Zakhor Nishmat Avotenu Schouten 2 Abstract This thesis analyses the memorbukh of the Jewish community that lived in the Dutch village Oisterwijk, Brabant. The book was written in 1770 as part of a protocol book by the community’s rabbi Yekutiel Ziskind, who had come to Oisterwijk in 1769. The genre of memorbikher started as a way to respond to the large-scale persecutions of Jews in the times of the First Crusade in 1096, the Rindfleisch-persecutions in 1298, and the persecutions in the time of the Black Death in 1348/9. Members of Jewish communities that suffered during those persecutions were commemorated for their sufferings and perseverance. In the late medieval and early modern period, the genre of memorbikher was incorporated within the liturgy of Ashkenazic synagogues. This thesis describes the memorbukh from Oisterwijk as an example of an early modern memorbukh by comparing it to other memorbikher of the time. It argues that the author of this memorbukh wrote it in order to bind together his new community. The community in Oisterwijk was a relatively young community, as members had begun to arrive in Oisterwijk only in the 1650s. The author therefore wanted to create a new communal memory that would bind together all the members, despite their different backgrounds. Keywords: Pinkassim, Memorbikher, Jewish memorial books, Yiddish manuscripts. Schouten 3 Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................5 List of Transcription Symbols .................................................................................................6 Chapter 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................8 1.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................8 1.2 State of Research on Memorbikher ................................................................................9 1.2.1 Memorbikher within the Field of Jewish Memory Studies .......................................9 1.2.2 Research on Memorbikher ....................................................................................10 1.2.3 Dutch Memorbikher ..............................................................................................13 1.2.4 State of Research on the Jewish Community in Oisterwijk ....................................13 1.3 Research Questions .....................................................................................................14 1.4 Introduction of Sources ...............................................................................................15 1.4.1 Documents of the Community ..............................................................................15 1.4.2 Corpus of Other Memorbikher ..............................................................................16 1.4.3 Corpus of Historical Chronicles ............................................................................17 Chapter 2. ‘More than this Provincial Town’: Paratexts and Spatial Connections in the Martyrology .........................................................................................................................19 2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................19 2.1.1 General Characteristics of the Genre .....................................................................19 2.2 Paratexts of the OM: Title Page and Introduction ........................................................20 2.2.1 Paratexts within Yiddish Book Studies..................................................................20 2.2.2 Paratext of Memorbikher ......................................................................................21 2.2.3 Prayers Accompanying Memorbikher ...................................................................24 2.3 The Place Names in the Martyrology ...........................................................................26 2.3.1 Martyrology of the OM .........................................................................................27 2.3.2 Spatial Connections ..............................................................................................29 2.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................31 Chapter 3. ‘Connecting this Small Corner of the World’: The Necrology of the OM, its Sources and the Later Additions ...........................................................................................32 Introduction ......................................................................................................................32 3.1 Introduction to the Necrology ......................................................................................32 3.2 The First Part of the Necrology ...................................................................................33 3.2.1 The Martyrs in the Necrology ...............................................................................33 Schouten 4 3.2.2 The Scholars .........................................................................................................34 3.2.3 Sources of the Necrology ......................................................................................35 3.2.4 Spatial Connections in the Necrology ...................................................................40 3.2.5 The Local Benefactors ..........................................................................................40 3.3 Later Part of Memorbukh ............................................................................................42 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................45 Chapter 4. Bekol Tefutsot Yisrael: The Liturgical Implementation of the OM and its Function as a Memory of the Kehilla. ..................................................................................................47 Introduction ......................................................................................................................47 4.1 The Oisterwijk Pinkassim ............................................................................................47 4.1.2 Minhagim .............................................................................................................48 4.1.3 Takkanot ...............................................................................................................50 4.1.4 The OM as part of the Minhagim and Takkanot ....................................................51 4.2 The Liturgical Implementation of the OM ...................................................................52 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................53 Chapter 5. Conclusion ..........................................................................................................54 Introduction ......................................................................................................................54 5.1 The OM as an Early Modern Memorbukh ...................................................................54 5.2 The Martyrology: Creating a Memory for Brabant Jewry ............................................55 5.3 The Necrology: The Unity of Jewish Tradition and Scholarship ..................................55 5.4 The use of the OM within the Kehilla of Oisterwijk ....................................................56 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................56 Suggestions for Further Research ......................................................................................57 Bibliography.........................................................................................................................59 Primary Sources ................................................................................................................59 Archive Material ...............................................................................................................59 Secondary Sources ............................................................................................................60 Appendices ...........................................................................................................................63 Appendix A: Table with the Paratexts of all Memorbikher ................................................63 Appendix B: Map of Place Names Mentioned in the Martyrology .....................................65 Appendix C: Martyrology of the OM ................................................................................66 Appendix D: Necrology of OM .........................................................................................69 Schouten 5 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Dr Wallet, for his continuous involvement and assistance. Receiving his guidance and feedback has been very helpful during the process of research, translating the memorbukh and writing the thesis. In addition, I want to mention Dr Neudecker, who taught me Hebrew at Leiden University,