Marcus Jastrow
Marcus Jastrow | |
---|---|
Personal | |
Born | |
Died | October 13, 1903 Germantown, Philadelphia, United States | (aged 74)
Religion | Judaism |
Alma mater | University of Halle |
Marcus Jastrow (June 5, 1829 – October 13, 1903) was a German-born American Talmudic scholar and rabbi, most famously known for his authorship of the popular and comprehensive Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature.
Jastrow was born in
Biography
Marcus Jastrow was the fifth child of Abraham Jastrow and Yetta (Henrietta) Rolle. Until 1840 he was privately educated. In 1844 he entered the third-year class of the
Joins in Polish revolution
In 1858, recommended by Heinrich Graetz, Jastrow moved again as rabbi to the leading Orthodox congregation in Warsaw, the private "German synagogue" on Daniłowiczowska Street,[2] and threw himself into the study of the Polish language and Polish conditions. By February 27, 1861, national feeling had risen so high in Poland that the government called out the military; five victims fell in the Krakowskie Przedmieście, Warsaw, and their burial and the memorial service were turned into patriotic demonstrations, in which, for the first time, Jews in Poland participated as a community.
Though it was the Shabbat, three rabbis, including Jastrow, joined the funeral procession; at the memorial service in his synagogue, also on a Sabbath, Jastrow preached his first Polish sermon, which aroused such great enthusiasm that on Sunday his auditors reassembled and took it down at his dictation. Circumventing the censor, they distributed ten thousand manuscript copies within a week.
Although it was controversial at the time, delivering a sermon in Polish does not violate any Orthodox Jewish restriction, nor does following a funeral procession on foot on the Sabbat. Today most Orthodox rabbis give lectures in their local vernacular.
On various pretexts, the three rabbis were arrested (November 10, 1861) and incarcerated in the Warsaw Citadel. For 23 days Jastrow was kept in solitary confinement; for 72 days he shared the cell of Dow Ber Meisels. His release came on February 12, 1862, when, being a Prussian subject, he was sent across the frontier. During his imprisonment, he had been required to answer in writing three questions concerning the relation of the Jews to the Polish Christians in their opposition to the government.[3]
Returns to Warsaw
Broken in health, Jastrow, with his family, spent the spring and summer of 1862 in
The literary results of his Polish period are: Die Lage der Juden in Polen (anonymous; Hamburg, 1859); Kazania Polskie, a volume of Polish sermons (Posen, 1863); Die Vorläufer des Polnischen Aufstandes (anonymous; Hamburg, 1864). He probably had a considerable share in the production of Beleuchtung eines Ministeriellen Gutachtens (Hamburg, 1859 [?]). In July, 1864, Jastrow accepted a call to Worms as district rabbi, and while there he produced Vier Jahrhunderte aus der Gesch. der Juden von der Zerstörung des Ersten Tempels bis zur Makkabäischen Tempelweihe (Heidelberg, 1865).
Aids organization of American Jews
In the autumn of 1866 he went to Philadelphia as rabbi of the Ashkenazi congregation Rodeph Shalom, with which he was connected until his death, remaining in active service until 1892 and identifying himself with the interests of the Jewish community.
The problem under discussion at the time was organization, urged in the East by the Orthodox Isaac Leeser and in the West by the Reform Isaac Mayer Wise. It dealt with higher education, representation, and the regulation of liturgical changes and Jastrow's personality became a factor in its solution. When, through the exertions of Leeser, the Maimonides College, the first rabbinical college in the United States, was opened at Philadelphia in October 1867, Jastrow occupied the chair of religious philosophy and Jewish history, and later also of exegesis; he was identified with the college until it closed its doors four years later. He supported the plan of organizing the Board of Delegates of Civil and Religious Rights and, under its auspices, the Jewish Publication Society (1873). However, his main activity from 1867 to 1871 was directed toward combating the tendencies expressed in the resolutions of the rabbinical conferences of 1869 and 1871. His opposition to them found expression in a series of polemical articles published in The Hebrew Leader and The Jewish Times.
To the same period belongs his collaboration with the leading rabbi in Baltimore, Benjamin Szold, in the revision of the latter's siddur (Seder Abodat Yisrael) and of Hirsch Edelmann's home siddur, Hegyon Leb or "Landshuth's Prayer-Book", and his translation of the same siddurim into English. In his congregation, Jastrow's influence effected consolidation and growth; in the Jewish community, he participated in the formation and reorganization of societies.
In 1876 Jastrow fell severely ill, and for some years his public activities were limited by his poor health, which necessitated a stay in the south of Europe. During this period of withdrawal, he fully matured the plans for his great work, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1886–1903). When the dictionary was approaching completion in manuscript (1895), the Jewish Publication Society of America was about to begin work on its projected new translation of the Bible into English, and Jastrow was entrusted with the chief editorship. At the time of his death, the translation of more than half the books of the Bible had been revised by him.
In addition to these two great undertakings, he was a member of the Publication Committee of the Jewish Publication Society from the time of its establishment, and was connected with The Jewish Encyclopedia as editor of the department of the Talmud; he took a prominent part in the proceedings of the Jewish Ministers' Association, held a seat in the central board of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris, was on the committee of the Mekitze Nirdamim, was one of the vice-presidents of the American Federation of Zionists, and was active in relieving the needs, material and intellectual, of the Russian immigrants.
Jastrow initially allowed his congregation to join the Reform Union of American Hebrew Congregations. After the Reform movement united around the radical "Pittsburgh Platform" in 1885, Jastrow, along with many other rabbis of the time, withdrew his congregation's membership.
In 1886, together with Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes, founder of the Orthodox Union, he helped Rabbi Sabato Morais establish the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. It was only in 1913, ten years after Jastrow's death, that the next generation of management altered the Orthodox principles of the school, and from them emerged Conservative Judaism.
He was removed by his congregation in September 1892 in favor of the Reform-ordained
In 1900, the University of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the doctorate of literature.
Besides the journals previously mentioned, articles of his appear in the Revue des Études Juives; Frankel's Monatsschrift; Berliner's Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums; Sippurim; Journal of Biblical Literature; Hebraica; Young Israel; Libanon; "Jewish Record"; Jewish Messenger; American Hebrew; Jewish Exponent; etc.
Religious views
Along with Benjamin Szold and Frederick de Sola Mendes, Marcus Jastrow was characterized by Jewish historian Jacob Rader Marcus as being on the right-wing of early American Reform.[4] While opposed to the Pittsburgh Platform, he allowed an organ to be installed in the Rodeph Shalom Congregation.
Personal life
Jastrow was the father of Joseph Jastrow, Morris Jastrow Jr., Alice Jastrow, Annie Jastrow and Nellie Jastrow. Elisabeth Jastrow, the classical archaeologist, was his niece.
Bibliography
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cyrus Adler and Henrietta Szold (1901–1906). "Jastrow, Marcus (Mordecai)". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- M. Jastrow, "Bär Meisels, Oberrabbiner zu Warschau, Ein Lebensbild auf Historischem Hintergrunde nach Eigner Anschauung Entworfen", in Hebrew Leader, April 1-July 1, 1870
- Jewish Exponent, October 16, 1903
- The History of Rodeph Shalom Congregation, Philadelphia, 1802–1926. Davis, Edward, Philadelphia, 1926
- "A Warning voice: Farewell sermon delivered on the occasion of his retirement". Philadelphia, [s.n.], 1892
- Champion of Orthodox Judaism: A biography of the Reverend Sabato Morais, LL.D.
References
- ^ "Jastrow, Marcus (Mordecai)". JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- ^ "YIVO | Jastrow, Markus". yivoencyclopedia.org.
- ^ see Hebrew Leader, July 15, 22, 1870
- ^ Marcus, Jacob Rader (1989). United States Jewry, 1776-1985. Wayne State University Press. p. 649.
External links
- Jastrow's Dictionary at Wikisource
- Jastrow's Dictionary at Sefaria
- Jastrow's Dictionary in PDF, volume I at etana.org; Jastrow's Dictionary in PDF, volume II at etana.org
- Jastrow's Dictionary arranged for alphabetical access online at Tyndale House
- The History and Future of the Jastrow Dictionary
- Jastrow's Thanksgiving Sermon at Rodeph Shalom, November 26, 1866 - full view on Internet Archive
- Jastrow's essays on Jewish history written while in Worms, 1865 - full view on Internet Archive
- Marcus Mordechai Jastrow