UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Links in a chain: Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands (1743-1812) Wallet, B.T. Publication date 2012 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Wallet, B. T. (2012). Links in a chain: Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands (1743-1812). General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:29 Sep 2021 LINKS IN A CHAIN A IN LINKS UITNODIGING tot het bijwonen van de LINKS IN A CHAIN publieke verdediging van mijn proefschrift Early modern Yiddish historiography from the northern Netherlands, 1743-1812 LINKS IN A CHAIN Early modern Yiddish historiography from the northern the northern Yiddish historiography from Early modern Early modern Yiddish historiography in the northern Netherlands, 1743-1812 op vrijdag 2 maart 2012 om 11.00 uur in de Aula van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, Singel 411. Aansluitend is er een receptie in de Aula. Vanaf 20.00 uur geef ik een promotiefeestje in Café Wilhelmina, J.J. Cremerplein 34 te Amsterdam. U bent van harte welkom! N etherlands, 1743-1812 Bart Wallet 020 - 6753003 [email protected] PARANIMFEN: Yaniv Hagbi 020 - 5253062 [email protected] Herman Paul Bart Wallet Bart Bart Wallet 071 - 5272757 [email protected] LINKS IN A CHAIN EARLY MODERN YIDDISH HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE NORTHERN NETHERLANDS (1743-1812) ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Aula der Universiteit op vrijdag 2 maart 2012, te 11:00 uur door Barend Theodoor Wallet geboren te Amstelveen Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof. dr. I.E. Zwiep Co-promotor: Prof. dr. S.Z. Berger Overige leden: Prof. dr. M.J. Aptroot Prof. dr. W.J. van Bekkum Prof. dr. E.E. Gans Prof. dr. H.F.K. van Nierop Prof. dr. N.C.F. van Sas Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen Optimis parentibus 2 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 7 1.1 Between Gans and Zunz: defining the eighteenth century 7 1.2 State of research 11 1.3 Research questions 16 1.4 Contents 18 1.5 Methodological reflections 20 PART I: MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN JEWISH HISTORIOGRAPHY 2. Jewish historiographical traditions 29 2.1 Decline of ancient Jewish historiography 29 2.2 S halshelet ha-qabbalah and Jewish historiography 31 2.3 Sefer Yosippon 32 2.4 Crusade chronicles 33 2.5 Anthological historiography 37 2.6 Sixteenth-century Jewish historiography 38 2.7 Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jewish historiography 45 2.8 A reservoir of models and methods 48 3. From Hebrew to Yiddish historiography 51 3.1 Politics of translation 51 3.2 The start of Yiddish history writing in Amsterdam 58 PART II: AMELANDER AND HIS SHEYRIS YISROEL (1743) 4. Menahem Amelander: Portrait of an eighteenth-century Amsterdam Ashkenazi 4.1 The Jewish early modern age and the character of Jewish historiography 65 4.2 Ashkenazim in early modern Amsterdam 69 4.3 Menahem Amelander and his family 71 4.3.1 The Amelander and Rudelsum families 71 4.3.2 Amelander and Eleasar Soesman 75 3 3 4.4 Amelander the Western Ashkenazi yeshiva network 79 4.5 Amelander and the Jewish printing industry 83 4.6 Jewish library awareness and the formation of a Jewish Republic of Letters 93 4.7 The early ‘emancipation’ of Yiddish 97 4.8 Conclusion: Amelander as a hybrid intellectual 103 5. A history of the Jewish world: Sheyris Yisroel (1743) 109 5.1 Introduction: traditional and enlightened historiography 109 5.2 Paratextual features of Sefer Yosippon and Sheyris Yisroel 110 5.2.1 Paratexts of Amsterdam Yiddish books 110 5.2.2 The three brothers and the three crowns 112 5.2.3 The remnant of Israel 120 5.2.4 Paratextual poetry 124 5.2.5 The ‘visualization’ of Jewish history 126 5.3 Amelander’s idea of history 134 5.3.1 Sheyris Yisroel as Jewish historiography 134 5.3.2 Benefits of history 135 5.3.3 Temporal and spatial connections 140 5.3.4 The utopic Ten Tribes 145 5.3.5 The concept of galut 149 5.4 Methodology 153 5.5 Conclusion: Sheyris Yisroel as a hybrid book 157 6. Mediating knowledge. Amelander and his sources 161 6.1 Hebrew, Yiddish and Dutch sources 161 6.1.1 Sources: a classification 161 6.1.2 Hebrew historiography 163 6.1.3 From halakha to almanacs: other Hebrew sources 165 6.1.4 Folktales, poetry and pamphlets: Yiddish sources 170 6.1.5 Other Jewish sources 173 6.1.6 The question of non-Jewish sources 175 6.1.7 Amelander’s non-Jewish sources 178 6.2 Strategies of editing sources 183 4 4 6.2.1 The narrative structure of Sheyris Yisroel 183 6.2.2 Abridging information 191 6.2.3 Interpretative additions 192 6.2.4 Omitting of information 195 6.2.5 Mono-causal argumentation 197 6.3 Mediation and brokerage structures 198 6.4 Cultural contact and conflict 205 PART III: IN THE WAKE OF SHEYRIS YISROEL 7. Successor chronicles. Amelander and his epigones (1740-1812) 211 7.1 Successor chronicles: towards a genre definition 211 7.2 Successor chronicles to Sheyris Yisroel 216 7.2.1 Braatbard’s Ayn Naye Kornayk fun 1740-1752 216 7.2.2 Kosman’s Chapter 36, 1771 223 7.2.3 Prinz’ Kronik min shnas takmad ad shnas takmah , 1788 225 7.2.4 Chronicle fragments, 1766 and 1779 231 7.2.5 Wing’s Lezikorn , 1795-1812 233 7.2.5.1 Contents 233 7.2.5.2 Manuscripts 237 7.2.6 Trebitsch’ Qorot ha-ittim 245 7.3 The authors: socio-economic profiles 248 7.4 The authors as secondary intelligentsia 258 7.5 The sources for contemporary history writing 261 7.5.1 Written Jewish sources 262 7.5.2 Written non-Jewish sources 264 7.5.3 Oral sources and own experiences 268 7.6 Conclusion: Amelander and his epigones 273 8. Transmission of a history book. The second life of Sheyris Yisroel (1767-1988) 8.1 Jewish historiography and the open book tradition 279 8.2 The canonization of Sheyris Yisroel 281 8.3 The Eastern European Sheyris Yisroel : Between Haskalah and Orthodoxy 287 5 5 8.4 The Yiddish Sheyris Yisroel in the nineteenth century 305 8.5 Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Dutch 1855 edition 308 8.6 Between Ultra Orthodox marginality and academic research 318 8.7 The transmission of Sheyris Yisroel 323 Conclusion/Summary 325 Samenvatting 333 Appendices 339 1: The development of illustrations in the Yiddish Yosippon editions, 1546-1743 339 2: Chronicle fragments, Menahem Zion (Amsterdam 1760) 349 Bibliography 351 Acknowledgments 379 6 6 1. Introduction 1.1 Between Gans and Zunz: defining the eighteenth century In April 1980 Yosef Haim Yerushalmi delivered the annual Stroum Lectures at the University of Washington. The four lectures were devoted to the intriguing relation between what Yerushalmi labeled ‘Jewish history and Jewish memory’. Drawing upon the work of Maurice Halbwachs, Yerushalmi differentiated between ritual, a-temporal collective memory and the critical, historicized historiography of modern times. The lectures were published, in 1982, as a small volume, entitled Zakhor , and immediately sparked fierce debate about the nature and origins of Jewish historiography. 1 Central issues in this debate included the definition and internal relationship of memory and history, the nature of Jewish historical writing in the sixteenth century and the emergence of modern historical consciousness among Western European Jewry. 2 Despite the criticisms that Zakhor received upon publication, it remains the only comprehensive introduction to the history of Jewish historiography. Yerushalmi devoted his first lecture to ‘Biblical and rabbinic foundations’; the second addressed ‘The Middle Ages’; the third examined the period ‘In the wake of the Spanish expulsion’. In these three lectures Yerushalmi offered his interpretation of Jewish collective memory for each period. He noted ten history books which had been written in the sixteenth century, mainly by Sephardim connected to the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and argued that these works marked a ‘sudden flowering’ of Jewish historiography. This 1 Yosef Haim Yerushalmi, Zakhor. Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle/London 2002; 1 st edition 1982). 2 The most important contributions to this discussion were: Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley etc. 1993); Reuven Bonfil, ‘How Golden was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish Historiography?’ History and Theory 27 (1988) 78-102; idem, ‘Jewish Attitudes toward History and Historical Writing in Pre-Modern Times’ Jewish History 11 (1997) 7-50; David N.