rounded. In the main, he based this on a manuscript in the Rambam’s hand that includes a depiction of the menorah with straight arms and the confirming testimony of his son that, according to Rambam, the arms were straight. This produced one of the more unusual exchanges in a haredi journal, in his instance, Or Yisrael, published in Monsey, New York. Those historic and documentary materials are used by R. Yisrael Yehuda Yakob, from Kollel Belz, as evidence against the Rebbe’s position. The article uses the mosaics in the 7^th century Shalom al Yisrael Synagogue. The menorah is at the center of a large mosaic. The inscription near the mosaic indicates that the entire congregation, men, women, old and young, all took part in the creation of the mosaic. The Burnt House in Jerusalem’s Old City, that dates to the Second Temple period. Yakob then moves on to numismatic, citing a coin from the Hasmanoim period. Section three is then devoted to a discussion of the menorah on the Arch of Titus. Yakob references unidentified “hokrim” who posit that the base of the menorah was broken en route to Rome and was replaced with a base of a Roman creation. This explains why the base does not conform with the Rabbinic description and contains bas reliefs of various mythical and real animals. It was not the true one. Although unidentified, this position is that of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Herzog as well as the nineteenth-century British Protestant academic, William Knight. Only in section four does Yakob turn to the more traditional Medieval Jewish commentaries. Ultimately, Yakob concludes that the rounded arms is the correct depictions and “justifies” the custom to draw it that way. Following the text, is a reproduction of the menorah from the second century synagogue, Dura Europas. A most unusual conclusion for a rabbinic article. (The image of the Dura Europos menorah actually depicts a straight arm menorah, that follows the Rebbe’s opinion. This is one of the only archeological examples of a straight arm menorah. The value of this image, however, is questionable. The menorah appears four times at Dura Europos. The straight arm one appears at the upper left corner of the opening for entrance. But, in the panel that specifically depicts the Mishkan and its vessels, there is a rounded arm menorah. While we don’t know what to attribute the differences to, it is more likely that greater care was placed in the accurate reproduction of the menorah within the context of the mishkan rather than were it serves as mere decoration.)

As would be expected, there was a rebuttal article that is more in line with the Haredi approach. The author concedes that his main objection is to Yakob’s approach, the “fundamental point which is almost litmus test of one’s religiosity: any evidence adduced from pictures and archeological evidence, God forbid, to rely upon these things or the conclusions of archeologists.” Although never directly discussed, presumably the author would dismiss the examples in the Hebrew book.[11]

* I would like to thank the bibliophile par excellence, Marvin Heller, for his assistance and close read of the article, and William Gross, whose library of objects and books is among the richest private collections, and provided most of the images, with credit to the Gross Family Collection. Many are available at the Center for Jewish Art website (https://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php).

[1] See for example, Rachel Hachlili, The Menorah, The Seven-Armed Candelabrum (Leiden: Brill, 2001) who exhaustively catalogs the examples of menorah depictions but does not discuss the Hebrew book.
[2] For the history of the menorah, see Steven Fine’s comprehensive study, The Menorah, From the Bible to Modern Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016). Also see L. Yarden, The Tree of Light, A Study of the Menorah (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.
[3] Avraham Yaari, Degali Madfisim ha-Ivriyim (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1944), see index s.v. magen David and menorah; Yitzhak Yudlov, Degali Madfisim (Jerusalem: Old City Press, 2002); For examples of lions, eagles, and fish, see Marvin Heller, Essays on the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 5-84
[4] See Steinschnider, Catalogus Libr Hebr., col. 2984, no. 8761 (discussing his surname); Yaari, Degali, 128-29; Encyclopeadia Judaica, vol. 13 col. 101-02 (1996); David Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (London: Holland Press, 1963), 367-71.

Parenzo may have a second printers mark that only appears once, in the 1574 Bragadini edition of the Rambam. On the verso of the title page is, according to EJ, “a rather daring design” illustrating Venus hurling arrows at a seven-headed dragon. Unmentioned is Venus’ clothes, or lack thereof.

This mark is similar to the Cremona-Sabbioneta, printer, Vincenzo Conti’s mark, with the seven-headed hydra. His, however, has Hercules rather than Venus.

A nude Venus was also used by Allesandro Gardano for his printers mark. He only published one book, a pocket edition of the Shulhan Orakh in 1578. A naked Venus rising appears at the bottom.

Hans Jacob, who published in Hanau in the 1620s, also has a naked Venus rising from a seashell at the bottom of at least four works, R. Moshe Isserless, Torat Hatas, Sefer Mahril, and a Siddur.

For a detailed discussion of Parenzo’s printing activities, see A.M. Haberman, “Ha-madfeshim beni R’ Yaakov Parenzoni be-Veniztia,” in Areshet 1 (1959), 61-88.
[5] See Yudolov, Degali Madfisim (Jerusalem: Old City Press, 2002), 23-24.
[6] See Marvin Heller, “Jacob ben Samuel Bunim Koppelman: A Sixteenth Century Multi-Faceted Jewish Scholar,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (Mainz, 2018), pp. 195-207.
[7] Introduction Imrei Sefer, Lublin 1697 (on differences in the printings of the Imrei Shefer see Yudolov, Areshet, 6 (1981) 102 no. 7); Biurim, Venice 1693; R. E. Katzman, “Rabbi Nathan Nata Shapiro – Ha-Megaleh Amukot” in Yeshurun 13 (Elul 2002) 677-700; Introduction [R. E. Katzman], Seder Birkat HaMazon im Pirush shel R. Noson Shapiro, 2000 Renaissance Hebraica, 1-10.
[8] His original surname may have been Strimers. See Shimeon Brisman, A History and Guide to Judaic Bibliography (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1977), 267n.33. For additional biographical information see id. collecting sources.
[9] Dan Rabinowitz, “Yarlmuke: A Historic Cover-up?,” (here) Hakirah (4).
[10] Regarding the map, see Harold Brodsky, “The Seventeenth-Century Haggadah Map of Avraham Bar Yaacov,” in Jewish Art 19-20 (1993-1994): 149-157; David Stern, “Mapping the Redemption: Messianic Cartography in the 1695 Amsterdam Haggadah,” in Studia Rosenthaliana 42/43 (2010-2011), 43-63; Amir Cahanovitc, “Mappot be-haggadot pesah” (Masters thesis, Achva Academic College, 2015), 34-85. For a discussion of this edition and reproductions of some of its images and a comparison with Mathew Merian’s illustrations see Cecil Roth, “Ha-Haggadah ha-Metsuyyeret she-bi-Defus,” Areshet 3 (1961), 22-25; Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005), plates 59-62, 67, 69.
[11] See R. Yisrael Yehuda Yakob, “Tzurot Kani Menorah,” in Or Yisrael 18 () 131-139; R. Nahum Greenwald, “Kani Menorah Ketzad Havei,” in Or Yisrael 18 () 140-154.

An enigmatic Pseudo-Shklov edition of Barukh She’amar[1]

By Marvin J. Heller

A title-page describing the work as an 1820 Shklov press publication is indicative of an enigmatic pseudo-edition of Baruch She’amar, a halakhot work pertaining to Sefer Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot by R. Simeon bar Eliʻezer (d. c. 1360). The author of Barukh She’amar, R. Simeon bar Eliʻezer (d. c. 1360), was born in Saxony, Germany and died in Eretz Israel. Orphaned at the age of eight, Simeon was adopted and raised by R. Issachar, a scribe who taught Simeon his craftsmanship, at which Shimon developed such expertise that R. Solomon ben Jehiel Luria (Maharshal, c. 1510-1574) referred to Simeon as “the head of all scribes.”[2]

There is confusion as to the actual dates and places of printing of this imprint. The title-page clearly gives Shklov as the place of printing and dates it with the chronogram “[We must] teach the children of Judah the archer’s bow קסת [קשת] ללמד בני יהודה  (580 = 1820)” (II Samuel 1:18). However, to get the date 1820 the shin ש (300) in the verse has been replaced with a sameh ס (60) for the total of 580 = 1820. Nevertheless, bibliographic sources are in agreement that the publication place of the 1820 Barukh She’amar was Minkowce (Minkovtsy), a village in Podolia near Belarus in north-eastern Poland. However, there were earlier editions of Baruch She’amar issued in Dubno in 1796 and again in Shklov in 1804.

The two presses noted in conjunction with the printing of the subject editions of Baruch She-Amar are in Shklov and Minkowce (Minkovtsy). The former location, Shklov, is in the Mogilev region of Belaurus on the Dnieper river, approximately 410 km. from Vilna. It was home to a Jewish community dating to the late seventeenth century. A charter permitting Jewish settlement in Shklov was first received in 1668. Not long after, according to a visiting diplomat in 1699, Jews were “the richest and most influential class of people in the city.” By 1776 the Jewish population of Shkolov was 1,367. Shklov was an intellectual center as well as being an important commercial center in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[3] Hebrew presses in Shklov date to the late eighteenth century and as many as 226 Hebrew titles are attributed to that location until 1835. Minkowce, in contrast, is in the Kamenets-Podolski district of the Ukraine. A smaller community, its Jewish population in 1765 was 375. A Hebrew press was active there from 1795 to 1812, publishing almost forty titles.[4]

1804, Baruch She’amar, Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

1820, Baruch She’amar, Courtesy of Virtual Judaica

Entries in bibliographic works for Baruch She’amar consistently question the title-page of the 1820 edition’s place of publication when recording this work. Ch. B. Friedberg, in the Bet Eked Sefarim, records several editions of Baruch She’amar, among them [Minkowce 1795], Shklov 1804, and [Minkowce 1820]. In his Hebrew typography in Poland Friedberg records Baruch She’amar under Minkowce, 1796 and 1820 and under Shklov the 1804 edition of that work, dated קסת ללמד בני יהודה (564 = 1804). Vinograd, in the Thesaurus, lists a 1795 edition of Baruch She’amar referencing Friedberg, noting that it is questionable and an 1820 edition in which the title-page states Shklov, and in the entry for that work under the latter location has 1804 and 1820 entries, and for the 1820 edition referring the reader to Minkowce. Apart from these editions there was, as noted above, a prior 1796 Dubno imprint as well as several later editions.[5]

The text and format of the 1804 and 1820 editions are alike, both quartos (4⁰: 32 ff.) and the title-pages of the two editions of Baruch She’amar even employ the same chronogram, modified to reflect the date of publication. Both title-pages credit R. Israel ben Issachar Ber from Ohilov for bringing the book to press, apparently the latter a repetition from the earlier printing. However, the 1804 Baruch She’amar names the printers as Aryeh ben Menahem, Aryeh Leib ben Schneer Feibush, Abraham ben Jacob, and Shabbetai ben Ziyyon as the printers. In contrast, the 1820 edition does not name the printer.

Abraham Yaari has entries for both Shklov and Minkowce in his bibliographical articles on those locations. In his article on Shklov he writes that a partial edition of Baruch She’amar had been printed previously in Dubno in 1796 and this, the 1804 edition, was the first complete printing of that work. He adds that Friedberg’s entries are in error and that the 1820 [Shklov] edition does not exist. Concerning the 1820 Minkowce edition, Yaari informs that there is an approbation from R. Judah Leib ben Zevi ha-Kohen Av Bet Din in Minkowce dated 11 Kislev 1820 (November 29, 1819) who refers to the earlier Minkowce printing and states that it is now being reprinted here, that is, in Minkowce. Yaari again takes issue with Friedberg, concluding “in truth, a complete edition was first printed in Shklov in 1804 (and based on that edition it was printed in Minkowce in 1820). A partial edition was printed in Dubno in 1796 and perhaps this is the reason for the errors.”[6]

1796, Barukh She’amar, Courtesy of the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad Ohel Yosef Yitzhak

While Yaari does appear to accurately summarize these editions he does not explain why the title-page of the 1820 Baruch She’amar clearly states Shklov as the place of printing rather than Minkowce. It is well known that in several instances the place of printing and the publication dates were modified to mislead the censor. However, that is not the case with other titles printed in both of our locations and the subject matter of Baruch She’amar on the halakhot pertaining to scribal arts is not one likely to attract the censor’s attention.

The printers of the 1820 edition removed the names of the printers from the 1804 title-page; it seems highly unlikely that they would have omitted correcting the publication place name. Moreover, even if in copying the title-page from the previous edition had been an oversight such an improbable error, if it  had occurred, would certainly have quickly necessitated a stop-press correction. Even if caught later it seems improbable that the publisher would have distributed the work as is. Moreover, it also seems improbable that this copy of the 1804 edition would have been subject to copyright restrictions. There is another important omission from the 1820 edition, that is, the editor, Israel ben Aryeh Leib’s apologia, at the end of the work.

There are, however, in addition to those noted above, significant likenesses between the two works. First, excepting the front matter and apologia, the texts are set, line for line, in an identical manner. Moreover, the fonts appear to be alike. The reader should compare the two like pages below and drew his/her own conclusion. Perchance, the Minkowce printer acquired remaining copies of the 1804 edition, added the new front and back matter and reissued the work. Why did he do so?

1804, Baruch She’amar, Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

1820, Baruch She’amar , Courtesy of Virtual Judaica

Perhaps, and this is highly speculative, he felt that publishing this edition of Baruch She’amar as a pseudo-Shklov publication would give it greater marketability. If so, that should also have been true as well of other Minkowce publications. Or maybe he simply did not want to put his name on someone else’s work. Finally, we are left with the question as to why R. Judah Leib ben Zevi ha-Kohen’s approbation, which helps identify the place of publication, was printed with Baruch She’amar. Possibly including the approbation was important for the reasons that approbations were obtained, and it certainly would have been unconscionable, having gotten the Av Bet Din‘s approbation, to not print it.

We are left with a teku (an unresolved question).

[1] I would like to thank Eli Amsel of Virtual Judaica for bringing the 1820 edition of Baruch She-amar to my attention and Eli Genauer for reading the article and for his corrections.
[2] Hirsch Goldwurm, ed., The Rishonim (Brooklyn, 1982), p. 147.
[3] The Encyclopedia of Jewish life Before and During the Holocaust, editor in chief, Shmuel Spector; consulting editor, Geoffrey Wigoder; foreword by Elie Wiesel II (New York, 2001), III p. 1170; Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Part I Indexes. Books and Authors, Bibles, Prayers and Talmud, Subjects and Printers, Chronology and Languages, Honorees and Institutes. Part II Places of print sorted by Hebrew names of places where printed including author, subject, place, and year printed, name of printer, number of pages and format, with annotations and bibliographical references II (Jerusalem, 193-95), pp. 689-95 [Hebrew].
[4] The Encyclopedia of Jewish II (New York, 2001.). p. 826). Vinograd II pp.457-458.
[5] Ch. B. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim (Tel Aviv, 1951), bet 1431 [Hebrew]; idem. History of Hebrew Typography in Poland from its beginning in the year 1534 and its development to the present. . . . Second Edition, Enlarged, improved and revised from the sources (\(Tel Aviv, 1950), pp. 91,121, 123 [Hebrew]; Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Listing of Books Printed in Hebrew Letters Since the Beginning of Printing circa 1469 through 1863 II (Jerusalem, 1993-95), pp. 457, 458, 692, 694 [Hebrew].
[6] Avraham Yaari, “Hebrew Printing in Minkovtsy,” Kiryat Sefer 19 (1942-43), pp. 274-75 [Hebrew]; idem. “Hebrew Printing in Shklov,” KS 22 (1945-46), pp. 141-42 [Hebrew].

Apostomos Now: Contemporary Conjectures on a Classic Conundrum

Aton M. Holzer
Aton.holzer@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9852-3958
28 Binyamin, Beit Shemesh, Israel 9952200

The Mishnah in Ta’anit (4:6) puts forth a series of lists of five calamities that befell the Jews on each of two major fast days, the seventeenth of Tammuz and the ninth of Av, beginning in the days of Moses in the Wilderness and culminating after Bar Kochba:

חמשה דברים ארעו את אבותינו בשבעה-עשר בתמוז (וב) וחמשה בתשעה באב. בשבעה-עשר בתמוז נשתברו הלוחות ובטל התמיד והובקעה העיר ושרף אפיסטמוס את התורה והעמיד צלם בהיכל. בתשעה באב נגזר על אבותינו שלא יכנסו לארץ וחרב (את) הבית בראשונה ובשנייה [ו]נילכדה בית-תר ונחרשה העיר

Five matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken; the daily offering was nullified; the city was breached; Apistemos[1] burned a Torah scroll; and placed a statue in the hall (heikhal). On the Ninth of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would not enter the Land; and the Temple was destroyed the first time, and the second time; and Beitar was captured; and the city was plowed.[2]

There is little mystery surrounding the five events of the ninth of Av; all of the events – the decree of the death of the generation after the return of the spies in Numbers 14, the destructions of the First and Second temples, the defeat of Bar Kochba at Beitar and the plowing of the city limits by Tineius Rufus in the founding of Aelia are well-documented events, even if some did not precisely occur on the ninth of the month.[3] All share a theme: the final stage of catastrophe, the coup de grâce to a generation’s hopes.

In contrast, the list for the seventeenth of Tammuz is shrouded in mystery.

1. While the date of Moses’ descent from Sinai with the Law (Exodus 32) is not given in Scripture, the Rabbinic calculation assigning it to the seventeenth of Tammuz, forty days after revelation on the seventh of Sivan – itself extrapolated from the text – is straightforward enough. Still, it is somewhat curious that the Mishnah selects the breaking of the Tablets, rather than the other dire events of that day – the crime of the creation of the Golden Calf, its immediate punishment in the execution of three thousand of its Israelite worshippers, or the removal of the peoples’ mysterious ‘adornments’ from Horeb, for example.

The nullification of the daily offering is mentioned in Josephus:
2. Titus now ordered the troops with him to raze Antonia to its foundations and create an easy way up for the whole of his army, while he himself brought Josephus into service. He had learnt that on this day — it was the seventeenth of Panemus (Tammuz)  — the so-called ‘continual sacrifice’ had ceased to be offered to God for lack of officiants, and that this was causing great distress to the people. (The Jewish War 6:93-94).

At first glance, this seems clearly the referent of the Mishnah. However, examination of evidence internal to Rabbinic sources – the Talmuds, early Rabbinic treatments of Daniel 12:11 and medieval commentators on both – yield five possible occasions for the cancellation of the tamid, beginning from the reign of Manasseh and spread over the subsequent seven centuries.[4] To be sure, the events surrounding the Second Temple’s destruction do constitute the fifth possibility, but that is a minor view, resting primarily on the evidence of yBerakhot 4:1 and yTa’anit 4:5. Vered Noam (pace Tal Ilan)[5] reads the Talmudic passages carefully and against Josephus and argues that those Yerushalmi sources are derivative from the parallel narrative in Bavli, which clearly reference an earlier period, and was only secondarily adapted to the context of the destruction of the Second Temple. The Bavli passage (bSotah 49b, bBava Kamma 82b, bMenahot 64b) reads:

The Sages taught: When the kings of the Hasmonean monarchy besieged each other, Hyrcanus was outside, and Aristobulus was inside. On each and every day they would lower dinars in a box, and [they] would send up daily offerings. A certain Elder was there who was familiar with Greek wisdom. He communicated to [them] by Greek wisdom. He said to them: As long as they are engaged in the service, they will not be delivered into your hands. On the following day, they lowered dinars in a box and they sent up a pig to them. Once it reached halfway up the wall, it inserted its hooves [and] Eretz Yisrael shuddered four hundred parasangs. They said at that time: Cursed is the person who raises pigs, and cursed is the person who teaches his son Greek wisdom. And with regard to that year, we learned: An incident in which the omer came from Gaggot Tzerifim, and the two loaves from the valley of Ein Sokher.

For this source, which appears thrice in Bavli, the dramatic event of cancellation of the tamid-offering is firmly linked with the waning days of Hasmonean rule. The placement of the event as second in the Mishnah’s list supports the contention that the identified event preceded those associated with the Great Revolt.

3. The linkage of the ‘breach of the city’ to the seventeenth of Tammuz is more problematic. With regard to the first commonwealth, Jeremiah (39:2) dates the breach of the walls of Jerusalem during the Babylonian conquest to the ninth of Tammuz. With regard to the second, Josephus describes various stages of conquest of the various walls of Jerusalem during the Roman siege under Titus, beginning with the seventh of Artemisius/Iyyar (War 5:302) and culminating near the end of Tammuz, with none actually occurring on the seventeenth of Tammuz.[6]

4. Rabbinic sources never elaborate upon details of the reported incident of the burning of ha-torah, ‘the Torah,’ by the mysterious Apistemos, who appears in Talmud manuscripts as Apostomos or occasionally Postomos (?posthumous). Yerushalmi (Ta’anit 4:5) attempts to clarify its whereabouts:

“Apostomos burned the Torah.” Where did he burn it? Rebbi Aḥa said, at the ford of Lydda. But the rabbis are saying, at the ford of Tarlosa.

In non-Rabbinic sources, the burning of Torah scrolls is recorded as early as the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes; in 1 Maccabees, it is a widespread phenomenon.

On the fifteenth day of Kislev in the 145th year he built an abomination of desolation on the altar, and they built pagan altars in the cities of Judah roundabout and offered up sacrifices at the doors of their houses and in the streets. They tore up and burnt the books of the Law that they found, and wherever they found someone with a book of the covenant, or if anyone insisted upon (observing) the Law, the royal judgment killed him. (1:54-57)

Josephus records the burning of a Torah during the procuratorship of Ventidius Cumanus (48-52 CE):

…This disaster was followed by another disturbance, this time caused by bandits. On the road up to Beth-horon an imperial servant called Stephen was set upon by bandits and robbed of the baggage he was carrying. Cumanus sent troops out round the neighbouring villages to arrest the inhabitants and bring them in to him, to be charged with failure to pursue and capture the robbers. In the course of this, a soldier found in one of the villages a copy of the book of sacred law, which he tore in pieces and threw into the fire. The Jews reacted with horror, as if it were their whole country which had gone up in flames. As soon as the word went out, religious fervour drew them together like a magnet, and they converged in a mass on Caesarea, insistent that Cumanus should not let this insult to their God and their law go unpunished. He could see that the crowd would not stop agitating until they received satisfaction, and thought it best to produce the offending soldier and order him to be led through the ranks of the complainants on his way to execution. (War 2.228-231)

The ancient city of Beth Horon (today Beit Ur al-Fauqa and Beit Ur al-Tahta) is about twenty-six kilometers east of Lod (Lydda), and the ‘road up to Beth Horon’ generally refers to the road running north from Jerusalem, not east from Lydda – so the if the referent of the Jerusalem Talmud is historical, the ‘ford’ (or straits, or passages) of Lydda (or of the mysterious ‘Tarlosa’[7]) is not a good match for this incident.

Rabbinic literature omits all of these, but records several other events at which a Torah scroll was burned; none involve a villain named Apostomos. In a list of sins committed by the Judean kings deemed wicked, some manuscripts of bSanhedrin 103b include:

Amon burned the Torah and sacrificed a gecko upon the altar.

A passage in bYevamot 16b describes:

And Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said Rabbi Yonatan said: What is which is written: “The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her treasures (Lamentations 1:10)? This is Ammon and Moab. When the gentiles entered the Sanctuary, all turned to the silver and the gold, and they turned to the scrolls of Torah. They said: this in which it is written: “An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:4)? Let it be burnt by fire.

“When the gentiles entered the sanctuary” can refer to any of at least four events: the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE, the defilement of the sanctuary by Antiochus in 156 BCE, its destruction by Titus’s legions in 70 CE, or, the incursion of Pompey in 63 BCE:

the disappearance of a golden vine from the Temple when ‘the gentiles entered the sanctum’ (bYoma 21b, 39b) parallels Josephus’s report (Ant. 14.34-36) of Aristobulus’s gift of this particular Temple adornment to Pompey, right around the time that this gentile and his men indeed entered the sanctum.[8]

Other events recorded in Talmud and Midrash include the martyrdom of R. Hanina ben Teradyon, burned alive while wrapped in a Torah scroll, recorded in bAvodah Zarah 18a; and yTa’anit 4:5 records R. Simeon b. Gamaliel reporting precisely the same fate for the children in five hundred schools in the city of Betar, subsequent to its conquest under Hadrian.

Traditional commentators struggle to identify Apostomos – Antiochus? Hadrian? Some unknown Greek soldier? – and why the destruction of a Torah scroll – lamentable as it may be, but something rather common throughout Jewish history, even in Second Temple and Rabbinic sources, as we have seen – would rank among five reasons to establish a fast for all generations. Tif’eret Yisrael fixates upon the hey ha-yedi’a, the definite article, and suggest that the Torah scroll was a special one — the Torah of Ezra, which he suggests, based on Tractate Soferim 6:4, was in the sanctuary and served as the urtext for further copies; or else that Apostomos destroyed many Torahs, in an effort to eradicate Torah from the Jewish people. The 19^th-century commentary Divrei Yirmiyahu (R. Jeremiah Löw) on Rambam (Hilkhot Ta’anit chap. 5) avers that the referent is the Torah of Moses, or Ezra. Imrei Da’at on the Mishnah (R. Nathan Lieberman) argues that regarding the Torah of Moses, this is impossible, as bSotah 9b writes of Moses and David that their enemies never exerted power over their handiwork.

5. The most prominent narrative in both Rabbinic sources and Josephus regarding the placing of an idol in the sanctuary refer to an event that almost did, but ultimately did not, occur: the emplacement of statues of the emperor in the Temple by Gaius Caligula, against the strenuous protest of the Jews – which was not implemented before his assassination. (War 2.184-203, Antiquities 18.256-309; Megillat Ta’anit 22 Shevat with Scholia, tSotah 13:6, et al.)

Given the violent reaction of the people to this initiative, and the record of the celebration of its thwarting with a holiday, it is unlikely that the actual emplacement of a statue in the Temple would be forgotten and thus absent from the historical record.[9] It thus remains to identify the incident with those actually documented to have installed an idol in the sanctuary precincts – the Judahite King Manasseh (II Kings 21:7), Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Maccabees 1:34), and probably Hadrian.[10] Complicating this is that some texts link this event to Apostomos (ve-he’emid, and he emplaced, rather than ve-hu’amad, and there was placed), including the best early Mishnah manuscript – MS Kaufmann A50 – which would necessarily restrict the identity of Apostomos to one of those three personalities. But Rabbinic literature elsewhere refers to each of those three by their proper names! And Antiochus, who appears rarely in early Rabbinic literature, in any case had a different Greek nickname — ἐπιμανής, epimanus, “the madman.”

Pompey and Circumstances

An innovative approach[11] was suggested some fifty years ago in an obscure Hebrew journal by Eliyahu Katz (1916-2004), a Rabbinic judge, poet and polymath who served as Chief Rabbi of pre-war Nitra, postwar Bratislava and from 1968 forward, Beersheba – but it received little attention, and suffers from some problems.

His theory focuses upon the incursion of Pompey into the Temple, mentioned earlier in brief. In greater detail: in 63 BCE, the armies under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus – Pompey the Great, finished his Senate-authorized task of pacifying belligerent Asia minor and Syria, and swung south and handily (and completely illegally) consumed civil war-torn Judea, killing thousands, abrogating the Roman Republic’s alliance with Hasmonean Judea. Josephus describes the events in his Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews; in the latter, which relies mostly on pro-Roman sources¹[12] (and in this passage, particularly the Pontic Greek geographer Strabo of Cappadocia[13]), he writes: (Ant. 14.4.3-5, Marcus translation)

And indeed when the city was taken, in the third month, on the Fast Day, in the hundred and seventy-ninth Olympiad, in the consulship of Gaius Antonius and Marcus Tullius Cicero, and the enemy rushed in and were slaughtering the Jews in the temple, those who were busied with the sacrifices none the less continued to perform the sacred ceremonies; nor were they compelled, either by fear for their lives or by the great number of those already slain, to run away, but thought it better to endure whatever they might have to suffer there beside the altars than to neglect any of the ordinances. And that this is not merely a story to set forth the praises of a fictitious piety, but the truth, is attested by all those who have narrated the exploits of Pompey, among them Strabo and Nicolas [of Damascus] and, in addition, Titus Livius, the author of a History of Rome.

Now when the siege-engine was brought up, the largest of the towers was shaken and fell, making a breach through which the enemy poured in; first among them was Cornelius Faustus, the son of Sulla, who with his soldiers mounted the wall, and after him the centurion Furius, with those who followed him, on the other side, and between them Fabius, another centurion, with a strong and compact body of men. And there was slaughter everywhere. For some of the Jews were slain by the Romans, and others by their fellows; and there were some who hurled themselves down the precipices, and setting fire to their houses, burned themselves within them, for they could not bear to accept their fate. And so of the Jews there fell some twelve thousand, but of the Romans only a very few. One of those taken captive was Absalom, the uncle and at the same time father-in-law of Aristobulus. And not light was the sin committed against the sanctuary, which before that time had never been entered or seen. For Pompey and not a few of his men went into it and saw what it was unlawful for any but the high priests to see. But though the golden table was there and the sacred lampstand and the libation vessels and a great quantity of spices, and beside these, in the treasury, the sacred moneys amounting to two thousand talents, he touched none of these because of piety, and in this respect also he acted in a manner worthy of his virtuous character. And on the morrow he instructed the temple servants to cleanse the temple and to offer the customary sacrifice to God, and he restored the high priesthood to Hyrcanus because in various ways he had been useful to him and particularly because he had prevented the Jews throughout the country from fighting on Aristobulus’ side; and those responsible for the war he executed by beheading. He also bestowed on Faustus and the others who had mounted the wall with alacrity fitting rewards for their bravery. And he made Jerusalem tributary to the Romans, and took from its inhabitants the cities of Coele-Syria which they had formerly subdued, and placed them under his own governor; and the entire nation, which before had raised itself so high, he confined within its own borders. He also rebuilt Gadara, which had been demolished a little while before, to please Demetrius the Gadarene, his freedman; and the other cities, Hippus, Scythopolis, Pella, Dium, Samaria, as well as Marisa, Azotus, Jamneia and Arethusa, he restored to their own inhabitants. And not only these cities in the interior, in addition to those that had been demolished, but also the coast cities of Gaza, Joppa, Dora and Straton’s Tower—this last city, which Herod refounded magnificently and adorned with harbours and temples, was later renamed Caesarea – all these Pompey set free and annexed them to the province.

For this misfortune which befell Jerusalem Hyrcanus and Aristobulus were responsible, because of their dissension, for we lost our freedom and became subject to the Romans, and the territory which we had gained by our arms and taken from the Syrians we were compelled to give back to them, and in addition the Romans exacted of us in a short space of time more than ten thousand talents and the royal power which had formerly been bestowed on those who were high priests by birth became the privilege of commoners.

Rabbi Katz identifies Apostomos with Pompey, on the basis of his replacement of Jewish law with Roman law after his conquest of Jerusalem, thus ‘burning the Torah’, figuratively speaking – and renders Apostomos as efes (Hebrew for null) tomus (Latin for book). He argues that Josephus’ “in the third month, on the Fast Day” refers the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz. Tammuz is the fourth Jewish month – but he suggests that Josephus’ use of an ancient Judean numeral for ‘four,’ in boustrophedon, was mistaken for a Greek gamma. Josephus records Herod’s conquest of Jerusalem as occurring on the same day as Pompey’s (Ant. 14:16:4), and so Herod’s erection of a golden eagle on the great gate of the Temple (War 1:648–655, Ant. 17:6:2) can also be linked to the seventeenth of Tammuz.

The theory is supported by Sefer Yosippon, a tenth-century Hebrew Italian-Jewish history of the second Temple period that draws upon Josephus, the books of Maccabees, Midrash and Christian and Latin sources; in chapter 36 and 43, which treat Pompey’s and Herod’s siege, respectively, the dates of conquest of the Temple are given as the seventeenth of the fourth month – i.e., the seventeenth of Tammuz.

However, there are difficulties with this theory. For one thing, internal and external evidence points to the probability that the ‘third month’ properly refers to the third month of the siege, and that ‘the fast’ to which Josephus refers in the contexts of both Pompey and Herod is Yom Kippur.[14] In any case, observance of the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz seems to have crystallized during the second century CE, well after the events and most likely the historian reporting them.[15] While Katz’s interpretation of a ‘figurative’ destruction of the Torah scroll seems a bit forced, it is not impossible to see in Yevamot 16b a reflection of the destruction of an actual scroll by Pompey’s men. But recent work suggests that the report of Herod’s installation of a golden eagle in the Temple is legendary.[16]

But perhaps Rabbi Katz was on to something.

• If Pompey’s invasion of the Temple took place on Yom Kippur, in the third month of the siege, that would place the beginning of Pompey’s siege – which involved the ‘breach of the city’ from its very outset, by Hyrcanus’ men admitting Pompey’s forces into the city (War 1.143) – squarely in the latter part of the month of Tammuz. In that case, huvke’ah ha-ir refers not to the events of 586 BCE or 70 CE, but the initial incursion of Pompey’s army in Tammuz, maybe even 17 Tammuz, 63 BCE.

• As far as butal ha-tamid: as seen above, Josephus takes pains to indicate that at no time during Pompey’s siege and even invasion was any part of the Temple service interrupted – but in the Rabbinic account, interruption of the tamid did indeed occur around the same time as Pompey’s arrival with Hyrcanus’s (or Pompey’s?) betrayal of the besieged Temple by supplying a pig for the tamid sacrifice.[17]

• Admittedly, Heikhal in the Mishnah always refers to the sanctum of the Temple. But this is likely simply accidental; Heikhal properly refers to a kingly hall (cf. II Kings 20:18, Isaiah 39:7, Ezra 5:14, Psalms 45:9, 16, Proverbs 30:28, Daniel 1:4, II Chronicles 36:7), but the Mishnah has no interest in royal palaces. Pompey had built a world-famous Heikhal: the theater-temple complex constructed during his second consulship. The first permanent theater in Rome, Pompey’s theater was an imposing complex in which the Senate would sometimes meet, and where Caesar was assassinated. This hall, much like the heikhal melekh Bavel referenced in some of the aforementioned Biblical citations, included gardens, objects collected during Pompey’s campaigns, and fourteen statues commissioned of sculptor Coponius representing the populations (nationes) that Pompey had subdued;[18] these almost certainly included a statue representing Judea.^[19] As such, the ‘emplacement of a statue in the hall’ may refer to Pompey’s concretization of the conquest of Judea.

Josephus has numerous Greek nicknames for various characters, particularly in his autobiography;[20] this is of a piece with his Greco-Roman milieu, in which proper names and surnames were often subjected to wordplay, and indeed Caesar himself puns on Pompey’s cognomen, magnus, in his writings.[21] Of Pompey’s conquest, Josephus writes in Against Apion,

One should also be particularly amazed at the great intelligence in what Apion goes on to say. For he says that it is evidence of the fact that we do not employ just laws or worship God as we should that [we do not govern,] but are subservient to other nations, one after another, and that we have experienced some misfortunes affecting our city… while we, being free, used to rule in addition over the surrounding cities for about 120 years up till the time of Pompey the Great; and when all the monarchs, on all sides, were hostile to the Romans, ours alone, because of their loyalty, were maintained as allies and friends. (2.11.125-134).[22]

One may detect here a complaint: Judea was unfailingly, singularly, loyal to Rome, and yet it took her freedom.

Pompeius, when encountered in a late Hellenistic milieu – where Semitic languages and Greek were spoken in equal measure – evokes the Aramaic ܦܘܼܡܵܐ (puma) and Hebrew פה, both words for mouth. Heinrich Ewald suggested that Apostomos be parsed αἰπύς στόμος, “big mouth,”[23] and this would fit Pompeius (mouth) Magnus (large) – the conqueror with a too-voracious appetite, who betrayed Judea’s loyalty by conquering and plundering it – כי אכל את יעקב ואת נוהו השמו.

• Even the Biblical reference, the breaking of the tablets, resonates for an identification with Pompey:

So Judas chose Eupolemus the son of John of the Haqqoz clan and Jason the son of Eleazar and sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance with them, and to remove the yoke from them, for they saw that the kingdom of the Greeks was subjugating Israel into slavery. They went to Rome—and the trip is very long!—and entered the council and declared: “Judas, also known as Maccabaeus, and his brothers and the community of the Judeans have sent us to you to establish alliance and peace with you, so that we may be listed among your allies and friends.” This found favor in their eyes. And this is the copy of the letter, which they wrote in response on bronze tablets and sent to Jerusalem, so as to be a memorial there, among them, of the peace and alliance: Let it be well for the Romans and the people of the Judeans on sea and on land forever, and let sword and enmity be far from them. But if war is made upon Rome, first of all, or upon any of its allies in its entire realm, the people of the Judeans will fight together with them wholeheartedly, as far as opportunity prescribes to them. And they will neither give nor supply their enemies wheat, weapons, money, or ships—as Rome decided, and they will observe their obligations without receiving anything. In the same way, if the people of the Judeans is attacked first, the Romans will fight enthusiastically as its allies, as far as opportunity prescribes to them. Nor will they give to the allies (of the partner’s enemies) wheat, weapons, money, or ships, as Rome decided, and they will observe these obligations without duplicity. (-I Maccabees 8:17-28)[24]

Pompey’s betrayal of the treaty between the Hasmoneans and Rome in devouring the Judean state was nothing short of a shattering of the bronze tablets, the physical testament to the pact. It seems no coincidence that all aggadic treatments of the Tablets of the Law dilate on Exodus 32:16, ‘harut al ha-luhot’ – inscribed on the tablets – homiletically rendering it herut, freedom (Kallah Rabbati 8:2, Avot de-Rabbi Natan 2:3, bEruvin 54a, Exodus Rabbah 41:7, Leviticus Rabbah 18:3, Numbers Rabbah 10:8, Song of Songs Rabbah 8:6, et al.). Judean freedom ended on the seventeenth of Tammuz, when Pompey ‘broke’ the bronze tablets promising cooperation and non-aggression in exchange for loyalty.

• The burning of the Torah – the definite article – indeed suggests a specific, known Torah scroll. In the Second Temple literature, outside of later Rabbinic sources, there is indeed one attestation of a known Torah scroll:

And they came with the gifts that had been sent and the remarkable parchments on which the legislation had been written in golden writing in Judean characters, the parchment being worked amazingly and the common joins constructed to be imperceptible. When the king saw the men, he inquired about the books. And when they uncovered them rolled up and they unrolled the parchments, pausing for a long time and prostrating himself about seven times, the king said, “I thank you, O Men, and even more the one who sent you, but mostly the God whose utterances these are.” (Letter of Aristeas 176-177)

The grand gold-lettered Sefer Torah from Elazar the high priest of Judea, from the Temple precincts, was the vorlage of the Septuagint, in this second Temple telling. The historicity of the Letter of Aristeas is, to be sure, problematic, to say the least; but the erstwhile existence of an urtext for the Septuagint is supported by most scholars,[25] and the ancient report that it was held in reverence is supported by writers centuries hence. Tertullian reports that in the library of Alexandria, the Septuagint was displayed along with the Hebrew original.[26] John Chrysostom writes that Ptolemy Philadelphus “deposited it [the Septuagint] in the Temple of Serapis . . . and even today the translated books of the prophets are still there.”[27]

The great library of Alexandria – the cultural crossroads of the ancient world – was destroyed when Caesar[28] set fire to the Egyptian fleet in the port at Alexandria, in the ‘straits of Lod’ – Lod, in Rabbinic parlance, also being a name for Egypt, after his son Ludim (Genesis 10:13).

Caesar was good to the Jews, and so even if the Rabbis knew that he was at fault – unlikely in the fog that surrounded the event in the historical record – they blamed the one who compelled Caesar’s stay in Egypt: Apostomos, Pompey. His ill-fated attempt to raise a force against Caesar in Ptolemaic Egypt set off a cascade of events resulting in the incineration of the Torah – the Pentateuch portion of the Septuagint and its vorlage, sent from the high priest of Judea in hoary antiquity, the crown jewel of the Egyptian Jewish community and potent symbol of its full integration and acceptance in the fabric of Ptolemaic Egyptian society from its outset. The subsequent century and a half of Alexandrian Jewish life was marked by anti-Semitic writings, pogroms and ultimately annihilation.

The destruction of the library was one of the most traumatic events in the history of the West, and highlights the manner in which the career of Pompey, the betrayal of an ally in the name of narrowly defined self-interest, was tragic both for the Jewish people, as well as Rome and Western civilization, to which the Hasmoneans had tethered their carriage.

Admittedly, much of the above is conjecture, and some is more than a bit far-fetched. Perhaps it is fitting that for one key villain in Judaism, the villain of Shiva Asar be-Tammuz, be he Pompey or someone else, the imprecation yimah shemo ve-zikhro – may his name and remembrance be erased – indeed was fulfilled!

[1] As it is vocalized in the MS Kaufmann A50 manuscript.
[2] Koren-Steinsaltz translation, from Sefaria, with modifications.
[3] See Yuval Shahar, “Rabbi Akiba and the Destruction of the Temple: The Establishment of the Fast Days” (Heb.), Zion 68:2 (2003), 145-165.
[4] Itamar Warhaftig, “On the Seventeenth of Tammuz the Daily-Offering was Cancelled – in the First Temple or the Second?” (Hebrew) HaMa’ayan 33:4 (1993), 6-14.
[5] Vered Noam, “The Fratricidal Hasmonean Conflict,” Josephus and the Rabbis, Vol. 1 (Heb), 318-340.
[6] See discussion in Shahar, “Rabbi Akiba,” 159-165.
[7] Ben Zion Luria challenges the common scholarly assumption that the referent is the site of the village of Talluza (Tira Luzah) since this village had been Samaritan throughout the Roman period; instead he identifies it with Bethel. Both are a considerable distance from Beth Horon. See his “And Apostomos Burned the Torah” (Heb.), Beit Mikra 32:4 (1987), 293-295.
[8] Daphne Baratz, “A Golden Vine/Garden in The Temple,” in Josephus and the Rabbis, Vol. 1 (Heb), 341-348.
[9] See Steven Fine, “Caligula and the Jews: Some Historiographic Reflections Occasioned by Gaius in Polychrome.” New Studies on the Portrait of Caligula in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Brill, 2020), 100-104.‏
[10]  Étienne Nodet, “On the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple’.” Rethinking the Jewish war (Peeters, 2021), 236-248.‏
[11] Eliyahu Katz, “Who Knows Five” (Heb.), Niv ha-Midrashiyah 10 (1972), 122-125.
[12] Jane Bellemore, “Josephus, Pompey and the Jews,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte H. 48:1 (1999), 94-118.‏
[13] Alessandro Galimberti, “Josephus and Strabo: The reasons for a choice.” Making History: Josephus And Historical Method (Brill, 2007), 147-167.‏
[14] Nadav Sharon, “The Conquests of Jerusalem by Pompey and Herod: On Sabbath or ‘Sabbath of Sabbaths’?.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 21:3 (2014), 193-220.‏ To be sure, there is some difficulty regarding placing the account to Yom Kippur, since the tamid-offering on Yom Kippur is offered exclusively by the high priest, and it is unclear why so many others would be involved in the sacrificial rites on that day.
[15] Shahar, “Rabbi Akiva.”
[16] Jonathan Bourgel, “Herod’s golden eagle on the Temple gate: a reconsideration.” Journal of Jewish studies 72:1 (2021), 23-44.‏
[17] For Josephus, the referent is the Paschal sacrifice, four months before Pompey’s incursion.
[18] Eleonora Zampieri, Politics in the Monuments of Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar, Routledge, 2022), 64-65.
[19] James M. Scott, Bacchius Iudaeus: a denarius commemorating Pompey’s victory over Judea, (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 34.
[20] I am indebted to Prof. Kenneth Atkinson for this insight.
[21] Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, “Great Expectations: Wordplay as Warfare in caesar’s Bellvm Civile,” The Classical Quarterly 73:1 (2023), 184-197.‏
[22] Translation by Barclay, in Mason, Flavius Josephus, 233-238.
[23] Although he connected the nickname with Antiochus Epiphanes. See Georg Heinrich August von Ewald, The history of Israel, Vol. 5, Transl. J. Estlin Carpenter (Longmans, Green and Co., 1874)‏, 293 note 2.
[24] Translation from Schwartz, 1 Maccabees, 284-285.
[25] Emanuel Tov, “The Septuagint.” The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, Volume 1 Mikra. (Brill, 1988), 161-188.‏
[26] Christophe Rico, “The destruction of the Library of Alexandria: A reassessment.” The Library of Alexandria: A cultural crossroads of the Ancient world (Polis, 2017), 293-330.‏
[27] Thomas Hendrickson, “The Serapeum: Dreams of the Daughter Library,” Classical Philology 111:4 (2016), 453-464.‏
[28] Rico, “The Destruction.”