Letter from L. Buttenwieser to Isaac Leeser;October 20, 1861 · Isaac Leeser Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Letter from L. Buttenwieser to Isaac Leeser;October 20, 1861

Author

L. Buttenwieser

Contributor

Isaac Leeser

Date Created

20 October 1861

Location(s)

Cincinnati

Philadelphia

Format

Letter. 6 page(s) on 3 sheet(s).

Letter

Type

Letter

Language(s)

English

Hebrew

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3z60cn57/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3z60cn57

Physical Characteristics

Lined Paper

Manuscript

Is Part Of

The Dropsie College Isaac Leeser Collection at the Penn Libraries

content

Cincinnati October 20th 1861.
Reverend Sir,
As I see by the last number of the Occident you received the copy of the Israelite, sent to you by me and contain-ing my refutation of Mr de Solla's pamphlet For you devoted the full space of 9 words or the most of a Line and a half to the critick of my article.
If I apply the rule of our Sages: Hebrew to your article headed „Incestuous Marriages”, and I cannot see any reason why I should not apply it, my refutation has not found grace before your editorial eyes.
You say: „But this far the more complete and therefore the more desirable response has appeared in the publication” I have not seen Mr Nathan's or any one's else reply beside mine and am therefore of course not able to judge, how complete Mr N's reply is. Your critic on Mr N's pamphlet, although covering full 2 pages of your journal can guide me by no means, since your critic can not claim any higher merit but to be a friend's eulogy on the work of his friend and it is only fit to show that you are on very good terms with and an admirer or intimate friend of Mr N. Anything like an evidence of an impartial, objective critick by quotations from the criticized work the reader seeks in vain in your article.
I have therefore to wait till I shall receive Mr N's pamphlet, in order to find out myself, if your opinion on the completeness

if the said pamphlet is correct or not.
But I think myself justified in not only inviting you very politely, but in requesting you most urgently and positively, to point out to me the incompleteness of my refutation, viz to show that I have either not refuted all arguments of Mr de Solla or that I have done so in an unsatisfactory way.
If you are not abe to do so, you must acknowledge the error or wrong of your indirect assertion.
I hardly think it necessary to remind you that if all pretended proofs of de Solla are satisfactorily refuted by my article, this my article has the same claim on completeness as a refutation filing a whole volume.
If it were not for so many people who have no judgement of their own, who always inquire in a refutation, if every passage of the refuted work is mentioned and opposed to and with whom no article filling only one column has any weight at all, since they measure the weight of an article by the inch of the foot,—I say, if it were not for those, a single column of the Israelite, containing only the 2 proofs of Hebrew and Hebrew would have been fully sufficient to cause the 2 pillars of de Sollas structure to fall to the ground. Every competent judge would still have declared my refutation satisfactory and complete.
Yea, I dare say, truly qualified judges would prefer such a refutation, since it would be more in correspondence with the words of our Sages Hebrew Hebrew

As you assuredly acknowledge the validity of this rule, you must have found other defects in my article, than its brevity and I therefore repeat my urgent request, to name those defects to me.
I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr Nathan nor have I ever seen his newly published work or any other work of his. I can therefore not judge yet able to judge how „fully” he is „armed for the contest in behalf of Jewish purity.”
But if you have an infavorable opinion of my armature, as this can be easily inferred from you article, this your opinion can only have been produced by weak points, found out in my recently published article. For you never had any other chance to judge of my knowledge of our theology. We met each other only twice in our life once in Boston and the second time here. But But neither time we discussed one topic or even one Iota of any Hebrew or Hebrew
I therefore feel myself induced to ask you again, to point me out the errors of my refutation.
The great merit of Mr N's pamphlet in coming out in the country; where his antagonist resides I fully acknowledge. But I could not help well my refutation lacking this excellent quality, since, of course, I cannot be expected to go especially from here to Jamaica in order to publish my refutation there.
And, after all, allow me, Rev. Sir, to remark you in all submissive reverence that you are here again in contradiction with the words of our Sages, a fact which is, of course, most surprising in the champion and defender of our Orthodox cause.

In corroboration of this my remark I refer you to the Mishna Hebrew Hebrew and the annotation of the Gemara to this Mishna: Hebrew.
As I have now mentioned often enough, I cannot judge of the validity of your indirect reproofs of my refutation, until you please to enumerate me all its faults in plain language.
But I come lastly to another indirect reproof which I am fully justified to contradict flatly and emphatically already now.
You are pleased to say: In doing this, moreover, we discover nothing like personality and bitterness against the aggressor, as the whole „force of proofs is directed against the matter not the man.” Now, do tell me, Mr Editor, where have you found one word of personalities or bitterness in my article? Have I not treated the author in the most polite manner and have only cared for the subject not for the man who brought it forward? Have I not also pointed this out in my refutation itself?
Perhaps you feel inclined to deny all intentional slight treatment of my refutation, by referring me to the final passage of your article from: „Our limited space” to the end. But I hardly think it possible that you believe me green enough, as not to know that the whole alluded conclusion of your article consists in mere words without having any serious meaning at all. Or should you, after having waited on your readers with such a critic and such arguments as yours are, still have such a favorable opinion of your readers, as to think them capable to judge of the various publications for themselves? They would then make a splendid exception of the majority of American and European Jews. While in our days Hebrew are very scarce every where, the majority of your readers, if not all, would be Hebrew. You say, your limited space compelled you to treat the subject briefly, and every one who casts only a glance at the last number of the Occident must acknowledge the correctness of your statement,
For, had you not to benefit the Jewish community of America and abroad by devoting almost 5 pages to a minute description of the „Presentation of a Sepher in San Francisco” and by devoting another page and 1/3 to a report on the extremly scarce rare and therefore highly surprising occurrence of a Hebrew in Norfolk Str. Synagogue

just think what our Orthodox cause would have lost, if those 2 matters had not become known! Of course have they the preference to a full treatment of the Mamzer? question and a proper critic on the different articles, speaking on this subject!!!
In order to show you that in writing all, I have written in this letter I am not guided by partiality for my own slight work, I shall extract some passages of a letter, I have received from a truly Orthodox scholar.
I am not at liberty to mention you the name of the writer, since perhaps he does not want me to do so. Suffice it, to say, that the alluded Gentleman ranks high in our Orthodox camp and I doubt not that you and I wish many others consider him an authority.
He wrote to me:
The papers you have sent me have come to hand, I congratulate you on the tone of your article. The Rev. Mr Nathan's preface—his work itself I have not seen—is too personal, whereas you are free of sarcasm and bitterness.”
At the end of the letter he wrote to me:
I again repeat, of the replies I have hitherto seen yours is by far the best so that Mr de Solla will have to acknowledge, that of his opponents you are the most gentlemanly.”
In fine I ask you politely, to send me a copy of Mr Nathan's

pamphlet and to let me know the price thereof and in what way I can remit the money to you. If you have an agent here, please mention me his name and I shall pay him the amount or send me the pamphlet through his agency.
Asking you again to point me out the defects of my re futation either in a private letter or publicly in your Journal.
I am, Rev. Sir, your obedient
L Buttenwieser
228 Fifth street

The above text refers to Occident Volume 19 No. 8 pages 373 through 376. Click here to view.

Identifier

LSDCBx2FF8_12

Date

1861-10-20