Thursday, May 08, 2014

Better in the company of Shadal...

Here's a rather interesting little postscript to an 1860* letter from Jonas Bondi to Isaac Leeser:








It says, "In Jeschurun I am in the company of Luzzatto, better than Szold, Wise and Illoway."

This refers to the Jeschurun published by Joseph Kobak, not Samson Raphael Hirsch (of whom Bondi was a critic). And he is talking smack about some famous names among the American rabbis of his day - one of whom - Wise - would become his son-in-law! Apparently he liked the company in Jeschurun, but not the American Jewish publications of the day.

* Not 1865, as in the transcription here.

5 comments:

  1. very interesting. Note that the link is missing "edu"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zackary Sholem Berger4:12 PM, May 09, 2014

    Who was Illoway?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rabbi Bernard (Yissochor Baer) Illowy (he spelled with an a, his son Henry, without).

    He studied at the Chasam Sofer's yeshiva *and* in Padua, with Shadal (short time).

    His son published this. *Well* worth a read:

    http://hebrewbooks.org/7201

    ReplyDelete
  4. Zackary Sholem Berger10:14 PM, May 10, 2014

    Thanks. I heard of him before re his Confederate sympathies but it seems like his ideology was a lot more interesting than that. Do you know where he was rabbi in Baltimore? presumably he was there only briefly?

    ReplyDelete
  5. He was at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, then Orthodox, now Reform. There was indeed much more to him than his Confederate leanings.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails
'