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In Search of the Original Tunes: Siegmund Schul’s and Salomon Lieben’s ‘Collection of Old Prague Synagogue Chants’ (1935–1941)

Author(s): Martha Stellmacher / Language(s): English,Hebrew Issue: 2/2017

This paper explores a transcription and analysis project of Jewish prayer tunes in Prague undertaken at the eve of the Shoah. From 1935 to 1941, the music student and composer Siegmund Schul (1916–1944) wrote down the repertoire known to the physician Salomon Lieben (1884–1942), who officiated regularly as a prayer leader in the Lieben Shul, a small orthodox family-based minyan in Prague. The result was the Sbírka staropražských synagogálních zpìvù (Collection of Old Prague Synagogue Chants), containing manuscript notations of more than 200 prayer chants. In addition to documenting the chants, Schul sought to determine their origin and age. On the basis of the unpublished Collection, archival material and interviews with eye-witnesses, this paper examines the development process, methods and objectives of the project, placing it in the context of period Jewish music scholarship.

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The History of the Karaite Community in Kukizów

Author(s): Veronika Klimova,Arie Yariv / Language(s): English,Hebrew Issue: 04/2019

The article closely examines the Karaite community in Kukizów near Lwów from its establishment until its final days. It deals with manuscripts found in the Firkowicz collections on the history of the Karaites. Some of the manuscripts were previously analysed by researchers, others remained unknown and unpublished. The research questions deal with the 1688 migration of the Karaite families from Troki to Kukizów under the leadership of wójt Abraham ben Samuel, the economic challenges to meet for the basic needs in their new settlement and causes of the decline of the Karaite community at the beginning of the XIXth century. In addition, this article endeavours to cover the burial ground in Kukizów and give the names of the people buried in the Karaite cemetery.

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Słowne i ikoniczne reprezentacje motywu księgi/książki na nagrobkach żydowskich w Polsce

Author(s): Andrzej Trzciński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2020

The principal source materials are inscriptions and figurative images on Jewish tombstones in the historic areas of the Polish Republic from the 13th to the 21st century. The verbal representations were present throughout that period while the iconic ones were only added at the beginning of the 19th century. The former include such terms used in the inscriptions as the Sefer Tora (the book of Torah), Torah (in the full range of its meanings) and sefer (‘book”), along with numerous examples of a narrower scope, from more general ones, e.g. sidur (‘prayer book) to the titles of specific works. The latter are represented by the motif of ‘Torah scrolls’ in the form used in synagogue literature, and ‘the book’—in the form known since Gutenberg’s times—both placed in a variety of contexts. While the list of verbal and iconic motifs may be of modest length, a skilful combination of them and their use in the context of traditional cultural codes convey quite a wealth of meanings. An analysis of the materials makes it possible to draw several general conclusions: (1) The Book has been a very important element of Jewish tradition and culture since the biblical times to the present day, heavily used also on Jewish tombstones since the Middle Ages. (2) The relatively late appearance of the representation of the Torah strolls and the book in Jewish tomb images has been associated with the broader practice of introducing in the early 19th century of threads that had not been used before, leading to a widening of the scope of motifs by more specialized ones, with narrower meanings. In the earlier period, the symbolic representation of the Torah included two motifs with multiple meanings: the tree of life and the crown. (3) Throughout the period reviewed here, the contents are predominantly male-oriented, which follows first of all from the traditional imperative for men to study the Torah. (4) The predominant area the content thus encoded were references to traditional religious life. In many epitaphs we come across quotations or references to phrases from writings such as the Bible, the Talmud, the halachic compendia or prayers. (5) Since the 19th century, in bigger towns, in progressive and assimilating milieux, the book motif vas been used to convey lay messages, ensuing from changes in culture and customs.

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Znane i nieznane sygnety drukarzy żydowskich używane w Lublinie w XVI i XVII wieku

Author(s): Magdalena Bendowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2020

Printers’ devices can be found in books published by five Jewish printers active in Lublin in the 16th and 17th centuries, who only used them, however, in a small proportion of their prints. Several graphic motifs were used: a unicorn, a Jerusalem shrine (impressed from two different woodcut blocks), fish – either alone on accompanied by the figure of a deer, and man by a well (in two variants). The lion standing on two hind legs should be regarded as a printing embellishment that does not serve as a printer’s device. The least known devices included the earliest mark presenting a leaning against a unicorn, first impressed by Eliezer ben Itzhak of Prague in 1572. One device that received hardly any attention so far was produced by Tzvi ben Avraham Kalonimos Jafe in 1616, featuring a couple of fish, which is clearly an early version if the well known device with fish and a deer. The devices were typically impressed with separate blocks, and just one was a part of a border adorning the title page. None of the devices used the coat of arms of Lublin to indicate where the printing shop operated. All of them are anonymous works. Two signs, presenting fish and a deer and a man by a well, are accompanied by Hebrew initials of the printers.

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Żydowskie instytucje opiekuńcze w Lublinie w XIX wieku

Author(s): Wiesław Partyka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2020

For centuries, the standard of welfare and health care among the Jews has been quite high. Wherever a Jewish community was established, various initiatives came along, aimed at assisting those who were hit hard by fate and were not able to secure their subsistence on their own. The Jewish community was settling in the Lublin area already in the Middle Ages and by the end of the 19th century accounted for a significant part of the population. By then the number of Jews in the region was in the region of 180,000, with 43 rabbinates (17 districts, 60 synagogues, 84 houses of prayer). Until the mid-19th century Lublin was the second largest concentration of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland after Warsaw. Between 1819 and 1864 their number in the town rose from 4,771 to 12,922 persons while the percentage of the total population rose from 48.3% to 59.2%. Given these numbers, there must have been some persons in that community who found themselves in a difficult situation and required aid from fellow believers. In Lublin in that period there was a hospital that by the end of the 19th century was the most advanced establishment of this king in the whole Kingdom of Poland. In addition, there was a shelter house in the city and an orphanage with a section used as care home for the elderly. All these institutions were doing their best to assist the poor and suffering members of the Jewish community, contributing in this manner to the building of an advanced system of health care, welfare and social work.

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Zdzisław Askanas (1910-1974) - materiały do biografii lekarza

Author(s): Jolanta Epsztein / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2020

Zdzisław Askanas hailed from a well known and fairly affluent Jewish family, with ties to the Płock region since the mid-18th century. The Askanas family produced several outstanding persons, merited in various areas of science and culture, including, for example, Kazimierz Askanas (1909-1994), a regional activists associated with Płock, Stefan Askanas (1908-1972), Director General of the Poznań International Fair, Aleksander Askanas, a cardiologist (born 1938) or Wiktor Askanas, an economist.Zdzisław Askanas completed studies in medicine at the Medical Faculty of Warsaw University (1929-1935). After graduation he worked under the supervision of two outstanding general practitioners: Professor Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski (1885-1953) at the St. Lazarus Hospital in Warsaw w Warszawie and Professor Jakub Węgierko (1889-1960) at the St. Stanislas Hospital for Communicable Diseases in Warsaw. He fought in the September 1939 war, was confined to the Warsaw ghetto together with his family, then stayed in hiding in Warsaw after an escape from the ghetto. He took part in the Warsaw Rising as a doctor, helping to organize makeshift hospitals for the insurgents. After World War II, Zdzisław Askanas was one of the most important architects of modern Polish cardiology, a professor and founder of the First Cardiology Chair and Clinic of the Warsaw Medical Academy.

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Jeleniogórska gmina żydowska w XIX wieku – historia, praktyki religijne, duchowość

Author(s): Agata Rybińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2020

The aim of the article was to present the history and religious life as well as the spirituality of members of the Jewish community in Hirschberg (now Jelenia Góra) in 19.th Century. The sources used were archives and religious literature. Statutes of the Jewish community, a songbook and a collection of sermons published by rabbi Hermann Joël allowed not only to describe the manifestations of community life (eg worship, education), but also attempts to intensification of individual spirituality, which could be through the reading of festive sermons. The sources confirm a linguistically acculturation - German as a language of culture and everyday life (also reading), while preserving elements of the Hebrew language (eg individual biblical quotations and rabbinical literature), and especially the internal concern of the representatives of the kehilla (rabbi and board) for the religious life of all members.

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SOFIA HELSINGER, Amintiri de la Barașeum (text îngrijit şi rezumat de Mihaela Gligor)

Author(s): Sofia Helsinger / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2020

In1940, Jewish actors who used to play in Bucharest theatres, marginalized and excluded from Romanian cultural life, founded Barașeum, a Jewish theatre which was allowed to perform only in Romanian. For four years, between 1941 and 1945, the spirit of Yiddish theatre survived through Barașeum. Many important plays were staged and many intellectuals, both Jewish or not Jewish, attended. The materials transcribed here are part of file P 105, held by Centre for Research on Romanian Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Pillar of Fire – from Auschwitz to Casablanca

Author(s): Nitza Davidovitch,Ruth Dorot / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

Aim. This study examines the characteristics of the individuals who go on the journey to Poland, which is a key element of the Holocaust education curriculum in Israel, their personal connection to the Holocaust, as well as the socio-political developments in Israel that attempt to bridge the gap between the various poles in society – between East and West. Concept. Holocaust education includes the formal part, which is the historical narrative, and the informal part, which is the journey to Poland. This study follows the development of Holocaust education and commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust – from the narrative of the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe to the narrative of the Holocaust among the communities of North African descent. Results and conclusion. The findings of the study indicate a link between family support and ties to the Holocaust, and the journey to Poland, which appears to be in line with findings of Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen (2011), who found a correlation between the students participating in the journey and their personal connections to the Holocaust, in contrast to students with no family connection with the Holocaust. For all its importance, the journey to Poland has been found to perpetuate social polarisation. Practical applications. The current study highlights the challenge of Holocaust education in order to build a bridge of shared historical destiny through this seminal event of the twentieth century. Originality. This work sparks the question of how to make the journey to Poland a unifying factor in collective national memory.

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PISAC KAO PARADIGMA ISTORIJE: ANTROPOLOŠKO TUMAČENJE ROMANA ROB ISAKA BAŠEVISA SINGERA

Author(s): Ivana Petković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1-2/2018

The subject of the novel, written by the Nobel Prize Laureate, Isaac B. Singer, is a fateful encounter of two people at a specific time and in a specific area – in Poland in the 17th century, after the great massacre of Jews in this country. An intimate story gives the reason to analyze the complex issue of physical, social, and spiritual identity, and the survival of the Jewish people on the ground of, primarily, Central Europe. Although the topic is localized in time and space, it is universal and essential to the greater part of the history of this nation. So, more broadly, the subject issue can be viewed outside the determined framework. This paper attempts to provide a brief outline of the basic life problems of the Jewish diaspora in key areas – political, economic, and religious, through the literary response of one of its most prominent representatives of the 20th century.

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TУМАЧЕЊЕ ОС 2 У КОНТЕКСТУ РЕЛИГИЈСКЕ ПОЛЕМИКЕ СА ХАНАНСКИМ КУЛТОМ

Author(s): Branislav Ivić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 35/2021

The Article deals with the explanation of Hos.2 in the context of religious polemic with the Canaanite cult. First of all, the Article deals with the cult of Baal that is related to fertility cult. The Article is trying to explain the way prophet Hosea presents the relationship of Yahweh and Israel, through metaphor of marriage as a dominant theme through the first three chapters of the book. He is comparing Yahweh with the loyal husband and Israel is presented as a deceitful woman who takes pleasure in relations with different lovers, namely with Baal(s) as an exponent of the Canaanite religion. The text takes two key narratives when speaking about the fertility cult КТU 1.16 III.2-8 and KTU 1.5-1.6, comparing them with Hos. 2 as a manifesto of the Book of the Twelve. Instead of appointing all the earthly goods to Yahweh, they are giving their gratitude to Baal. As consequence of its complexity the questions related to the fertility cult stay overlooked. The history or reception (Wirkungsgeschichte) by studying Hos.2 tried to get a trace of sacral prostitution and other sexual activities with practical sacral aspects. Further on that subject, on another occasion.

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РЕЦЕПЦИЈА СЕПТУАГИНТЕ У РАНОЈ ЦРКВИ

Author(s): Rodoljub Kubat / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 179/2021

The aim of this paper is to portray the reception of the Septuagint in the early Church. Firstly, the synagogue view of the translation is provided, from the reports in which the origin of the translation is enthusiastically discussed, to the rejection of the Septuagint. A particular emphasis is placed on theological argumentation attempting to prove the divine inspiration of the translation of the Seventy. In this process, the prominent figures are: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Pseudo-Justin, Epiphanius of Salamis, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom and Augustine. The paper deals with two textual disputes over the authenticity of the Septuagint text as the legitimate successor of the original Hebrew consonant text. Textual deviations were often a reason for such confrontations. The first dispute is between Julius Africanus and Origen. Within it, Origen clarifies textual issues of certain Old Testament books. Jerome and Augustine took part in the second dispute. Jerome leaned more towards the Hebrew truth (Hebraica Veritas), while Augustine put more stock into the translation of the Seventy. These confrontations clearly reflect the status of the Septuagint in the early Church. Finally, a concise review of the further status of the Septuagint in the Western and Eastern Churches is provided.

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Przyczynek do antroponimii karaimskiej: nieodnotowane gdzie indziej nazwiska i przydomki w trzech XVIII-wiecznych dokumentach z Krymu

Author(s): Anna Sulimowicz-Keruth / Language(s): Polish Issue: 03/2021

The surnames of Karaites from the Crimea have long been of interests to both scholars and the Karaites themselves. Several collections of such names have been produced, including a list found in a Karaite Russian-Polish dictionary (Karaimsko-russko-pol’skij slovar’, Moscow 1974) and the electronic list of over 1,600 items just made available recently. Three manuscripts kept in the Russian National Library in Petersburg – two records of election of gabbais from 1788 and 1794, containing the lists of persons authorized to vote, and a list of wedding gifts from 1786 with the donors’ names – represent a valuable record of Karaite anthroponymy in the transitional period, during which unofficial anthroponyms became protonames before they began to assume the final form as officially required surnames by the beginning of the 19th century. The article contains an analysis of origin and meaning of 34 anthroponyms appearing in these manuscripts that have not appeared in other sources yet.

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On the Conversion of a Polish Rabbanite to Karaite Judaism

Author(s): Piotr Muchowski / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2021

The article depicts the unique case of conversion to Karaite Judaism of Rabbanite Simcha ben Yehoshua, motivated by theological reasons. The conversion presumably took place in Trakai in the early 19th century. This case is documented primarily by two official letters written by Simcha ben Yehoshua in Crimea, copies of which have been preserved in the collection of Abraham Firkowicz. These letters have not been published before. This event is also attested by a document in the Karaite language from the Crimea, preserved in the archives of the Taurida and Odessa Spiritual Consistory.

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Osiemnastowieczne świadectwo karaimskich zwyczajów dotyczących tum’at met – Sefer Me’irat Enajim Simchy Icchaka Łuckiego

Author(s): Maciej Ratajczyk / Language(s): Polish,Hebrew Issue: 03/2021

The article contains a translation, along with critical apparatus, of segments of Simcha Icchak Łucki’s Sefer Me’irat Enajim dealing with the ritual impurity ensuing from various types of contact with a dead body and the grave – tum’at met. The translation is accompanied by an outline history of this institution relating to Karaites and Rabbanites. While in relation to older Karaite codices, Bashiachi’s Adderet in particular, the text borrows some conclusions from those earlier writings, it remains an important source material confirming the Karaite’s strict approach to the tum’at met institution still in Łucki’s lifetime. Soon after his death, between the mid-18th and the mid-19th century, the Karaites’ position became more moderate, largely due to external pressures.

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Karaite Vital Record Books from Halych, Lutsk, Panevėžys, Trakai, and Vilnius from 1912–1940

Author(s): Stefan Gąsiorowski / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2021

Vital record books are extremely important sources for historians, genealogists,demographers, and statisticians. They are particularly sought after by researchers of religious and ethnic minorities, which due to their small populations are not included in many official statistics or state censuses, or the data concerning them are very incomplete. Without question, among these minorities are the Karaites, who in the 20th century lived in countries such as Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. In the Republic of Poland during the interwar period, Karaite communities were active in Halych, Lutsk, Trakai, and Vilnius. Closely related to the communities in Poland was the community in Panevėžys; its location in independent Lithuania during the interwar period significantly hindered direct contact between it and its Polish counterparts. These Karaite communities, run by local hazzans, were subject to the authority of a clerical board in Trakai, which from 1928 was led by the hakham of the Second Polish Republic, Seraya Shapshal. Even during the partitions, hazzans were obliged to keep vital record books on births, marriages, and deaths. For understandable reasons, this practice continued during the interwar period, at least until the outbreak of World War II. Many of these books, including those from the community in Panevėžys, have been deposited in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius. This article addresses demographical, historical, ethnographic, statistical, and onomastic aspects of all the vital record books from the abovementioned communities

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Legislative Initiative of Karaites Abraham and Gabriel Firkoviches within the Legal Framework of the Russian Empire (mid–19th Century)

Author(s): Dmitry Prokhorov / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2021

The paper reviews the initiatives addressed to the government and launched within the Russian legal framework by the Karaite secular and religious actors in the second half of the 19th century. Specifically, it offers an analysis of the petition by Abraham and Gabriel Firkoviches concerning a change in the legal status of Karaites in Russian Empire in the furtherance of the “Jewish question”, as well as their economic proposals. These initiatives were embedded documentation-wise into the activity of the highest organs of authority of the Russian Empire and administrative institutions at a local level

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Karaite Pies and Samurai Swords: The Karaite Theme in David Shrayer-Petrov’s Life, Fiction, and Memoirs

Author(s): Mikhail Kizilov / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2021

David Shrayer-Petrov is a prolific Russian-Jewish writer, poet, litterateur and scientist. His novels, short stories and memoirs contain much information on the Crimean and Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. This article for the first time analyzes the Karaite theme in the publications of this important Russian-Jewish author. David Shrayer-Petrov came across the East European Karaites and their historical legacy at different times (from 1941-1943 to 1984) and in various geographical regions: in the Urals, Leningrad, Moscow, Crimea, and Lithuania. The Karaites and the picturesque myths surrounding the formation of their identity (from rigorous non-Talmudic Jews to a people with a bogus Turkic identity based on several pseudo-scholarly theories) produced a strong impression on the writer. When seen from this perspective, Trakai and Crimea of Shrayer-Petrov’s novels and memoir prose appear as isolated lieux de mémoire where a Jew can travel in order to put his own Jewishness to test by venturing there, passing this test – and remaining Jewish

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Jewish Martyrdom and Conversion in the Riots of 1391: The Early Signs

Author(s): Shalem Yahalom / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2021

This study presented a series of halakhic rulings that preceded the riots of 1391 and provided the moral infrastructure for the conversion of Rivash and many other Jews. This ideological effort took place on several planes. The article shows that in many areas of halakha, Rivash adapted Jewish law to reflect the Christian norm. The willingness to subject the Torah’s laws to Christian law is a step toward the recognition of the moral legitimacy of the prevailing faith. In this way, Rivash also minimized the gap between the communities and facilitated integration into the majority society. This mode of action created a structure enabling the abandonment of Judaism at the end of the day, though this result was not a necessary one. In additional rulings, Rivash touches upon the issue of choice between conversion and martyrdom. This category includes Rivash’s ruling whereby it is preferable that communities endure spiritual sins rather than suffer physical danger. The ruling Rivash attributed to Rashba whereby the commandment “He shall live by them” applies even when a Jew is forced under the threat of death to abandon is faith and the claim whereby the choice of martyrdom is a secondary religious commandment were both revolutionary statements. This provided legitimacy to the religious elite - and as a matter of course, to the simple folk - to choose life. As shown in the article, the members of Rosh’s family objected to the ideological infrastructure for conversion laid by Rivash and his circles. The early evidence of the split between the academies in Spain sheds new light on the academic polemic regarding martyrdom in the riots of 1391

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SINAGOGILE EVREIEȘTI DIN BACĂU ÎN ANII 1940-1941

Author(s): Emanuel Bălan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 20/2021

This paper presents an inventory of the synagogues of the Bacău community during the first two years of the Antonescu regime (1940–1944). Whereas the number of synagogues fluctuated, during the war, at least in 1940–1941, their number increased, as a result of evictions in the summer of 1941, when all Jews from Bacău County were forced to flee and to settle in the county capital. The inventory of these synagogues provides valuable data on the synagogues’ organization, movable and immovable property, income and expenditure, the number of parishioners and the number and type of religious services held in them. It should be said that some synagogues were requisitioned by the army and by other state institutions, so that their functioning as religious establishments was hampered.

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