On the Death of Leopold Zunz, 1886 April. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Apr 1886 · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

On the Death of Leopold Zunz, 1886 April. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Apr 1886

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1 April 1886

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

10 pages on 4 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 11, Folder 17

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3pg1j77j/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3pg1j77j

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx11FF17_1.xml

content

143

On the death of Leopold Zunz
April 1886

Brethren. Two Sabbaths ago, the submarine cable conveyed a news which was not startling to the commercial or political world, but which must have occasioned a stir in the world of letters. For it announced the death of Leopold Zunz--the nonagenarian Jew to whom the creation of a unique literature is confessedly due. Had I heard of the demise of that famous coreligionist of ours, early in the same morning, before the service at the synagogue began, I might have ventured some pertinent remarks, necessarily brief, but of a eulogistic character, such as the subject called for, although my annual pleading in behalf of the Alliance was expected upon that day preceding Purim. Last sabbath I would not fittingly introduce that topic. I naturally felt prompted to confine my address to the thirty fifth anniversary of my having stood at this sacred desk. But I must not defer any longer a religious duty--the duty incumbent on the old in Israel to show the young that we have a history to which we may point with

pride, and that one of our brethren has splendidly illustrated it; that Zunz devoted his except--ional talents to the task of searching out and set--ting to view what sheds glory upon our people. The celebrated author who died recently in Berlin, wrote principally in German, but parts of his productions which have been rendered in other lan--guages, and several articles issued from his prolific pen in Hebrew, have enabled me to form the literary acquaintance of the venerable sage. I admire his marvellous industry, which yielded a masterly delineation of a literature vast and su--blime, but which the prejudiced ignore, and ignorance despises. For ages has the syna--gogue liturgy been recited, devotionally by some, me--chanically by others, but neither the lip worshippers nor the pious understood the origin of many prayers intended to lift up the soul to its Maker, nor the causes that elicited national elegies breathing forth hatred against oppression. Zunz revealed what had been hidden; his unrivalled powers imparted to it life and beauty.

So likewise, all knew that immense volumes of a legendary character exist, besides instructive parables and stories abounding in interspersed through the Talmud, but no scholar at the commencement of this century, had attempt--ed the herculean almost superhuman task to make those writings tell disclose the places of their nativity, their ages and their authorship. Zunz, the giant of intellect assumed that undertaking soon crowned with marvellous success. Again: of all medieval Rabbis, Rashi is perhaps the most familiar name to Israelites, even they never he read a line of his extension comments, but who could tell with accuracy what the disciples of that Prince of the Judaic French school brought forth? Zunz summoned to his aid untiring ener--gy and a deep mighty love for our ancient lore literature, and dived into depths that none had sounded before. His luminous mind saw precious gems where benighted arrogance supposed there would be naught but worthless pebbles. When the man of Berlin gave us his "something about Rabbinical literature lore" he laid out a treasure of learning at which his contemporaries

looked in wonderment. But when the history of the Synagogue, the liturgy of the Syna--gogue, and the poetry of the Synagogue were unfolded with a wealth of erudition simply ex--haustless, professors in high seats of European universities, arose to hail the creator of a new liter--ature. Men who speak the language that the famous nonagenarian enriched, pay homage to that creative genius. They invoke it in their dedicatory addresses, in books, in pamphlets, in essays in--scribed to the name of Zunz. But it is no light honor to the German, that the world-renowned Italian Hebraist--Samuel David Luzzatto--sang in verses the glories of his senior contemporary, of one he gracefully called, a jewelled diadem that adorns the chosen race. Sterling merits mirrored in one another, and recognizing each other's greatness!
But has any among my audience perused por-tions of Zunz's "Hebrew characteristics" in English, defective as the translation obviously is? The mo--rality of Rabbis who lived in the middle ages is made to shine more resplendently by a contrast

with the brutality, debauchery, bigotry and dishonesty of the would be champions of Christianity-- with reprobate crusaders who turned Europe and Western Asia into a charnel house, where innocent Jews lay murdered; with depraved knight-templars, whose villainy makes chastity veil her face. I feel always sad when I hear my people speak contemptuously of the Rabbis, as if our olden teachers were the impersonation of superstition and narrow prejudice. I am pained because I detect Hebrew illiteracy. I read of a man like Asher Ben Je--chiel, who in the fourteenth century fled from Germany to Spain by reason of insufferable perse--cution, still bidding his children in his last will and testament never to speak ill blacken the characters of their neighbors, never to mock or revile a human being, nor raise the hand to strike even an offender, and before the meek German Rabbi had so enjoined upon his offspring, the French Moses of Concy had told his brethren,--while Christians repudiated their debts to the Jews--never to dare deceive any persons be they of whatever religion and race; and earlier

still Judah Ben Samuel, styled Chasid--the pious--ordered that if a contract be entered into between a Jew and a non-Israelite, though the latter fail to perform his part, the former must carry out that about which he has pledged his sacred honor. Leopold Zunz with that keen satire which he could use most effectively says: that the Jews of the middle ages "children of the devil," as they were called, stood immeasurably higher than their fill persecutors and of leaders in the Church, noted only for their idleness and gluttony, for the stupidity into which they were stuped. Competent judges have credited Zunz into with a force of diction unsurpassed. But the sage of Berlin whose object was the vindication of Israel, did not rest on the laurels he had even by his productions in a classical German style. He studied foreign languages in the pursuit of his noble scheme. Knowing that the archives of Hebrew congregations in the peninsula between the Alps and the Appenines, contained documents that cast a flood of light on the life of our people, he

studied Italian and searched out Italian libraries, and Italian chronicles. Thus was he enabled to produce his "history of the Jews in Sicily," a volume penned with that thorough--ness which signalize mark out all the works of Zunz. Its contents are, as might be anticipated, a nar--rative of spoliation, suffering and banishment. Zunz wrote it in German, but his admirer, Peter Perreau,--a catholic prelate, royal librarian at Parma, whose exertions in our behalf of our literature are a reproach to Jews--has rendered made a version of the book into faultless Italian, enriching it with a number of annotations. But long before the product--ion of the illustrious Jew of Berlin attracted my notice by translations in part or in their entirity, I had opportunities to form some conceptions of his almost illimitable erudition. His contributions to an invaluable periodical, published years ago in Hebrew in the interest of the sacred language and of Jewish science, afforded me those means. One article on Rabbi Azariah De Rossi of the sixteenth century--the father of modern Talmudical criticism--would have sufficed

to give the writer fame, but Zunz brought the vast range of his scholarship to bear also on a discussion carried on in the Hebrew language about the birth place of Kalir--a prolific author of poems writer synagogoical poet, whose effusions forming no insi--gnificant part of the Ashkenazic ritual.
To me individually, a most acceptable feature in the character of Leopold Zunz is the stand he took regarding the nascent "Reform" of Judaic Germany. He had favored the novel idea, and, I regret to add, had en--couraged it by writings damaging to our national traditions, but his far-sighted sagacity was not long to discover that German Reform led to meant unbelief and led to apostacy. The soul of the immortal Zunz shrunk back in horror. Mosaism was to have been converted into nihilism, or, at best, into a hypocritical compromise with the popular creed for temporal gains. Zunz cut loose of the association of the worldly, and returned to the path of enlightened conservatism. There posterity will search for the great nonagenarian. In the pantheon of celebrities, raised to the memory of distinguished Jewish authors of the nineteenth

century, future generations will see foremost and admire the hoary headed Leopold Zunz.

Identifier

p3pg1j77j

identifier

SMBx11FF17_1