From Lublin to Dublin (by way of Amsterdam):
an exhibition of Jewish books in Marsh’s Library
Shlomo Berger
University of Amsterdam
The Jewish people are known as ‘The People of the Book’ and the book in question is The
Bible. Nevertheless, the history of the Jewish people in their own land (The Land of Israel)
and especially in the diaspora demonstrates that they were also a ‘People of Books’; indeed,
thousands of texts were composed by Jewish intellectuals during the Middle Ages, and
after the invention of print technology numerous books were printed and distributed
within and apparently outside the Jewish communities.
Marsh’s Library houses almost 25,000 books and pamphlets from the early-modern
period, as well as a collection of 300 manuscripts. The collection has a strong focus on
European history, politics and culture. There are approximately 200 Hebrew books in the
library, although many more books contain sections of text in the language. The Jewish
books in Marsh’s Library represent Christian curiosity about, and interest in, Jewish
religion and culture during the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries.
Almost 140 of the 200 Hebrew books in Marsh’s Library belonged to the founder,
Archbishop Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713). Marsh was a Christian Hebraist and a bibliophile,
and all of the items in this exhibition are drawn from his personal collection of books which
was bequeathed to the library on his death. Under the terms of Marsh’s will, his Oriental
manuscripts were donated to the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Christian Hebraists believed that a study of texts in their original versions would
provide an enhanced understanding of Christianity. This led them to become devoted
scholars of Jewish Scripture and Rabbinic commentary literature of the Bible and Jewish
Law. Yet, Archbishop Marsh’s collection testifies to a development in Christian Hebraists’
interests during the seventeenth century; they were beginning to demonstrate an interest in
Jewish books that were actually produced for the internal consumption of Jewish
communities. As Adam G. Beaver has recently affirmed in Jewish Quarterly Review 104
(2014) pp. 263-274, although their interests were limited and still directed - and occasionally
misguided - by their Christian belief, the new trend among Christian Hebraists was no
longer to consider Judaism as a static tradition, but rather as a living culture that changed
over time, and continued to change. The scope of the books being read and studied by
Christian Hebraists widened during the seventeenth century, and the books in Marsh’s
Library are a valuable testament to this trend.
Living and working in Oxford before settling in Dublin in 1679, Archbishop Marsh
was in a position to purchase books from Jewish dealers operating in London. Dublin’s
miniscule Jewish community during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also relied
heavily on the bigger London community. Both the Dublin and London communities were,
in turn, indebted to the thriving Amsterdam Jewish communities. Amsterdam famously
had an internationally orientated industry of Jewish books. Almost a third of Archbishop
Marsh’s Hebrew books were produced in the Dutch capital, and the collection also includes
a few Amsterdam Jewish books in Yiddish and Spanish. The book dealers’ route of
Amsterdam-London-Dublin is clearly manifested in a letter sent from London by the
Jewish book dealer Aaron Moses to Archbishop William King in Dublin in October 1712,
offering him Hebrew books which he purchased in an auction in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam Jewish books on display in this exhibition represent the requirements
and interests of both local Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities (the first also known as
the ‘Portuguese Nation’, and the second known as ‘High-German community’). Books for
Sephardim are in Hebrew and Spanish, and those for the Ashkenazim in Hebrew and
Yiddish. The books include generation-old texts on the one hand, and contemporary
literature on the other hand: liturgical texts side-by-side with other genres of literature. The
texts were of primary importance to Jews and of significant interest to Christians.
Several books in the collection were composed and/or edited and printed by
Menasseh ben Israel, the first Jew to print a Jewish book in Amsterdam: for instance, a
prayer book according to the Sephardi rite (1627) [item no. 11], a Hebrew Bible (1631) of
which Marsh’s copy includes expanded annotations in English and other languages [item
no. 13] or a book on the immortality of the soul (1651) [item no. 6]. The collection also
includes contemporary Sephardi writings: an anthology of sermons - Giveat Shaul or ‘Saul’s
Gibeah’ (1645) - delivered by the community’s Chief Rabbi and Spinoza’s teacher Shaul
Levi Mortera [item no. 5], and a book by a local young intellectual Joseph Penso de la Vega
which includes a Hebrew drama - Asirei ha-tiqva or ‘The Prisoners of Hope’ (1673) [item no.
7]. From 1692, the collection includes a book - Sefer peri hadash or ‘The Book of New Fruits’ which explains rulings on matters such as slaughter, kashrut, as well as kosher and nonkosher wine [item no. 18]. The collection also includes editions of famous medieval
Sephardi texts: Maimonides Sefer hamitzvot or ‘Book of Commandments’ (1660) and Isaac
Abohab’s Menorat hama’or or ‘The Candelabra of Light’ (1700) [item no. 2].
The Ashkenazi collection is as diverse as the Sephardi. Indeed, it is possible that
because they comprised the majority of European Jewish communities, Christian Hebraists
were far more interested in the Ashkenazi diaspora and their texts and books.
Unsurprisingly, the collection contains prayer books according to the Ashkenazi rites [item
no. 10]. Such prayer books were, in fact, directed to a Yiddish speaking and reading public.
The prayers were, of course, in Hebrew but the title page was composed in Yiddish, as
were all of the instructions referring to the liturgy. Archbishop Marsh also purchased an
edition of Shlhan arukh or ‘The Code of Jewish Law’ (1697) which includes the Polish Rabbi
Moshe Isserlis’ commentary (The Mappa or ‘Tablecloth’) that transformed the original
Sephardi book into an Ashkenazi compendium of commandments and duties [item no. 4].
The library also has several Yiddish books: a copy of one (Witzenhausen’s) of the two
famous Amsterdam integral translations of the Bible into Yiddish (1679/1687) [item no. 15],
and a translation of the tenth-century Hebrew history book – Sefer Yosippon or ‘The Book of
Yosippon’ (1661) [item. no. 12]. ‘The Book of Yosippon’ is bound together with an edition
of another famous Yiddish rendition of an Italian romance (Bovo d’Antona, known in
English as ‘Bevis of Hampton’) which was prepared by the sixteenth-century grammarian
Eliyah Levita and titled in Yiddish Bovo bukh (the first printed edition was in 1541).
It is imperative to recall the co-operation between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in the
book industry. Sephardim produced Yiddish books and Ashkenazim printed texts for the
Sephardi community. Consequently, an Ashkenazi from Prague arrived in Amsterdam,
worked in rich private Sephardi libraries and published in 1680 the first ever Hebrew
bibliography, Siftei yeshanim [item no. 9].
Sefer olat tamid [item no. 3] deserves special attention in the context of Dublin’s Jewish
community and its Christian Hebraists. One of the book’s owners, Yaacov ben Gedalya,
added handwritten inscriptions at the beginning and the end of the volume. On the book’s
last page he mentioned the names of his late father, Gedalya ben Yaacov of Lublin, and his
late brother, Hirsh ben Gedalya. The mixed Hebrew and Yiddish inscription, which is
based on Lamentations 1:16, mentions that Hirsh died on the second day of Passover 5464
(=1704) and was buried in Dublin, Ireland. It can be surmised that, for whatever reason,
both brothers were in Dublin and after 1704 (Hirsh’s death) the book was sold to
Archbishop Marsh, or came into his possession in another way. This is probably the oldest
copy of a book with a glimpse into a Jewish Dublin couleur-locale. The journey of the ben
Yaacov family from Lublin to Dublin has inspired the title of this exhibition.
List of items displayed:
1.
Sefer Lekah tov.
Abraham F. Chananiah Jagel, Liber doctrinae bonae, sive catechismus continens
rudimenta doctrinae Judaicae quod dogmata et mores (Amsterdam, 1658).
2.
Menorat ha-aa’or.
Isaac Abuhab, Candelabrum luminaris cum comment. ... R. Mosis f. Simeon (Amsterdam:
Asher Anshel and Yisaschar Ber, 1700).
3.
Sefer olat tamid.
Orgelas Samuel ben Joseph, Liber Holocausti Jugis: commentarium continet in ordinem
primum R. Jacobi bar Ascher. Liber est in duas partes distinctus, quarum secunda dicitur
Holocaustum Sabbathi auctore R. Samuel Ben Joseph Orgelas (Amsterdam: David de
Castro Tartas, 1681).
4.
Shlhan arukh.
Joseph Karo f. Ephraim, Mensa instructa cum compendio (Amsterdam: Emanuel ben
Joseph Athias, 1697).
5.
Giveat Shaul.
Mortira Saul Levi, Quinquaginta expositores, sive concionatores inclyti (Amsterdam,
1645).
6.
Nishmat hayyim.
Menasseh Josephus ben Israel, Libri quator de immortalitate animae (Amsterdam, 1651).
7.
Pardes shoshanim.
Joseph Pencc o, Liber cui titulus Paradisus Librorum ex Cant. IV 13 (Amsterdam, 1673).
8.
Shevet Yehudah.
Salomon ben Virga, Sceptrum Judae, liber historicus, Hebraice (Amsterdam: Emanuel
Benveniste, 1655).
9.
Siftei yeshanim.
Schabtai ben Joseph, Labia dormientium. sc. Bibliotheca Rabbinica, secundum librorum
titulos disposita (Amsterdam: David de Castro Tartas, 1680).
10.
Sefer tefilot ke-minhag Ashkenaz u-polin.
Ordum precum, juxta ritum Germaniae et Poloniae Judaeorum (Amsterdam, 1696).
11.
Sefer tefilot ke-minhag kahal kodesh Sepharad.
Precum ordum, secundum usum Judorum, Hispanorum (Amsterdam, 1626).
12.
Sefer Yosippon + Bovo bukh in Yiddish.
Josippus ben Gorion, Historia (Amsterdam: Uri Feibush Halevi, 1661).
13.
Hamishah humshei Torah.
Menasseh Josephus ben Israel, Pentateuch, Hebraice et Chaldaice, cum Haphtaroth,
Hebraice (Amsterdam, 1631).
14.
Sefer ha-magid.
Jacob ben Isaac, Josua, Judices, Samuel, et Reges cum commentariis Germanicis charactere
tamen Hebraico collectis per Jacob Ben Isaac Hispanum (Amsterdam, 1676).
15.
Torah Neviim u-Ktuvim in Yiddish.
R Josephus, R. Meir & R Subtai, Vetus Testamentum Germanicum (Amsterdam, 1679).
16.
Sefer emunot ve-de’ot.
R. Scehadiah, Scepher Aemvnot sive liber de capitibus fidei auctore R. Scehadiah translatus
a R. Iuda Ben Tibon (Amsterdam, 1647). Marsh’s Library also holds the
Constantinople edition of 1662.
17.
Tavnit ha-hehal.
Leon Jacob Juda, De structura temple (Amsterdam: Yehuda ben Mordechai and
Shmuel bar Moshe Halevi, 1650).
18.
Sefer peri hadash.
Hezekiah de Siloah, Liber Fructus Novi tractat. de ritibus variis apud Judaeos observatis.
illustrat libri Jacob bar Ascher e quatuor ordinibus secundum (Amsterdam: David de
Castro Tartas, 1692).
Marsh’s Library is a beautifully-preserved library of the early
Enlightenment in the heart of Dublin. It first opened in 1707, and
houses an important collection of European books and
manuscripts. The catalogue of the collection can be found at
www.marshlibrary.ie, and scholars may consult our holdings by
prior arrangement.
The Library runs a Visiting Research Fellowship scheme,
with calls for applications made every September.
For further details about the Library, please contact
[email protected].