David Sclar | Princeton University (original) (raw)
Books by David Sclar
Featuring Highlights from the Hartman Family Collection of Manuscripts and Rare Books, 2023
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-golden-path-9781802077889?cc=us&lang=en& Among the... more https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-golden-path-9781802077889?cc=us&lang=en&
Among the intellectual luminaries dotting the millennia of Jewish history, none shines brighter than Maimonides (1138-1204). He was a rabbi, jurist, Talmudist, philosopher, physician, astronomer, and communal leader, and produced a myriad of writings on halakhah, theology, medicine, and philosophy that have attained near-canonical status. We have more source material from or about Maimonides than possibly any other Jewish figure in the medieval period, and more has been written about him than perhaps any other Jew in history. Epithets like the 'Great Eagle' and the 'Western Light?' and the glorifying statement 'From Moses to Moses, none arose like Moses?' reflect centuries of authority, influence, and fascination.
The Golden Path traces the impact and reception of Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality, specifically the production and dissemination of textual objects. It consists of two sections: a descriptive catalogue of an exceptional private collection of manuscripts and rare books; and essays from leading scholars on aspects of Maimonides's cultural context, influence, and appropriation through disparate eras and geopolitical spheres. Combining intellectual, reception, and book historical research, the heavily illustrated volume explores his effects in assorted social and political circumstances, across diverse intellectual and cultural environments.
W i t h b i b l i o g r a p h i c s t u d i e s b y B r a d S a B i n H i l l a d r i K . O f f e... more W i t h b i b l i o g r a p h i c s t u d i e s b y B r a d S a B i n H i l l a d r i K . O f f e n B e r g i S a a c Y u d l O v treasures of the valmadonna trust library A CATALOGUE OF 15th-century books and five centuries of deluxe hebreW printing david Sclar, editor Sharon liberman Mintz, project director Pauline Malkiel, librarian of the valmadonna trust library CONT RIBUTORS: Brad Sabin Hill, curator of the i. edward kiev Judaica collection, the george Washington university, Washington, dc adri K. Offenberg, emeritus curator of the bibliotheca rosenthaliana, university of amsterdam isaac Yudlov, director of the institute for hebrew bibliography, Jerusalem ac Kn OW l edg M en TS: shimon iakerson, head researcher, institute of oriental manuscripts of the russian academy of sciences ari kinsberg, independent scholar david n. redden, vice chairman, sotheby's ny, and the staff of the sotheby's ny book department Jerry schwarzbard, librarian for special collections, the library of the Jewish theological seminary david Wachtel, senior consultant for Judaica, sotheby's ny design: Jean Wilcox, Wilcox design photography: ardon bar-hama indexes: Warren klein printing: kirkwood printing © london & new york valmadonna trust library יעקב אוצרות f O r e W O r d i H e B r e W P r i n T i n g O n B l u e a n d O T H e r c O l O u r e d Pa P e r S brad sabin hill B O O K S P r i n T e d O n c O l O u r e d Pa P e r B O O K S P r i n T e d O n S i l K B O O K S P r i n T e d i n r e d i n K i n d e X e S B i B l i O g r a P H Y Dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend, Professor Chimen Abramsky.
Journal Articles by David Sclar
Jewish Quarterly Review, 2023
News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touc... more News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touched off a controversy that engulfed European rabbinic networks for several years. Led by Moses Hagiz, Jewish religious leaders far and wide condemned Luzzatto and his mystical messianic group as heretical. However, the Luzzatto controversy was far more complicated than merely a case of the rabbinic establishment suppressing a heretical thinker. Responses varied in enthusiasm, denunciation, and ambivalence, reflecting a rabbinic culture impacted by age, ethnicity, family, geography, ideology, and social networks. Opinions and alliances shifted, criticism levied at Luzzatto and his group in Padua proved idiosyncratic, and Luzzatto began and ended his short but prodigious career as a celebrated rabbinic author. The broad spectrum of responses to Luzzatto indicates a need to reassess notions of the rabbinate, heresy, and spiritual leadership and consider the interplay between local and pan-Jewish identities. This essay discusses how intercommunal relationships and rabbinic autonomy played a role in the developments, and how variegated responses to the controversy revealed a wide range of social and religious emphases in early modern Jewish culture.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 2020
Scholars have generally depicted kabbalists within an air of exclusivity. During the second quart... more Scholars have generally depicted kabbalists within an air of exclusivity. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, however, a handful of Jewish mystics in Padua, led by Moses Hayim Luzzatto, opened their secret society to others interested but not adept in Kabbalah in an attempt to establish a "perfected community" and attain the long-awaited messianic redemption. This article explores the social factors and intentions that drove the group's activity, specifically how Luzzatto's thoughts of the unity of creation played out in life and community.
Book History, 2019
In the first decades of the seventeenth century, a book collection belonging to the Ets Haim Yesi... more In the first decades of the seventeenth century, a book collection belonging to the Ets Haim Yesiba, the scholastic arm of Western Sephardic Jewry in Amsterdam, emerged as the period’s first Jewish institutional library. It grew in size and importance as thousands of Conversos emigrated to the Dutch Republic in search of religious tolerance and financial opportunity. As carriers of new knowledge, books – specifically, traditional texts in Hebrew, and Bibles, liturgies, and legal works in vernacular languages – supported the population’s Judaization, particularly within the walls of the Ets Haim. Using shelf lists and, more significantly, annual acquisition records, this paper explores the development of the Ets Haim Library and its impact on Western Sephardic Jewish identity and culture. It addresses three sets of questions: How did the Ets Haim acquire its books, from whom and under what circumstances? What did Portuguese interest in rabbinic books signify about the community’s perceived uniqueness, especially considering the public’s continued adherence to Iberian languages and culture? Did the Ets Haim Library act merely as a facilitator of intellectual, religious, and cultural activity, or did it embody meaning in its own right? In tackling these issues, the article highlights how Portuguese lay leadership sought to ensure the success of its educational institution, as well as the significance of its rabbinate, through the frequent and widespread purchase of canonical texts and newly published rabbinic scholarship.
Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2017
In 1720, Rabbi Isaiah Bassan established an eruv hatserot in Padua, enabling Jews to carry items ... more In 1720, Rabbi Isaiah Bassan established an eruv hatserot in Padua, enabling Jews to carry items in and out of the ghetto on the Sabbath without transgression. He based this on precedents instituted by his teachers, Benjamin Kohen Vitale in Reggio Emilia and Moses Zacut in Mantua. Ten years later, the kabbalist Moses Hayim Luzzatto lauded Bassan's accomplishment as a spiritual link to the talmudic sage Akiva. Using previously unpublished archival documents, this article considers the connection between the Padua eruv and Luzzatto's claim. It shows socio-religious bonds between Padua and Mantua, discusses the struggle for communal cohesion among Padua Jewry, and argues that Luzzatto and fellow messianic mystics in Padua sprang from a multi-generational movement of Italian Hasidism. This case study situates intellectual and pietistic impulses within a larger societal framework, and explores the relationship between communal irreligiosity and the growth of a pietistic elite in 18th-century northern Italy.
Jewish History, 2016
This essay concerns the place of books in shaping three decades (1728–60) during which Amsterdam’... more This essay concerns the place of books in shaping three decades (1728–60) during which Amsterdam’s Portuguese community deepened and expanded its rabbinic study. It discusses two sets of sources primarily. The first consists of annual book acquisition lists discovered in the records of the community’s Ets Haim yeshivah. These lists provide insight into contemporary reading habits and interests, the Ets Haim’s education system and literary emphasis, and the economics of book production and commerce. The second set of sources comes from the hundreds of Hebrew books printed in Amsterdam during these decades. Members of the Ets Haim composed and published their own books, edited the work of their peers, and facilitated the publication of texts authored or brought to the city by rabbinic scholars from abroad. Paratextual material elucidates relations between authors, publishers, editors, printers, and rabbinic leadership. This research shows that the Ets Haim expended huge sums of money on book acquisition, thereby placing unprecedented resources at the disposal of its religious intellectual elite. In turn, the yeshivah’s students enjoyed significant freedom to work and produce as they saw fit. As a direct outgrowth of this freedom, the production and dissemination of books facilitated interaction and collaboration between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews still in many ways demarcated along communal lines.
AJS Review, 2016
Although scholars have written extensively about Moses Hayim Luzzatto and his literary oeuvre, th... more Although scholars have written extensively about Moses Hayim Luzzatto and his literary oeuvre, there has been virtually no work on his stay in Amsterdam (1735–43). The controversy over his supposed Sabbatianism, which engulfed much of the European rabbinate and led to his self-imposed exile from Padua, did not rage overtly in the Dutch Republic, and historians have generally regarded these years as nothing more than a quiet period for Luzzatto and of little con- sequence to him personally.
Using previously unpublished archival material, this article demonstrates that Luzzatto was highly regarded in Amsterdam’s generally insular Portuguese community. He received charity and a regular stipend to study in the Ets Haim Yeshiva, forged relationships with both rabbinic and lay leaders, and arguably influenced the community’s religious outlook. However, a comparison of the manuscript and print versions of Mesillat yesharim, his famous Musar treatise com- posed and published in the city, reveals the limitations under which Luzzatto lived. Research into Luzzatto’s time in Amsterdam reveals the man’s enduring self-assurance and relentless critique of his critics, as well as the Portuguese rabbinate’s broadening horizons.
Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture, 2015
This paper examines the pervasive religiosity of Tzemah David and of its subsequent reprinting. D... more This paper examines the pervasive religiosity of Tzemah David and of its subsequent reprinting. David Gans’s work of history was published at least ten times between the end of the sixteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century, indicating its popularity and continued relevance among Eastern European Jews. The book took on varied and unexpected meaning, as printers amended the text to renew it for successive generations. Although some historians have argued that early modern Jews did not have an imminent interest in historical events, the sustained demand for Tzemah David suggests that Ashkenazic Jewry valued history as it related, in the least, to Jewish religious identity. That is, piety involved more than memory, and historiography, broadly speaking, has not only been utilized in the realm of the secular. As I will show, Tzemah David provided laymen entry into personal religiosity otherwise reserved for scholars of rabbinic texts.
Book Chapters by David Sclar
Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History, 2022
Mishnaic Moment: Jewish Law among Jews and Christians in Early Modern Europe, 2022
, Menasseh ben Israel entered into an agreement with two Dutch merchants to publish a new edition... more , Menasseh ben Israel entered into an agreement with two Dutch merchants to publish a new edition of the Mishnah. e imprint would be vocalized and the print-run large, indicating that the publishers intended to reach a wide audience. Some months later, Jacob Judah Leon (Templo), then serving as rabbi in Middelburg, approached Menasseh with his own pointed manuscript of the Mishnah. He and Adam Boreel shared a desire to expand the readership of the ancient tannaitic text and thought the experienced printer could successfully bring their project to fruition. By the autumn of 1646, as many as four thousand copies of a small-format Mishnah, printed with vowels but without commentary, rolled off the presses of Amsterdam's most famous Hebrew printing house. e edition epitomized converging interests of Jewish and Christian scholars in the seventeenth century, the ascension of the Mishnah as an educational tool in the early modern period, and Menasseh ben Israel's use of print to influence contemporary Jewish religious life. Menasseh ben Israel's converso background, messianic enthusiasm, oratorical skill, political bent, and spiritual inclination pique a range of interests.¹ Like Guilielmus Surenhusius, his historical relevance and legacy do not fit neatly into clearly defined social, intellectual, or religious parameters. He was a child prodigy e bulk of the research for this paper was carried out in Oxford during an idyllic term in the spring of 2019. Most of the writing took place in New York in the midst of health, social, and political crises in the summer of 2020. With libraries and archives closed, I leaned heavily on the knowledge and generosity of colleagues, many thanked below in notes. My deep appreciation in particular goes to Ari Kinsberg, an expert bibliographer, scholar, and friend. In addition, I am grateful to Joanna Weinberg and Piet van Boxel for including me in the wonderful Mishnah seminar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and for many years of intellectual and moral support. e literature on Menasseh ben Israel is vast. For recent overviews, see Sina Rauschenbach,
Maguén-Escudo, 2020
Translation by Néstor Luis Garrido of David Sclar, "A Communal Tree of Life: Western Sephardic Je... more Translation by Néstor Luis Garrido of David Sclar, "A Communal Tree of Life: Western Sephardic Jewry and the Library of the Ets Haim Yesiba in Early Modern Amsterdam," Book History 22 (2019): 43–65.
This catalogue, recording eighty-seven editions housed in the Library of the Jewish Theological S... more This catalogue, recording eighty-seven editions housed in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, details the world’s largest single collection of printed Hebrew books on vellum.
On 5 February 1744 (22 Shevat 5504), David Franco Mendes, a young Portuguese Jew drawn to the stu... more On 5 February 1744 (22 Shevat 5504), David Franco Mendes, a young Portuguese Jew drawn to the study of the Hebrew language, wrote to the Italian poet and kabbalist Moses Hayim Luzzatto, who had recently emigrated to Acre after spending the previous eight years in Amsterdam.1 In the letter, Franco Mendes explained to his literary mentor2 that he had encountered a challenge to Portuguese religious and cultural sensibilities: a fellow Sephardi had purchased a Torah scroll from an Ashkenazic man, only to discover later that the word daka in Deuteronomy 23:2 was spelled with a heh )דכה( rather than with an alef )דכא( as dictated by community tradition. Franco Mendes, and presumably the Portuguese rabbinate, was unsure if Sephardim could use the scroll for ritual purposes. He apparently hoped that Luzzatto, a native of Padua, knew of similar issues of cultural conflict and halakhic resolution in the Italian Peninsula.
This paper discusses how Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews, a community generally lax in religious obse... more This paper discusses how Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews, a community generally lax in religious observance, produced a group of advanced students in its famed Ets Haim Yeshiva who intensified rabbinic study in the mid-eighteenth century. Although they focused on traditional rabbinics, they paradoxically helped to modernize the community at large in formalizing the Ets Haim Library, working in Amsterdam print shops, and strengthening relations with Ashkenazic rabbinic culture.
The Rise of The "Ramal": PRinTing and TRadiTional Jewish hisToRiogRaPhy in The 'afTeR-life' of m... more The Rise of The "Ramal": PRinTing and TRadiTional Jewish hisToRiogRaPhy in The 'afTeR-life' of moŠeh ayyim luzzaTTo* mošeh ayyim luzzatto (1707-1746) has become an extraordinarily popular igure 1 . he has been posthumously hailed as the founder of modern hebrew literature, a precursor to hasidism, and a pillar of the ethical mussar movement that originated in nineteenth-century lithuania. scholars from leopold zunz to simon dubnow to simon ginzburg identiied luzzatto as the cultural bridge between the medieval and modern eras. The great hebrew poet ayyim naman Bialik published a glorifying poem about luzzatto entitled Ha-boh . er me-Paduvah 2 .
Essays by David Sclar
Judaica Librarianship, 2024
Encyclopedia Entries by David Sclar
"The Bible in Print", 2023
Featuring Highlights from the Hartman Family Collection of Manuscripts and Rare Books, 2023
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-golden-path-9781802077889?cc=us&lang=en& Among the... more https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-golden-path-9781802077889?cc=us&lang=en&
Among the intellectual luminaries dotting the millennia of Jewish history, none shines brighter than Maimonides (1138-1204). He was a rabbi, jurist, Talmudist, philosopher, physician, astronomer, and communal leader, and produced a myriad of writings on halakhah, theology, medicine, and philosophy that have attained near-canonical status. We have more source material from or about Maimonides than possibly any other Jewish figure in the medieval period, and more has been written about him than perhaps any other Jew in history. Epithets like the 'Great Eagle' and the 'Western Light?' and the glorifying statement 'From Moses to Moses, none arose like Moses?' reflect centuries of authority, influence, and fascination.
The Golden Path traces the impact and reception of Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality, specifically the production and dissemination of textual objects. It consists of two sections: a descriptive catalogue of an exceptional private collection of manuscripts and rare books; and essays from leading scholars on aspects of Maimonides's cultural context, influence, and appropriation through disparate eras and geopolitical spheres. Combining intellectual, reception, and book historical research, the heavily illustrated volume explores his effects in assorted social and political circumstances, across diverse intellectual and cultural environments.
W i t h b i b l i o g r a p h i c s t u d i e s b y B r a d S a B i n H i l l a d r i K . O f f e... more W i t h b i b l i o g r a p h i c s t u d i e s b y B r a d S a B i n H i l l a d r i K . O f f e n B e r g i S a a c Y u d l O v treasures of the valmadonna trust library A CATALOGUE OF 15th-century books and five centuries of deluxe hebreW printing david Sclar, editor Sharon liberman Mintz, project director Pauline Malkiel, librarian of the valmadonna trust library CONT RIBUTORS: Brad Sabin Hill, curator of the i. edward kiev Judaica collection, the george Washington university, Washington, dc adri K. Offenberg, emeritus curator of the bibliotheca rosenthaliana, university of amsterdam isaac Yudlov, director of the institute for hebrew bibliography, Jerusalem ac Kn OW l edg M en TS: shimon iakerson, head researcher, institute of oriental manuscripts of the russian academy of sciences ari kinsberg, independent scholar david n. redden, vice chairman, sotheby's ny, and the staff of the sotheby's ny book department Jerry schwarzbard, librarian for special collections, the library of the Jewish theological seminary david Wachtel, senior consultant for Judaica, sotheby's ny design: Jean Wilcox, Wilcox design photography: ardon bar-hama indexes: Warren klein printing: kirkwood printing © london & new york valmadonna trust library יעקב אוצרות f O r e W O r d i H e B r e W P r i n T i n g O n B l u e a n d O T H e r c O l O u r e d Pa P e r S brad sabin hill B O O K S P r i n T e d O n c O l O u r e d Pa P e r B O O K S P r i n T e d O n S i l K B O O K S P r i n T e d i n r e d i n K i n d e X e S B i B l i O g r a P H Y Dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend, Professor Chimen Abramsky.
Jewish Quarterly Review, 2023
News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touc... more News that Moses Hayim Luzzatto (ca. 1707–ca. 1746) was the recipient of heavenly revelations touched off a controversy that engulfed European rabbinic networks for several years. Led by Moses Hagiz, Jewish religious leaders far and wide condemned Luzzatto and his mystical messianic group as heretical. However, the Luzzatto controversy was far more complicated than merely a case of the rabbinic establishment suppressing a heretical thinker. Responses varied in enthusiasm, denunciation, and ambivalence, reflecting a rabbinic culture impacted by age, ethnicity, family, geography, ideology, and social networks. Opinions and alliances shifted, criticism levied at Luzzatto and his group in Padua proved idiosyncratic, and Luzzatto began and ended his short but prodigious career as a celebrated rabbinic author. The broad spectrum of responses to Luzzatto indicates a need to reassess notions of the rabbinate, heresy, and spiritual leadership and consider the interplay between local and pan-Jewish identities. This essay discusses how intercommunal relationships and rabbinic autonomy played a role in the developments, and how variegated responses to the controversy revealed a wide range of social and religious emphases in early modern Jewish culture.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 2020
Scholars have generally depicted kabbalists within an air of exclusivity. During the second quart... more Scholars have generally depicted kabbalists within an air of exclusivity. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, however, a handful of Jewish mystics in Padua, led by Moses Hayim Luzzatto, opened their secret society to others interested but not adept in Kabbalah in an attempt to establish a "perfected community" and attain the long-awaited messianic redemption. This article explores the social factors and intentions that drove the group's activity, specifically how Luzzatto's thoughts of the unity of creation played out in life and community.
Book History, 2019
In the first decades of the seventeenth century, a book collection belonging to the Ets Haim Yesi... more In the first decades of the seventeenth century, a book collection belonging to the Ets Haim Yesiba, the scholastic arm of Western Sephardic Jewry in Amsterdam, emerged as the period’s first Jewish institutional library. It grew in size and importance as thousands of Conversos emigrated to the Dutch Republic in search of religious tolerance and financial opportunity. As carriers of new knowledge, books – specifically, traditional texts in Hebrew, and Bibles, liturgies, and legal works in vernacular languages – supported the population’s Judaization, particularly within the walls of the Ets Haim. Using shelf lists and, more significantly, annual acquisition records, this paper explores the development of the Ets Haim Library and its impact on Western Sephardic Jewish identity and culture. It addresses three sets of questions: How did the Ets Haim acquire its books, from whom and under what circumstances? What did Portuguese interest in rabbinic books signify about the community’s perceived uniqueness, especially considering the public’s continued adherence to Iberian languages and culture? Did the Ets Haim Library act merely as a facilitator of intellectual, religious, and cultural activity, or did it embody meaning in its own right? In tackling these issues, the article highlights how Portuguese lay leadership sought to ensure the success of its educational institution, as well as the significance of its rabbinate, through the frequent and widespread purchase of canonical texts and newly published rabbinic scholarship.
Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2017
In 1720, Rabbi Isaiah Bassan established an eruv hatserot in Padua, enabling Jews to carry items ... more In 1720, Rabbi Isaiah Bassan established an eruv hatserot in Padua, enabling Jews to carry items in and out of the ghetto on the Sabbath without transgression. He based this on precedents instituted by his teachers, Benjamin Kohen Vitale in Reggio Emilia and Moses Zacut in Mantua. Ten years later, the kabbalist Moses Hayim Luzzatto lauded Bassan's accomplishment as a spiritual link to the talmudic sage Akiva. Using previously unpublished archival documents, this article considers the connection between the Padua eruv and Luzzatto's claim. It shows socio-religious bonds between Padua and Mantua, discusses the struggle for communal cohesion among Padua Jewry, and argues that Luzzatto and fellow messianic mystics in Padua sprang from a multi-generational movement of Italian Hasidism. This case study situates intellectual and pietistic impulses within a larger societal framework, and explores the relationship between communal irreligiosity and the growth of a pietistic elite in 18th-century northern Italy.
Jewish History, 2016
This essay concerns the place of books in shaping three decades (1728–60) during which Amsterdam’... more This essay concerns the place of books in shaping three decades (1728–60) during which Amsterdam’s Portuguese community deepened and expanded its rabbinic study. It discusses two sets of sources primarily. The first consists of annual book acquisition lists discovered in the records of the community’s Ets Haim yeshivah. These lists provide insight into contemporary reading habits and interests, the Ets Haim’s education system and literary emphasis, and the economics of book production and commerce. The second set of sources comes from the hundreds of Hebrew books printed in Amsterdam during these decades. Members of the Ets Haim composed and published their own books, edited the work of their peers, and facilitated the publication of texts authored or brought to the city by rabbinic scholars from abroad. Paratextual material elucidates relations between authors, publishers, editors, printers, and rabbinic leadership. This research shows that the Ets Haim expended huge sums of money on book acquisition, thereby placing unprecedented resources at the disposal of its religious intellectual elite. In turn, the yeshivah’s students enjoyed significant freedom to work and produce as they saw fit. As a direct outgrowth of this freedom, the production and dissemination of books facilitated interaction and collaboration between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews still in many ways demarcated along communal lines.
AJS Review, 2016
Although scholars have written extensively about Moses Hayim Luzzatto and his literary oeuvre, th... more Although scholars have written extensively about Moses Hayim Luzzatto and his literary oeuvre, there has been virtually no work on his stay in Amsterdam (1735–43). The controversy over his supposed Sabbatianism, which engulfed much of the European rabbinate and led to his self-imposed exile from Padua, did not rage overtly in the Dutch Republic, and historians have generally regarded these years as nothing more than a quiet period for Luzzatto and of little con- sequence to him personally.
Using previously unpublished archival material, this article demonstrates that Luzzatto was highly regarded in Amsterdam’s generally insular Portuguese community. He received charity and a regular stipend to study in the Ets Haim Yeshiva, forged relationships with both rabbinic and lay leaders, and arguably influenced the community’s religious outlook. However, a comparison of the manuscript and print versions of Mesillat yesharim, his famous Musar treatise com- posed and published in the city, reveals the limitations under which Luzzatto lived. Research into Luzzatto’s time in Amsterdam reveals the man’s enduring self-assurance and relentless critique of his critics, as well as the Portuguese rabbinate’s broadening horizons.
Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture, 2015
This paper examines the pervasive religiosity of Tzemah David and of its subsequent reprinting. D... more This paper examines the pervasive religiosity of Tzemah David and of its subsequent reprinting. David Gans’s work of history was published at least ten times between the end of the sixteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century, indicating its popularity and continued relevance among Eastern European Jews. The book took on varied and unexpected meaning, as printers amended the text to renew it for successive generations. Although some historians have argued that early modern Jews did not have an imminent interest in historical events, the sustained demand for Tzemah David suggests that Ashkenazic Jewry valued history as it related, in the least, to Jewish religious identity. That is, piety involved more than memory, and historiography, broadly speaking, has not only been utilized in the realm of the secular. As I will show, Tzemah David provided laymen entry into personal religiosity otherwise reserved for scholars of rabbinic texts.
Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History, 2022
Mishnaic Moment: Jewish Law among Jews and Christians in Early Modern Europe, 2022
, Menasseh ben Israel entered into an agreement with two Dutch merchants to publish a new edition... more , Menasseh ben Israel entered into an agreement with two Dutch merchants to publish a new edition of the Mishnah. e imprint would be vocalized and the print-run large, indicating that the publishers intended to reach a wide audience. Some months later, Jacob Judah Leon (Templo), then serving as rabbi in Middelburg, approached Menasseh with his own pointed manuscript of the Mishnah. He and Adam Boreel shared a desire to expand the readership of the ancient tannaitic text and thought the experienced printer could successfully bring their project to fruition. By the autumn of 1646, as many as four thousand copies of a small-format Mishnah, printed with vowels but without commentary, rolled off the presses of Amsterdam's most famous Hebrew printing house. e edition epitomized converging interests of Jewish and Christian scholars in the seventeenth century, the ascension of the Mishnah as an educational tool in the early modern period, and Menasseh ben Israel's use of print to influence contemporary Jewish religious life. Menasseh ben Israel's converso background, messianic enthusiasm, oratorical skill, political bent, and spiritual inclination pique a range of interests.¹ Like Guilielmus Surenhusius, his historical relevance and legacy do not fit neatly into clearly defined social, intellectual, or religious parameters. He was a child prodigy e bulk of the research for this paper was carried out in Oxford during an idyllic term in the spring of 2019. Most of the writing took place in New York in the midst of health, social, and political crises in the summer of 2020. With libraries and archives closed, I leaned heavily on the knowledge and generosity of colleagues, many thanked below in notes. My deep appreciation in particular goes to Ari Kinsberg, an expert bibliographer, scholar, and friend. In addition, I am grateful to Joanna Weinberg and Piet van Boxel for including me in the wonderful Mishnah seminar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and for many years of intellectual and moral support. e literature on Menasseh ben Israel is vast. For recent overviews, see Sina Rauschenbach,
Maguén-Escudo, 2020
Translation by Néstor Luis Garrido of David Sclar, "A Communal Tree of Life: Western Sephardic Je... more Translation by Néstor Luis Garrido of David Sclar, "A Communal Tree of Life: Western Sephardic Jewry and the Library of the Ets Haim Yesiba in Early Modern Amsterdam," Book History 22 (2019): 43–65.
This catalogue, recording eighty-seven editions housed in the Library of the Jewish Theological S... more This catalogue, recording eighty-seven editions housed in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, details the world’s largest single collection of printed Hebrew books on vellum.
On 5 February 1744 (22 Shevat 5504), David Franco Mendes, a young Portuguese Jew drawn to the stu... more On 5 February 1744 (22 Shevat 5504), David Franco Mendes, a young Portuguese Jew drawn to the study of the Hebrew language, wrote to the Italian poet and kabbalist Moses Hayim Luzzatto, who had recently emigrated to Acre after spending the previous eight years in Amsterdam.1 In the letter, Franco Mendes explained to his literary mentor2 that he had encountered a challenge to Portuguese religious and cultural sensibilities: a fellow Sephardi had purchased a Torah scroll from an Ashkenazic man, only to discover later that the word daka in Deuteronomy 23:2 was spelled with a heh )דכה( rather than with an alef )דכא( as dictated by community tradition. Franco Mendes, and presumably the Portuguese rabbinate, was unsure if Sephardim could use the scroll for ritual purposes. He apparently hoped that Luzzatto, a native of Padua, knew of similar issues of cultural conflict and halakhic resolution in the Italian Peninsula.
This paper discusses how Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews, a community generally lax in religious obse... more This paper discusses how Amsterdam's Portuguese Jews, a community generally lax in religious observance, produced a group of advanced students in its famed Ets Haim Yeshiva who intensified rabbinic study in the mid-eighteenth century. Although they focused on traditional rabbinics, they paradoxically helped to modernize the community at large in formalizing the Ets Haim Library, working in Amsterdam print shops, and strengthening relations with Ashkenazic rabbinic culture.
The Rise of The "Ramal": PRinTing and TRadiTional Jewish hisToRiogRaPhy in The 'afTeR-life' of m... more The Rise of The "Ramal": PRinTing and TRadiTional Jewish hisToRiogRaPhy in The 'afTeR-life' of moŠeh ayyim luzzaTTo* mošeh ayyim luzzatto (1707-1746) has become an extraordinarily popular igure 1 . he has been posthumously hailed as the founder of modern hebrew literature, a precursor to hasidism, and a pillar of the ethical mussar movement that originated in nineteenth-century lithuania. scholars from leopold zunz to simon dubnow to simon ginzburg identiied luzzatto as the cultural bridge between the medieval and modern eras. The great hebrew poet ayyim naman Bialik published a glorifying poem about luzzatto entitled Ha-boh . er me-Paduvah 2 .
Judaica Librarianship, 2024
"The Bible in Print", 2023
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2019
Religious Studies Review, 2024
Canadian Journal of History, 2015
that finely drawn » (p. 148). Cela était dû au fait que le diable lui-même agissait, selon le con... more that finely drawn » (p. 148). Cela était dû au fait que le diable lui-même agissait, selon le consensus général, à l'intérieur des limites posées par la nature. Dans ce sens, la démonologie était une branche de la philosophie naturelle, comme nous l'a admirablement montré Stuart Clark dans sa somme Thinking With Demons (1997).
Jewish Book Council
on tem po rary Jews do not gen er al ly view their ances tors as crim i nals. Jew ish mem o ry, s... more on tem po rary Jews do not gen er al ly view their ances tors as crim i nals. Jew ish mem o ry, shaped by images of East ern Euro pean shtetls and the wounds of the Holo caust, con jures a past filled with meek Jews sur viv ing vile accu sa tions, cru saders, and expul sions. How ev er, real i ty is always messier than myth, and the most engag ing his tor i cal work demon strates that the past was as vibrant and com pli cat ed as the present, filled with much the same prag ma tism, vicious ness, and desperation. Ephraim Shoham-Steiner's Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe breaks ground in an area long over looked by most schol ars and cer tain ly the gen er al pop u lace.
Jewish Book Council
he blood libel endures as one of the more egre gious lega cies of medieval Europe. Fal lac i es o... more he blood libel endures as one of the more egre gious lega cies of medieval Europe. Fal lac i es of Jews mur der ing Chris t ian chil dren to obtain blood
1840 Podcast
Show & Tale is an 18Forty video series that will take you inside some of the great libraries—both... more Show & Tale is an 18Forty video series that will take you inside some of the great libraries—both public and private—to explore books and treasures from Jewish history. These videos explore the life and impact of Moses Maimonides in a conversation between David Bashevkin (podcast creator) and David Sclar (exhibition curator).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF6IVQZ92dcbh_a_YDsKr84mVYVQ10AQA
Exhibition at the Yeshiva University Museum (2023). ONLINE EXHIBITION: www.cjh.org/maimonides/
ONLINE EXHIBITION: www.cjh.org/maimonides/ The exhibition The Golden Path: Maimonides Across E... more ONLINE EXHIBITION: www.cjh.org/maimonides/
The exhibition The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, on view May 9 -- December 31, 2023 at the Yeshiva University Museum (YUM) in the Center for Jewish History, tracks Maimonides and his thought through a study of materiality. It focuses on manuscripts and rare printed books, as well as visual depictions in prints and paintings, from collections around the world, exploring specific items within their varied historical, cultural, and Maimonidean contexts. The exhibition is organized by guest curator David Sclar and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue co-published by Liverpool University Press. It explores Maimonides’ authority and impact as well as the Mediterranean and Islamic contexts in which he lived.
The exhibition includes items that have never before been displayed in public. Among the pieces that will be on loan to YUM are important and rare examples—such as 13th-century Yemenite manuscripts, early printed books from Italy and the Ottoman Empire, and texts produced by and for Christian audiences—from the Hartman Family Collection, the most significant private collection of Maimonides manuscripts and rare books; and spectacular manuscripts, some in Maimonides’ own hand, borrowed from the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, the British Library, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the National Library of Israel, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and elsewhere.
Particularly exciting pieces include:
A beautifully carved 11th century panel from a door to the Torah Ark in Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue, which was known to Maimonides himself. This panel is co-owned by YUM and by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
A manuscript written by Isaac Newton, on loan from the National Library of Israel, in which he cites Maimonides’ Laws of the New Moon in his proposal for reform of the Julian calendar.
Fragments from the Cairo Genizah on loan from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, including one fragment with Maimonides’ signature and others in his hand.
A manuscript of the Mishneh Torah that was personally approved by Maimonides in a statement written in his own hand. This volume will be on loan from the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.
A volume of Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah. This volume, with notes by the sage himself, includes a well-known sketch of the Temple Menorah, which has in recent decades become the model for menorahs used in public Hanukkah celebrations across the world. This manuscript is also on loan from the Bodleian Libraries
An illuminated manuscript of the monumental philosophical treatise Moreh Nevukhim, or Guide of the Perplexed, on loan from The Royal Library in Copenhagen. The manuscript was completed in Catalonia in 1348 and is considered one of the finest examples of the illumination traditions of that time and place.
The partnerships with international collections are unprecedented, and the exhibition stands to be one of the most impressive collections of Maimonides artifacts ever to be displayed together, and the first to focus as much on the man himself and his impact as on the items.
Exhibition at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary (2008)
Exhibition at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary (2006)
Exhibition at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary (2005)
Jewish History Matters, 2019
A roundtable discussion on the materiality of Jewish culture with Aleksandra Buncic, David Sclar,... more A roundtable discussion on the materiality of Jewish culture with Aleksandra Buncic, David Sclar, Nathan Mastnjack, and Jason Lustig, who in 2018-19 were Harry Starr Fellows in Judaica at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. The theme this year has been the history of the Jewish book, and we come together to discuss why books matter in Jewish culture and why we should look at the material objects, writing platforms, and physical form in addition to the contents that they contain.