Joseph Schwarz (geographer)

Joseph Black

Joseph Schwarz ( Hebrew יהוסף שוורץ; born on October 22, 1804 in Floß ; died February 5, 1865 in Jerusalem ) was a Jewish geographer, Palestine researcher, and rabbi .

education

Joseph Schwarz was born in the Jewish ghetto in Floß, the Judenberg. He was the middle of the three sons of Mendel Schwarz, a main sponsor of the elementary school in Floß. The Schwarz family came from one of the founders of the Jewish community in Floß , namely Eisik Feifas from Neustadt an der Waldnaab . Joseph's brothers were Samuel Schwarz and Hajum Schwarz. Hajum Schwarz was the father of Israel Schwarz, who later published the main work of his uncle Joseph Schwarz.

Even in his childhood, Joseph Schwarz developed an affection for the rabbi profession. He studied first in Schwabach the Talmud at the local rabbi Abraham changer , the 1820-1850 district rabbi founded in 1813 Distriktsrabbinat Schwabach was. In 1823 he worked as an accounting officer for the landowner and rabbi Mendel Rosenbaum in Unterzell near Würzburg.

Then he continued his studies for five years at the university and at the yeshiva in Würzburg, where his older brother Samuel Schwarz was already studying . The yeshiva in Würzburg, at that time under the direction of Rabbi Abraham Bing, tended more towards Orthodox Judaism than towards Reform Judaism that emerged at the beginning of the 19th century . “A large number of students flocked to Würzburg [...] to hear his learned words. Among the most important were the later Altona chief rabbi Jakob Ettlinger , the later London chief rabbi Nathan [Marcus] Adler , the Hamburg Chacham Is. [Aak] Bernays , R. [abbi] Elieser Bergmann and [...] Seligmann Bär Bamberger . " Schwarz also studied the geography of Palestine in Würzburg .

At that time he wrote a map of Palestine, which was published in three editions: Würzburg 1829, Vienna 1831, Trieste 1832.

Trip to Palestine

Since his earliest youth, Schwarz had the desire to research the history, geography, geology, flora and fauna of the Holy Land himself on site and to find a correspondence between names, places and terms mentioned in the Bible , Talmud and Midrash with those used in the 19th century To work out conditions. At that time there was only one essential Jewish work on this subject, namely kaftor wa-ferach (“knob and flower”) by Estori ha-Parchi (1282–1357), who had toured Palestine for seven years. There was some Christian work on Palestine, but it was more interested in specifically Christian points of view.

In 1831 Joseph Schwarz set out for Palestine. He first traveled to Vienna and from there to Hungary . In Hungary, Schwarz had to wait a whole year because cholera had broken out and the quarantine regulations (Contumaz Cordon ) prevented him from continuing his journey. From Hungary he traveled on to Fiume on the Mediterranean. He was stuck there for another six months because the Orient could not be traveled due to the risk of war. Finally, he arrived by ship over Smyrna and Rhodes to Jaffa , where he arrived on April 2 1,833th On April 19, 1833, he reached Jerusalem . In Jerusalem, Joseph Schwarz was accepted by the famous Luria family of rabbis . He married one of the daughters of the House of Luria.

In 1837, Schwarz was one of the co-founders and then the administrators of the charity called Kolel Holland and Germany (Ho "D) , which was initiated by Lazarus Bergmann , who had made Alijah in 1834 .

Geographical Studies in Palestine

Joseph Schwarz was a member of the sect of the pious Watikin . His first job in Jerusalem was to observe the exact times of sunrise and sunset for each day of the year from the Mount of Olives. The time of sunrise and sunset determines the time for the Shema Yisrael prayer of the Watikin. This work was published in Jerusalem in 1843 under the title Tvu'ot HaSchemesch (תבואות השמש The cycles of the sun )

As a result, Schwarz traveled to Palestine for 15 years at his own expense and researched its geography. A thorough knowledge of the national languages ​​helped him in this arduous and often dangerous undertaking. He published the results of these trips in his book Tvu'ot Ha'aretz (תבואות הארץ), which appeared in Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1845. In 1849 Schwarz went to the USA and took care of the translation and publication of this book. He also collected donations as a Meschullach for the Kolel Ho "D. The book was translated into English by Isaac Leeser and was published in 1850 under the title A descriptive geography and brief historical sketch of Palestine, by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, for sixteen years a resident in the holy land. The publisher A. Hart paid for the publication.

From the USA, Schwarz traveled to Germany via London, where he oversaw the translation into German and the publication of his book. In 1852 his book was published with the title Das Heilige Land: According to its former and current geographical composition with the publishing house of the Hebrew antiquarian bookstore of I. Kaufmann, Frankfurt am Main. It contains geographical studies that reveal the names of places, mountains, countries, rivers, etc., which appear in the Bible, Talmud and Midrash, not only in Palestine but also in its surroundings, e.g. B. in Lebanon, assign the names common in the 19th century. It also contains explanations of the names of peoples, explanations of the climate, animal kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom and climate, as well as descriptions of the liturgical, religious and social customs of the Jews in Jerusalem, various sagas and sketches on the history of the Jews in Palestine, but also descriptions of the Arabs Population of Jerusalem. At the end of the book there is a detailed register of all place names that occur. There are two location registers. One with place names in German, the other in Hebrew. The whole book is systematically structured and written in sober, very modern language. All place names and other terms used are listed in Hebrew and German. At the end of the book there is a picture of Jerusalem and a map of Palestine.

After 1852, Schwarz returned to Jerusalem. He continued his studies of the rabbinical scriptures and the Kabbalah there . In Jerusalem he joined the Kabbalistic Association Beth-El.

Fonts

• "Tebu'ot ha-Areẓ" 1845, Geography, Geology and History of Palestine
• "A Descriptive and Historical Sketch of Palestine" Philadelphia, 1850, the translation into English of "Tebu'ot ha-Areẓ"
• "The Holy Land: According to its former and current geographical nature" the translation into German of "Tebu'ot ha-Areẓ", Verlag der Hebrew antiquarian bookstore by I. Kaufmann, Frankfurt am Main, 1852, can be downloaded from http: //sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/titleinfo/1009765
• "Luaḥ" a calendar for the year 5604 (Jerusalem, 1843)
• "Tebu'ot ha-Shemesh" in four parts, 1843, the calculation of sunrise and sunset in the Holy Land
• "Peri Tebu'ah" 1861, Biblical and Talmudic Remarks on Palestine
• "Pardes" 1861, the four methods of commenting
• "Teshubot" responses
• "Shoshannat ha-'Emeḳ" 1862, additions and corrections to the previous works
• "Luaḥ" 1862, panels about sunrise and sunset in Jerusalem, edited by Azriel Aaron, the son-in-law of Joseph Schwarz

literature

• Adolf Brüll:  Black, Josef . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 33, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 242.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz79661.html
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Magnus Weinberg : History of the Jews in the Upper Palatinate / 5: Herzogtum Sulzbach (Sulzbach u. Floss) , Munich: Ewer-Buchhandl., 1927, online: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Herz Bamberger, history of the rabbis of the city and the district of Würzburg , Simon Bamberger (ed., Comp.), Wandsbek: Goldschmidt, 1905, p. 65. Omissions and additions in square brackets not in the original.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13342-schwarz-joseph
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Israel Schwarz: Foreword by the translator in Joseph Schwarz: The Holy Land: According to its former and current geographical nature , publisher of the Hebrew antiquarian bookstore by I. Kaufmann, Frankfurt am Main, 1852, download from http: // collections .ub.uni-frankfurt.de / freimann / content / titleinfo / 1009765
6. ↑ See "Zell am Main (Würzburg district) Jewish history / synagogue", section "Reports from the history of the Jewish community and the Rosenbaum family" , on: Alemannia Judaica: Working group for research into the history of Jews in southern Germany and the neighboring region , accessed December 12, 2016.
7. ↑ Joseph Schwarz: Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine . Translated by Isaac Leeser, Illustrated with Maps and Numerous Engravings. Hart, Philadelphia 1850 ( digitized ).
8. ↑ Joseph Schwarz: The Holy Land: According to its former and current geographical nature , publishing house of the Hebrew antiquarian bookstore by I. Kaufmann, Frankfurt am Main, 1852, download from http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/ content / titleinfo / 1009765