For Davidson’s own thoughts on his discovery of Yannai, see his preface to Mahzor Yannai; also his letter to Schechter, Nov. 14, 1910, JTSA Schechter 2/57.
Descriptions of Palestinian synagogue practice and scriptural recitation are from Davidson, Mahzor Yannai; Hayyim Schirmann, Studies in the History of Hebrew Poetry and Drama 1 [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1979). Schirmann makes the comparison to the cantatas. Early Palestinian midrashim, such as Genesis Rabba and Leviticus Rabba, are also based on the triennial system. See Stefan Reif, “The Meaning of the Cairo Genizah for Students of Early Jewish and Christian Liturgy,” in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship, A. Gerhards and C. Leonhard, eds. (Leiden, 2007); M. Freidman, “Opposition to Prayer and Its Palestinian Practice” [Heb], in Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue, Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer [Heb], S. Elizur, M. D. Herr, et al., eds. (Jerusalem, 1994); Zulay, “Yannai Studies” [Heb], Yediot hamakhon 2, 1936; Mahzor Eretz Israel [Heb], J. Yahalom, ed. (Jerusalem, 1987).
On the core liturgy, see Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, Raymond Scheindlin, trans. (Philadelphia, 1993); “Liturgy,” EJ 11; Ezra Fleischer, “Studies in the Problems Relating to the Liturgical Function of Types of Early Piyyut” [Heb], Tarbiz 40, 1971. See also Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (Cambridge, 1993); and Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, 2000). This core liturgy—consisting of the twice-daily recitation of the shema, some form of the standing prayer, or amida, and public readings from the Torah—developed very early and certainly during the mishnaic period, which is to say, between the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and 200 C.E., when the Mishna was redacted.
The history of attempts to date Yannai’s work is discussed in Rabinovitz, Yannai [Heb]. Some place him as early as the third century and others as late as the eighth. Information about Romanos is drawn from Sacred Song: From the Byzantine Pulpit, Romanos the Melodist, R. J. Schrok, trans. and ed. (Gainesville, 1995). The Greek origin of the term itself—piyyut—highlights the Hellenistic context in which it emerged. See Lieber, Yannai on Genesis.
The original of “As who … on high” comes from Davidson, Mahzor Yannai; Burkitt, Fragments, Facsimile II, T-S 12.184r. The restored text is based on other manuscripts that have been found since and differ distinctly from Davidson’s reading. It appears in the Rabinovitz edition and might be translated (without the acrostic) as follows:
Happy is he whom you hound like a father,
lest he be left to suffer forever—
Imprisoned in his life. You’ll make him falter
blood in its issue if [it occurs]
You made him pure who now is sullied
Desires divert him toward what is muddied
His pus is from him, his sentence and majesty
… … … … … … … … ….… [y]
Impurity comes with devotion’s end
his tormentor gaining the upper hand
For his sins have swelled since he was young
and so the issue flows from skin
The mishnaic quote citation is from Berakhot 4:4. See also Hagiga 14a: “Every day, ministering angels are created from the fiery stream, and utter song, and cease to be, for it is said: ‘They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness’ (Lam 3:23).” See, too, Palestinian Talmud, Berakhot 84:4 and Midrash Tehillim (Buber, end of chapter 87). For more on prayer and piyyut, see also Zulay, “Between the Walls of the Institute,” in Eretz Israel and Its Poetry [Heb]; Langer, To Worship God Properly (Cincinnati, 1990); Zulay, unpublished lecture, “Hebrew Poetry in the Cairo Geniza” [Heb] (Schocken Institute, Zulay archive, exhibition box); Fleischer, “The Cultural Profile of Eastern Jewry in the Early Middle Ages as Reflected by the Payyetanic Texts of the Geniza” [Heb], Te’uda 15, 1999.
For the Hebrew of “You, Lord, who are faithful,” see Davidson, Mahzor Yannai, Fragment 4; Rabinovitz, Yannai [Heb], poem 88, part 3. See also T-S 12.184r.
The educational function of poetry in this context is discussed by Zulay in “The Master Hymnist” [Heb]. On the notion of poetry as a kind of prayer that substitutes for sacrifice, see Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur (University Park, 2005); J. Yahalom, Poetry and Society [Heb] (Tel Aviv, 1999); Yahalom, “The Sepphoris Synagogue Mosaic and Its Story,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, L. I. Levine and Z. Weiss, eds. (Portsmouth, 2000); and M. Swartz, “Sage, Priest, and Poet,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue, Steven Fine, ed. (London, 1999); and S. Fine, “Between Liturgy and Social History: Priestly Power in Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues?,” JJS 56/1, 2005. For helpful English descriptions of the “elaborate structure” and “elliptical … development” of the kerova, see Lieber, “Piyyut,” and, for considerably more detail, Yannai on Genesis. The description of a “fresh, living, and instructive word” is from Zulay’s Motza lecture.
For more on the connection between piyyutim and the standard liturgy, see S. Elizur’s commentary in Zulay, From the Lips of Poets and Precentors [Heb] (Jerusalem, 2004). Elizur makes clear that the origins of the form remain murky. See also S. Elizur, “Poetry Is in the Details: Words in Memory of Prof. Ezra Fleischer” [Heb], Madda’ei haYahadut 43, 2006; and E. Fleischer, “Studies in the Problems Relating to the Liturgical Function of Types of Early Piyyut” [Heb].
II
Information on Salman Schocken is drawn primarily from Anthony David, The Patron (New York, 2004); Stephen M. Poppel, “Salman Schocken and the Schocken Verlag,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 17, 1972; Racheli Edelman, “Rediscovering Grandpa Schocken,” Haaretz, Nov. 9, 2007; and from interviews with Shmuel Glick and Baruch Yunin at the Schocken Institute, Jerusalem (March 26, 2009).
For more on the discovery of Schocken 37, see Hayyim Schirmann, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain [Heb], ed., supplemented, and annotated by Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem, 1995); and in English, Peter Cole, Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Princeton, 2001). Another important manuscript of poems by Schocken 37’s copyist has since been found among the Geniza documents (T-S K 25.2 and Or. 1080 4.1). For a detailed description of the mss., see Hayyim Brody, The Poems of Moshe ibn Ezra, Secular Poetry 2 [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1942).
Information about Zulay comes mainly from a short memoir by his daughter, Ada Yardeni, “In Memory of Menahem Zulay” [Heb], Mehkerei Yerushalayim besifrut Ivrit 21, 2007, and from the authors’ interview with Yardeni, Sept. 24, 2009, Jerusalem.
For more about Paul Kahle, see Matthew Black, “Paul Ernest Kahle, 1875–1965,” Proceedings of the British Academy 51, 1965; Marie Kahle, “What Would You Have Done? The Story of the Escape of the Kahle Family from Nazi Germany” (London, 1945); Norman Bentwich, “German Scholar in London,” Palestine Post, May 15, 1942. Kahle’s The Cairo Geniza (Oxford, 1947) was the first general book on the subject.
Zulay’s comment on Davidson’s publication of Yannai’s poetry comes from “The Master Hymnist” [Heb]. On the importance of this literature, see also Zulay, “Yannai Studies” [Heb], and S. Lieberman, “Yannai’s Cantorial Poetry” [Heb], Sinai 4, 1938. For more on Osiris see James Frazer, The Golden Bough, Theodor H. Gaster, ed., abridged edition (New York, 1959). See under “Osiris,” sections 242–43.
Quotations by Zulay are as follows: “an entire literature … ‘In my dream’ ” is from “From Geniza to Geniza”; “Memory … is the finest index” is from “Between the Walls of the Institute”; “a sacred task” is from “Between the Walls”; “Each photostat is a prayer” is from “The Master Hymnist” (all from Eretz Israel and Its Poetry [Heb]).
Zulay’s description of his own work is taken from an unpublished prose fragment with which he originally intended to open his (Hebrew) essay “Between the Walls of the Institute.” The essay appeared in a Festschrift for Schocken in 1952. His draft contains a note in his hand saying, “I took this out and drafted a new version”
(Schocken Institute, Zulay archive, exhibition box).
On the last Hebrew volume published in Nazi Germany, see M. Schmelzer, “The Contribution of the Geniza to the Study of Liturgy and Poetry,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 63, 1997–2001; E. Fleischer, “Perspectives on Our Early Poetry after One Hundred Years of Studying the Cairo Geniza” [Heb], Madda’ei haYehadut 38, 1999.
For a description of the sometimes “obscure or bizarrely exegetical” nature of the kerova, see S. Elizur, “The Congregation in the Synagogue and the Ancient Qedushta” [Heb], in Knesset Ezra, S. Elizur, M. D. Herr, et al., eds.; Laura S. Lieber, “The Rhetoric of Participation: Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry,” Journal of Religion 90, 2010. For examples of how Yannai’s sequences could open into a more resonant and emblematic mode, see “You, Lord, who are faithful” (pp. 111, 260) and, in the same sequence, poem 7B, “He is human and so will be humbled,” Rabinovitz, Yannai, p. 428. Also see “Our eyes are weak with longing” (p. 121) and S. Elizur, From the Lips, pp. 10–11. The likening of Yannai’s poems to “a new midrash” is Ernest Simon’s, as quoted by Yehoshua Granat, Haaretz, April 29, 2005. The rahit is described in Elizur, “The Congregation and the Qedushta” [Heb].
The manuscript of “Angel of Fire” is Bodl. MS Heb. e 73.54. It is based on the weekly reading beginning at Exodus 3:1 and focuses on the second verse of that reading, which serves as a kind of lead-in to the poem (here an epigraph). See Zulay, The Liturgical Poems of Yannai [Heb], poem 33, part 7; Rabinovitz, Yannai [Heb], poem 46, part 7; see also commentary in Elizur, A Poem for Every Parasha [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1999), Parashat Tzav, and Nahum M. Bronznik, The Liturgical Poems of Yannai: A Commentary 1 [Heb] (Jerusalem, 2000), notes to poem 46. The translation departs in several places from the literal Hebrew in order to preserve the spirit and form of the poem. As Ezra Fleischer has noted with regard to the Hebrew liturgical poetry of late antiquity, “Sometimes what the poet is saying is not important; what’s important is how he says it and the intensity of the magic and the wizardry of the words” (Yediot aharonot, March 20, 1987). The translation of the poem here is by the authors. A different translation appears in T. Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (New York, 1981).
The kerova “Our eyes are weak with longing” is based on the reading starting with Genesis 29:31: “And the Lord saw that Leah was hated,” The Liturgical Poems of Yannai [Heb], M. Zulay, ed., supplementary poems to kerova 17, part 4; poem 27, part 4 in Rabinovitz. Schirmann has a fine brief analysis of this poem in his essay on Yannai, in Schirmann, Hebrew Poetry and Drama [Heb]. See also T. Carmi, Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse.
Quotations by Zulay are as follows: “Mr. Zulay will continue to write the reports,” interview with Zulay’s daughter, Ada Yardeni; “remnant of a vital faith and naiveté,” Zulay, “From Geniza to Geniza,” Eretz Israel and Its Poetry [Heb]; “mute orphans,” Zulay, “Between the Walls,” Eretz Israel and Its Poetry [Heb]; “the passport of Hebrew literature,” Motza lecture. Information about Zulay’s health is drawn from the interview with Yardeni and from her article “In Memory of My Father” [Heb]. On Zulay’s accomplishment, see S. Elizur, “Fifty Years of Research after Menahem Zulay” [Heb], Mehkerei Yerushalayim besifrut Ivrit 21, 2007.
Yannai’s mahzor has continued to develop. Some half a century after the 1938 Schocken collection a nearly complete edition of the poet’s work (by Z. M. Rabinovitz) was published in two volumes with extensive commentary. New fragments of poems by him have continued to surface.
For more on Fleischer as heir to Zulay, see Yediot aharonot, July 25, 1975, interview with Penina Meizlisch; Elizur, “From the Depths” [Heb], Madda’ei HaYahadut 43, 2006. Fleischer’s quotes are as follows: “uniquely Jewish beauty,” Fleischer, Yediot aharonot, March 20, 1987, interview by Zisi Stavi; “The Geniza didn’t change [this] discipline,” Fleischer, “The Cultural Profile of Eastern Jewry” [Heb].
Quotations from Ben Sira are: “those who composed musical psalms,” 44:5; “who have no memorial,” 44:9–10; “maintain the fabric of the world,” 38:26–29.
7. That Nothing Be Lost
The “salt-mine” comparison is Gerson Cohen’s, in “The Reconstruction of Gaonic History,” introduction to the reprint edition of Jacob Mann’s Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature (New York, 1972).
Information about Worman comes from Ernest James Worman, 1871–1909 (Cambridge, 1910); Reif, A Jewish Archive; “Report of the Library Syndicate for the Year Ending December 31, 1909”; and citations below. The account of Abrahams’s trip to Cairo is drawn from Phyllis Abrahams, “The Letters of Israel Abrahams from Egypt and Palestine in 1898,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 24, 1975. See Jefferson, “The Historical Significance.”
Descriptions of the help Worman gave other scholars are derived from Reif, “A History of the Geniza Collection” [Heb]; Louis Ginzberg, “Preface,” Geonica (New York, 1909). In “Geonic Jurisprudence from the Cairo Geniza” (Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 63, 1997), Neil Danzig blames Worman for many errors in Ginzberg’s texts. Worman’s own scholarly articles are “Notes on the Jews,” JQR 18/1, 1905; “Forms of Address in Genizah Letters,” JQR 19/4, 1907; “The Exilarch Bustani,” JQR 20/1, 1908; “Two Book-Lists from the Cairo Genizah,” JQR 20/3, 1908.
The two documents that Worman accounts for here are T-S 18 J 1.10 and T-S 18 J 1.11. Both are transcribed, translated, and discussed in Norman Golb’s “Legal Documents from the Cairo Genizah,” JSS 20, 1958. Worman’s transcription contains several mistakes; we have replicated the notebook entry as it appears, without correcting those errors.
Descriptions of Mann come from A. M. Habermann, “Jacob Mann—The Man and the Scholar” [Heb], in Men of the Book and Men of Action: Reflections on Writers, Scholars, Bibliographers, Printers and Book-Dealers [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1974); Gerson Cohen, “The Reconstruction of Gaonic History,” in Mann, Texts and Studies; Victor Reichert, “Jacob Mann, 1888–1940,” American Jewish Year Book 5702; Dov Nitzani, “Professor Dr. Jacob Mann,” in Sefer Przemysl [Heb] (Tel Aviv, 1964); Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, 1980); Menahem Schmelzer, “One Hundred Years of Genizah Discovery and Research in the United States,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Medieval Hebrew Poetry (New York, 2006). Mann’s “cautious and laborious … method” is outlined in the preface to his Texts and Studies. The account of the value of Mann’s The Jews is based on S. D. Goitein, “Preface and Reader’s Guide” to the reprint edition of Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs (New York, 1970). All quotes from Goitein in this chapter come from this preface.
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.
Sacred Trash Page 27
