Tag: Paul Shaviv - The Seforim Blog

JEWISH TREASURES FROM OXFORD LIBRARIES

By Paul Shaviv

Ed. Rebecca Abrams and Cesar Merchan-Hamann / Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2020 / ISBN 978 1 85124 502 4 / Available in the USA via Amazon $55

307pp, 140 full-colour plates

Oxford,[1] the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’, is one of the world’s greatest repositories of Hebraica and Judaica, both books and manuscripts.

This sumptuous volume was initiated at the encouragement and support of Martin J. Gross, a New Jersey philanthropist and Jewish community activist. It is a bargain at the price. The book is absolutely handsome – the quality of the printing is outstanding, and it is printed on 135gsm paper.

The core of ‘Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries’ describes seven collectors and their eponymous collections, which together constitute the Hebraica holding of the Bodleian library; plus a description of smaller, but important, holdings of some individual College libraries; and the Genizah fragments held in Oxford. There are additional essays describing the history of the Bodleian itself, and the role of successive Librarians in encouraging the acquisition of Hebrew (and other ‘Oriental’) manuscripts; of the great cataloguers (Neubauer and Cowley); and of other benefactors, including the amazing figure of John Selden.[2]

Each chapter is written by different scholars. Archbishop Laud (1573–1645), by Giles Mandelbrote; Edward Pococke (1604-1691) by Benjamin Williams; Robert Huntington (1637-1701) by Simon Mills and Cesar Merchan-Hamann; Benjamin Kennicott (1718-1783) by Theodor Dunkelgrun; Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727-1805) by Dorit Raines; Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664-1736) by Joshua Teplitzky; and Heimann Joseph Michael (1792-1846) by Saverio Campanini. Each describes the biography of the collector, the characteristics and most important items of their collection, and how and why they amassed them.

The first thing that readers will note is that only the last two are Jewish. Even in the case of David Oppenheim, his unique collection of approximately 4,500 printed books and just under 1,000 bound volumes of manuscripts languished in storage in Europe until Revd. Alexander Nicoll, the Regius Professor of Hebrew, engineered its purchase by the Library. Otherwise they are a parade of Anglican Divines and Christian Hebraists (except Canonici, who was a Jesuit), witness to the intense interest (and expertise) in Hebrew and Jewish Studies by non-Jewish scholars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The stories of the collections are fascinating. Ambassadors, merchants and missionaries all have a part in purchasing (and pursuing) manuscripts. A special place seems to be occupied by the ‘Chaplains’ attached to the Embassies – one can surmise that they both had some expertise in Hebrew, even if rudimentary, and also perhaps time to devote to the ‘hunt’. We visit the great cities of the ‘Orient’ – Constantinople, Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, and of Europe – Italy, Spain and Germany.

The objectives and interests of each collector were different. Some – Oppenheim is the obvious example – were happy to scoop up whatever was on the market. Kennicott was interested in Biblical material, resulting in his two-volume study of variations in extant biblical texts. Along the way, each of them acquired examples of the most magnificent decorated and illuminated works, covering the entire span of Judaica – texts, contracts, ketubot, from every place. The calligraphy itself is to be savoured and enjoyed. As mentioned, the 140 full-colour (and often full-page) plates do all of this justice.

Although overshadowed by Cambridge, Oxford too has significant Genizah holdings – described by Nadia Vidro. These were acquired in the nineteenth century and pre-dated Solomon Schechter’s bulk removal of the Genizah contents to Cambridge. They are apparently strong in Talmudic texts, and also include an autograph copy of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah – complete with alterations and editing notes. Adolph Neubauer sifted through the material; kept the largest fragments, often complete or semi-complete pages – and rejected the remainder, which were sold on to Elkan Adler. Neubauer could not foresee the techniques available later, and utilized in Cambridge, to read, identify and reap the benefits of the tiniest pieces.

It is very difficult to summarize such a wide-ranging work in a short review. I am left with several thoughts:

In the case of the Bodleian, their holdings were purchased, not plundered, although the circumstances by which the objects came into the possession of previous owners is not necessarily known. The scholarship, and enthusiasms, of the Christian Hebraists, familiar to scholars, is of course little appreciated in today’s wider Jewish community. Were it not for them, many, many of these works would be lost. Were it not for the conscientious curation and preservation of these books and manuscripts by non-Jewish, mainly academic, libraries, they would almost certainly be lost, and even if they existed, would probably be far less accessible.

The sheer aesthetic beauty of many of the manuscripts speaks of a different culture. Even if, as is surmised, many were illustrated by non-Jewish professional artists[3] – they were commissioned by Jewish patrons. Even the almost-certainly Jewish artists (of Ketubot and the like) seem to show a joyfulness absent from our contemporary production of texts; which I take as a reflection of a certain dour outlook and philosophy. The same comment could be made about the narrowness of contemporary religious publishing compared to the width of thought, concern and scholarship of our forebears.

On a different perspective, as an (ex-pat) Anglo-Jew, and a former graduate student of Jewish Studies at Oxford (way back in the 1970’s!), I have to again sigh at the neglect of its own treasures by the Anglo-Jewish community[4]. Even the initiator of this project hails from New Jersey! Perhaps a ray of optimism may come from the fairly recent appointment of Prof. Judith Olszowy Schlanger as head of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (formerly housed at Yarnton Manor)? Until now, most of the OCHJS Presidents have been specialists in one or another aspect of the ancient world, or of other, wider areas of Jewish study. This is not to disparage any of these eminent scholars in any way whatsoever! But Professor Olszowy Schlanger has already published on Anglo-Norman and pre-Expulsion manuscripts; perhaps we will see fresh scholarship on English and European rabbinic study from her Presidency, from still-to-be-researched corners of the Bodleian!

A great read, a great book to possess, and – happy are they who may receive this book as a perfect gift!

[1] The city has a rich Jewish history of its own, which is thought to date back to 1075. Two (!) complementary websites both give excellent information and resources about Jewish Oxford. The first site, sponsored by the local Jewish community, whose supervisory committee includes one of the editors of the volume under review, is www.oxfordjewishheritage.co.uk . Clicking on the small window labelled ‘Jewish Heritage’ in the middle of the homepage of Oxford Chabad www.oxfordchabad.org opens up a surprisingly academic and scholarly range of material on Jewish Oxford. Both recommended!
[2] The present Bodley Librarian, Richard Ovenden, writes a Foreword; Cesar Merchan-Hamann a general Introduction; Rahel Fronda writes on the smaller College collections; and Piet van Boxel on the cataloguers. Mr. Martin J. Gross, the book’s ‘prime mover’, contributes an elegant Preface!
[3] See, for example, plate 114, from Ms. Michael 627 – from a Yom Kippur mahzor, where a non-Jewish artist, not knowing which way up the Hebrew is written, has the illustrations drawn upside down on the page.
[4] Painfully, the single most important Anglo-Jewish artefact, the dated pre-Expulsion Chumash mss, shown to H.M. The Queen to demonstrate the depth of Jewish experience in England, was sold at the Valmadonna Auction. The purchaser remains anonymous. It is not known if it is still in the UK. If it is, it is neither displayed nor accessible. The Bomberg Talmud, also sold by the Valmadonna Trust, is now in New York City after being in Westminster Abbey for centuries.

‘The House of Twenty Thousand Books’/
Sasha Abramsky / Halban Publishers (London UK) / 321pp/ GBP 14.95 – easily
available from Amazon.uk

By Paul Shaviv

For many Seforim blog readers, the name ‘Abramsky’
will instantly be associated with the personality of Rav Yechezkel Abramsky
(1886-1976), the author of Hazon
Yechezkel on the Tosefta. Born in
Russia, imprisoned by the Soviets, released in the 1930’s after diplomatic
intervention by the U.S. and Britain, he was for years the head of the London
Beth Din before his retirement to Israel.

But other readers will also know his son, Chimen (1916-2010),
whose life followed a very different path, and was, simultaneously, one of the
leading bibliophiles of the Jewish world – and of the Socialist-Marxist
world. One of his grandsons, Sasha
Abramsky, has written a memoir of his grandfather centred on 5, Hillway – Chimen’s
house close to London’s Hampstead Heath (and to Highgate Cemetery, burial place
of Karl Marx). Chimen was a bibliophile
and scholar, but also an obsessive collector of books, of which 5, Hillway
contained an estimated twenty thousand.
This book describes the house room by room, and the significance of the
books in each one, piled high and crammed into every nook and cranny.

Chimen left the Soviet Union with his father. Soon after arrival in London, he made his
way to Mandatory (or, Mandatary[1])
Palestine, where he took courses in Jewish history at the Hebrew University.[2]
He was already a committed Communist.
Returning to London at the outbreak of war, he became a hugely
influential member of the Communist party in London. To his grandson’s
bewilderment, he was a convinced Stalinist, attributing such anti-Jewish
excesses as he was prepared to recognise to Soviet anti-religious, rather than
anti-Semitic, sentiment.

At the same time, on marriage to Miriam Nirenstein,
he entered the family business – ‘Shapiro, Vallentine’, a small Jewish bookshop
and publishing company in the East End of London. Over successive years he turned it into a center of rare book
dealing, while simultaneously serving the London Jewish community with
siddurim, machzorim, barmitzvah presents and other ritual paraphernalia[3].

Chimen, together with other Jewish communists, left
the party after 1956 – although, inexplicably, he was one of the last to
leave. He turned his energy into an
academic career; first as Sotheby’s consultant on Judaica[4],
then as a fellow of St Antony’s College Oxford (on the strength of his
co-authored book on ‘Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement’, and on the
personal recommendation of Isaiah Berlin) and shortly thereafter, at the age of
51, as Reader in Jewish Studies at University College, London. He was appointed Professor at UCL in 1974. In
the 1970’s he was one of the first visiting Fellows at the Oxford Institute of
Postgraduate Hebrew Studies[5],
where he was my teacher of early medieval Jewish history. Chimen was a world-class polymath, with a
totally encyclopedic knowledge of manuscripts, books, footnotes, scholars and
libraries.

His grandson has recorded the history and topography
of his household, which functioned as research library, international salon for
streams of visitors, and a family home.
Every room had its subject area – Judaica, European socialism, Marxiana,
art history, philosophy and social studies.
Chimen and Miriam had two children – Jenny, later famous as the most
senior female executive at the BBC, and Jack (Sasha’s father)[6]. Chimen’s relationship to his Judaism was
complex; despite his veneration of his father, he does not appear to have given
his own children much of a Jewish education, even though they grew up in a
house full of some of the rarest Judaica in private hands. Sasha describes the
historians[7],
politicians, thinkers and scholars who came to sit at the table of this
diminutive, engaging personality with his thick Russian accent, which he never
lost. His later years were affected by
deteriorating health, and he finally passed away at the age of 93 in 2010.

‘The House of Twenty Thousand Books” is an unusual,
affectionate, and admiring memoir[8]. Booklovers will love it, as will anyone who
knew the enigmatic subject at the centre of the story. The book is not perfect;
far more attention – perhaps a little repetitively – is paid to Chimen’s
socialism (and its abandonment) than to his Jewish involvement and
scholarship. The author is clearly not
on such familiar ground in this latter area, and makes a few mistakes. But it is a labour of love, and a good one
at that.

Finally, let me leave a bibliographic tantalizer for
the readers of the Seforim blog. In
1974, Chimen told me with pride that Gershom Scholem had visited him, and that
he had shown Scholem a ‘Hassidic siddur’ from his, Chimen’s collection, “which
was earlier than any previously known Hassidic book. Scholem was very excited
by this. He demanded that I must publish it!”
Did he ever do so? Where is the
book now? I have no idea.

[1] The correct spelling – See Edward
Ullendorff ‘The two Zions’.

[2] He never took a degree, which was
awarded to him decades later as a prerequisite of his being appointed Professor
of Jewish Studies at University College, London.

[3] As a teenager beginning to buy Jewish
books in the 1960’s, this is where I first met Chimen, He was patient,
encouraging, and sold me a number of exquisite and fascinating books – material
otherwise unobtainable anywhere else in the UK. He closed the store when he took up his academic career.

[4] In later years his bibliographic
expertise was applied as adviser to Jack Lunzer in the assembling of the
Valmadonna Trust library.

[5] Now the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and
Jewish Studies.

[6] Jack Abramsky, in the photographs in the
book and in the video (see below), bears a very striking resemblance to Shlomo
Carlebach….

[7] Shmuel Ettinger, Chimen’s closest friend
from his Jerusalem days, passed away suddenly in 5, Hillway while visiting.

[8] See also here
for a short video about the book, including some video of Chimen.

Jewish Treasures From Oxford Libraries

Book Review: The House of Twenty Thousand Books by Sasha Abramsky