book reviews 151

Chava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, The Historical Writings of Joseph Of . Leader of Jewry in Early Modern . Edited by Adam Shear and translated by Naomi Schendowich (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), xiii + 445 pp.; ISBN-10: 90 04 15349 7, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15349 3

Joseph ( Josel) of Rosheim was a sixteenth-century Jewish leader in the whose activities as an intercessor for the Jewish people in Germany and abroad are known from several sources. R. Joseph ben Gershon, a member of the Luanz fam- ily, was probably born in in 1478, and died in Rosheim in 1554. He served as a member of the regional Beit-Din ( Jewish tribunal) and in 1510 was elected in his region (Lower Alsace) as a diplomat and intercessor in order to represent Alsatian Jewry at the royal courts. He also bore the title of “Befehlshaber der gemeinen Judenschaft im Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation” (Commander of Jewry in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation). His activities as an intercessor were comprehen- sive and very intensive not only in Alsace but also other German territories. He appeared in the Reichstag assemblies and was active in examining the possibilities of granting or renewing various kinds of privileges for the Jewish communities, investing all his energy, charm and connections in efforts to have, for instance, expulsion orders revoked. He also gathered valuable experience in trying to have accusations and cases, likewise common, dropped or cancelled. Furthermore, he was involved in helping to arrange an array of economic connections between and non-Jews. A substantial amount was written about him and his personality as well as his writings.1 Joseph left two main manuscripts in Hebrew:

1 See, for example: Isidor Kracauer, “Le Journal de Joselman de Rosheim,” REJ 16 (1888): 84–105; Ludwig Feilchenfeld, Josel von Rosheim (Phil. diss., Strassburg, 1898); Moses Ginsburger, Josel von Rosheim und seine Zeit, (Gebweiler: Dreyfus, 1913); Selma Stern, Josel von Rosheim, Befehlshaber der Judenschaft im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1959) (English edition: idem, , Commander of Jewry in Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1965]); Elisheva Carlebach, “Between History and Myth: The Expulsion in Josel of Rosheim’s Sefer ha-miknah,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, eds. Elisheva Callebach, John M. Efron and David N. Myers (Hanover and London: Brandeis University, 1998), 40–53. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 EJJS 5.1 Also available online – brill.nl/ejjs DOI: 10.1163/187247111X579331 152 book reviews

(A) Sefer ha-Mikna (The Book of Acquisitions), of which only a few chapters from the first part were preserved. It is dedicated to the phenomenon of the defamation of Jews from an early period down to his time, which caused great trouble and hardship (mainly expulsions) for the Jews in various localities, predominantly in Germany. R. Joseph of Rosheim briefly describes those traumatic events. A different theme is to be found in the second part of Sefer ha-Mikna, completely preserved as an eclectic work on the principles of Jewish faith, based principally on Derekh Emunah by philosopher R. Abraham Bibago, who lived in Huesca (Aragon) in the fifteenth century. An excellent critical edition of Sefer ha-Mikna has been provided by Chava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt ( Jerusalem: Mekizei Nirdamim, 1970). (B) A short chronicle of five folios, preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Opp. 715, in which Rosheim describes the traumatic violence against Jews in the principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, and in Alsace in particular, from 1471–1546. It would seem from this chronicle that he began his activities as an intercessor in 1515. The events mentioned in the chronicle are mostly recorded in royal sources, but some are also known from different Jewish ones. This chronicle was edited in chronological order and published in 1888 by Isidor Kracauer, the great historian of Jewry in a. M.2 A new scientific Hebrew edition of this text with a comprehensive introduction has been published by Chava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, an excellent scholar and a specialist in the field of Early Modern German Jewish History. This edition in Hebrew is entitled: R. Joseph Ish Rosheim, Ketuvim Historiim ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996) and was published shortly after her untimely death. A very good English translation has been provided by Naomi Schendowich. Unfortunately, the Hebrew transcription of the text was not included in the English edition The historical writings of Joseph of Rosheim: Leader of Jewry in Early Modern Germany (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), but the Hebrew as well as the English version do pro- vide the facsimile of the chronicle.

2 See fn. 1.