Shabbethai Bass
Shabbethai ben Joseph Bass (1641–1718) (
Life
After the death of his parents, who were victims of the persecutions at Kalisz in 1655, from the
As printer
Between 1674 and 1679 Bass traveled through
At Dyhernfurth
Thereupon he settled at
The first book from Bass's press appeared in the middle of August, 1689, the first customer being, as he had anticipated, a Polish scholar, Rabbi
But the ill-will against Jews, apparent since 1697 in Silesia, and especially at Breslau, greatly injured Bass's establishment; he was himself forbidden to stay in Breslau (July 20, 1706). Another stroke of misfortune was the partial destruction of his establishment by fire in 1708. To this were added domestic difficulties. When an old man he had married a second time, to the great dissatisfaction of his family and neighbors, his wife being a young girl. He finally transferred his business to his only son, Joseph, in 1711. His trials culminated in his sudden arrest, April 13, 1712, on the charge of having spread abroad incendiary speeches against all divine and civic government. The Jesuits, who looked with an evil eye upon Bass's undertaking, had endeavored, in a letter to the magistrate of Breslau, as early as July 15, 1694, to have the sale of Hebrew books interdicted, on the ground that such works contained "blasphemous and irreligious words"; and they had succeeded. As the magistrate saw, however, that the confiscated books contained no objectionable matter, they were restored to Bass.[2]
In 1712 the Jesuit father
Literary activity
Bass's works have the constant characteristic of answering practical needs.[2]
Siftei Yeshenim
Bass's chief work is his bibliographical manual Siftei Yeshenim ('Lips of the Sleepers'; compare
Bass's work is distinguished not only by its brevity and accuracy, but by an entirely original feature, in respect to which he had no predecessor, and almost no successor; namely, a classification of the entire Jewish literature, as far as he knew it. He divides the whole into two chief groups, Biblical and post-Biblical, and each group again into ten subdivisions. Thus, dictionaries, grammars, and translations form a subdivision of the Biblical group; while Talmud commentaries and novellæ are included in the Talmudic group. Although this classification is still very superficial and primitive, it indicates its author's wide knowledge and astonishing range of reading. In addition to the list and classification of the books, Bass gives an alphabetical index of authors, including one of the
Bass's introduction to his work is most characteristic of the spirit prevailing among German Jews at that time: he cites ten "religious reasons" for the usefulness of his work. Not only was Bass's undertaking new to the
Siftei Chachamim
His work Siftei Chachamim is a
Even today the book is considered[by whom?] a useful aid toward understanding and appreciating Rashi. It is considered so essential that there exists a summary work on it, called Ikar Siftei Chachamim. This work generally leaves out the questions that the Siftei Chachamim raises on Rashi, and simply sums up his idea that he culled from the Rashi in about a sentence or two equivalent to the paragraph-length entries in the Siftei Chachamim. (One example is Weinfeld, Joseph Halevi Shalom. Chumash Orech Yamim. Jerusalem: Orech Publishers, 1997.)
Other works
In 1669 he reprinted Moses Sartels' Yiddish glossary on the Bible, adding a grammatical preface, a work intended to supply the lack of grammatical knowledge among teachers of the young, and to furnish the latter with the correct German rendering in translating the Bible. Bass was greatly interested in improving the instruction of the young, and recommended the German-Polish Jews to imitate the methods of instruction obtaining in the Portuguese community of Amsterdam,[5] describing in detail their curriculum. (His subcommentary Siftei Hachamim is also intended for elementary instruction.)
His itinerary, entitled Massekhet Derek Eretz, is a short treatise on the roads of the country (Amsterdam, 1680); the book, written in Yiddish, contains also tables of all the current coins, measures, and weights in European countries, and a list of routes, post connections, and distances.
Further reading
- Campanini, Saverio (2005). "Wege in die Stadt der Bücher. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der hebräischen Bibliographie (die katholische bibliographische „Dynastie" Iona-Bartolocci-Imbonati)". In Schäfer, Peter; Wandrey, Irina (eds.). Reuchlin und seine Erben. Forscher, Denker, Ideologen und Spinner. Pforzheimer Reuchlinschriften (in German). Vol. 11. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. pp. 61–76. ISBN 9783799559812.
- Zlatkin, Menahem Mendel (1958). First Fruits of Bibliography in Hebrew Literature: Siftei Yeshenim by Shabbetai Bass (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv.
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References
- ISBN 978-1-60091-383-9.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Bass, Shabbethai b. Joseph". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Its bibliography:
- Brann, Monatsschrift, xl.477-480, 515-526, 560-574;
- idem, in Liebermann's Jahrbuch für Israeliten, 1883, pp. 105 et seq.;
- Julius Fürst, Bibl. Judaica, Introduction to Part iii.76-83;
- Oelsner, Shabbethai Bassista, Leipzig, 1858;
- Steinschneider and Cassel, in Ersch and Gruber, Encyklopädie, xxviii.87;
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 2229;
- Wolf, Bibl. Hebraea, i.1023, ii.957, iii.1000, iv.769.
- ^ Amsterdam, 1680, frequently reprinted
- ^ Published Amsterdam, 1680, and many times reprinted
- ^ Introduction to Siftei Yeshenim, p. 8, translated by Moritz Güdemann, in Quellenschriften zur Gesch. des Unterrichtswesens, pp. 112 et seq.