Marcus Jastrow

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Marcus Jastrow
Marcus Jastrow

Marcus Jastrow (including Marcus Mordechai Jastrow, born on 5. June 1829 in Rogasen , Prussia, died on 13. October 1903 in German Town , Philadelphia) was Rabbi in Warsaw , Worms and Philadelphia , a major Talmudic scholar and the creation of the Jewish Encyclopedia involved . He is best known today for his Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature , which is still available in print.

Life

Born as the fifth child of Abraham Jastrow and Henrietta Rolle, Jastrow was taught privately in his youth until 1840. From 1843 to 1852 he attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Posen . After graduating, he went to Berlin to study the Talmud among the Berlin rabbis . Michael Sachs had the most influence . In 1855 he earned a doctorate at the University in Halle with Scripture De Abraham ben Meir Aben Esræ Principiis Philosophiæ. In 1857 he obtained rabbinical authorization from Rabbi Moses Feilchenfeld (1794–1872) from Rogasen and from Wolf Landau from Dresden. He taught in the school of the Berlin Assembly under the direction of David Rosin .

Activity in Warsaw and Germany

On the recommendation of Heinrich Graetz, Jastrow was appointed preacher in Warsaw at the German Synagogue on Daniłowiczowska Street, so he dealt with the Polish language and situation. During the January uprising in Warsaw against the Russian government on February 27, 1861, five people died in a Russian military operation. The funeral turned into a political demonstration in which the "Brothers of the Old Testament" also took part as a community.

Although it was the Sabbath, three rabbis including Jastrow attended the funeral services. At the memorial service in the synagogue, Jastrow gave his first Polish sermon. This was very well received, so that the audience met a second time on Sunday and wrote down the sermon as a dictation. Ten thousand handwritten copies were distributed in a week, circumventing the censorship. Jastrow and the other two rabbis were arrested on November 10, 1861. Jastrow was initially in solitary confinement for 23 days, after which he spent 27 days in a cell with Rabbi Dow Ber Meisels . As a Prussian citizen, he was released on February 12, 1862 and expelled from the country.

Jastrow spent the remainder of 1862 with his family in Breslau, Berlin and Dresden. In the fall he accepted a call to Mannheim, but he was only there for three months. His expulsion was revoked and in January 1863 he went back to Warsaw. A short time later the revolution in Poland began with the January Uprising . While Jastrow was on a trip to Berlin, the Prussian state refused his passport so that he could not return to Warsaw. Jastrow followed a call to Worms as District Rabbi in 1864, during which time he published Four Centuries from the History of the Jews from the Destruction of the First Temple to the Maccabeean Temple . In Worms there was tension with the community and a police investigation was carried out, so the offer of a position in the USA was very welcome.

Activity in Philadelphia

In 1866 Jastrow moved to Philadelphia as rabbi of the German-Hebrew Congregation Rodeph Shalom. Jacob Fränkel (1808–1887), who was also the first official military rabbi of the United States of America from 1862–1865, was the leader and cantor of the community at the time . In this community Jastrow was active in the service until 1892 and remained connected to her all his life. During this time, organizational issues were dealt with. In the east, Isaac Leeser and in the west, Isaac Mayer , pushed Wise to organize. This involved higher education, representation and the regulation of liturgical changes, with Jastrow becoming a factor in addressing these problems.

With the help of Isaak Leeser, Maimonides College was opened in Philadelphia in 1867 . There Jastrow held the chair for religious philosophy and Jewish history and later also for biblical exegesis. He was a figurehead of the college until it was closed again. From 1867 to 1871 he opposed certain tendencies expressed in the resolutions of the rabbinical conferences in 1869 and 1871. He published a number of polemical articles in The Hebrew Leader and The Jewish Times .

At the same time he revised Benjamin Szold's prayer book Abodat Yisrael and the Hegyon Leb and the translation of them into English. In his own congregation he brought about growth and stability. In the general Jewish community he took part in the formation and reorganization of societies.

In 1876 Jastrow became seriously ill, so that he could hardly go public for a few years and traveled to southern Europe. During this time the plan for his great work A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature grew . In the foreword he names the New Hebrew and Chaldean dictionary by Jacob Levy , the Arukh and the Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum by Johann Buxtorf the Elder as his foundations. The dictionary was published in 1895 with the first volume and then in its entirety in two volumes in 1903 and received numerous essentially unchanged reprints in one or two volumes. It is still a standard work in this field today.

The dictionary manuscript was slowly being completed around 1895 when the Jewish Publication Society of America considered a new translation of the Bible into English and made Jastrow the editor-in-chief. By the time he died, he had revised more than half of the books. He also did the translation for the book of Job . In addition to these two major projects, he has been a member of the Jewish Publication Society's publications committee since it was established. He was involved in the Jewish Encyclopedia as the editor of the parts relating to the Talmud.

He played an important role in the Jewish Ministers' Association and was a leading member of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris, was in the Meḳiẓe Nirdamim, one of the vice-presidents of the American Federation of Zionists, and provided material and intellectual support to Russian immigrants to the United States.

In 1900 he received a doctorate in literature from the University of Pennsylvania .

Jastrow was married to Berta Jastrow geb. Wolfsohn and had seven children from her, two of whom were known sons, Joseph Jastrow and Morris Jastrow jr. (1861-1921), Professor of Assyriology in Philadelphia. Neither of them embarked on a religious career.

Works

Article by him appeared in Revue des Etudes Juives ; Zacharias Frankel's monthly for the history and science of Judaism ; Berliner's magazine for the science of Judaism ; Sippurim ; Journal of Biblical Literature ; Hebraica ; Young Israel ; Lebanon ; Jewish Record ; Jewish Messenger ; American Hebrew ; Jewish exponent .

  • The situation of the Jews in Poland (anonymous; Hamburg, 1859);
  • Kazania Polskie , (Poznan, 1863); Polish sermons
  • The forerunners of the Polish uprising (anonymous; Hamburg, 1864).
  • He probably played an important role in the illumination of a ministerial report (Hamburg, 1859 [?]). July 1864,
  • Four centuries from the history of the Jews, from the destruction of the first temple to the Maccabean temple consecration, in 12 lectures (Heidelberg, 1865). Digitized on Google Books
  • Jastrow's Thanksgiving Sermon at Rodeph Shalom, November 26, 1866 - Google Books
  • A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1886–1903) A Dictionary of the Targumim… , Volume I (PDF) etana.org; Volume II (PDF) etana.org
  • Songs and prayers and meditations for divine services of Israelites . Compiled by B. Szold ... translated from the German by M. Jastrow. Philadelphia 1873, Text Archive - Internet Archive .

literature

  • Cyrus Adler, Henrietta Szold : Jastrow, Marcus (Mordecai) . In: Jewish Encyclopedia , Volume VII, pp. 77-79 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive - jewishencyclopedia.com )
  • M. Jastrow: Bär Meisels, Chief Rabbi of Warsaw, A life picture on a historical background, designed according to the owner's view . In: Hebrew Leader , April 1 - July 1, 1870.
  • Henrietta Szold: Marcus Jastrow . In: Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society , No. 12, 1904, pp. 181-183, JSTOR 43059180
  • Menachem Butler: The History and Future of the Jastrow Dictionary , November 2003. On the hundredth anniversary of death, garfield.jtsa.edu (PDF; English)
  • Michał Galas: Jastrow, Markus : YIVO website , English
  • Michał Galas: To Warsaw-Mannheim and back: Rabbi Marcus Mordechaj Jastrow on the hundredth anniversary of his death . In: Judaica , 59.4, 2003, pp. 289-298.
  • Michał Galas: Rabbi Marcus Jastrow and His Vision for the Reform of Judaism: A Study in the History of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century . Academic Studies Press, Brighton MA 2013, ISBN 978-1-61811-345-0 , review
  • Michael Brocke, Julius Carlebach: The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871 . Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 978-3-11-023232-5 ( google.com ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This article is based in part on the article Cyrus Adler, Henrietta Szold : Jastrow, Marcus (Mordecai) . In: Jewish Encyclopedia , Volume VII, pp. 77-79 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ). All information comes from this source, unless otherwise stated.
  2. ↑ Michael Brocke, Julius Carlebach: The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871 . Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 978-3-11-023232-5 , p. 1812 ( google.com [accessed July 14, 2016]).
  3. ↑ Michael Brocke, Julius Carlebach: The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871 . Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 978-3-11-023232-5 , p. 479-480 ( google.com [accessed July 14, 2016]).
  4. ↑ a b c Jastrow, Markus. In: yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved July 15, 2016 .
  5. ^ Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature . Foreword p. XIII.
  6. ^ The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic text [Torah, Nevi'im, u-Khetuvim]. A new translation with the aid of previous versions and with constant consultation of Jewish authorities . Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia 1917 ( full text - Wikisource ).
  7. ^ The Meaning of Words: Marcus Jastrow and the Making of Rabbinic Dictionaries . Judaica Online Exhibitions of Penn Libraries, Philadelphia (English)
personal data
SURNAME Jastrow, Marcus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jastrow, Markus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Rogasen
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1903
Place of death Germantown