New Bodleian Jewish Treasures

The Laud Mahzor: an angel hands the Torah to the PASSPORT Israelites, Moses sacrifices a ram, and baking bread marks the festival of Shavuot; below: part of a Cairo Genizah fragment of the Babylonian Talmud, 1123 CE were transferred to the Bodleian. Bodleian archive illuminates The 19th century saw an explosive increase in the Library’s acquisition of Hebrew and Judaica manuscripts under 1,000 years of culture the helm of Bulkeley Bandinel, librarian from 1813, who transformed the Bodleian The 16th-century founder of the Bodleian Library, Sir Thomas Bodley, sparked an interest in Hebrew that into one of the pre-eminent holders of Hebrew and Jewish material in the world. has continued in Oxford to this day. César Merchán-Hamann and Rebecca Abrams uncover the stories Notable collections during this time behind the library’s precious collection of Jewish manuscripts include 12 manuscripts that had belonged to David Luzzatto (also known as Shadal), he Hebrew and Jewish collections time was in a parlous condition, having to enter the collections was a Hebrew a figure who towered over 19th-century at Oxford’s Bodleian Library been almost completely neglected by the manuscript: the text of the book of Genesis Italian Judaism. The Bodleian is rich in T constitute not only one of the University since 1490. Worse still, in 1550 it with interlinear translation, donated by Italian manuscripts from the Middle greatest treasures of the Library, but one had been subjected to a brutal ‘visitation’ Sir John Fortescue in 1601. Other donations Ages up to the 19th century, providing of the foremost collections in the world, by the commissioners. Intent on purging included a magnificent Anglo-Jewish an important source for the study of that containing manuscripts and books in its shelves of Roman Catholic elements, illuminated Psalter, with Latin and French unique group of Jewish communities. every area of Jewish textual creativity. their actions amounted to wholesale glosses. These and other Anglo-Norman The greatest Hebrew and Judaica They show centuries of social, intellectual desecration. According to Anthony Wood, Jewish manuscripts show the work of acquisition of the 19th century, indeed and economic interaction between Jews, the 17th-century Oxford antiquary and Jewish and Christian scholars, and throw of the whole history of the Bodleian, was Christians and Muslims, with mutual unofficial historian of the University, the light on Jewish life in England before the the library of David Oppenheim, the chief influences and cross-fertilisation set ‘works of ancient fathers, of old criticks, expulsion of 1290. Rabbi of Prague during the early 18th against backgrounds of tolerance and, at the collections in the publick and private The 17th century was a golden age for century. Acquired in 1829 for £2,080, it was times, intolerance. libraries for 500 years, or more, suffered Hebrew books at the Bodleian. At a time the largest Jewish library ever assembled, In 2020 the Library will be celebrating greatly by these ignorant visitors… they of social, political and religious turmoil, comprising 758 manuscripts and 4,220 its Judaic collections with a new brought heaps of these books on biers to manuscripts and printed books were of printed books. Oppenheim’s wide-ranging OXFORD publication, Jewish Treasures of Oxford the publick market, burning some, and prime importance. Intended to be used as interests are reflected in the scope of his Libraries, which showcases the collection selling others to grocers…’ instruments in the religious and political superb collection, which in one stroke and tells the stories of the remarkable Bodley’s offer to create a university controversies of the time, they were in almost doubled the number of Hebrew and individuals, Jews and Christians, who library could not have come at a more some cases a matter of life and death. Jewish manuscripts at Oxford. OXFORD donated them. Many of the manuscripts appropriate time. Hebrew books and After Bodley’s death, expansion of By the mid-19th century the Bodleian are also digitised and can be viewed online. manuscripts were amongst the earliest Hebrew collections at the Bodleian was had over 2,000 Hebrew manuscripts, and Hebrew was at the heart of the Library’s acquisitions. The first Oriental manuscript driven by William Laud, Archbishop donations and acquisitions showed no collections from the start thanks to its sign of slowing. The final decades of the founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. Born in 1545 of Canterbury and Chancellor of the and Aramaic, as well as of rabbinic 19th century and early decades of the 20th and raised in a staunchly Protestant family, University of Oxford. Laud was intent on literature, was unparalleled. His Ashkenazi saw one of the Library’s most important Bodley spent much of his childhood in reforming the university and securing manuscript of Maimonides’ Mishneh acquisitions: Cairo Genizah manuscripts Switzerland, where he studied theology its prestige, which he did in part through Torah, dating from the mid-14th century, from the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Fustat (Old with Calvin and Beza, Greek with François the enhancement of the Library, urging is indicative of his respect for Jewish law Cairo) in the Middle Ages. Its discovery Bérauld, and Hebrew with Antoine his agents to procure manuscripts from and philosophy. Even during the Civil revealed a treasure trove of lost works, Chevallier. His father, John Bodley, central Europe, the Ottoman Balkans and War, Selden safeguarded libraries whose enabling scholars to reconstruct Jewish financed the first publication of the Geneva the Mediterranean. He supported the study owners were Royalist sympathisers, just as (and non-Jewish) life in medieval Egypt, Bible. Thomas himself followed Calvinist of Hebrew, and his acquisitions ranged he helped scholars whose political views North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean thought, which saw the study of Hebrew, from a Syrian Haggadah to the magnificent did not match those of the government. and the rest of the Near East. By the end of Greek and Latin as vital for the study of the Laud Mahzor, one of the finest surviving He made a huge impact on a generation the 1920s, the Bodleian had amassed 3,769 biblical text in its original versions and, in examples of an early prayer book made for of 17th-century scholars, who went on to items from the Cairo Genizah. Since 2012, turn, the purification of the Church. a medieval western Ashkenazi community. amass Hebraic collections of their own. a major collaboration with Cambridge A graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford Two 14th-century Chief amongst University Library to preserve and digitise and Fellow of Merton College from 1664, Judaeo-Portuguese the treasures of the Genizah collection has opened up these Bodley struck up a close friendship with treatises in the Laud “In an age of social, the Library is precious archives to a wider audience. Dutch Hebraist Joannes Drusius, who Collection, one on political and the sumptuously The Bodleian continues to acquire taught Hebrew at Merton before going magic, the other illustrated Kennicott important Jewish and Hebrew manuscripts on to take up the Chair of Hebrew at on mathematics religious turmoil Bible from 15th- and books. Along with exceptionally fine Franeker in the Netherlands. Bodley’s own and astrology, had manuscripts and century Spain, holdings in the college libraries of Christ command of Hebrew can be seen in poems previously belonged printed books were of produced 16 years Church, Corpus Christi, Merton, Lincoln, and letters he wrote in Hebrew, and in the to the mathematician, before the expulsion of Magdalen and Exeter, they ensure Oxford’s many references to Hebrew books in his astrologer and occult prime importance” Jews. The manuscript reputation as a world centre for Jewish correspondence. As a student at Merton philosopher John Dee. is named after scholarship, providing insights into 1,000 College he had even found time to translate Laud’s political allegiances eventually Benjamin Kennicott, who was born in years of Jewish culture. n a couple of starrs: Hebrew legal documents led to his execution on charges of high 1718 to a Devonian barber and rose to be in which Jewish lenders renounced their treason in January 1645. After the Dean of Christ Church and librarian at the Jewish Treasures of Oxford Libraries, edited by claim to lands that were collaterals in loans restoration of the monarchy, he was Radcliffe Library. From the 1750s onwards, Rebecca Abrams and César Merchán-Hamann they had made. reburied in the chapel of St John’s College. Kennicott embarked on a project to collate (Bodleian Books, 2020). Manuscripts may be In 1598, at the age of 53, Bodley The next major benefactor of Hebrew all known biblical manuscripts in the viewed on request. Contact César Merchán- turned his attention to re-establishing manuscripts to the Bodleian was John British Isles and on the continent. After his Hamann, Curator of Hebraica and Judaica at the University Library, offering to do so Selden, the greatest legal scholar of his death, Kennicott’s manuscripts were given the Bodleian Library: cesar.merchan-hamann@ at his own expense. The Library at that FOL. OR. 127V; 321, MS. LAUD BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD, MAHZOR, FROM THE LAUD FOL. 18R MS. HEB. B. 1, BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD, generation. Selden’s knowledge of Hebrew to the Radcliffe Library and in 1873, they bodleian.ox.ac.uk 20 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK OCTOBER 2019 OCTOBER 2019 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 21.

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