Sacred Trash (39 page)

The phrase “I am all Sirach now” appears in Meir Ben-Horin, “Solomon Schechter to Judge Mayer Sulzberger: Part I,”
Jewish Social Studies
[
JSS
] 25/4, 1963. That letter was from April 1898; Schechter had already written to Sulzberger in January of that year about the need to “save our literature from the goyim,” adding that he wanted to oversee the preparation of “a scientific edition of the Apocrypha from a Jewish point of view.” (All quotations of Schechter and Mathilde’s letters to Sulzberger in what follows come from Ben-Horin’s article.) “Sirach” derives from the Greek Sirachides, or son (or grandson) of Sira. See John J. Collins, “Ecclesiasticus,” in
Oxford Bible Commentary,
J. Barton and J. Muddiman, eds. (Oxford, 2001).

4. Into Egypt

Mathilde and Schechter’s letters to Sulzberger are dated Jan. 3, 1897, and Dec. 22, 1896, respectively. For more on Mathilde, see JTSA Schechter archive: her memoir (box 28/1-11); her novel (box 28/12); her correspondence (box 27). See also Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter,
and Mel Scult, “The Baale Boste Reconsidered: The Life of Mathilde Roth Schechter (M. R. S.),”
Modern Judaism
7/1, 1987.

Much of the detail in this chapter is drawn from Schechter’s letters to Mathilde, from the period of his Egyptian adventure. These letters are all contained in JTSA Schechter archive, box 26. Our thanks to Itta Shedletzky for help with translation of the German parts of Schechter’s letters. For further explanation of what led Schechter to Cairo, see his “A Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts”; Gibson, “Dr. Solomon Schechter”; Marx, “The Importance of the Geniza”; Adler, “Ecclesiasticus”; Jefferson, “A Genizah Secret.” Additional descriptions of his time in the Geniza come from his letter to Francis Jenkinson, Jan. 12, 1897, CUL Add. 6463 (E) 3416.

Information about Taylor comes from J. E. Sandys and John D. Pickles, “Charles Taylor,”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography;
Reif,
A Jewish Archive;
Mathilde’s memoir;
Charles Taylor and the Genizah Collection: A Centenary Seminar and Exhibition,
Stefan Reif, ed. (Cambridge, 2009). Schechter’s obituary for Taylor from
Jewish Comment
is quoted in Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter.

Details of Schechter’s preparations for his trip come from Mathilde’s Jan. 3, 1897, letter to Sulzberger; Agnes Lewis to Mathilde Schechter, Feb. 7, 1897, JTSA Schechter 27/33; Schechter, “A Hoard”; an undated letter from Schechter to Elkan Adler, which says “many thanks for your kind letter to the rav in Cairo” (he quotes “
lamdan
and
tzaddik
” here), JTSA Schechter 1/15.

Information about the Cattaui family comes from Samir Raafat, “Dynasty: The House of Yacoub Cattaui,”
Egyptian Mail,
April 2, 1994; Gudrun Krämer,
The Jews in Modern Egypt,
1914
–
1952 (London, 1989); Elkan N. Adler, “Notes on a Journey to the East,”
JC,
Dec. 7, 1888. In his “Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts,” Schechter mistakenly refers to Moise Cattaui as Mr. Youssef M. Cattaui. For more on the relationship of Cairo’s Jewish aristocracy to the Geniza, see Reif,
A Jewish Archive;
Amitav Ghosh,
In an Antique Land
(London, 1992).

For more on the question of what Schechter took from the “other genizot,” see Schechter to Mathilde, Jan. 20, 1897; Schechter to Sulzberger, Jan. 19, 1897. The scholar Nehemia Allony claimed that Schechter got many of the fragments from the graveyard of al-Basatin. Habermann (
The Geniza
[Heb]) quotes Allony as saying “he took little from the Ben Ezra synagogue and most of it he took from the cemetery at al-Basatin.” This claim is unsubstantiated by Schechter’s letters.

Information about Henriques derives from Henriques to Schechter, April 5, 1898, JTSA Schechter 4/11; Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter;
Jefferson, “The Historical Significance.” For more on Raffalovich, see Reif,
A Jewish Archive;
Jefferson, “Historical Significance”; Jenkinson diary, Dec. 4, 1898, CUL Add. 7421.

Agnes and Margaret’s account of their Cairo trip are as follows: “the microbe,” Lewis,
In the Shadow;
“your dear Husband,” Agnes Lewis to Mathilde Schechter, Jan. 21, 1897, JTSA Schechter 27/33; “We have no doubt,” Margaret Gibson, “On Two Hebrew Documents of the 11th and 12th Centuries,” from the
Cambridge Antiquarian Society’s Communications
10, WGL/6/10; “tea to meet the rabbi,” Agnes Lewis to Mathilde Schechter, Feb. 7, 1897, JTSA Schechter 27/33.

5. Sorting

Francis Jenkinson’s biography is culled from Stewart,
Francis Jenkinson;
Stephen Gaselee, “Francis Jenkinson,”
The Library
4/3, Dec. 1, 1923; “Francis Jenkinson,”
The Library Association Record,
Dec. 1923; Stephen Gaselee, “Francis Jenkinson,”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(1922–30); David McKitterick, “Francis Jenkinson,”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(2004); Reif, “Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: An Expanded and Updated Assessment,”
Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
33, 1993; and especially Jenkinson’s diaries (from which all the quotes here come). These are from 1897–1900. (See CUL Add. 7420, 7421, 7422, 7423.)

Information about Oxyrynchus and Flinders Petrie comes from Deuel,
Testaments of Time;
Peter Parsons,
City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Papyri beneath the Egyptian Sand Reveal a Long-Lost World
(London, 2007); Flinders Petrie,
Seventy Years in Archaeology
(New York, 1932); Drower,
Flinders Petrie;
Mathilde’s memoir; Ann Rosalie David,
The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt: A Modern Investigation of Pharaoh’s Workforce
(London, 1986).

Details of Taylor’s presentation of the manuscripts to the library are drawn from the CUL Syndicate Minutes, June 9, 1897; May 11, 1898; Reif,
A
Jewish Archive.
The designated £500 is worth some $40,000 today.

The description of Schechter at work with the fragments is Mathilde’s, from her memoir; Bentwich recycles it almost verbatim in
Solomon Schechter.
The nose-bag quote is H. F. Stewart’s, in
Francis Jenkinson.

Suum Cuique’s letter appeared in the London
Times,
Aug. 4, 1897; Schechter’s response was published there on Aug. 7, 1897. Schechter wrote to Elkan Adler, Aug. 5, 1897, JTSA Schechter 1/15. His letters to Sulzberger are Aug. 5, 1897, and undated, Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter.

On the “now-iconic photograph” (which appears on p. 89 and on the cover of this book) and more on the process of sorting, see Reif, “One Hundred Years of Genizah Research at Cambridge,”
Jewish Book Annual
53, 1995–96; “Facts and Fictions about Aquila,”
JC,
Oct. 15, 1897; Schechter, “A Hoard” and “A Hoard … II,”
Studies
II; letters to Sulzberger, e.g., Aug. 5, 1897, Aug. 30, 1897, Jan. 14, 1898.

For more on Schechter’s decision to leave England for the United States, see, for instance, his letters to Sulzberger, April 16, 1897, May 9, 1897, June 26, 1898; Schechter to Cyrus Adler, Aug. 6, 1899, JTSA Schechter 1/11. Montefiore’s critique appears in J. B. Stein,
Lieber Freund: The Letters of Claude Goldsmid Montefiore to Solomon Schechter, 1885–1902
(Lanham, 1988).

Details of Schechter’s departure from Cambridge come from Schechter to Jenkinson, Dec. 29, 1901, CUL Add. 6463 (E) 4963; letter to Schechter from the members of the Cambridge Hebrew Congregation, March 18, 1902 (JTSA Schechter 2/37); Agnes Lewis to Jenkinson, Jan. 24, 1903 (CUL Add. 6463 [E] 5309); Bentwich,
Solomon Schechter;
David Starr, “The Importance of Being Frank: Solomon Schechter’s Departure from Cambridge,”
JQR
94/1, 2004. For more on the manuscripts he took to JTS, see Stefan Reif, “The Cambridge Geniza Story: Some Unfamiliar Aspects” [Heb],
Te’uda
15, 1999; Schechter to Jenkinson, Aug. 28, 1902 (CUL Add. 8809/1902/2).

6. Palimpsests

I

Information on Francis Burkitt is drawn from J. F. Bethune-Baker,
O
x
ford Dictionary of National Biography,
and Soskice,
Sisters of Sinai.
For details about palimpsests of the sort Burkitt worked with, see M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, “Christian Palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza,”
Revue d’histoire des Texts
VIII, 1978. On Burkitt’s bicycle crash, see “Schechter Anecdotes Gathered by F. I. Schechter in England,” JTSA Schechter 29/17.

Quotations by Margaret and Agnes are as follows: “There is nothing that does not leave its mark,” Gibson,
How the Codex;
“ ‘ill-scented’ ammonium,” Gibson,
How the Codex;
“the action of common air,” Lewis,
In the Shadow;
“like mending broken chain,” Margaret Gibson to Rendel Harris, Feb. 17, 1895 (WGL 5/5). See also Lewis and Gibson,
Palestinian Syriac Texts from Palimpsest Fragments.

Burkitt’s comments on the palimpsests are drawn from his
Fragments of the Books of Kings, According to the Translation of Aquila
(Cambridge, 1897) and from Burkitt, “Aquila,”
JQR
10/2, 1898. See also Schechter’s letters to Sulzberger of April 16, May 9, Aug. 5, 1897.

On Aquila’s translation see, “Bible, Translations, Ancient Versions,”
Encyclopedia Judaica
[
EJ
] 4. In addition to being published in book form by Cambridge University Press, the palimpsests were written about on several occasions in the London
Times
(e.g., Aug. 3, 1897, Dec. 30, 1897, and April 12, 1898), and in the
New York Times
on May 7, 1898. Mention is repeatedly made in both of the Greek and Hebrew texts.

Information about Davidson is drawn from a variety of sources, especially C. Davidson,
Out of Endless Yearnings
(New York, 1946). Davidson’s other key work is his monumental
Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry,
which appeared in four volumes between 1924 and 1938 and cataloged every published (printed) medieval Hebrew poem known at the time. See Davidson,
Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry,
introduction by J. Schirmann (New York, 1970).

For more in English on the history of the term
piyyut,
see Laura S. Lieber,
Yannai on Genesis
(Cincinnati, 2010), and “Piyyut,”
Encyclopedia of Judaism
3. Yannai’s only known extant poem was part seven of the
piyyut
beginning
“Onei pitrei rahamatayim,”
in Z. M. Rabinovitz,
The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Yannai according to the Triennial Cycle of the Pentateuch and the Holidays
1 [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1985). The section was preserved by recitation in Ashkenazic communities on the Sabbath preceding Passover. This is the hymn mentioned by Ephraim of Bonn. For more on Yannai, and his relation to Kallir, see Davidson,
Mahzor Yannai
(New York, 1919). Wertheimer’s Yannai finds were published in
Ginzei Yerushalayim
2.

The evidence relating to Davidson’s discovery is circumstantial and secondhand. See his wife’s memoir, and Shuly Rubin Schwartz, “The Schechter Faculty” in
Tradition Renewed,
Wertheimer, ed. “Grotesque” is Menahem Zulay’s description in “The Master Hymnist,” in
Eretz Israel and Its Poetry
[Heb]. See also Solomon B. Freehof, “Synagogue Poetry: Mahzor Yannai, a Work of the Seventh Century,”
American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature
37/2, 1921.

For Davidson’s own thoughts on his discovery of Yannai, see his preface to
Mahzor Yannai;
also his letter to Schechter, Nov. 14, 1910, JTSA Schechter 2/57.

Descriptions of Palestinian synagogue practice and scriptural recitation are from Davidson,
Mahzor Yannai;
Hayyim Schirmann,
Studies in the History of Hebrew Poetry and Drama
1 [Heb] (Jerusalem, 1979). Schirmann makes the comparison to the cantatas. Early Palestinian midrashim, such as Genesis Rabba and Leviticus Rabba, are also based on the triennial system. See Stefan Reif, “The Meaning of the Cairo Genizah for Students of Early Jewish and Christian Liturgy,” in
Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship,
A. Gerhards and C. Leonhard, eds. (Leiden, 2007); M. Freidman, “Opposition to Prayer and Its Palestinian Practice” [Heb], in
Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue, Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer
[Heb], S. Elizur, M. D. Herr, et al., eds. (Jerusalem, 1994); Zulay, “Yannai Studies” [Heb],
Yediot hamakhon
2, 1936;
Mahzor Eretz Israel
[Heb], J. Yahalom, ed. (Jerusalem, 1987).

On the core liturgy, see Ismar Elbogen,
Jewish Liturgy,
Raymond Scheindlin, trans. (Philadelphia, 1993); “Liturgy,”
EJ
11; Ezra Fleischer, “Studies in the Problems Relating to the Liturgical Function of Types of Early Piyyut” [Heb],
Tarbiz
40, 1971. See also Reif,
Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History
(Cambridge, 1993); and Lee I. Levine,
The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years
(New Haven, 2000). This core liturgy—consisting of the twice-daily recitation of the
shema,
some form of the standing prayer, or
amida,
and public readings from the Torah—developed very early and certainly during the mishnaic period, which is to say, between the destruction of the Temple in 70
C.E
. and 200
C.E
., when the Mishna was redacted.

The history of attempts to date Yannai’s work is discussed in Rabinovitz,
Yannai
[Heb]. Some place him as early as the third century and others as late as the eighth. Information about Romanos is drawn from
Sacred Song: From the Byzantine Pulpit, Romanos the Melodist,
R. J. Schrok, trans. and ed. (Gainesville, 1995). The Greek origin of the term itself
—piyyut—
highlights the Hellenistic context in which it emerged. See Lieber,
Yannai on Genesis.