YIDDISH MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY

YIDDISH MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH
LIBRARY
LEONARD PRAGER and BRAD SABIN HILL
FEW Yiddish manuscripts predating the age of printing have survived the storms of
Jewish and general history. The oldest extant dated Yiddish document is a rhymed
inscription of a dozen words in the Worms Mahzor ('festival liturgy') of 1272, now in
the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem.^ By far the most important
Yiddish manuscript is the dated 1382 Cambridge Codex from the famous Cairo Genizah
in Fostat, Egypt.^ The Cambridge Codex has been the centre of a heated linguistic
debate, Yiddishists maintaining that the language is Old Yiddish and many Germanists
claiming it is High German in Hebrew letters. The historiography of this more than
merely terminological question is itself a gripping chapter of cultural history, and one
linguist has mounted what at present seems to be an unassailable defence of the
Yiddishist position.^ This question of language is fundamental to bibliographical as well
as linguistic investigation, and librarians have often been puzzled as to how to classify
Yiddish materials. Today, librarians no longer describe Yiddish books as 'Judaeo-
German', as was common practice in the British Museum Library and elsewhere until
about fifty years ago.^ Yiddish, quite rightly, is classified linguistically among the
Germanic languages;^ but owing to the script in which Yiddish has almost always been
written - the Hebrew alphabet — Yiddish books and manuscripts are often found in
Hebrew or Oriental collections.
For centuries Ashkenazic Jewry enjoyed a diglossic harmony in which certain
linguistic functions were assigned to the vernacular, Yiddish, and others to the
language(s) of study and prayer, 'Hebrew-Aramaic', or loshn-koydesh ('the language of
holiness', henceforth 'Hebrew'). Most oral functions were filled by Yiddish - including
the by no means inferior activities of teaching the Bible and the Talmud, preaching in
the synagogue, and explaining religious texts in informal settings. With some exceptions,
prayer was in Hebrew;^ most books and legal and other documents were written in
Hebrew. However, this division of functions was never absolute.^ For example, Jewish
merchants from East and West would somehow clumsily employ Hebrew as a spoken
Jewish interlanguage;^ and some books - often on the pretext (rightfully or not) that they
were for women and the unlearned - were composed in Yiddish. Yet among the score of
diasporan Jewish languages Yiddish is unique in the size and weight of its Hebrew-
Aramaic component, a fact which emphasizes its close relationship to Hebrew and the
81

floatmg nature of the boundary between the two languages. This 'floating boundary'
between Hebrew and Yiddish is also reflected in many of the manuscripts containing
Yiddish text.
Hebrew manuscripts, being revered objects, were more likely to survive conflagrations,
expulsions and pogroms than Yiddish ones. Moreover, many Hebrew manuscripts,
though they may be partly or wholly in Yiddish, are often called simply * Hebrew
manuscripts'. No denigration is intended here. * Hebrew manuscripts' are often defined
as including all manuscripts *in Hebrew characters'.^ Discussions of the Yiddish
manuscript as such have been few,^° though much has been written about such
important volumes as the Cambridge Codex. The great bibliographer Moritz
Steinschneider loathed Yiddish,^^ yet was able to deal seriously with the subject in his
Juedtsch-Deutsche Literatur, a compilation of extracts from the bibliographical journal
Serapeum (Leipzig, 1848-69), in which he took note of about eighty Yiddish manuscripts
in a few Western libraries.^^ The Berlin Encyclopaedia Judaica in 1931 was the first
general reference work to include a section on Yiddish manuscripts.^^ Subsequently, a
few union catalogues of Yiddish manuscripts have been prepared,^^ as well as a few
catalogues or handlists of Yiddish manuscripts in specific libraries or countries.^^ To date
only a few publications have appeared dealing with the British Library's holdings in this
field.^^ This is perhaps mainly to be explained by the relatively small number of such
materials in this Library, where, as elsewhere, they are overshadowed by the Hebrew
manuscript collections.^^
The best known Yiddish manuscripts in the British Library are those described in G.
Margoliouth's magisterial Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the
British Museum,^^ some of them deriving from the famous Almanzi collection and from
the earlier foundation collections of Harley and Sloane, and those in the Gaster
Collection. The dozen or more manuscripts described by Margoliouth span about two
and a half centuries, from the end of the fifteenth to the first third of the eighteenth
century.^^ There are about a score of Yiddish manuscripts in the Gaster Collection,^**
most of which are later than those described by Margoliouth, dating from the
seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and they cover a greater variety of subjects.^^
It is both convenient and instructive to range the approximately fifteen subject areas
of the British Library's Yiddish manuscripts within four main groups: religion and
ethics; grammar and lexicography; realia; and drama. This series roughly charts the
gradual chronological progression from other-worldly to this-worldly concerns. One
could, of course, most plausibly place virtually all the manuscripts under one rubric -
religion - but for our purposes it is best to restrict that category to biblical, homiletic,
liturgical, and ethical texts. Liturgy, of course, includes eighteenth-century decorated
hagodes [hagadot], which were artistic as well as ritual objects. The division here
employed is essentially an organizing device, since all the categories overlap.
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BIBLE AND HOMILETICS
The earliest renditions of Bible texts into Yiddish followed the Hebrew word-order and
constituted a distinct translation lect known as ivre-taytsh. Bible translations are central
to Yiddish scholarship - not only because many early Yiddish texts were Bible
translations and paraphrases, but also because the Yiddish language and Yiddish
literature developed in and through these Bible-centred works. ^^ The British Library's
manuscripts provide good examples of both translation and paraphrase. The first
substantive Yiddish entry in Margohouth's catalogue, for Add. MS. 18694 (Margoliouth
no. 102), is the only Yiddish manuscript translation of the Five Books of Moses in the
British Library. Margohouth, as able to discriminate among language styles as among
scripts, dates the 'rather large German cursive hand' of this * Pentateuch in the Jewish-
German dialect' as sixteenth-century, and the pages added 'to replace lost leaves' as
seventeenth-century. The identity, however, of the translator and the scribes remains
unknown. It is interesting to compare this text^^ with that of the early printed
Pentateuchs in Yiddish, such as the 1544 Constance or 1560 Cremona editions.
Among the bibhcal texts. Or. MS. 9911 (Gaster no. 584) is an early nineteenthcentury
paraphrase of Genesis and part of Exodus. It is attributed to a melamed (teacher
in a kheyder, an elementary religious school), who used the work in teaching. It was a gift
to Gaster from his father,^* who apparently knew the melamed in Bucharest. As Gaster
noted, the compilation is 'full of legends', indicating it is close to the Tsenerene genre.
The opening passage, based on the first verses of Genesis, gives a clear view of the method
of this work (the Hebrew text is here printed in small capitals):
BREYSHES in dem hershtin [note initial hey'] on hoyb ven got hot on gihoybin di velt tsu bishafin
BORO er hot bishafin ELOYKIM dem mides hadin hot got givolt bishafin di velt mit dem mides
hadin hot got gizehin az di velt vet mit dem mides hadin keyn kiyem nisht hobin hot got frir
bishafin dem mides harakhamim mit dem mides hadin un mit di beyde EYS HASHOMAYIM VEEYS
HOORETS hot got bishafin himil un erd un bishefinishin oykh bishafin nor itlikhe zakh iz in eyn
andrin tog fartig givorin azo vi vayter vet shteyn dr parshe VEHOORETS un di erd beshas got hot
zi... bishafin HOYSO zi iz given TOYE vist UVOYE un leydek es iz nokh keyn groz mit keyn beymer
nisht geven un keyn shum lebedig bishefenish nisht geven VEKHOYSHEKH AL PNEY SEHOM un af
dem op grund iz geven fintstir VERUEKH un durkh di reyd ELOYKIM fun got MERAKHEFES zi hot
gishvebt di shtil fin got AL PNEY HAMOYIM fin oben af dem vasir VAYOYMER ELOYKIM hot got gizogt
YEHi OR es zol zayn likhtig VAYEHI OR un iz givorin likhtig VAYAR ELOYKIM ES HOOR KI TOV hot got
fr shtaen [sic} az dos likht iz gut az es zol aleyn nitsin nit mit dem finterish [sic] in eynem vorin
ven got hot bishafin di velt iz geven a bisl fintster un a bisl likhtig...
The various droshes [derashot] ('homilies') of Meir ben Samuel, Or. MSS. 9999-10003
(Gaster nos. 512, 513, 514, ioio, 1064, respectively) draw from the same tradition.^^ All
are mainly Yiddish, with large sections of both text and commentary in Hebrew. Little
is known about Meir ben Samuel, to whom these kabbalistic, intricately numerological
writings are now attributed. It is of codicological interest that some pages of this work
83

are on bluish paper. Far removed from kabbalah is another nineteenth-century
manuscript. Or. MS. looio (Gaster no. 532), containing a Yiddish version of Rashi's
commentary on Deuteronomy 16:18 to 17:7. Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes,
1040-1105) was for centuries - as he remains in traditional quarters - the most popular
Bible commentator, a voice of compelling clarity. (Several Yiddish biblical glossaries will
be discussed later, among the lexicographical works.)
LITURGY
In a discussion of Yiddish liturgical manuscripts, one must consider those manuscripts
containing whole liturgical texts in Yiddish, or in a combination of Hebrew and Yiddish,
as well as those manuscripts containing Hebrew liturgy with added vernacular
instructions in Yiddish. Liturgical works in both these categories have been described in
some detail by Margohouth, albeit usually with antiquated linguistic terminology. It is
perhaps salutary, here again, to give some attention to his terminology in a survey of
these manuscripts.
Margoliouth, typically, refers to the vernacular instructions in the liturgical work
described in Add. MS. 17867 (Margoliouth no. 651), an illuminated prayer-book written
in Vienna in 1720, as 'Judaeo-German'. The language which he quotes is indeed
Yiddish: Dos pitem haktoyres zogt men beshas hadover rakhmone Utslon, oder zonstn eyn
tsore sheloy sovoy. Di finf psukim zogt men itlikhes posek funf mol nokhanander.
Margoliouth also uses the expression 'German (Hebrew character)* to identify the
language of some texts, particularly later ones, which he regarded as German except for
the alphabet. This is the case with another liturgical manuscript. Or. MS. 5834
(Margoliouth no. 679), written at Mannheim in 1732: * Forms of devotion, in Hebrew and
German (Hebrew character) for a person in sickness ...'. It is true that texts in 'Germanin-Hebrew-letters'
were indeed produced in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, but even here one usually finds vestiges of Western Yiddish.^®
Yet Margoliouth is linguistically perceptive, as we can see from his description of a late
fifteenth-century or early sixteenth-century liturgical text. Add. MS. 18695 (Margoliouth
no. 683), where he writes: *A volume containing a number of festival Services from the
German Mahzor translated into a Judaeo-German dialect. The rendering is free and
periphrastic, and it is sometimes accompanied by z perush (e.g. fol. 82a sqq.), the object
of the translator being to explain the Piyyutim [hymns] to women. The main interest of
the MS. lies in its exemplification of a Judaeo-German language as used at the beginning
of the sixteenth century.' In the same vein, he pinpoints another Mahzor, Add. MS.
27071 (Margoliouth no. 684), for *its exemplification of the Judaeo-German dialect of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as used by a scribe from Krakau ... '.^^ Interestingly
enough, Margoliouth was aware of the name 'Yiddish' - his is one of the earliest uses
of this glottonym in a scholarly work in English - and employed it in reference to the
bilingual 1735 Amsterdam edition of Seyfer mides [Sefer midot] (Add. MS. 27204
[Margoliouth no. 874]) as well as to letters dated 1713 (Harley MS. 7013 [Margoliouth

no. 1049]), to which attention will be drawn later. Thus, on some linguistic or other
ground he distinguished between 'Judaeo-German' and 'Yiddish'. Even today a few
scholars for a variety of reasons continue to make some such distinctions.^^
ILLUMINATED AND DECORATED MANUSCRIPTS
Among the Yiddish liturgical manuscripts are some which were prepared specially by
scribes, and sometimes also by artists, either as family or communal heirlooms or simply
as demonstrations of the scribal art. The above-mentioned Yiddish Mahzor, Add. MS.
27071 (Margoliouth no. 684), is the most beautiful Yiddish manuscript - it is virtually
entirely in Yiddish - in the collections of the British Library, and certainly one of the
great Yiddish manuscript treasures in the world (see plate III). Extensively decorated,
it was written by the scribe Isaac bar Mordecai ha-Kohen, called 'Isaac Lankosh of
Cracow', circa 1560.^^ It is probable that the scribe also decorated the manuscript. The
initial words of prayers, in Hebrew, are written in large unframed display characters,
designed in illusionistic scrollwork and pleated ribbon patterns. Many letters sprout into
grotesque heads and animals. In layout and lettering, the manuscript follows medieval
tradition, and several features, such as the roundels and rosettes on the first page, are
particularly reminiscent of earlier practice and even of earlier models: the manuscript's
decoration thus forms a bridge between medieval and eighteenth-century German
Jewish manuscript decoration. It might also be mentioned that as a manuscript entirely
in Yiddish, it is one of a relatively small number of illuminated or decorated manuscripts
in Jewish or Hebrew-character languages, other than Hebrew, of which the British
Library holds some outstanding examples.^**
The German bibliographer of Yiddish Karl Habersaat implicitly saw any manuscript
with any Yiddish in it as a 'Yiddish manuscript', a practice which raises the visibility
of formerly half-hidden materials, and is justified from the perspective of the present
study.^^ In this category are a number of manuscripts, of which only a few will be
remarked here on account of their ornamentation. Add. MS. 18724 (Margoliouth no.
611), a Passover Haggadah written and illuminated by Jacob of Berlin, on vellum, is a
very fine example of the eighteenth-century revival of Hebrew manuscript decoration.^^
Paradoxically, this most impressive 'Yiddish manuscript' (as it contains some Yiddish
text) is not only missing from Habersaat's list of Margoliouth items (in his Yiddish
Manuscripts in England) but is slighted by Margoliouth as well. The latter describes this
manuscript in great detail, noting that' the rubrical directions are given in both German
and Spanish [sic]' and that two of the Passover songs at the end of the haggadah, Ehad
mi yode'a and Had gadya 'are accompanied by a German rendering in the Rabbinic
character'. But he does not note the Yiddish translation, Almekhtiger got (on f. 48), of
the equally famous Passover song Adir hu,^^ and he continues to avoid the term
'Yiddish' in recording the owner's dedicatory inscription: 'on fol. 55a (paper fly-leaf) is
an entry in the German cursive character, showing that the MS. was presented by Isaac
Zelig to his daughter Tsirl.'
8s

Another Passover Haggadah on vellum, Sloane MS. 3173 (Margoliouth no. 612)
dated 1740 (as was Add. MS. 18724) and known as the Leipnik Haggadah, is one of the
most beautifully written and decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth century ''
1 he text proper of this liturgy is, of course, in Hebrew and Aramaic, but the 'rubrical
directions as Margoliouth calls them are in Yiddish and Ladino (and occasionally also
in Hebrew). On the second folio we are specifically told that minhag shel ha-'ashkenazm
mi-tsadyamin ('the Ashkenazic rite is on the right side') and minhag sefaradt mi-tsad
senwl ('the Sefardic rite is on the left side'). As in Add. MS. 18724 (Margoliouth no
611), we have the Yiddish translations of the Passover songs Adir hu, Ehad miyode'a and
Hadgadya (see plate IV).'' The illumination is the work of Joseph ben David of Leipnik,
a native of Moravia, who is regarded as the leading figure among the Hamburg circle of
illuminators, a branch of the dominant eighteenth-century Bohemian-Moravian school.
Joseph of Leipnik produced his beautiful illuminated manuscripts for the wealthy few,
and few today see these rare artifacts. It is to be hoped that a facsimile of this exceptional
example of eighteenth-century illumination will be prepared in the not-too-distant
future, such as has already been done for its 'sister' Haggadah held in the Bibliotheca
Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam.^^
Another very charming eighteenth-century decorated Hebrew manuscript, containing
some Yiddish text, is Or. MS. 12983, at present on display in the King's Library. Known
as Perek Shirah ('Chapter of Song'), this early medieval tract is 'a hymn to the Creator,
in which all beings express their praise in appropriate Biblical phrases. The Hebrew text
in square characters is accompanied by a Yiddish translation, in the so-called
vaybertaytsh characters, all in an anonymous hand. Written on vellum, this manuscript
of the work is divided into fv\t sections, each containing a water-colour illustration of the
creatures mentioned, probably by an artist of the Moravian school. '^'
Among the Yiddish manuscripts notable for their calligraphy, one should also mention
Or. MS. 10330 (Gaster no. 1061), Kitser likute tsvi beloshn taytsh [Kitsur likute Jsevi bileshon
taytsh], a digest of liturgical readings dated 1833 at Leeuwarden (Friesland),^^ and
the sixteenth-century (or earlier) Yiddish translation of the Mahzor, Or. MS. 10735
(Gaster no. 722), written by two hands.
ETHICS
One of the oldest Yiddish manuscripts in the British Library is Add. MS. 27204
(Margoliouth no. 874), an early sixteenth-century recension of the anonymous ethical
tract Seyfer mides [Sefer midot], otherwise known as Orkhes tsadikim [Orhot tsadikim].
Probably composed in Germany in the fifteenth century, this work became a popular
classic of traditional Jewish literature in both Yiddish and Hebrew versions: the shorter
version in Yiddish was first printed in Isny in 1542 (this edition is not held in the British
Library), and the longer version in Hebrew was first printed in Prague in 1581.^® The
question of the possible priority of the Yiddish recension, especially in light of a sentence
in the introduction to the manuscript (drum hobin mir doz seyfer mides in taytsh gimakht\
86

;^. /. Decorated title-page of the Yiddish ethical tract known as Libes hrif Germany, copied
1777; ink on paper. Or. MS. 10668

IS given some attention by Margoliouth. The British Library manuscript is slightly
ornamented, with headings and initial phrases appearing in red ink.^« Thus the
manuscript is significant both for textual history and as an example of early Yiddish
manuscript decoration.
The most popular of all Jewish ethical works, one studied by almost all levels of the
male population for generations, the Mishnaic tract Pirkey oves [Pirke Avot] ('Ethics of
the Fathers') is represented in a number of Yiddish manuscripts, singly in Or. MS
10009 (Gaster no. 533), subtitled Shprtkhe derfetr, and as the first of four sections in Or.
MS. looio (Gaster no. 532), both of the nineteenth century and essentially German in
Hebrew characters. A much less known ethical tract is the eighteenth-century Amudey
oylem ['Amude 'olam], also known as Libes brif represented singly in Or. MS. 10668
(Gaster no. 117; see fig. i), and as the middle section of a tri-partite volume. Or. MS.
10086 (Gaster no. 509). The manuscripts of the work in the British Library's Gaster
Collection are not entitled 'Libes brif (hterally 'Love Letter')-at first glance a
misleading name for a sober tract of social and moral criticism - but rather 'Amude 'olam
('Eternal Pillars', or 'Pillars of the World').'*^ The author of Libes brif, Isaac Wetzlar
(Itsik Vetslar),^^ is a transitional figure who bridges the old moralistic musar tradition and
Mendelssohnian rationahsm. Given the multiple manuscripts of the work, and the
relative obscurity of both the work and its author, it will not be out of place to summarize
here the tract's argument. Wetzlar attributes the cultural and economic impoverishment
of mid-eighteenth-century German Jewry to defective education and to the low cultural
and spiritual level of the community leaders, the rabbis and the rich, who oppress the
masses and keep them ignorant. He decries the ineffective system of learning Hebrew
among the Ashkenazim: it would be better for the uneducated to say their prayers in
Yiddish, just as Sefardic women and simple folk pray in Spanish and Portuguese.
Synagogal mayhem results from congregants not knowing enough Hebrew to understand
the service. Hebrew grammar should be studied at an early age and the curriculum
should move from Hebrew to the Mishnah rather than to agadic works such as ''Eyn
ya^akov, which are full of legends and myths. Women, too, must be taught Hebrew, so
that they can read the Bible. Studying the Bible (rather than such works of superstition
as the Tsenerene) with a critical mind is good for men and women, and will keep the latter
from being alienated from Judaism.
Another ethical work in the Gaster Collection, Or. MS. 10347 (Gaster no. 120), is the
hr'itf Seyder vehanhdge lebaltshuve [Seder ve-hanhagah le-ba''al teshuvah] ('Manual for th
Penitent') directed towards those who change their worldly ways. This undated tract, a
product of so-called 'Habad' Hasidism, was probably prepared circa 1800 in White
Russia or Lithuania on tinted paper typical of the region. Lastly, one may mention in the
category of ethical tracts the fanciful Lebensloyf des foter Rhayns ('Biography of the River
Rhine'), and a cautionary fable about the rich Croesus in a cemetery, all rather stilted
reading, which are to be found together in one manuscript with the Yiddish version of
Pirke Avot, Or. MS. iooio (Gaster no. 532), mentioned above.^^

GRAMMAR AND LEXICOGRAPHY
The Gaster Collection also includes a work derived, albeit indirectly, from the great poet
Elye Bokher (Elijah ben Asher Levita), author of the Old Yiddish epic Bove Bukh (about
Buovo, the Italianate version of Bevis of Hampton).*^ Levita was an outstanding
grammarian as well as man of letters, and his grammatical works went through many
editions and were widely disseminated. Or. MS. 10348 (Gaster no. 109) is an eighteenthcentury
extract, or abridgement, of Levita's Hebrew grammar, entitled Toytsoes khayim
[Tots'ot hayim] ('Consequences of Life'), with Yiddish glosses or explanations. This
abridgment and translation, prepared by the kabbaUst Hayim b. Benjamin Ze'ev Bochner
of Cracow, was published in Hamburg in 1710.^^
In a chronologically arranged bibhography of Yiddish lexicography,^^ no item in the
British Library and few items elsewhere could claim precedence over Add. MS. 18688
(Margoliouth no. 981). This fifteenth-century lexicon of difficult words in the Hebrew
Bible has many Yiddish glosses, or as Margoliouth puts it, 'with frequent renderings in
German, but written in Hebrew characters'. Similarly, the seventeenth-century
manuscript of the Hebrew Pentateuch, Arundel MS. 27 (Margoliouth no. 244), is
described as 'Notes on passages in the Pentateuch, with many German words in the
Hebrew character'. (Karl Habersaat, of course, cites these as Yiddish manuscripts.) A
third manuscript of lexicographic interest. Add. MS. 39561, of much later date, is
associated with the American writer and folklorist C. G. Leland (i 824-1903), whose
manuscripts are held in the British Library. An avid collector of, among other things,
vocabularies of exotic tongues, Leland himself recorded isolated words and phrases (with
a few examples of use in sentences) heard from the lips of one or more Yiddish speakers
in the mid-nineteenth century.*^ In Add. MS. 39561 he dubbed them variously as
' German Hebrew',' Schmussen',' Mauscheln',' the Jewish-German Dialect',' Schmussen-Deutsch',
'Juedisch-Deutsch'.^^ It is, of course, Yiddish, but the hsts are mainly
words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin,*^ many of which entered German rotwelsch and were
studied by Ave-Lallemant and others ;^° such words also entered German dialect through
the speech of Jewish horse and cow dealers. Leland, who seems to have known German
and some Hebrew, gives us both a scattered list and an alphabetically ordered glossary.
Attention to his naive spellings tells us something about the pronunciation of his
informants.^^
REALIA: LETTERS
The first British Library Yiddish manuscript to appear in print, Harley MS. 7013
(Margoliouth no. 1049), was a series of early eighteenth-century letters described by
Margoliouth as partly in Hebrew, 'partly in Yiddish, and partly in a mixture of both'.
Jacob J. Maitlis edited and published nine Yiddish letters and corrected Margoliouth's
unchronological numbering, two of his datings, and the decipherment of a name. The
third of the letters (Judah ben Menahem from Rotterdam to R. Aaron Moses Sofer in

London, 1713) is clearly Hebrew-and Maitlis implies as much in discussing its
Yiddishisms. Maitlis explicitly comments on the Hebrew epistolary formulas with which
almost all the letters begin, conventions of what he calls the 'rhetorical style'. In his brief
discussion of the language and contents of the letters, he passes over the qualitative
difference between the first two letters from Judah ben Menahem. What is especially
striking is that Judah ben Menahem himself, at the beginning of his second letter, writes
that he has no time to write be-lashon ha-ramah, leshon ha-kodesh ('in the high style, in
the Holy Tongue'), as he did previously, and he moves into Yiddish (which he here calls
leshon kelila [< Aramaic, 'light language']) for most of the remainder of the letter,
shifting back to Hebrew for the close. Maitlis did a great deal in presenting and editing
these letters, but there is much to add to his analysis, particularly as regards the highly
fluid but not altogether indefinable borders between Hebrew and Yiddish.^^
It seems pure chance that some Yiddish letters have been acquired and preserved in
the British Library, as elsewhere.^^ One such, a letter of historical interest from the Jews
of Diisseldorf to their coreligionists in Essen, dated 1768, is prefixed to an early Hebrew
biblical manuscript. Add. MS. 10455 (Margoliouth no. 79), from the collection of C. D.
Ginsburg. (This Bible, written in Germany in the fourteenth century, is one of the
largest and heaviest manuscripts in the Hebrew collections.) Another letter preserved is
Or. MS. 12069, iri two folios, received by Yule Fadl Zusman (Sussmann) from her father
and dated i March 1854, in Rogasen (Poznan, Prussia), another corner of Yiddish
geography in the German lands.^^ But preservation is not enough. Through an oversight
in cataloguing, another Yiddish letter, an especially pathetic one dated 5 February 1790
from Mrs Anna Levinstreit, who 'lodges in the town in Krebsen Street the 3rd Row up
Two pairs of Stairs, No. 461 at Vienna', is not mentioned in the British Library's
catalogue description of Add. MS. 11038, and can now be rediscovered.^^ Addressed to
her late husband's business associate in London, the letter claims that according to the
will of the deceased, Salomon of Neuvil (Swiss Neuwilen near Constance ?]^ goods
belonging to him were in the possession of the addressee, Isaac Herschel, who was
requested to return these goods to the widow, who had now left Dresden and settled in
Vienna with her three sons. They were in dire straits and urged the family friend to
respond forthwith. The goods whose return was requested were two bundles of pearls,
two diamond rings and two large books. Perhaps the books were valuable ones, even
decorated manuscript books of the kind discussed above. The vocabulary of the letter is
principally New High German, but also has some Hebrew-Aramaic component terms
and formulaic expressions, as well as the date and place. It is significant only as a
reflection of the use of Yiddish in London, or in correspondence with London, in the late
eighteenth century.
PUBLIC RECORDS
Or. MS. 12333 (Gaster no. 1223) contains a pot-pourri of materials from the early
eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, mainly documents and letters from the
Jewish community of Haguenau in Alsace (see fig. 2).^^ This community takes on a
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PLATE III
Opening of the penitential liturgy, from a Mahzor in Yiddish, circa 1560. Add. MS. 27071, f. 2r

The Passover table-song Had Gadya in Yiddish and Aramaic, from the Haggadah copied and
Illuminated by Joseph Le.pnik, Hamburg, dated 1740, on vellum. Sloane MS 3173 f 38V
PLATE IV

certain importance in the Gaster Collection owing to another manuscript. Or. MS. 10755
(Gaster no. 1200), sixty-three pages long and partly on bluish paper, with autograph
reports of a delegate from Haguenau to the Sanhedrin of Paris. The Yiddish dialect of
Alsace, sometimes referred to as Judaeo-Alsatian, has been the subject of considerable
linguistic and even literary attention for over a century. These two Gaster manuscripts
must be added to the bibliography of documentation on this longest-surviving dialect of
Western Yiddish."
MEDICINE
The secular and the sacral worlds meet in the curious genre of medical and kabbalistic
prescriptions known as Sgules urefues [segulot u-refu'ot] in which the Gaster collection is
particularly rich. Among the manuscripts containing such texts are the eighteenth- or
nineteenth-century Or. MS. 10343 (Gaster no. 103), with some Yiddish glosses (e.g. for
infusions such as sasefras and sasiparilye), and the more 'scientific' fifteenth-century
Seyfer refues [Sefer refu'ot], in Or. MS. 10396 (Gaster no. 676). The seventeenth-century
Sgules urefues bukh ('Book of Charms and Remedies'), Or. MS. 10568 (Gaster no. 932),
also partly in Yiddish, is both full and fascinating. One eighteenth-century manuscript,
Or. MS. 10790 (Gaster no. 1203), curiously contains remedies in Yiddish, English and
Latin. One might also mention in this context a microfilm held at the British Library of
a manuscript located elsewhere:^® Or. Mic. 4914 contains an early collection in Hebrew
and Yiddish (55 leaves, 71 items) of about five hundred prescriptions of folk-medicine
and recipes for dyeing and other domestic arts, laws of kashrut, and charms and
incantations.^^ Among its sundry contents, for example, are remedies or recipes for
^trembling of the hands,' 'urinary ailments', 'virginity' and 'writing (in colour of gold)'.
The Hebrew and Yiddish literature of'charms and cures' is of increasing interest today,
both from the perspective of folk-medicine and from that of popular mysticism and
alchemy. ^^
DRAMA
The manuscript whose text looks forward most poignantly to the present age, naively
pitting assimilationist universalism against obscurantist ethnicity, is Or. MS. 12283
(Gaster no. 133), Isaac Abraham Euchel's Reb Henikh, oder vos tut man damit}, written
at the end of the eighteenth century. The irony of an anti-Yiddish play in Yiddish, of
special importance in the history of Yiddish drama, has been much discussed since 1930,
when Zalmen Rejzen published the text of the play in Yiddish for the first time, on the
basis of a manuscript in Amsterdam.^^ It would be interesting to compare the Rejzen
edition with the Gaster manuscript, which is a nineteenth-century copy of the
eighteenth-century original.
Of considerably less significance is a drama by the London immigrant Nathan
Horowitz, who was, however, one of the first translators of Byron into Yiddish.
91

GUCONSCRXmON
COh'SlSTOHIALI
SYNAGOGIE DE HAGUENAII.
C
r c \
. 2. Deliberations in Yiddish of the administrative committee of the Jewish congregation at
Haguenau (Alsace), 22 March 1840. Or. MS. 12333
92

Horowitz's Shol hameylekh: a biblishe drame in 7 akten [King Saul: Biblical Play in 7
Acts] (London, 1933) is described by the author on the title-page as 'Copy T and
'Manuscript Print by the Author'. Although sometimes perceived as a lithograph and
recorded as such among the library's Hebrew printed books/^ this is simply a manuscript
prepared by the author and presented to the British Museum Library as if a book. A
work of dogged application, it is graphically curious, but poetically deficient.^^
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S PLAYS
The Licensing Act of 1737 required the Lord Chamberlain to license a new play before
it could be publicly performed on the stage. This practice continued until 1968. It will
be news to many that Yiddish plays and play synopses were similarly presented for
decades to the Lord Chamberlain's Office [LCO] for licensing. ^^ Yiddish troupes in
Britain have since 1880 staged at least a thousand different works,^'^ but they do not seem
to have applied for permission to perform as many as a quarter of them. From the late
1890s until the 1940s the practice appears to have been for a Yiddish theatre manager
- if he bothered at all - to submit an English synopsis of the Yiddish play, together with
two guineas for the registration fee. Sometimes a printed or manuscript text accompanied
the synopsis, which was generally poorly written and sloppily presented. The examiners
had additional cause for irritation when the fee was late in arriving. The examiners
regarded careful attention to a play's contents as superfluous if the play were in Yiddish;
this indifference bred ignorance and a certain contempt. At least one Yiddish play,
Shalom Asch's Got fun nekome ('God of Vengeance'), was banned in Britain as late as
1946.
Copies of all plays licensed between 1824 and 1968, formerly held in the Lord
Chamberlain's Office, are now in the British Library, together with all correspondence
and examiners' reports, where these survive. All of this material is now accessible and
may be seen in the Department of [Western] Manuscripts.^^ Plays can be searched
through a card catalogue of titles and through bound volumes in which plays were
recorded by the LCO as received. Yiddish plays can be found only through their
translated English titles, a formidable obstacle unless one knows the material intimately.
For most of the Yiddish plays licensed there are only poor English plot abstracts, but
there is also Yiddish language material, printed and manuscript. The plays run the
gamut between raucous musicals, sentimental operettas and tear-jerking melodramas on
the one hand, and serious art theatre on the other. Spanning the years 1880 to 1961, the
LCO plays are an important source for the study of Yiddish theatre in Britain.^^
MS. NOTES IN PRINTED BOOKS
A comprehensive list of Yiddish manuscripts would also include Yiddish marginal
glosses in Hebrew printed books such as we find, apparently in a contemporary hand, in
the British Library copy (pressmark C.5o.d.2o) of the incunable Makre Dardeke
93

([Naples], 1488).^^ These Yiddish glosses deserve attention not only in the context of the
broad history of the Makre Dardeke,^^ but also in relation to other multilingual Hebrew
and Yiddish lexicons.'® Another instance of Yiddish handwritten notes in an early
Hebrew book was recently uncovered in the course of bibhographic research on Hebrew
incunabula in the British Library. 'An old hand-written Hebrew list of manuscripts,
printed books and other properties', bound up with the editio princeps (pressmark
C.5O.d.7) of Jacob b. Asher's code, Arba'ah Turim (Piove di Sacco, 1475), was found to
include Yiddish text, of no little period interest."^^ The significance squeezed out of this
list demonstrates what seemingly fragmentary items can become when knowingly read.
The above survey gives a brief and only preliminary account of some fifty Yiddish
manuscript texts in the collections of the British Library.'^ In the absence of a definitive
study of Yiddish palaeography and codicology, still a desideratum of Hebraic
bibliography,^^ the dating and more precise provenance within Eastern and Central
Europe of some Yiddish manuscripts will necessarily remain tentative. Given the current
upsurge of academic and general interest in Yiddish in Britain and abroad, the British
Library's Yiddish manuscript collections will continue to attract attention. Much
remains to be learned from them.
APPENDIX
CONCORDANCE OF YIDDISH MS. NUMBERS
(manuscripts discussed in this survey)
BL MS. no.
Arundel 27
Harley 7013
Sloane 3173
Add. 10455
Add. 11038
Add. 17867
Add. 18688
Add. 18694
Add. 18695
Add. 18724
Add. 27O45(B)
Add. 27071
Add. 27204
Add. 39561
Or. 5834
Or. 9911
British Library MS. numbers
Margoliouth cat. no.
Margoliouth 244
Margoliouth 1049
Margoliouth 612
Margoliouth 79 [Ginsburg 19]
Margoliouth 651
Margoliouth 981
Margoliouth 102
Margoliouth 683
Margohouth 611
Margoliouth 925 [Almanzi 151]
Margoliouth 684 [Almanzi 176]
Margoliouth 874 [Almanzi 318]
Margoliouth 679
Gaster 584
94

Or. 9999
Gaster ^
Or. ioooo Gaster 513
Or. ioooi Gaster 514
Or. 10002
Gaster ioio
Or. 10003 Gaster 1064
Or. 10009 Gaster 533
Or. iooio Gaster 532
Or. 10086 Gaster 509
Or. 10330 Gaster 1061
Or. 10343 Gaster 103
Or. 10347 Gaster 120
Or. 10348 Gaster 109
Or. 10396 Gaster 676
Or. 10568 Gaster 932
Or. 10668 Gaster 117
Or. 10735 Gaster 722
Or. 10755 Gaster 1200
Or. 10790 Gaster 1203
Or. 12069 -
Or. 12283 Gaster 133
Or. 12333 Gaster 1223
Or. 12983 —
11745.aaaa.27 [catalogued as printed book]
C.5O.d.7 [printed book with MS. notes]
C.5O.d.2o [printed book with MS. notes]
Margoliouth numbers
Margoliouth cat. no.
BL MS. nO.
Margoliouth 79 [Ginsburg 19] Add. 10455
Margoliouth 102 Add. 18694
Margoliouth 244 Arundel 27
Margoliouth 611 Add. 18724
Margoliouth 612 Sloane 3173
Margoliouth 651 Add. 17867
Margoliouth 679 Or. 5834
Margoliouth 683 Add. 18695
Margoliouth 684 [Almanzi 176] Add. 27071
Margoliouth 874 [Almanzi 318] Add. 27204
Margoliouth 925 [Almanzi 151] Add. 27O45
Margoliouth 981 Add. 18688
Margoliouth 1049 Harley 7013
95

Gaster handlist no.
Gaster 103
Gaster 109
Gaster 117
Gaster 120
Gaster 133
Gaster 509
Gaster 512
Gaster 513
Gaster 514
Gaster 532
Gaster 533
Gaster 584
Gaster 676
Gaster 722
Gaster 932
Gaster ioio
Gaster 1061
Gaster 1064
Gaster 1200
Gaster 1203
Gaster 1223
Gaster numbers
BL MS. no.
Or. 10343
Or. 10348
Or. 10668
Or. 10347
Or. 12283
Or. 10086
Or. 9999
Or. 10000
Or. 10001
Or. iooio
Or. 10009
Or. 9911
Or. 10396
Or. 10735
Or. 10568
Or. 10002
Or. 10330
Or. 10003
Or. 10755
Or. 10790
Or. 12333
I The manuscript has been reproduced in a
facsimile edition. On the Yiddish inscription, see
the study by Ch. Shmeruk in the companion
voiume to the facsimile, 'The versified Old
Yiddish blessing in the Worms Mahzor', in M.
Beit-Arie {ed.). Worms Mahzor, MS. Jewish
National and University Library Heb. 4°j8i/1:
Introductory Volume (Vaduz, 1985), pp. 100-3,
and the earlier study by W. Roll, 'Das alteste
datierte judisch-deutsche Sprachdenkmal; ein
Verspaar im Wormser Machsor von 1272/73',
Zeitschrift fiir Alundartenforschung, xxxiii (Wiesbaden,
1966), pp. 127-38; see also Shmeruk's
Sifrut yidish: perakim le-toldotehah [ Yiddish
Literature: aspects of its history] (Tel-Aviv,
1978), pp. 9-11 (with reproduction from the
manuscript, and reference to other studies by D.
Sadan), and his Prokimfun deryidisher titeraturgeshikhte
[Yiddish Literature: aspects of its
history] (Tel Aviv, 1988), pp. 11-14.
2 See Shmeruk, Prokim, pp. 33-5. Helmut Dinse,
in Die Entwicklung des jiddischen Schrifttums im
deutschen Sprachgebiet (Stuttgart, 1974), pp.
280-1, lists 45 items from 1953 to 19^7, when
the debate was most fierce. For an account and
an analysis of this debate, and a comprehensive
bibliography as well, see Jerold C. Frakes, The
Politics of Interpretation: Alterity and Ideology in
Old Yiddish Studies (Albany, 1989); there is also
a study by Gabriele Strauch, Dukus Horant:
Wanderer zmischen zwei Welten (Amsterdam,
1990). Research on the Cambridge Codex is also
recorded in Stefan C. Kei(et al. (eds.). Published
Material from the Cambridge Genizah Collection:
A Bibliography i8g6-ig8o (Cambridge, 1988), p.
148. For a lengthy palaeographical account of the
manuscript, with a facsimile of its character set
(i.e. the Hebrew alphabet), see S. Birnbaum, The
Hebrew Scripts (London and Leiden, 1954-71),
2 parts (plates and text), no. 356*. On the
discovery of the manuscript, see C. Gininger, 'A
Note on the Yiddish Horant', in U. Weinreich

(ed.), The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Yiddish
language, folklore, and literature (New York,
i954)> PP- 275-7-
3 Frakes, ibid., passim. In the nineteenth century
there were Jewish scholars in Germany who
maintained that the Jews in medieval and early
modern Germany had spoken the same German
as their Christian neighbours; isolation and
Eastern influence had corrupted this speech, the
result being the ghastly 'jargon', Yiddish.
Convinced that full social and civic acceptance
depended on their ridding themselves of this
linguistic abomination, the German-Jewish establishment
waged a harsh campaign against
Yiddish. In the twentieth century — a tragic
period in which a majority of native Yiddishspeakers
have perished - linguistic science and
history have rescued Yiddish from this opprobrium.
In the long debate as to whether such
works as Dukus Hurnt (or Dukus Horant) are
written in 'Old Yiddish' or in 'High German in
Hebrew letters', the reigning opinion, held even
by some distinguished Germanists, is that a text
written in Hebrew characters and designed for a
Jewish audience is Yiddish even when the
vocabulary is overwhelmingly German.
4 Through the nineteenth century and well into
the twentieth, Yiddish books and manuscripts in
the British Museum Library, as elsewhere, were
included in the catalogues of Hebrew (Zedner
1867; Van Straalen 1892, 1901; Margoliouth
1899, 1905, 1915; Leveen 1935) and were called
'Judaeo-German', 'Jewish German', etc. The
glottonym 'Judaeo-German', commonly used
even for East European Yiddish, fell gradually
into disuse in this century, when the movement
for an indigenous and unhyphenated name began
to make headway, first in North America and
later in Western Europe. Modern terminology is
reflected in more recent subject headings; cf.
R. C. Alston, A Topical Index to Pressmarks in use
in The British Museum Library (i82j-ig^j) and
The British Library (ig/j—ig8s), including pressmarks
in... The Department of Oriental Manuscripts
and Printed Books (London, 1987), s.v.
'Yiddish'(3 pp.).
Esdaile in his The British Museum Library: a
Short History and Survey (London, 1946), p.
299, wrote: ' With Hebrew is often classed
Yiddish. But this, though written and printed in
Hebrew characters, is not Semitic, but European,
being the dialect (Juedisch) of the Jews in
Germany. Yiddish books reaching the Museum
are for convenience catalogued in the Oriental
Library, but are preserved in the Printed Books
and read in the Reading Room.' The flawed
definition given here of Yiddish, 'the dialect of
the Jews in Germany', is surprising. At the very
moment Esdaile wrote and only a few miles from
where he wrote a vibrant Yiddish culture
flourished in the East End of London. In his day
a significant world-class literature existed in
Yiddish, which was the language of the majority
of Eastern European Jews and of hardly a
remnant in Germany proper.
Records for the British Library's holdings of
Yiddish books printed before 1800, including
much printing from the German lands, were
compiled by M. Lutzki in his unpublished
Reshime fun yidishe gidrukte sforim biz dem yor
1800 velkhe gefinen zikh in der bodliana in oksford
un m britishen muzeum in london [Catalogue of
Yiddish printed books (until the year 1800) held
in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and in the
British Museum (later British Library), London]
(MS. New York, 1954, deposited in the YIVO
Institute, New York), a copy of which is held in
the Hebrew Section of the British Library.
Records for a major portion of the Yiddish books
acquired by the British Library before 1975, and
which were included in the printed (and now
automated) General Catalogue, have been compiled
in Yiddish Printed Books in the British
Library, preface by B. S. Hill (London: Hebrew
Section, The British Library, 1992); due to longstanding
automation difficulties, the Hebrew
characters in this computer-generated compilation
run in the proper direction within words,
but the words themselves run backwards.
Records for Yiddish books printed in the
nineteenth century are to be found in the
catalogues by J. Zedner, Catalogue of the Hebrew
Books in the Library of the British Museum
(London, 1867; reprinted 1964), S. van
Straalen, Catalogue of Hebrew Books in the British
Museum acquired during the years i868-i8g2
(London, 1894; reprinted 1977), and idem.
Supplementary Catalogue of Hebrew Books in the
British Museum, acquired during the years
T8gj-i8gg (London, 1991; limited distribution).
See also the entries in the unpublished (and
incomplete) galley-proofs of Van Straalen's
Subject Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books
(ca. 14JS - ca. igoo) held in the Library of the
97

British Museum {now British Library), under the
headings ' Belles-lettres: Drama: Judaeo-
German' and 'Belles-Lettres: Novels: Judaeo-
German', and also the indexes to Van Straalen's
unpublished Gatalogue of Hebrew Printers {ca.
1500 ~ ca. igoo) as represented in the holdings of
the British Museum [now British Library), index
5: 'Printers of languages other than Hebrew:
Jewish languages: Yiddish', listing some forty
printers.
5 On the history of the Yiddish language, see Max
Weinreich, Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh
[History of the Yiddish Language], 4 vols. {New
York, 1973), and the partial English version
which excludes the notes, History of the Yiddish
Language, trans. S. Noble and J. A. Fishman
(Chicago and London, 1980). Much Yiddish
linguistic literature has been recorded in B.
Borochov, 'Di Bibliotek funem yidishn filolog:
fir hundert yor yidishe shprakh forshung',
reprinted in his Shprakh-forshung un literaturgeshikhte,
ed. N. Meisel [Mayzel] {Tel Aviv,
1966), pp. 76-136 (a second, unpublished, part
of the 'Bibliotek' is said to be preserved in
manuscript at the YIVO Institute in New York);
K. Habersaat, 'Materialien zur Geschichte der
jiddischen Grammatik', Orbis, xi {1962), pp.
352-68; idem, 'Zur Geschichte der jiddischen
Grammatik: eine Bibliographische Studie', Zeitschrift
fur Deutsche Philologie, lxxxiv {1965), pp.
419-35, and lxxxvi (1966), p. 156; S. Birnbaum,
Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar (Toronto,
1979)1 PP- 309-88 ('Bibliography'); J. G. Bratkowski,
Yiddish Linguistics: a Multilingual Bibliography
(New York and London, 1988); and
D. M. Bunis and A. Sunshine, Yiddish Linguistics:
A Glasstfied Bilingual Inde.x of Yiddish
Serials and Gollections, igij-ig^S {New York
and London, 1994).
For surveys of Yiddish linguistic research, see
H. P. Althaus, 'Yiddish', in Gurrent Trends in
Linguistics, vol. ix (The Hague, 1972), pp.
1345-82, and Dovid Katz, 'On Yiddish, in
Yiddish, and for Yiddish: 500 years of Yiddish
Scholarship', in M. H. Gelber (ed.). Identity and
Ethos: A Festschrift for Sol Liptzin on the
Occasion of His 8s th Birthday (New York, 1986),
pp. 23-36. The generally accepted view that
Yiddish is a variety of High German with
significant Slavic and Hebrew-Aramaic components
has recently been challenged by Paul
Wexler's theory that Yiddish is a Slavic language.
'Judaeo-Sorbian', which has been relexified
from High German. See his 'Yiddish-the
Fifteenth Slavic Language: A Study of Partial
Language Shift from Judeo-Sorbian to German',
International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, xci {1991), pp. 9-150, and Ms more
recent - and more controversial - The Ashkenazic
Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in search of
a Jewish Identity {Columbus, Ohio, 1993).
6 The Got fun avrom ('God of Abraham') prayer
recited at home by women at the close of the
Sabbath is one striking exception, as is indeed
the entire tkhines genre, a personal rather than a
communal prayer form. The Yiddish sidur
{* prayer book'), such as that translated by Joseph
ben Yakar (Ichenhausen, 1544), and mahzor
{*holiday prayer book'), such as the British
Library's Add. MS. 27071, seem to have been
primarily for home use. On women's liturgies in
Yiddish, see Solomon Freehof, 'Devotional
Literature in the Vernacular', GGAR Yearbook,
xxxiii (1923), pp. 375-424; Dinse, op. cit., pp.
84-91 and 190-3; Devra Kay, 'An Alternative
Prayer Canon for women: the Yiddish Seyder
Tkhines', in Julius Carlebach (ed.), Zur Geschichte
der jiidischen Frau in Deutschland (Berlin,
1993), pp. 49-96 (with bibliography of editions);
and Jennifer Breger, 'Women's Devotional
Literature: An Essay in Jewish Bibliography'^
Jewish Book Annual, Hi (New York, 1994-1995),
pp. 73-98. On prayer in Yiddish, see David E.
Fishman, 'Mikoyekh davenen af yidish: a bintl
metodologishe bamerkungen un naye mekoyrim'
[' Concerning Prayer in Yiddish: Methodblogical
Comments and New Sources'], Yivo Bleter,
N.S., i {New York, 1991), pp. 69-92 (in Yiddish);
and J. Baumgarten, Introduction a la litterature
yiddish ancienne {Paris, 1993), pp. 319-62 {'Prier
en langue vulgaire').
7 See in this respect Lewis Glinert's 'Hebrew-
Yiddish Diglossia: Type and Stereotype Implications
of the Language of Ganzfried's Kitzur\
International Journal of the Sociology of Language,
lxvii {1987), pp. 39-55- On the knowledge
of Hebrew in Eastern Europe, cf. S. Stampfer,
'What did it mean to know Hebrew in Eastern
Europe.^', in L. Glinert {ed.}, Hebrew in Ashkenaz
{Oxford, 1993).
8 An exemplary conversation in Ashkenazic
Hebrew between two Yiddish-speaking {!) merchants
('Drittes Gesprach, Zwischen zweyen
Handels-Juden') is reproduced in Bibliophilus'

Judischer Sprach-Meister, oder Hebrdisch-Teutsches
Worter-Buch (Frankfurt and Leipzig,
1742), pp. 92 ff.
9 The entry, 'Manuscripts, Hebrew', by D. S.
Loewinger and E. Kupfer, in the Encyclopaedia
Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xi, cols. 899-900,
defines 'Hebrew manuscripts' as a 'term which
includes religious and secular books, as well as
letters and documents written on papyrus,
parchment, hides and paper in Hebrew characters,
sometimes using them for the writing of
languages other than Hebrew, e.g. Aramaic,
Yiddish, Ladino, etc'
10 Great twentieth-century Yiddish scholars like
Max Erik, Nahum Shtif, Noah Prylucki, Max
Weinreich and others were of course interested
in and studied Yiddish manuscripts. Cataloguers
of major sales catalogues {e.g., Chimen Abramsky),
who often remain anonymous, did give
expert attention to Yiddish manuscripts, but
other than Karl Habersaat, the most important
bibliographer of Yiddish manuscripts after
Steinschneider, no twentieth-century scholar has
made bibliographical study of Yiddish manuscripts
his major concern. The philologist Ber
Borochov's pioneering bibliographical essay on
research on Yiddish was not focused on Yiddish
manuscripts, and Chone Shmeruk's survey of
Yiddish literature in the Encyclopaedia Judaica
(Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xvi, cols. 798-833, deals
principally with printed works.
11 This has been widely documented. The first
modern historian of Yiddish literature, Leo
Wiener {himself a trained Slavist), wrote in his
The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth
Gentury (London, 1899; reprinted New
York, 1972), p. 13: 'Even Steinschneider has no
love for it; although he has written so much and
so well on its literature, he knows nothing of its
nineteenth-century development, and nearly all
his quotations of Judeo-German words that in
any way differ from the German form are
preposterously wrong.' Steinschneider's last
views are expressed in his Allgememe Einleitung
in die judische Literatur des Mittelalters: Vorlesungen...
(Amsterdam, 1966; reprinted from
Jewish Quarterly Review, xvi [1904], pp. 759-64).
12 Steinschneider's detailed list of Yiddish manuscripts
is found in his 'Juedische [lege Juedisch-
Deutsche] Litteratur und Juedisch-Deutsch',
Serapeum (1864), pp. 33-104, and (1866), pp.
129-40, 145-59 CJuedisch-deutsche Handschriften',
nos. 386-451); see also the 'Nachtrage'
in (1869), pp. 129-59. This list of
manuscripts was unfortunately not included in
the reprint of the earlier part {on printed books)
ot Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur, which was issued
by the Hebrew University {Jerusalem, 1961). It
may be noted here that Steinschneider's own
hand-annotated copy oi Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur,
with extensive additional material not
included anywhere else, is held in the library of
the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York,
and is available on microfilm from UMI
Microfilms; see A Reel Guide to the Steinschneider
Gollection, Reels 1-20, from the library
of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
{Ann Arbor: University Microfilms), reel 13, no.
107 (173 exp.). A copy of this is held in the
British Library.
13 B. Weinryb, 'Handschriften. II. Jiddisch',
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Berlin, 1931), vol. vii,
cols. 944—7 (with bibliography).
14 See Karl (Carlo) Habersaat, 'Beitrage zur
Bibliographie der jiidisch-deutschen Handschriften,
nebst Nachtrag zu Shunami, Bibliography',
Le Muse'on: revue d'e'tudes orientals,
liv (Louvain, 1941), pp. 187-95; idem, 'Prolegomena
zum Repertorium der Jiddischen
Handschriften', Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie,
lxxxi {1962), pp. 338-48; idem, 'Repertorium
der Jiddischen Handschriften', Rivista
degli studi orientali, xxix {1954), pp. 53-70; xxx
(1955)1 PP- 235-49; and xxxi {1956), pp. 41-9;
and idem, 'Beitrag zur Chronologie der datierten
jiddischen Handschriften {1307-1619)', Mittetlungen
aus dem Arbeitskreis fur Jiddistlk^ ii, no.
r8 (1963), pp. 117-18. (A bound volume of
photocopies of most of Habersaat's numerous
publications, entitled Studies in Yiddish, Hebrew,
Judaeo-Spanish and Biblical Bibliography [1933-
ig66], is held in the Hebrew Section of the
British Library.)
M. Lutzki's unpublished Reshime fun yidishe
gidrukte sfortm, cited above, apparently included
an appendix {'Hesofe i') comprising a union list
of Yiddish manuscripts {'algemeyne reshime fun
idishe manuskripten'), but this is missing in the
reproduction held at the British Library (is it to
be found with the original manuscript deposited
in the YIVO Institute in New York.''); a second
appendix {'Hesofe 2') lists Yiddish manuscripts
in Germany and Austria, of which microfilms are
held at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew
99

Manuscripts, Jerusalem. The compendious
union catalogue of the Hebrew-character manuscripts
reproduced on microfilm for this Institute,
The Collective Catalogue of Hebrew
Manuscripts (Paris: Chadwyck-Healey, 1989, on
microfiche) includes a 'language' file listing
Yiddish and other Jewish languages (each in a
separate sequence) as well as a 'library' file
according to the respective institutions' pressmarks.
Unfortunately, there is no entry under
'Yiddish' (or, indeed, under any other Jewish
language) in the otherwise helpful bibliographic
compendium by B. Richler, Guide to Hebrew
Manuscript Collections (Jerusalem, 1994).
15 For example, K. Habersaat, 'Die jiddischen
Handschriften in der Schweiz', Phonetica, x
(1963), p. 128, also published in Archiv fur das
Studium der neueren Sprachen und Ltteraturen,
cxvii (1965/6), pp. 114-15; idem,' Die jiddischen
Handschriften in Italien', Archiv Braunschweig,
cci (1965), pp. 48-50; M. Weinreich, 'Vos
Keymbridzsh farmogt' [Yiddish in Cambridge
collections], in his Bilder fun der yidtsher
literaturgeshikhte (Wilno, 1928), pp. 140-8; S.
Loewinger and B. Weinryb, Jiddische Handschriften
in Breslau (Budapest, 1936; reprinted
from Magyar Zsidd Szemle, liii); J. Baumgarten,
'Les manuscrits Yidich de la Bibliotheque
Nationale de Paris', in David Goldberg (ed.).
The Eield of Yiddish: Studies in language, folklore
and literature: Fifth Collection (Evanston/New
York, 1993), pp. 121-51; and the typescript
'Jiddische Hss. bzw. Hss. mit jidd. Bestandteilen
an der BSB [List of Yiddish mss.]', 2 pp.,
available in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in
Munich. On collections of Yiddish letters more
will be said later.
16 For example, J. Maitlis, ' London Yiddish
Letters of the Early Eighteenth Century', The
Journal of Jewish Studies, vi (1955), pp. 153-65
and 237-52. Cecil Roth translated one of these
letters in 'An Irish Marriage', in his edition of
Anglo-Jewish Letters, 1158-1 gij (London,
1938), p. 87. Prof Walter Roll of Trier is
preparing a study of British Library manuscripts
containing Yiddish biblical glosses.
17 On the quantity of the surviving Hebrew
manuscript material, 'It has been estimated that
there are about 60,000 [Hebrew-character]
manuscripts (codices) and about 200,000 fragments,
most of which have come from the Cairo
Genizah...'. Needless to say, only a very tiny
portion of these manuscripts and fragments are
in Yiddish; cf. Loewinger and Kupfer in the
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xi,
col. 900.
18 Part i (London, 1899; reprinted 1965), Part ii
(London, 1905; reprinted 1965), Part iii
(London, 1915; reprinted 1965), covering the
British Library's acquisitions of Hebrew manuscripts
to 1915; Part iv: Introduction, Indexes,
Brief Descriptions of Accessions, and Addenda
and Corrigenda by J. Leveen (London, 1935;
reprinted 1977). Yiddish material is scattered
throughout these volumes. The Yiddish manuscripts
in the British Library, together with all
other Hebrew-character manuscripts, have been
microfilmed for the Institute of Microfilmed
Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and
University Library, Jerusalem. The union catalogue
prepared by the Institute was noted above
(n. 14).
19 There is an early nineteenth-century inscription
inserted in Add. MS. 17867 (Margoliouth no.
651), a manuscript dated 1720 on the title-page;
see Margoliouth, vol. ii, p. 267.
20 A number of catalogues and handlists are
available for the collection, among them:
(1) The original handlist of all Gaster's
manuscripts (headed ' Gaster Manuscript Catalogue'),
indicating those acquired by the British
Museum (now British Library) in 1925 and
those acquired by the John Rylands Library in
Manchester in 1955. It may be noted that nos.
1-2094 3^^ the original catalogue entries, nos.
2095-9 w^^^ added by Dr Ettinghauserj-when he
evaluated the manuscripts, and nos. 2100-17 ^"^
pp. 173 (right-hand page) to 175 were added by
Gaster's son, V. I. Gaster. A reproduction of this
large folio volume is kept in the Hebrew Section,
Oriental and India Office Collections; this has
now been reproduced in reduced format as the
Handlist of Gaster Manuscripts (London, 1995;
limited distribution).
(2) A handlist of the Gaster manuscripts
acquired by the British Museum Library,
extracted (photographically) from the original
handlist, and thus containing identical data. This
handlist is entitled Catalogue of Hebrew and
Samaritan Manuscripts: Gaster Collection, and
kept in the Oriental Reading Room (classified
B3).
(3) The 'Blue Slip Catalogue' of the Gaster
Collection, containing descriptive notes by a
IOO

succession of Museum and Library curators
(Jacob Leveen, Joseph Rosenwasser, David
Goldstein, c. 1925-85).
{4) A typescript catalogue in Hebrew of the
Gaster Collection in the British Museum (now
British Library), prepared by N. AUony and
D. S. Loewinger (Jerusalem, i960), with a useful
index to languages, including Yiddish and
'Ashkenazit' [sic]. Copies of this typescript are
kept in the Oriental Reading Room of the British
Library, as well as at the Jewish National and
University Library, Jerusalem. To use this
catalogue, it is helpful to know that the righthand
number within each entry is the Gaster
manuscript number; the left-hand number is the
British Library 'Or. MS.' number, and the third
number, in the left margin, is the Institute's
microfilm number. There are typographical
errors in the index to languages: 576 should be
516; 695 and 970 do not appear to be Yiddish
items.
(5) A revision of Allony and Loewinger is
incorporated in the Collective Catalogue of
Hebrew Manuscripts cited above. A whole section
of the Collective Catalogue is devoted to the
Gaster Collection (see the 'Libraries' file).
(6) Gaster's manuscripts are also recorded in
the compilation by Aron Freimann, Union
Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts and Their
Location, index volume by M. Schmelzer (New
York, 1964-1973), which provides a wealth of
bibliographic documentation.
One may also mention Gaster's typescript
'Notes on my library (and earlier drafts with
corrections) [1924]', in which he briefly surveys
his Yiddish (and also his ' Spanish') manuscripts.
21 Karl Habersaat's knowledge of manuscript catalogues
and secondary sources was impressive,
but his reference to Gaster manuscripts in his
'Repertorium der Jiddischen Handschriften',
Rivista degli studi orientali, xxix (1954), p. 58,
does not go beyond mention of 'Enc. Jud. IX,
128, 130 d'. He cited no Gaster items in his
unpublished typescript Yiddish Manuscripts in
England (c. 1964; held at the British Library),
the early handlists and catalogues of the collection
apparently being unknown to him.
22 On Yiddish translations of the Bible, see
Shmeruk, Sifrut yidish: perakim le-toldotehah,
pp. 105-46; idem, Prokim fun der yidisher
literatur-geshikhte, ch. 5 ('Arum dem tanakh'),
pp. 157-210; W. Staerk and A. Leitzmann, Die
judisch-deutschen Bibelubersetzungen von den
Anfdngen bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts
(Frankfurt, 1923); N. Leibowitz, Die Ubersetzungstechnik
der judisch-deutschen Bibelubersetzungen
des IS- und 16. Jahrhunderts, Ph.D.
thesis, Marburg, 1931; J. Baumgarten, 'Les
traductions de la Bible en yiddish (XVIP-
XVIir' siecle) et la Zeenah ureenah (Bale, 1622)
de Yaakov ben Itsak Achkenazi de Janow',
Revue des etudesjuives (1985), pp. 305-10; idem.
Introduction a la litte'rature yiddish ancienne, pp.
109-62 ('les bibles yiddish'); and M. Aptroot,
'Blits un Vitsnhoyzn; naye penimer fun an alter
makhloykes' ['Blitz and Witzenhausen; new
aspects of an old conflict'], Oksfor der yidish [A
Yearbook of Yiddish Studies], i (Oxford, 1990),
PP- 3-38.
23 As 'a specimen of the style' of this manuscript,
Margoliouth gives the opening of Leviticus,
which amply illustrates the literalistic translation
tradition.
24 Pencilled in at top off ir in English: 'M. Gaster
a present from my father vii 1903'. Rosenwasser
and Leveen date the manuscript as eighteenth
century, but Gaster dates it 1816 and attributes
it to a specific melamed. Allony and Loewinger
question both the author's name and the date
given by Gaster. Gaster calls the author a
'melamed' and names him as Schmuel Mosche
b. Aron Lazar; Allony-Loewinger ascribe it to
'Moshe ben Aharon Lazar melamed (?), 1810
25 All the cataloguers prior to Allony and Loewinger
gave the author's name as Meir ben
Anshel. Allony and Loewinger offer the most
reliable descriptions, but cali one group
'Yiddish' and the others, which are linguistically
identical, 'Yiddish and Hebrew'. Gaster often
claims his manuscripts are older than Allony and
Loewinger think they are. Gaster's eighteenth
century is here revised to the nineteenth century.
(It is worth noting, and not simply out of
bibliographic pedantry, that not one of the four
elements of the title stamped on the spines of
these volumes - 'Meir b. Anshel / Judaeo-
German / Brit. Mus. / Oriental' - goes unchanged
or unchallenged today!) Curiously,
Gaster found the handwriting of this quite
legible manuscript to be 'strange'.
26 Adolph Neubauer, in A Catalogue of the Hebrew
Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford,
1886-1906; vol. i repr. 1994), and others, also
lOI

used the term 'Hebrew-German'. On the
transition from Yiddish to German among
German Jewry, see Paul Wexler, 'Ashkenazic
German, 1760-1895', International Journal of
the Sociology! of Language, xxx (1981), pp.
ii9-3O> and Steven M. Lowenstein, 'The
Yiddish Written Word in Nineteenth-Century
Germany', in his The Mechanics of Ghange:
Essays in the Social History of German Jewry
(Atlanta, 1992), pp. 183-99.
27 The first reference work to mention a British
Library Yiddish manuscript, the 1931 Berlin
Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. vii, col. 946, cites this
work as an example of the 'gemischte hebr.-jidd.
H.' (mixed Hebrew-Yiddish manuscripts),
noting that Yiddish manuscripts are listed among
Hebrew ones in the various catalogues, though
Neubauer provides a separate index.
28 Most notably Werner Weinberg, who makes a
distinction between 'Juedisch-Deutsch' { =
'Judaeo-German') and Yiddish; see his Die
Reste des Juedisch-Deutschen (Stuttgart, 1969;
1973)-
29 The undated colophon is quoted in full by
Margoliouth. The date 1590 given by Habersaat,
in his ' Repertorium der Jiddischen Handschriften:
ir, Rivista degli studi orientali, xxx
(1955), p. 248, and in his 'Beitrag zur Chronologie
der datierten jiddischen Handschriften',
Mitteilungen aus dem Arbeitskreisfur Jiddisttk, ii,
no. 18 {1963), p. 118, is part of an owner's note
on f. 2, not of the text. The manuscript's
watermark is an armillary sphere with a countermark
consisting of the letters SRP; cf. Briquet
no. 13989, a Venetian paper dated 1558. This
watermark was produced only during the 1550s.
{For our account of this manuscript, the writers
are indebted entirely to Dr Eva Frojmovic of the
Warburg Institute, London, who is currently
preparing a detailed study of the manuscript and
its decoration.)
30 Among the known illuminated, decorated, or
illustrated manuscripts in Jewish languages,
other than Yiddish, are texts in Aramaic, Judaeo-
Arabic, Judaeo-Proven^al, Judaeo-Italian,
Judaeo-Spanish, and Judaeo-Greek. A very early
decorated manuscript in Judaeo-Arabic, held in
the India Office Library in the British Library, is
described by Y. T. Langermann in this issue of
the British Library Journal. Judaeo-Persian
manuscript art, including miniatures in the
British Library, has been studied by Vera Basch
Moreen, Miniature Paintings in Judaeo-Persian
Manuscripts (Cincinnati, 1985). A unique colourillustrated
manuscript in Urdu in Hebrew
characters is held in the British Library, Or. MS.
13287. An illustrated magical text partly in Latin
in Hebrew characters, held in the Austrian
Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, has been described
by Raphael Loewe,' A Mediaeval Latin-German
Magical Text in Hebrew Characters', in A.
Rapoport-Albert and S. J. Zipperstein {eds.),
Jewish History: essays in honour of Ghimen
Abramsky {London, 1988), pp. 345-68.
31 In his unpublished typescript Yiddish Manuscripts
m England, Habersaat cites only nine
items from Margoliouth's catalogue, somehow
omitting two extraordinary hagadot where the
Yiddish may be quantitatively minor, but is
nonetheless most significant. Habersaat cites
Margoliouth nos. 102, 244, 651, 679, 683, 684,
874, 981 and 1049, overlooking nos. 6n (Add.
MS. 18724) and 612 (Sloane MS. 3173), as well
as the Yiddish satirical verses in no. 925 (Add.
MS. 27045B).
32 On this manuscript, see Iris Fishof, 'Yakob
Sofer mi-Berlin: A Portrait of a Jewish Scribe',
Israel Museum Journal, vi {1987), pp. 83-94, a^d
E. G. L. Schrijver, 'Be-6tiyy6t Amsterdam:
Eighteenth-century Hebrew manuscript production
in Central Europe: the case of Jacob ben
Judah Leib Shamas', Quaerendo, xx (Leiden,
1990), pp. 24-62. On eighteenth-century
Hebrew manuscript decoration, see Cecil Roth,
'Illuminated Manuscripts, Hebrew: Post-Medieval
Illumination', Encyclopaedia Judaicd {Jerusalem,
1972), vol. viii, col. 1287; Ernest M.
Namenyi, 'La Miniature juive au XVIIe et au
XVIIIe siecle'. Revue des etudes juives, cxvi
(Paris, 1957), pp. 29-71; idem, *The Illumination
of Hebrew Manuscripts after the Invention
of Printing', in Cecil Roth {td.), Jewish
Art, revised edn., ed. B. Narkiss {London, 1971),
pp. 149-62; M. Schmelzer, 'Decorated Hebrew
Manuscripts of the Eighteenth Century in the
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America', in R. Dan (ed.), Occident and Orient:
A Tribute to the memory of A. Scheiber
(Budapest/Leiden, 1988), pp. 331-51; [H.
Peled-Carmeli], Illustrated Haggadot of the
Eighteenth Gentury, ed. Y. Fischer (Jerusalem,
1983); and I. Fishof, The Hamburg-Altona
School of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts of the
First Half of the Eighteenth Gentury, Ph.D.
102

thesis. The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1992.
A comprehensive bibliographic survey of this
material by E. G. L. Schrijver, Repertorium of
Decorated Hebrew Manuscripts of the Eighteenth
Century, is now in preparation in collaboration
with the Dutch Academy.
33 For brief palaeographic notes on this manuscript,
and a facsimile of the folio containing Almekhtiger
got in Yiddish, see S. Birnbaum, The
Hebrew Scripts, no. 382.
34 Strangely, the generally observant Margoliouth
merely writes that the Leipnik Haggadah is very
much on the same principle as that executed by
Jacob of Berlin, excepting that it is 'on a much
larger scale, and... contains different and more
illuminations'. It is curious that Margoliouth
devotes over one and a half folio columns to Add.
MS. 18724 (Margoliouth no. 611), and less than
half a folio column to Sloane MS. 3173
(Margohouth no. 612), both of them written in
the same year, 1740. Ironically, someone has
lightly pencilled on the frontispiece of Add. MS.
18724: 'See another and finer copy of this work
in MS. Sloane 3173.'
35 On the Yiddish versions of these songs, see J.
Baumgarten, Introduction a la litterature yiddish
ancienne, pp. 323-7, and further literature cited
there. See in particular Ch. Shmeruk, 'The
Earliest Aramaic and Yiddish version of the
Song of the Kid (Khad Gadye)', in U. Weinreich
(ed.). The Field of Yiddish (New York, 1954), pp.
214-18; D. Sadan, 'Boy dayn tempi shiroh', in
his Kheyn-gribelekh (tsu der biografye fun vort un
ufr^/) (Buenos Aires, I97i),pp. 115-20; and now
H. Troger, 'Ein Siddur der Universitatsbibliothek
Rostock und Varianten des Liedes Almechtiger
Got im Italien des 16. Jahrhunderts',
Jiddistik-Mitteilungen, no. 13 (Trier, Apr. 1995),
pp. i-ii.
36 On the Leipnik Haggadah in the Bibliotheca
Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam, see L. Fuks and
R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts
in Amsterdam Public Collections, vol. i
(Leiden, 1973), p. 65, no. 130; E. G. L.
Schrijver, 'The Rosenthaliana Leipnik Hagaddah',
in Passover Haggadah, Altona, Germany,
1738, Scribe/Illustrator: Joseph ben David of
Leipnik: Collection of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana,
Amsterdam, Hs. Ros. ^82, Facsimile
Edition (Tel Aviv: Turnowsky, 1987); and I.
Fishof, 'The Rosenthaliana Leipnik Haggadah',
in A. K. Offenberg et al. (eds.), Bibliotheca
Rosenthaliana: Treasures of Jewish Booklore
(Amsterdam, 1994), pp. 72-3, no. 31.
37 See the handwritten notes by Dr Joseph
Rosenwasser, in the bound volume Register of
Oriental MSS. and Hebrew MSS. Acquisitions,
^945^^990 [with indications of provenance],
maintained in the Hebrew Section. The manuscript
was purchased at the Christie's sale, 9
Dec. 1965. There are at least a dozen illustrated
manuscripts ofPerek Shirah, all of the eighteenth
century. One of these (Jewish National and
University Library, Jerusalem, Heb 8''4295) has
been reproduced in facsimile with introductory
notes by Malachi Beit-Arie (Tel Aviv: Turnowsky).
More recently, another manuscript was
described, with accompanying plates, in the
Sotheby's sale catalogue of Western Manuscripts
and Miniatures (London, 5 Dec. 1994), lot no.
72. On the Perek Shirah and its manuscripts, see
the doctoral dissertation by M. Beit-Arie
(Hebrew University, Jerusalem), and his forthcoming
study on this subject.
38 The original collection of prayers, entitled Likute
Tsevi, compiled by the printer Tsevi Hirsh b.
Hayim of Flirth, was first published in Wilhermsdorf
in 1738, and reprinted many times.
See Ch. B. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim [Bibliographical
Lexicon of the rphole Hebrew and
Jewish-German literature'] (Tel Aviv, 1951), vol.
i, p. 515, no. 645, and the more definitive
bibliography by M. N. Rosenfeld, in 'Zebi
Hirsch ben Chaim aus Fiirth: Autor und
Buchdrucker', Nachrichten fiir den judischen
Burger Furths (Sept. 1991), pp. 34-40. A Yiddish
edition of Likute Tsevi was published in Warsaw
in 1872.
39 On this work, see the entry ' Orhot Zaddikim', in
Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. xii,
cols. 1458-60. On the Yiddish version, see
Baumgarten, Introduction a la litterature yiddish
anctenne, pp. 264-71, and index (s.v. ''Seyfer
mides'), and Weinreich, Shtaplen: fir etyudn tsu
der yidisher shprakh-visnshaft un literatur-ges~
hikhte (Berlin, 1923), p. 104.
40 See Margoliouth, vol. iii, pp. 169-70. Margoljouth
noted that another early manuscript of the
Yiddish text is in Cambridge University Library,
from the collection formerly belonging to Dr
Charles Taylor.
41 It is not unusual for a work to be known by
several names. In Or. MS. 10086 the title is
'Amude ha-'olam and in Or. MS. 10668 it is
103

Sefer 'amude 'olam. Jacob Maitlis, in his essential
study, 'Der bodleyaner ksav-yad Libes-briv: a
far-haskoledike reform-shrift', in Yivo-bleter, ii
(Vilna, 1931), pp. 308-33, regards tbe Bodleian
'Libes briv' manuscript (Mich. Nr. 364 = New
No. 297 = Neubauer no. 743) as rare (originally
owned by H. J. Michael in Hamburg and
described in the catalogue by Steinschneider,
Otsrot Hayim [Hamburg, 1848], it was sold to
the Bodleian), but he is aware of a second and
even a third manuscript in England, copy or
original, owned by Sassoon and Porges respectively.
See David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel
David {Ohel Dawid): Descriptive Catalogue of the
Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon
Library, London (Oxford, 1932), vol. ii, p. 995,
no. 930, 'Liebes brief, of which the British
Library has a microfilm copy. Or. Mic. 2811.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York,
also has two manuscripts of this work; see J.
Rovner (ed.), A Guide to the Hebrew Manuscript
Collection of the Library of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, vol. i (New York, 1991),
vol. i, nos. 2256 and 2333. Maitlis claims there
are sixteen chapters in the Bodleian 'Libesbriv',
as opposed to Neubauer, Catalogue of the
Hebrew Manuscripts m the Bodleian Library,
vol. i, p. 146, no. 743, who counted seventeen.
Comparison of the Bodleian and British Library
texts might prove instructive. One of the latter
(Or. MS. 10668) is a copy, made in 1777 by
Solomon Zalman ben Jacob Eschau, of the 1749
original attributed (by Maitlis, Porges and
others) to Isaac Wetzlar. The second British
Library copy (Or. MS. 10086) is apparently also
an eighteenth-century one.
42 Isaac Wetzlar is not to be confused with two
other early Yiddish authors bearing the name
Wetzlar, of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries respectively. On the latter two, see Z.
Rejzen, Leksikon fun der yudisher literatur un
;)rf5f, ed. Sh. Niger (Warsaw, 1913), cols. 256-7;
cf. also A. Lewinsky's entry 'Wetzlar', in The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. xii (New York and
London, 1905), p. 511. Rejzen records the Libes
hrif not under any 'Wetzlar', but rather (following
Steinschneider, op. cit.) under 'Hekshir,
Itsik', col. 220.
43 One might also mention here the satirical verses
in Hebrew and Yiddish which are appended
(on f. 6ib) to Add. MS. 27O45(B) (Margoliouth
no. 925), a fifteenth-century miscellany of
Hebrew poetry, comprised of ethics and (mostly)
satire.
44 On Levita, see G. E. Weil, EUe Levita^ humaniste
et massorete {i46g-iS49) (Leiden, 1963), and J.
Baumgarten, Introduction a la Utterature yiddish
ancienne, pp. 201-51. On the Bove bukh and its
early printing, see also Baumgarten, ' Une
Chanson de geste en yidich ancien: le Bove bukh
(Isny 1541) d'EIie Bahur Levita', Revue de la
Bibliotheque Nationale, xxv (Paris, 1987), pp.
14-31. Ironically, it has been universally forgotten
by Yiddish scholarship in England that
this classic work of Yiddish literature is based
ultimately on an Anglo-Norman epic inspired by
a figure from (South) Hampton; a student of
Yiddish literature cannot but smile when encountering
a pub named ' Sir Bevis of Hampton'
in this Hampshire port town. On the early
editions of this work, see M. Marx, History and
Annals of Hebrew Printing in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries (microfilm, Cincinnati,
1982), under Isny, 1541.
45 On Bochner, see the entry by S. Roubin in The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. iii (New York and
London, 1903), p. 280. For the editions and
abridgements of Levita's grammar, see Zedner,
p. 227; A. E. Cowley, A Concise Catalogue of the
Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library
(Oxford, 1929; reprinted 1971), pp. 172-3; I-
Benjacob, Otsar ha-sefarim [Thesaurus Librorum
Hebraicorum] (Wilna, 1880), pp. 497-8; M. M.
Slatkine, Otsar ha-sefarim, helek sheni (Jerusalem,
1965), p. 316, no. 228; and Steinschneider,
Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur, no. 384. *"
46 As noted earlier, Borochov recorded only printed
works in the field of Yiddish philology, not
manuscripts.
47 See Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts
104
igi6-ig20 (London, 1933), p. 45- C. G. Leland
Collection, Vol. X. Vocabularies in various
languages compiled by C. G. Leland [including]
Schmussen, or the Jewish-German dialect, with
(f. 46) a few Romany-English words and notes
dated Sept. 1879. f. i. A Vocabulary of
Schmussen, or the Jewish-German Dialect [ff.
ia-3oa, arranged by roman alphabet]; Our
Father-in-Heaven prayer in Juedisch-Deutsch at
the end.
48 At a later period the term 'Mauschein' (which
carries the root name of 'Mausche', i.e. Moses)
was used by antisemites to imply that Jews were
corrupters of German language and culture. It

appears to have been widely perceived as a comic
term; it is coupled with 'Schmussen', which in
modern German {Schmuseji) is slang and/or
pejorative.
49 On the Hebrew-Aramaic component in Yiddish,
see the dissertation by Dovid Katz, 'Explorations
in the History of the Semitic Component in
Yiddish', Ph.D. thesis. University of London,
1982 (with extensive bibliography), and the
recent lexicon by Steven A. Jacobson, A Guide to
the More Common Hebraic Words in Yiddish., 5th
edn. (Fairbanks, Alaska, 1995).
50 On the lexicographical research of Ave-Lallemant,
and the linguistic studies by other early
Christian Yiddishists, see M. Weinreich,
Shtaplen; Borochov, op. cit.; K. Habersaat,
'Materialien zu der Geschichte der jiddischen
Grammatik'; idem, 'Zur Geschichte der jiddischen
Grammacik'; H. P. Althaus, op. cit.,
and also his edition of J. H. Callenberg and
W. C. J. Chrysander, Schriften zur jiddischen
Sprache / Quellen zur Geschichte der
jiddischen Sprache (Marburg/Lahn, 1966);
S. A. Birnbaum, Yiddish: A Survey and a
Grammar (Toronto, 1979), pp. 309-88 (bibliography),
passim, esp. pp. 353-4; and J.
Baumgarten, 'L'etude de la langue yiddish
chez quelques auteurs Chretiens (XVP-XVIIP
siecle)', in Italia ed Europa nella linguistica
del Rinascimento: confronti e relazioni (Ferrara,
1994). Leiand's vocabulary is of course only
one of a number of unpublished contributions
to Yiddish philology prepared by Christian
scholars or amateurs, Hebraists or not. Some
of these (such as Tychsen's Introductio in
Linguam Judaeo-Teutonicam, Rostock, 1775),
have been recorded by Habersaat or others.
Some more recent instances of Christian
Yiddishists in England and America have been
cited by A. A. Roback, 'Der tsutsi fun yidish
far goyim' ['The attraction of Yiddish for
Gentiles'], in his Di Imperye Yidish (Mexico,
1958), pp. 157-62. A monograph on early
Christian studies of Yiddish is in preparation by
Dr Dovid Katz of the Oxford Institute for
Yiddish Studies.
51 His illustrative sentence for Pleite 'Mahn neier
Hut is pleite' suggests Central Yiddish pronunciation
and slang usage (cf. Standard Yiddish
mayn nayer hut iz farloyrn/farshvundn/farfain).
Leiand's spellings of Brauches 'angry* (cf. modern
Eastern Yiddish broygez) and Ullem 'crowd'
(cf. modern Eastern Yiddish oytem) require
explanation.
52 See J. Maitlis, 'London Yiddish Letters of the
Early Eighteenth Century', Journal of Jewish
Studies, vi (1955), pp. 153-65. 237-52. For
palaeographical notes on these letters, with a
facsimile plate, see S. Birnbaum, The Hebrew
Scripts, no. 351.
53 It is often by serendipity that Yiddish letters
have survived in various libraries and archives,
in some of which whole collections of Yiddish
letters are to be found. Of these, one may call
attention here to the Tychsen collection of
Yiddish correspondence, dating from the 1760s,
in the University Library, Rostock, the Von
Humboldt-Henriette Herz correspondence (in
fact, German in Hebrew characters) preserved in
Berlin, the Heine Yiddish letters held at the
Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Diisseldorf, and the
Rothschild Yiddish correspondence held in the
Rothschild Archive, London. On the Tychsen
collection, see now L. L. Goldstein, 'Jewish
Communal Life in the Duchy of Mecklenburg as
reflected in correspondence, 1760—1769', rabbinic
thesis, Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion, New York, 1993. The
wide-ranging corpus of surviving Yiddish letters,
as well as ' letter-writers' and relevant secondary
literature, now merit a comprehensive catalogue
and bibliography.
54 Mrs K. Alexander (whose address is listed on the
catalogue slip as 'c/o Miss H. Berger Benny,
MBE') presented it to the British Library.
55 'A Collection of Philological papers ... Presented
by William Marsden, Esq.' [corrected to: Mrs.
Marsden] is recorded in List of Additions to the
Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years
MDCCCXXXVI-AIDCCCXL (London, 1843;
reprinted 1964), 1837, second sequence, p. i.
What is here recorded (together with other
exotic specimens, such as the writing of the
native Indians of Newfoundland, and impressions
of tablets supposedly engraved in Egypt) is
an ^Alphabetum fudaico-Teutomcum\ ignoring
the Yiddish letter from 1790. There are actually
two items, each with a large folio title-page. The
first is: ''Alphabetum Judaico~Teutonicum\ The
second large folio title-page, which the List of
Additions omitted, is: 'Epistola Judaico-Teutonica
cum Alphabeto inde concinnato' ['Judaeo-
German Letter with Alphabet...']. Here we End
the Yiddish letter, complete with outside cover.
105

an additional sheet with parallel text, romanization
and translation, and another sheet with a
fair copy of the translation.
56 Cf. E. Scheid, 'Histoire des Juifs de Haguenau
pendant la periode fran^aise'. Revue des etudes
juives, X (Paris, 1885), pp. 204-31.
57 For the literature on Alsatian Yiddish, see B.
Blumenkranz and M. Levy, Bibliographie des
Juifs en France (Toulouse, 1974), pp. 255-6
(under 'Yiddish'); Astrid Starck, 'Bibliographie
du yidich alsacien', in her Le Yiddisch occidental
(Aarau, 1994), pp. 173-84; and the summary
bibliography appended to Les Cahiers du
CREDYO [Centre de Recherche d'etudes et de
documentation du yidich occidental], no. i
(Mulhouse, 1995), pp. 101-3. See also the
dissertation by Johannes Brosi, 'Southwestern
Yiddish: A Study in Dialectology, Folklore and
Literature', M. Litt. thesis. University of
Oxford. 1990, and his 'Bamerkungen tsu doremmayrev
yidish [Comments on Southwestern
Yiddish]'', in Oksforderyidish [Oxford Yiddish:
Studies in Yiddish Language, Literature and
Folklore], iii (Oxford, 1995), cols. 369-88 (with
bibliographies).
58 See Ernest Anderson's typescript checklist
['Microfilms of Manuscripts not in the British
Library: Hebrew, Judaeo-Persian and Yiddish'],
c. 1975.
59 An export licence was granted for the original
manuscript ('lot 299', late 1972); its present
location has not been recorded. It deserves
study, which can sometimes be very difficult
from a microfilm alone. It may be noted that
microfilms of the entire Sassoon collection (now
largely dispersed) are held in the British Library,
as are microfilms (issued by University Microfilms,
Ann Arbor, Michigan) of various collections
held at the Jewish Theological Seminary,
New York; the Sassoon and Seminary collections
include, of course, Yiddish manuscripts.
60 A bibliographic and literary history of this genre
is currently being prepared by Hagit Matras of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On this
literature in Yiddish, see Steinschneider,
Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur, entries for printed
books nos. 219-222 and 279, and the lengthy
entry for MS. no. 421; J. Baumgarten, 'Textes
medicaux en langue yiddish (XVI'^-XVIP
siecle)', in G. Sed-Rajna (ed.), Rashi
{1040-iggo): Hommage a Ephraim E. Urbach
(Paris, 1993), pp. 723-40; and idem. Introduction
a la Utterature yiddish ancienne, pp. 421-43.
Another example, not cited by Baumgarten, is to
be found in H. Siiss, Raritaten der Jiddischen
Literatur des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts
in der Universitatsbibliothek: Eine Ausstellung
zur Woche der Bruderlichkeit im Handschriftenlesesaal
(Erlangen, 1980; reprinted in his
Collected Studies in Yiddish and Hebrew Bibliography,
s.l.e.a., privately distributed), under
* Vitrine VII'. For relevant secondary literature,
see the entries in E. Yzss\{, Jewish Folklore: An
Annotated Bibliography (New York and London,
1986), index, pp. 299 and 307-8, s.v. 'charms'
and ' folk-medicine'. On Jewish alchemistic
tracts, see the recent study by R. Patai, The
Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book
(Princeton, 1994).
61 An edition of the play in Gothic characters, Reb
Henoch oder was thut me dermit: Ein Familiengemdlde
in drei Abtheilungen, transliterated by
M. Allenstein, was published in Berlin in 1847.
See Zalmen Rejzen, 'Di manuskriptn un drukn
fun Itsik Eykhls Reb Henokh\ Arkhiv far der
geshikhte fun yidishn teater un drame [Archiv fur
die Geschichte desjudischen Theaters und Dramas],
ed. J. Shatzky (Wilno/New York, 1930), pp.
85-146, and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld, 'Leeser
Rosenthal's only Yiddish manuscript', in A. K.
Offenberg et al. (eds.), Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana,
pp. 88-9; Shmeruk, Sifrut yidish, pp. 156-8,
163. See also Max Erik [i.e. Z. Merkin], Di
Komedyes fun der berliner ufklerung (Kiev/
Kharkov, 1933), pp. 42-61, and his 'Di ershte
yidishe komedye', Filologishe shriftnfuft YIVO,
iii (Vilna, 1939). Some characterizations of the
work may be quoted here. Charles A. Madison,
in Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major
Writers (New York, 1968), p. 15, writes:
' Influenced by Moliere's Tartuffe, I. A. Eichel, a
student of Kant, wrote Reb Hennoch (1793), a
refinement on the Purim play in which Hasidic
characters appear as hypocritical and lecherous
and the enlightened protagonists as forthright
and honest.' Emanuel S. Goldsmith, in Architects
of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the
Twentieth Century (London, 1976), p. 37,
writes: 'Isaac Eichel... (i756-1804), a distinguished
biblical scholar who edited the Haskalah
journal Hameasef turned to Yiddish out of
despair at the sight of young German Jews at the
baptismal font and the sacred Hebrew tongue
abandoned. His satire Reb Henokh could not be
106

written either in Hebrew, which people no
longer understood, or in German, which the
enemies of the Jews might read.'
62 Cf. the entry in the Second Supplementary
Catalogue of Hebrew Printed Books (London,
1994), under 'Horowitz'. The BL pressmark of
the Horowitz volume is 11745.aaaa.27.
63 On this author, see L. Prager, Yiddish Culture in
Britain: A Guide (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), p.
322 ("Hurvitsh, Nosn'), and Leksikon fun der
nayer yidisher literatur [Biographical Dictionary
of Modern Yiddish Literature}., vol. iii (New
York, i960), cols. 68-9 ('Horovits, Nosn', but
without reference to this play). On Byron in
Yiddish, see Prager, pp. 182-3, s.v. 'Byron'
(with reference also to numerous other entries).
64 Cf. John Johnston, The Lord Chamberlain^s Blue
Pencil (London, 1990). He mentions a Welsh
reader, but there is not a single mention of
Yiddish.
65 On Yiddish theatre in Britain, see the general
survey and numerous specific entries in L.
Prager, Yiddish Culture in Britain.^ pp. 42-54 and
519-23-
66 Thanks are due to Kathryn Johnson and Julian
Conway of the Department of Manuscripts for
their expert assistance in researching the Lord
Chamberlain's plays. The Yiddish material will
be the subject of a detailed bibliographical
account now in preparation by L. Prager.
67 A bibliography of the analogous collection of
some 1,100 Yiddish plays deposited on copyright
at the Library of Congress in Washington is now
being prepared by Zachary Baker. (We are
grateful to Dr M. Grunberger for drawing this
parallel American material to our attention.) On
the similar phenomenon of the copyright-receipt
music of American Yiddish theatricals held at
the Library of Congress, see L Heskes, Yiddish
American Popular Songs, i8gs to 1950: A
Catalog based on the Lawrence Marwick Roster of
Copyright Entries (Washington, 1992).
68 Concerning manuscript notes (not lexical
glosses) found on a guard leaf of another copy
(not in the British Library) of the Makre
Dardeke, see M. Schwab, ' Une page de comptabilite
datee de 1525 a 1528', Revue des e'tudes
juives, xii (Paris, 1886), p. 116; see also G. E.
Weil, Elie Le'vita, humaniste et massorete, pp. 36,
192-3.
69 Brunet described the Naples Makre Dardeke as
'le premier lexique polyglotte que Ton ait
imprime'. Aside from the incunabulistic literature
(see especially the bibliographies and
catalogues by E. D. Goldschmidt, A. M. Habermann,
M. Marx, and A. K. Offenberg), there are
now a number of monographs on the Makre
Dardeke, beginning with H. Bodek, 'Das Buch
Makre Dardeke oder ein altes hebraisch-arabisch-italienisches
Glossar', Orientalisches Literaturblatt,
viii, no. 39 (Leipzig, 1847); see also
Steinschneider, Bibliographisches Handbuch iiber
die theoretische und praktische Literatur fur
hebraische Sprachkunde (Leipzig, 1859), no. 71,
and his Letteratura Italiana dei Giudei: Cenni
(Rome, 1884), pp. 56-7 (this passage on Makre
Dardeke seems to be missing in the German
version). Prof. L. Cuomo of the Hebrew
University has also prepared a study of the
printing history of the Aiakre Dardeke.
On the romance and Arabic glosses in the
printed edition, see L. Cuomo, ' Preliminari per
una rivalutazione linguistica del Maqre Dardeqe\
Actes du XVHIe Congres international de
linguistique et de philologie romanes (Tubingen,
1988), pp. 159-67, and O. Tirosh-Becker, 'Haglosot
ha-'araviyot she-be-"Makre Dardeke"
be-nusah ha-'italki: mah tivan.^' [Le glosse arabe
della stesura italiana del Maqre Dardeqe'], Italia:
Studi e ricerche sulk storia, la cultura e la
letteratura degli ebrei di Italia, ix (Jerusalem,
1990), pp. 37-77- According to D. Chwolson, in
his Reshit ma'aseh defus be-yisra'el (Warsaw,
1897; reprinted Tel Aviv), p. 34, the 1488 Makre
Dardeke also contains in the printed text glosses
in Yiddish [Ashkenazit] [!].
70 On Yiddish versions of Makre Dardeke, see M.
Steinschneider, Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur,
under 'Judisch-Deutsche Literatur' [re printed
books], no. 375, and 'Judisch-Deutsche Literatur
und Judisch-Deutsch' [re manuscripts], no.
439, and also the 'Nachtrage'; and more recently
Dovid Katz, 'Di eltere yidishe leksikografye:
mekoyres un metodn [Older Yiddish lexicography:
Sources and Methods]', Oksfor der yidish
[A Yearbook of Yiddish Studies],' i (Oxford,
1990), pp. 171-2. There are a number of
manuscripts of Makre Dardeke with glosses in
Judaeo-Italian and Yiddish, or in Judaeo-Italian
and Judaeo-Spanish. On other multilingual
glossaries containing Hebrew, Judaeo-Italian
and Yiddish, see Ch. Shmeruk, Sifrut yidish be-
Polin [Yiddish Literature in Poland: Historical
Studies and Perspectives] (Jerusalem, 1981), pp.
107

73> 89-91 (concerning Diber Tov, Venice, 1596);
Steinschneider, Bibliographisches Handbuch, nos.
56 [Diber Tov) and 801 {Safah berurah); and
Katz, op. cit.
71 See the published account of this discovery by A.
K. Offenberg, ' How to define printing in
Hebrew: a fifteenth-century list on [sic\ the
goods of a Jewish traveller and his wife', The
Library, 6th ser., xvi {Oxford, 1994), pp. 43-9.
72 A comprehensive inventory of Yiddish manuscripts
in the British Isles, including those in the
British Library, and with reference also to
archival material, is now in preparation by L.
Prager.
73 S. Birnbaum makes a preliminary survey of
earlier manuscripts in 'Palaeography: Manuscripts
in Old Yiddish', in Dovid Katz (ed.).
Origins of the Yiddish Language, Winter Studies
in Yiddish, vol. i, = Language and Gommunication,
vol. vii. Supplement (Oxford, 1987), pp.
7-11, and in 'Alte ksav-yadn oyf yidish [Old
manuscripts in Yiddish]', in Oksforder yidish
[Oxford Yiddish: Studies in Yiddish Language,
Literature and Folklore^ iii (Oxford, 1995), pp.
925-36. Cf. also Birnbaum's notes on Yiddish
manuscripts, with accompanying plates, in his
The Hebrew Scripts, nos. 350-2, 368, 382. Several
Yiddish manuscripts are described in detail by
E. G. L. Schrijver in his exemplary Towards a
Supplementary Gatalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts
in the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana: Theory and
Practice, Ph.D. thesis. University of Amsterdam,
1993, pp. 87-9, nos. 12-13 (with plates).
108