Authors: Adina Hoffman
Mann’s description of his working method appears in his letter to Israel Davidson, dated July 5, 1918 (JTSA Davidson 5/32). The gas mask anecdote is J. D. Pearson’s, from “Curiosities of Bygone Days,”
Genizah Fragments
28, Oct. 1994. Mann’s account of the scope of
The Jews
appears in his introduction to the same.
The description of Schechter’s foreign accent and the European bent of the early JTS faculty are derived from Mel Scult, “Schechter’s Seminary”; Schwartz, “The Schechter Faculty”; Robert Liberles, “
Wissenschaft des Judentums
Comes to America”; Jonathan Sarna, “Two Traditions of Seminary Scholarship”—all in
Tradition Renewed,
Wertheimer, ed.; Eli Ginzberg,
Louis Ginzberg: Keeper of the Law
(Philadelphia, 1966); Starr,
Catholic Israel.
“Far too highbrow” is Sarna’s description.
For more on the language of Jewish scholarship, see Menahem Schmelzer, “One Hundred Years of Genizah Discovery”; Sarna, “Two Traditions.” On the move of Wissenschaft to Palestine and into Hebrew, see David N. Myers,
Re-inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History
(New York, 1995); Myers, “Between Diaspora and Zion: History, Memory, and the Jerusalem Scholars,” in
The Jewish Past Revisited,
Myers and David B. Ruderman, eds. (New Haven, 1998). The German-Jewish commentator was Israel Elbogen, as quoted in Myers,
Re-inventing.
For more on Albert Einstein and the Hebrew University, see “The Hebrew University,”
EJ
8. Schechter and Adler’s announcement appears in
JQR
new series, 1/1, 1910.
David Kaufmann’s Geniza connection is described in A. Scheiber, “The Kaufmann-Genizah: Its Importance for the World of Scholarship,”
Jubilee Volume of the Oriental Collection,
1951
–
1976
,
Éva Apor, ed. (Budapest, 1978). Information about Jack Mosseri comes from Mosseri, “A New Hoard of Jewish MSS”; Israel Adler, “Forward,”
Catalogue of the Jack Mosseri Collection,
ed. by the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts with the collaboration of numerous specialists (Jerusalem, 1990); “Treasure Trove,”
Genizah Fragments
53, April 2007. The description of “the raid on our … treasure-house” comes from “In the Land of the Pharaohs,” an interview with Mosseri,
JC,
May 5, 1911. For more on the Dropsie collection, see B. Halper,
Descriptive Catalogue of Genizah Fragments in Philadelphia
(Philadelphia, 1924). The Freer’s holdings are described in Gottheil and Worrell,
Fragments.
The fact that Adler bought Geniza manuscripts from the Bodleian was recently discovered and documented by Rebecca Jefferson. See Jefferson, “The Cairo Genizah Unearthed,” for the intriguing details. The efforts by JTS to buy Adler’s library may be traced through the following letters: Marx to Sulzberger, Nov. 17, 1916, in
The Mayer Sulzberger–Alexander Marx Correspondence,
1904
–
1923
,
Herman Dicker, ed. (New York, 1990); Cyrus Adler to Jacob Schiff, Sept. 9, 1919, in Cyrus Adler,
Selected Letters,
Ira Robinson, ed. (Philadelphia, 1985); Louis Marshall to Cyrus Adler, Jan. 31, 1923, and the rest of the extensive correspondence in JTSA Cyrus Adler, 17/1. See also Herman Dicker,
Of Learning and Libraries: The Seminary Library at One Hundred
(New York, 1988); Nahum M. Sarna, “The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,”
Jewish Book Annual
21, 1963–64; Neil Danzig, introduction,
A Catalogue of Fragments of Halakhah and Midrash from the Cairo Genizah in the Elkan Nathan Adler Collection of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
[Heb] (New York/Jerusalem, 1997). The embezzlement by Adler’s business partner is described in “Elkan Adler,”
EJ
2. The last two letters quoted here are Elkan Adler to Cyrus Adler, March 27, 1923, JTSA Cyrus Adler 17/1; and Cyrus Adler to Elkan Adler, C. Adler,
Selected Letters
2.
The manuscript that puzzled Schechter is T-S 10 K 17. It consists of six leaves of paper, 20.7 cm × 15.2 cm. Schechter writes about the find in “Geniza Specimens: The Oldest Collection of Bible Difficulties, by a Jew,”
JQR
13/3, 1901. All of Schechter’s descriptions of that text come from the
JQR
article.
The small book Davidson published after his trip to Cambridge is
Saadia’s Polemic against Hiwi al-Balkhi
(New York, 1915). Information about Hiwi al-Balkhi comes from that volume as well as from Robert Brody,
The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture
(New Haven, 1998); “Hiwi al-Balkhi,”
EJ
8; Judah Rosenthal,
Hiwi al-Balkhi: A Comparative Study
(Philadelphia, 1949); Henry Malter,
Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works
(Philadelphia, 1921/1942); E. Fleischer, “A Fragment from Hivi al-Balkhi’s Criticism of the Bible” [Heb],
Tarbiz
51, 1982; Avraham Naftali Zvi Roth’s response to Fleischer in
Tarbiz
52, 1983; and Haggai Ben-Shammai,
Abu Yusef Yaakub al-Kirkisani’s System of Religious Thought
[Heb] (dissertation, The Hebrew University, 1968).
The “quasi-Jewish sect” that sought to change the Sabbath to Wednesday was—according to one source—the Ananites (followers of Anan). See Moshe Gil, “The Origins of the Karaites,” in
Karaite Judaism,
Polliack, ed. For more about Saadia Gaon, see R. Brody,
The Geonim
and
Rav Sa’adya Gaon
[Heb] (Jerusalem, 2006), and H. Malter,
Saadia.
The scrap of Saadia’s reply that Davidson had fished out of the Cambridge pile is T-S 8 J 30. Brody sums up Saadia’s contribution well, noting that his influence on the development of the Jewish medieval tradition is “more comprehensive and profound” than that of any other individual. The quote that begins “transforming almost beyond recognition” is Brody’s, from
The Geonim.
Davidson’s misidentification is explained by Fleischer, “Hivi’s Commentary” [Heb]. Davidson also states that Hiwi’s questions were most likely composed in Arabic, but later scholars believed, for a variety of reasons, that they had to have been composed in Hebrew. See Jefim Schirmann,
New Hebrew Poems from the Geniza
[Heb] (Jerusalem, 1965).
Saadia’s acrostics deployed the letters of the alphabet in a complicated arrangement. See Davidson,
Saadia’s Polemic.
On Saadia as a
payyetan,
see Menahem Zulay,
The Liturgical Poetry of Saadia Gaon and His School
[Heb] (Jerusalem, 1964), and
Siddur Rav Saadia Gaon
[Heb], I. Davidson, S. Assaf, and B. I. Joel, eds. (Jerusalem, 1941/1985).
God’s placing the other nations in the care of the angels is, as Hiwi sees it, alluded to in Deuteronomy 4:19, which, as a popular medieval reading had it, sets up this contrast between the Jews and non-Jews. See
The Legends of the Jews
5, Louis Ginzberg, ed. (Philadelphia, 1925/1953).
Hiwi’s theological position is outlined by Davidson, and by Fleischer, who uses the image of the “ax.” “A whole millennium ahead of his time” is how Stefan Reif summarizes Hiwi’s thought in
A Jewish Archive.
The report of an “expurgated version” of the Bible is treated by Davidson, Brody, and Fleischer. The image of the scholars working like ants is Fleischer’s, and he is the Jerusalem scholar who, in 1982, discovered a fragment of Hiwi’s text (T-S NS 140.45) at the Geniza Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry.
The phrase “dragging and haggling … Heretic’s Gallery” appears in Ben-Horin, “SS to Judge MS,” Nov. 5, 1901. The italics are ours. See also S. Reif, “The Damascus Document from the Cairo Geniza: Its Discovery, Early Study and Historical Significance,” in
The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery,
Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick, eds. (Leiden, 2000).
Schechter’s “heretic’s gallery” appeared as
Documents of Jewish Sectaries
(Cambridge, 1910/New York, 1970). For more on the book and its relation to other Jewish heresies, see Kahle,
The Cairo Geniza,
introduction to the 1959 edition; Brody,
The Geonim;
and S. A. Poznanski,
The Karaite Literary Opponents of Saadiah Gaon
(London, 1908).
On the “vital” center and Jewish sectarian movements, see Starr,
Catholic Israel; Great Schisms in Jewish History,
R. Jospe and S. Wagner, eds. (Denver/New York, 1981); Daniel Lasker, “Rabbanism and Karaism: The Contest for Supremacy,” in the same volume; and Schechter,
Documents of Jewish Sectaries,
Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s Prolegomenon.
Schechter’s views of Reform Judaism and the relation between Karaism and Reform are discussed in Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter;
Haggai Ben-Shammai, “The Scholarly Study of Karaism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in
Karaite Judaism,
Polliack, ed.; “Abraham Geiger,”
Jewish Encyclopedia;
and M. Ydit, “Karaite and Reform Liturgy,”
CCAR Journal
18/2, 1971.
The Geniza manuscripts of “Fragments of a Zadokite Work” are T-S 10 K 6 and T-S 16.311. Reif notes that Margoliouth had already suggested in 1910 that the Damascus Document was more important than the discovery of Ben Sira. See Reif’s “The Damascus Document from the Cairo Genizah” and Schechter,
Jewish Sectaries,
Fitzmyer’s Prolegomenon.
On the central figure in the Qumran literature, see J. Baumgarten, “Damascus Document,” in
The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
and F. F. Bruce,
The Teacher of Righteousness in the Qumran Texts
(London, 1957). The term “Teacher of Righteousness” is discussed by Schechter. See also T. Gaster, who, in
The Dead Sea Scriptures,
calls him “The Right Teacher … not the Teacher of Righteousness.” On the nature of the sect’s distinction, see Philip Davies, “The Judaism(s) of the Damascus Document,” in
The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery.
The phrase “Make a fence around the Torah” is from
The Sayings of the Fathers,
I:1, T. Herford, trans. (New York, 1962). Other views of the Damascus Document also emerged, including that of Louis Ginzberg, who felt it was composed by a Pharisaic community, though one much more extreme in its views than mainstream Pharisees. For more on this, see Reif, “Damascus Document,” and Fitzmyer, Prolegomenon.
Schechter’s quotations about the Damascus Document and the Zadokite sect are all from
Jewish Sectaries.
Schechter dated one of his two manuscripts of this text to the ninth or tenth century and the other to the twelfth or thirteenth century. The text itself dates from the beginning of the first century
B.C.E
. See Reif, “Damascus Document.”
On Anan’s reform and his commandments, see Moshe Gil,
History of Palestine, 634–1099
(New York, 1992); Gil, “The Origins of the Karaites”; D. Lasker, “Rabbanism and Karaism”; Leon Nemoy,
Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature
(New Haven, 1952); and Abraham Harkavy, “Anan ben David,”
Jewish Encyclopedia.
Recent scholarship has weighed in convincingly against calling the newly “united” movement a “sect.” See Ben-Shammai, “The Scholarly Study of Karaism,” and Rustow,
Heresy,
chapter 2.
For more on normative Judaism’s resistance to Anan and the Karaites, see Leon Nemoy, “Al-Kirkisani’s Account of the Jewish Sects,”
Hebrew Union College Annual
[
HUCA
] 7, 1930; Gil, “Origins of Karaism”; Rustow, “Karaites Real and Imagined: Three Cases of Jewish Heresy,”
Past & Present,
no. 197, Nov. 2007; and Brody,
The Geonim.
The Geniza’s contribution to the study of Karaism is made clear in Gil, “Origins of the Karaites” (and in Meira Polliack’s volume generally), and especially the recent groundbreaking work by Marina Rustow,
Heresy.
A “shortened” version of the Haggada can be found, among other places, in
The Complete Haggada
[Heb], M. Kasher, ed. (Jerusalem, 1961). See also S. Reif, “Variations in the Haggadah Text,” in
Genizah Fragments
55, April 2008. Reif notes differences in the wording of the kiddush (the blessing over the wine) in T-S H 2.124, as well as the alternative formulation of the traditional Four Questions (in T-S H 2.152).
Our account of the contents of this “alternative Haggada” is based in large part on David Stern,
Chosen: Philadelphia’s Great Hebraica,
with E. Cohen, J. Guston, and E. Schrijver (Philadelphia, 2007), and D. Stern,
Breaking New Ground: Scholars and Scholarship at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, 1993–2004
(Philadelphia, 2004). See also Ezra Fleischer, “Fragments of Palestinian Prayerbooks from the Geniza” [Heb],
Kovetz al yad
new series, 13, 1996; and D. Goldschmidt,
The Passover Haggada
[Heb] (Jerusalem, 1960). For other Haggadot that differ from standard versions, see also Jay Rovner, “An Early Passover Haggadah according to the Palestinian Rite,”
JQR
40/3–4, 2000, and “A New Version of the Eretz Israel Haggadah,”
JQR
42/3–4, 2002. In Rovner’s (Palestinian) version (JTS MS 9560), which may in fact be older than the Dropsie text, the appetizers are extensive and the father—rather than the youngest child—recites the Four Questions, which in this case are only two. The distinguished scholar who describes the hors d’oeuvres is David Stern.
The social and historical context of Karaism’s emergence is discussed in Abraham Halkin, “Revolt and Revival in Judeo-Islamic Culture,” in
Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People,
L. Schwartz, ed. (New York, 1956), and, in thorough detail, in Fred Astren,
Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding
(Columbia, S.C., 2004).