by Fabrizio Quaglia

This is the fourth in a series of posts by Fabrizio Quaglia on his ongoing work collecting Footprints and other data from the collection of David Kaufmann, now at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. As Quaglia notes, the collection is multilayered, revealing libraries within libraries.

The Kaufmann collection is obviously not only made up of items of Italian provenance. After the unification of Italy the ghettos were culturally emptied of the few Jews, who, except the rabbinical elite, often considered their paper heritage, including archival and family registers, something to be forgotten because it was a testimony of the long suffering to which they had been subjected in the Italian states. Many of them were also quite poor. This and a diffuse secularization accentuated the phenomenon of the sale by private individuals of manuscript and printed Hebrew material to scholars and collectors, but this time they were mainly from abroad. In Mortara’s case, he had this a deep uncertainty about the future of Jewish studies in Italy, so he resolved to sell a few manuscripts (formerly belonging to S.V. Dalla Volta) to a Polish book merchant, from which the Cambridge University Library acquired them, and to a German collector and bookseller.

Several Kaufmann books have a Sephardi origin – they were printed in Amsterdam, not only in Hebrew but also in Spanish and Portuguese for a readership not accustomed to Hebrew, who returned to Judaism and who needed an easily understandable guide to Jewish rites and commandments. Unluckily some of these books do not show evidence of ownership. This is not the case of Discursos predicables y avisos espirituales, Amsterdam 1710 (Kaufmann C 1083; only edition), a book of moral sermons in which the author, Abraham Vaez, ḥakam and ḥazan in Bayonne, France (d. 1694?), mixed Biblical texts with numerous citations from Greek and Latin literature. On the recto of the back flyleaf, its owner wrote a Portuguese and a Spanish note which form his name, Elyasib Meldola, to whom the volume could be returned in case of loss. [figure 1] E. Meldola was born on 1748 in Amsterdam; fifth of eight sons of rabbi David Raphael Meldola (b. Livorno 1714 – d. Amsterdam 1800) and of Rachel Sarfaty (Sarfatti) of Amsterdam (1721-1786). D.R. Meldola had moved from Livorno with his father Raphael (1685-1748) to Bayonne in France, where Raphael was chief rabbi, then D.R. Meldola left that city in 1735 and settled in Amsterdam, where he undertook the publication of his father’s works as well as some of his own writings. D.R. Meldola’s son Eliasib (also Elyasib and Eljasib) married Esther Garcia Isidro (b. 1758) on 2 January 1778. He died in Hamburg, where he was ḥazan, at an unknown date but apparently (according to the Livro das Quetubot stored in the Hamburg Staatsarchiv) he was still alive in 1820.

Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq Asa (ca. 1710-ca. 1780)

Another Sephardi was the Spanish physician and rabbinical scholar Avraham ha-Levi Ibn Migash (fl. 16th cent.). He published his only work, Kevod Elohim, in Hebrew in 1585 (Kaufmann B 344; only edition), when he lived in Constantinople. The incomplete copy in Budapest shows marginal glosses and a signature of rabbi Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq Asa (Assa), who was born around 1710 in Istanbul and died there around 1780. A. Asa was one of the leading figures in the golden age of Judeo-Spanish literature in the 18th century. His complete translation of the Bible in Ladino (Constantinople 1739-1745) became the most popular text among the Sephardi communities of the Levant. He translated more religious and scientific works as well: in 1728 the brief Sipur Malke Otmanlis – a version from Hebrew of the unpublished Sefer Divre Yosef by the Cairene rabbi Yosef Sambari (ca. 1630-1703); in 1729 the mystical Leṭraś de Rabbi Akiba; in 1734 the complete prayer book Beit tefillah; in 1742 Sheveṭ Mussar, a kabbalist, moral and ethical text by the Turkish rabbi Eliyyah b. Avraham Shelomoh ha-Kohen (1640-1729); in 1743 the historical Sefer bin Gorion y resto de historias verdaderas (namely the Yosippon); in 1749 the Shulḥan ha-Melekh, taken from Y. Qaro’s Shulḥan ‘arukh; and in 1762 the Menorat ha-Ma’or by Y. Aboab. As it is evident, he published his works in Hebrew as well as in Spanish, for people who did not understand Hebrew. Asa was also the author of an extensive book of coplas (“quatrains”), Sefer Tsorke Tsibur, printed in Constantinople in 1733, which presents the precepts of Judaism in rhymed verse.

Jeremia Samuel Hillesum (1820-1888)

In 1689 the Livro da Gramatica Hebrayca & Chaldayca: Yad lashon dal sefatayim (Kaufmann B 887; only edition) was published in Portuguese in Amsterdam by the Dutch rabbi Šelomoh de Oliveyra (ca. 1633-1708). In a corner of the title page appears the signature “J.S. Hillesum” which stands for “Jeremia Samuel Hillesum.” [figure 2] In this initial overview of the Kaufmann collection we found that the same J.S. Hillesum signed (in Hebrew) the Hebrew and Yiddish, messianic Shirei Yehudah, printed in Amsterdam in 1696 (Kaufmann B 618; only edition); the single work by the Polish cantor Yehudah Leib b. Mosheh (1640-1711) [figure 3], and the ethical Keshet Yehonatan, printed in Dyhernfurth ca. 1697, by the Hungarian rabbi Yehonatan b. Ya`akov (fl. 17th cent.) (Kaufmann B 619). These are bound together. Jeremia Samuel Hillesum was born on 5 September 1820 in Amsterdam, a son of the peddler and shopkeeper Samuel Meijer Hillesum (1789 or 1797-1869) and Hester Jeremias Snoek (1799-1854). In 1847 J.S. Hillesum married Naatje Philip Wagenaar (1827-1892). They had ten children, five sons and five daughters. J.S. Hillesum received his theological training at the Nederlands-Israelietisch Seminarium (NIS) in Amsterdam. Because education at the NIS did not meet the highest standards, the NIS tended to send the most gifted students abroad for additional education, preferably in German. Hence, in 1843 Hillesum received extra Talmud education in Würzburg, and he learned to preach in the synagogue in Emden. Hillesum first became rabbi of the synagogue in Meppel (in the province of Drenthe, Holland) in 1849. In 1853, he became the Drenthe jurisdiction’s first (and last) chief rabbi. In addition to being a rabbi, Hillesum was authorized as a circumciser and was also a qualified examiner for ritual slaughterers. Hillesum was particularly committed to Jewish education and social life. In 1859 he was appointed inspector of the Israelite schools in Drenthe. In 1862 Hillesum replaced the dismissed chief rabbi of the Groningen district. In addition, in 1880 Hillesum was appointed chief rabbi ad interim of the Dutch province of Gelderland. In 1883 he became chief rabbi of the Overijssel district. Until his death on 7 May 1888 in Meppel, Hillesum remained chief rabbi of the four districts. The archive of Jeremiah Samuel Hillesum is part of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana: it contains 21 sections of Hebrew sermons, and documents in Dutch, Flemish and German relating to his education and employment, such as diplomas, certificates, and correspondence from 1839 to 1885. A Dutch letter written in 1882 by chief rabbi Hillesum from Meppel about helping Russian Jews who fled was signed by him. Sermons of Hillesum on Talmud dated 1845 are the ms. 149 of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana located in the University Library of Amsterdam. Some sermons to the Torah written and copied ca. 1850 with his loose notes in Dutch and Hebrew are inside the ms. 144 of the Rosenthaliana. In Rosenthaliana ms. 145, there are undated annotations on the Babylonian Talmud in alphabetical order collected and signed by him. His notebook of 226 circumcisions made in various towns of the Netherlands from 1859 to 1882 is now the ms. 260 of Rosenthaliana; the same list is also in the National Library of Israel, ms. Heb. 8°9014. Furthermore, the National Library of Israel owns ms. Heb. 8°2864, where are registered 227 circumcisions made by Hillesum during 1859-1884 and several letters.