45
Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 First Reader inTalmudic and Rabbinic Literature at Cambridge RAPHAEL LOEWE, M.C., M.A. The purpose of this article is to record the story of a figure of some importance to Hebrew studies in nineteenth-century England who also played a role in the wings, rather than the centre, of the Anglo-Jewish stage, before historians lose the last echoes of personal reminiscence and are left with the bare docu? ments. Of persons who were in immediate touch with him it is improbable that any now survive; indeed, there are but few left who were in close touch with those who had known him intimately, for it is, at the time of writing, 72 years from the date of his death. But the leading figures of Cambridge Orientalism in the first third of the present century included a number of distinguished scholars who had been Schiller-Szinessy's pupils, and it was my privilege as an undergraduate (and earlier) to find myself in contact with some of them. When they could be prompted into reminis? cence, they impressed me with the respect and obvious affection in which they held him. The occasion, however, for this biographical sketch was provided by the circumstance that a number of Schiller-Szinessy's personal docu? ments came into my late father's hands in about 1939; he was unable to examine them himself, but while awaiting call-up to the Forces in 1940 I did so, and was able to draw on his knowledge of events (he had not himself known Schiller-Szinessy personally). The papers were then roughly classified, but it is only recently that I have been able to return to them. The present article is the outcome of their renewed study. The documents themselves are calendared in Appendix II (pp. 166f), and are now deposited in the Mocatta Library at University College, London. Solomon Marcus1 Schiller was born on 23 December2 1820 in a house known as the Alte Brauhaus, i.e., the Old Brewery, on the site of the mud palace of Arpad, the founder of the Magyar dynasty in the ninth century, in Altofen (now Budapest), as the son of Me'ir or Marcus Schiller,3 a merchant4 and a member of the Rabbinical council,5 who was, it would seem, a Rabbi of the old school, and his second6 wife Theresa (Teltse) Antonia B?k7?a patronymic allegedly formed from the initials of the words DWTj? and implying, apparently, descent from a martyr; she was a member of the well-known family of printers in Italy and Prague.9 At the tender age of six he was, it seems, sent to live with Rabbi Aaron Kornfeld, of Golcs Jenikau, although his daughter's tradition10 that he used to rise to study with the Rabbi at 4 a.m. refers, we may hope, to a later stage in his education. During the plague of 1831 he was, he later claimed, the only child in the Old Brewery quarter of Buda to have escaped cholera as well as con? tinuing to eat the ripe plums which were held to be part cause of the disease;11 and he claimed in later life that by this time he already knew the Hebrew Bible by heart.12 He also studied with an elder brother, Moses Isaac Gershon, but the latter died, newly wed, in his 22nd year, when Solomon was in his 14th.13 He was at the time attending the Jewish school in Altofen, the curriculum ofwhich (naturally, in Hungary) included Latin?a school report dated Septem? ber 1832 survives14?his vacations being spent in intensive Hebrew study at the house of R. Ephraim of V?r?svar.15 In 1836 he was studying with R. Ezekiel of Neutra,16 reading the sub-Talmudic tractates with him twice weekly, and in 1837-1838 he was with the Talmudist Baer b. Isaac Oppenheimer, a connection of his mother's, in Pressburg.17 He had, apparently, already evinced a scholarly bent and a vocation to combine the Rabbinate with a modern European education, but seems to have met with little encouragement in this respect from his father; so that when he left 148 Jewish Historical Society of England is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Transactions Jewish Historical Society of England www.jstor.org ®

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Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890

First Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature at Cambridge

RAPHAEL LOEWE, M.C., M.A.

The purpose of this article is to record the story of a figure of some importance to Hebrew

studies in nineteenth-century England who

also played a role in the wings, rather than the

centre, of the Anglo-Jewish stage, before

historians lose the last echoes of personal reminiscence and are left with the bare docu?

ments. Of persons who were in immediate

touch with him it is improbable that any now

survive; indeed, there are but few left who were in close touch with those who had known

him intimately, for it is, at the time of writing, 72 years from the date of his death. But the

leading figures of Cambridge Orientalism in the

first third of the present century included a

number of distinguished scholars who had been

Schiller-Szinessy's pupils, and it was my

privilege as an undergraduate (and earlier) to find myself in contact with some of them.

When they could be prompted into reminis?

cence, they impressed me with the respect and

obvious affection in which they held him.

The occasion, however, for this biographical sketch was provided by the circumstance that a

number of Schiller-Szinessy's personal docu? ments came into my late father's hands in

about 1939; he was unable to examine them

himself, but while awaiting call-up to the

Forces in 1940 I did so, and was able to draw on his knowledge of events (he had not himself

known Schiller-Szinessy personally). The

papers were then roughly classified, but it is

only recently that I have been able to return to

them. The present article is the outcome of their

renewed study. The documents themselves are

calendared in Appendix II (pp. 166f), and are now deposited in the Mocatta Library at

University College, London.

Solomon Marcus1 Schiller was born on 23

December2 1820 in a house known as the

Alte Brauhaus, i.e., the Old Brewery, on the

site of the mud palace of Arpad, the founder of

the Magyar dynasty in the ninth century, in

Altofen (now Budapest), as the son of Me'ir or

Marcus Schiller,3 a merchant4 and a member of the Rabbinical council,5 who was, it would

seem, a Rabbi of the old school, and his

second6 wife Theresa (Teltse) Antonia B?k7?a

patronymic allegedly formed from the initials

of the words DWTj? and implying, apparently, descent from a martyr; she was a

member of the well-known family of printers in

Italy and Prague.9 At the tender age of six he

was, it seems, sent to live with Rabbi Aaron

Kornfeld, of Golcs Jenikau, although his

daughter's tradition10 that he used to rise to

study with the Rabbi at 4 a.m. refers, we may

hope, to a later stage in his education. During the plague of 1831 he was, he later claimed, the

only child in the Old Brewery quarter of Buda to have escaped cholera as well as con?

tinuing to eat the ripe plums which were held to be part cause of the disease;11 and he claimed

in later life that by this time he already knew

the Hebrew Bible by heart.12 He also studied with an elder brother, Moses Isaac Gershon, but the latter died, newly wed, in his 22nd year, when Solomon was in his 14th.13 He was at the

time attending the Jewish school in Altofen, the curriculum of which (naturally, in Hungary) included Latin?a school report dated Septem? ber 1832 survives14?his vacations being spent in intensive Hebrew study at the house of R.

Ephraim of V?r?svar.15 In 1836 he was

studying with R. Ezekiel of Neutra,16 reading the sub-Talmudic tractates with him twice

weekly, and in 1837-1838 he was with the Talmudist Baer b. Isaac Oppenheimer, a

connection of his mother's, in Pressburg.17 He

had, apparently, already evinced a scholarly bent and a vocation to combine the Rabbinate

with a modern European education, but seems

to have met with little encouragement in this

respect from his father; so that when he left

148

Jewish Historical Society of Englandis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to

Transactions Jewish Historical Society of England

www.jstor.org

®

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 149

home at the age of 15 to prosecute his education he went practically penniless.18 For five years of his student life he was supported by the Archbishop of Erlau.19

After passing through the Royal Gymnasium at Gyongyos,20 near Budapest, and visiting Kornfeld for his vacations,21 he entered the

Lutheran College at Eperies in Upper Hungary

(now Presov, Czechoslovakia). The College was an institution of long standing and high academic reputation. At the end of his life

Schiller-Szinessy still retained sufficient

affection for the place to organise a public

appeal when the town was devastated by fire in

1887 (for which he elicited substantial response in academic and wider English circles);22 he

then described the College as being Virtually a

University, and ... in two out of its three

Faculties, Law and Philosophy, its teaching has

always been superior to that of the Royal Universities of Hungary and her dependencies. This institution has been for more than two

hundred years the mightiest engine for civilising the East of Europe . . ,523 (allowance must,

perhaps, be made for a commendable pietas). There is a record of his successful examination

in philosophy and mathematics in December

1843.24 He seems also to have attended some

lectures at Budapest, for he writes of Reisinger, Wolfstein, and Verney as his teachers there.25 For his doctorate, however, he proceeded to

Jena, where he attended lectures of Karl

August von Hase,26 the Protestant theologian and Church historian who was seeking a

synthesis of historical Christianity and modern

thought. He proceeded Ph.D., in mathematics

and philosophy, in 1845.27

The seal had meanwhile been likewise set

upon his Jewish education28 when, in 1843, he

had spent three weeks in intensive study with

Aaron Chorin,29 of Arad, and received from his hand Rabbinical semikhah (or, more accurately, the equivalent 'attereth bahurim, since he was still a bachelor.) He subsequently obtained endorse?

ments (as was the common custom) to the

licentia docendi that he had received from

Chorin, from L?b Schwab of Budapest,30 R.

Phineas Cohen 'the Cabbalist' of Telek31 (in

1847), and R. Me'ir Zipser, of Stuhlweissen

berg.32 Of these, Schwab and Zipser were both

men who had acquired a Western education and maintained a benign attitude towards it

within a Jewish milieu. Zipser met with opposi? tion within his own community in regard to the

halakhic propriety of a divorce issued by him, but was not otherwise credited with any Reformist sympathies. Schwab was a con?

servative who, though he conceded minimal

reforms in ritual in order to retain the in?

telligentsia within Judaism, was himself to be

instrumental in securing the dissolution of the

Reform Association of Budapest. Chorin,

though hardly a doctrinaire Reformer of the

German type, was substantially to the left of

the other two in regard to matters of minhag and

the relaxation of such sabbatical prohibitions as travel; and in 1844 he wrote, from his

death-bed, his endorsement of the sentiments of

the recently held Brunswick Conference of

Reform Rabbis. In view of the attitude that

Schiller was shortly to evince towards the

Reform movement in Judaism, the sympathies and antipathies towards it of those who con?

ferred or endorsed his own Rabbinical ordina?

tion is of some significance. It may be remarked

that there is no evidence to suggest that had

Schiller addressed himself instead to right-wing Rabbis, they might have withheld their appro? bation on grounds of any deficiency in scholar?

ship, practical observance, or of halakhic

radicalism. That he chose not to do so was

probably because he surmised, not without

reason, that they might regard his Western

academic credentials as in themselves compro?

mising his Jewish integrity. During his student days at Eperies Schiller

had created something of an impression by sermons delivered before the small local Jewish

community.33 He must have found the place

congenial, for after completing his doctorate he

returned there to take spiritual charge of the

congregation, which was then in process of

organising itself on a formal basis.33 He also

acted as a kind of notary (Translator in Hebraicis) for the municipal authority in connection with

Jewish documents,34 and received recognition from his old college first as Privatdozent and

later (perhaps) officially as professor publicus extraordinarius in Hebrew Language and Anti?

quities.35 The appointment of a Jew to the

150 Raphael Loewe

staff of the Evangelical College was, at the time, an unheard-of event,33 and Schiller (who, of

course, lectured in Latin)36 discharged his

academic duties to the eminent satisfaction of

the Rector and his colleagues35 and earned

himself from his students the soubriquet of

'Dr etcetera'.21 Within the Jewish community of

Eperies his preaching and educational under?

takings elicited an enthusiastic response from

the majority, even though muttered charges of

heresy were evoked from the old guard.33 The extent of his innovation seems to have been

limited to elaborate 'Confirmation' ceremonials

?presumably girls as well as boys being thus

dignified.38 The career of Schiller's older

contemporary Leopold Low indicates that a

Rabbi of scholarly interests and modernist

outlook, combined with staunch observance of

halakhic practice, could find the atmosphere of

Hungarian Jewry tolerable; and in so far as

party labels are of any relevance, there survives

evidence to show that, at this period at least, no aspersions on Schiller's 'orthodoxy' could

possibly have been substantiated.

In June 1844 there had assembled at Bruns?

wick an exploratory conference,39 convened

by Ludwig Philippson, of upwards of twenty Rabbis of Reformist leanings, with the object of 'considering the ways and means for the

preservation of Judaism, and the awakening of the religious spirit'. The commission which it appointed to inquire into various matters of

moment, such as the extent to which Hebrew

ought to be retained in the synagogue service,

reported at the next conference, held in Frank?

fort in July 1845. The resolutions of that con?

ference in favour of the retention, but restric?

tion to but a token vestige, of Hebrew as a

synagogal language, on the permissibility of

organ music on the Sabbath, and the canonicity of modern bathing establishments in regard to

ritual ablutions,40 constituted it a watershed

in the history of Judaism and consequently a

landmark in the history of Reform. When the

proceedings of the conference became public

knowledge, Schiller seems to have been stung into immediate counter-offensive, for a

pamphlet (in two parts)41 by him, which constitutes almost the earliest surviving example of his published writing, reached its second

edition bearing on its title-page the date 1845.

The first part, at the least, seems to have been

written at white heat?as an introductory note

to the reader all but confesses.42 In it he sets

forth to show that the whole tendency of the

conference was a destructive one, its orienta?

tion false, its sentiments petty, and its whole

spirit permeated by a bickering disputatious ness.43 The language which he sees fit to employ is sarcastic to the point of abusiveness?he does

not hesitate to dub the members of the con?

ference 'rabbis in miniature and pocket-sized

preachers',44 and insinuates their utter in?

competence to pronounce upon the issues which

they have had the impertinence to raise. The

intemperateness of Schiller's opposition is of the

greater significance in that he can hardly have

been unaware of the circumstance that, as

stated above, his own teacher Aaron Chorin had

indicated his adherence to the Reform pro?

posals that had been adumbrated the previous

year at Brunswick. Perhaps he felt able to dis?

count Chorin's endorsement inasmuch as it had

been the gesture of a dying man from his sick?

bed, or convinced himself that the Frankfort

resolutions had gone beyond anything to which

Chorin would have been prepared to put his

name. At any rate, when nearly forty years later

Schiller-Szinessy was recording in print his

tribute to his teachers?at a time when his own

views had modified but little (as will transpire below), in spite of his having exercised eccle?

siastical authority over a Reform congregation ?he wrote of Chorin's learning, strict obser?

vance, and self-discipline in terms of the highest

respect, pointedly concluding with the quota? tion of Psalm xxxi, 19(18), Let the lying lips be

put to silence, which speak arrogance proudly and

contemptuously against the righteous.45 The second part of the pamphlet, which

appeared separately with a dedication by Schiller to his parents on his twenty-fifth

birthday, is certainly more restrained in tone.

In it he shows himself not oblivious of the

problems, abuses, and condition of Jewish

religious apathy to which the conference of

Reformers had addressed itself, but he still expresses trenchant criticism equally of their

methods and of their self-assurance, emphasising that they are out of touch with both the sources

PLATE XIII

OW irrm r* ithcw crw vty p ?opj m oner?

emn tna rn noa i"*Qrr ̂ y.noi t-ntaVjaio ktqi

.vcra m? bwkfi n^Srum V'? on apir utkj h<r?un

?I

3 naw Sy orw t-^Vi aron1? uro O'tm nVm

Dar? i*a yap ru? Vi1? ?rm1?

t p*lS UTRQMH

* l'OT m pnj1?ITH 1*3? Wim

unjrm nVnj nVwoo rm p-wVa oru

refron nnVvon rrenn

AI

fr?

Title-page of Urim Vetumim, by Uri Feibush, London, 1706 [Seep. 138ff.

PLATE XIV

31 nvvn

* oauwai Vnaj iwvrow Va -pui1? p"p na f?K *?3?

? 0?dW? wj HD -ok1?

Vro t?a pprui : o,jw*n'7 p-or

? rwp KTirr ?13 mia tu

77J '77?J *pf> 'CD? '3)PJ P31DPI P>ipGP 0'7p' 0'737 ritf <pj 7W>| "EVP W 13 37 ?BW> ?f Ijpi Ol "3>?p' p it?

? p53 O^OT?

? rnp Pi? o*:jpj? 037p canpi

o'ptm o*7)7P

PPI? '7CII7 '7"PI ' P7PDpJ t?J P?->

?Jr? 7DP ? P7PP ->sdJ P?" '"15 0)57$ P'3??

rvaa ? min Var Smx asn? ? w^rra pnr ilina rnaw rrnnn pma nVwrn tsai pcpn

?3112 pax na n".i pai? orrn Tpio fimar?DDii?oi oSsnon oannp

?ja?? ?3i n?d

p"pa rr ?.jnaan

: JISW? P?7i diop'ptP 0- DPP ix? 3BP 7;kl? PJ'7W |7J>$ p"p3 P"pi 775

Title-page of Maaseh Rav, by Rabbi Johanan ben Isaac Holleschau, London

' [See p. 138ff.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 151

of Jewish theological thinking and the reservoirs of contemporary Jewish piety. He concludes

with a Hebrew poetical prayer,46 which it is

possible to construe as an aspiration on Schiller's own part that he might himself afford a

rallying-point on whom the Reformers might

close, and so, by means of a disciplined and re

invigorated approach to the classical products of Jewish thought, find their way back to the main body of traditional Jewry. One may doubt, in the light of his subsequent career, whether

(for all his unquestioned personal courage) he

possessed the qualities of leadership to achieve

any such result; and even if such was indeed the career for which he was grooming himself, events superseded which were to reshape it

entirely. The year 1848 was an ominous one. Hun?

garian nationalist sentiment had for some time

past been fanned by the fiery oratory of Lajos Kossuth; and when the news of the Paris

revolution and the fall of Louis Philippe reached Budapest on March 3, Kossuth came

out with a demand for Parliamentary govern? ment for Hungary.47 Ten days later Metternich was overthrown in Vienna, and Battyany, who

formed the new Ministry, had to take Kossuth

into the Government, but he sought to in?

hibit his talent for winning personal popularity by putting him into the Ministry of Finance. Kossuth exploited his opportunities for foster?

ing Hungarian separatist aspirations by issuing a special Hungarian coinage (a gesture which, in a Jewish context, must inevitably recall Bar

Gochba's), on the paper currency of which

Kossuth's name was the most prominent feature.

The rest of the story need but be summarised.

Fighting broke out and Kossuth, himself with?

out military experience or genius, retained

supreme control. After initial Hungarian successes in the field he issued, on March 19

1849, the Hungarian Declaration of Independ? ence, in which he was himself named as the

'responsible governor president'; but in August of that year the South Hungarian army was

defeated at Temesv?r, Kossuth handed over his

powers to G?rgei, a soldier, and a surrender was negotiated.

Although at the beginning of the uprising the

Jews had been attacked by the populace in

L

several places, they rallied in considerable,

perhaps in some areas in disproportionate, numbers to the Hungarian nationalist cause.48 The execution in Vienna of Hermann

Jellinek,49 a political journalist and the brother of the well-known Austrian Jewish preacher, caused a considerable stir, not only in Jewish circles. At any rate, the Austrian authorities

subsequently regarded Jewish participation in

the revolution as having been significant

enough to merit exemplary financial reprisals, and the indemnities imposed upon the local

Jewish communities were too severe to be met

by funds available in each place. The Govern? ment accordingly pooled the contributions

payable by Hungarian Jews, excepting only the communities of Pressburg and Temesvar,

which had remained loyal. Eventually, in 1850, the Emperor remitted the war-tax on the

Jews in consideration of their undertaking to raise a million gulden as capital to found a

school; and the emergent institution for

Jewish secondary and higher education in

Budapest consequently bears the name of the

Franz-Josef Seminar.

Schiller was an enthusiast for the cause of

Hungarian liberation, and it is stated in the

biographical reference-books that on the out?

break of the revolution he stumped the country on a recruiting campaign among the Jewish communities, calling on them from the pulpit to rally to the Magyar standard.50 Sermon titles which have been preserved from this

period may lend some colour to this51 and to the statement that he published a rendering of the Hungarian patriotic song 'Szozat' into

Hebrew.52 As a further mark of his Hungarian

patriotism he also Magyarised his German

name, which means iridescence, as Szinessy.53 These activities may well have brought him into personal contact with Kossuth, whose friend Schiller-Szinessy was stated in obituary

matter to have been. In any case, Kossuth,

though Schiller-Szinessy's senior by eighteen years, was, like him, a graduate of the Eperies

College,54 and when the revolution broke out

many of its professoriate and its student body flocked to his banner.55 It was already 1849 when Schiller-Szinessy joined the colours,56 and his military career, if short-lived, was

152 Raphael Loewe

adventurous. In March of that year a series of

engagements took place in an area between the

Rivers Theiss and Danube, the success of the

Hungarians in which forced the Austrians back

towards Budapest.57 It was in the course of one

of these operations, probably, rather than at

Szegedin,58 that Schiller-Szinessy was in?

volved in the demolition of a bridge over the

Theiss intended to check the Austrian advance, was wounded59, captured by the Austrians

under Count Schlick,60 and imprisoned in the

fortress of Temesv?r.61 For reasons that are

nowhere made clear, he is said to have been con?

demned to death,62 but in spite of his wound he

succeeded in escaping the night before his in?

tended execution,63 no doubt aided by Galician

Jews who formed his guards.64 Having made his

way to Trieste, he embarked on a Scottish

boat65 bound for Ireland. During the voyage, on which he subsisted entirely off boiled potatoes and butter,66 the ship's doctor removed his

bullets; and after sixty days' sailing they berthed at Cork. He had intended to sail in the Royal Adelaide, bound for London, with the

intention of arriving there in time for Passover, but was dissuaded by advice that she might not

make port. (The Adelaide did, in point of fact, go down off the coast of Kent with the loss of all aboard her?about 400 lives?circa 11 p.m. on 1 April 1850.) Instead, he made his way to Dublin, where he preached (presumably in

Yiddish or German) and was presented by the

Jewish community with a gold watch as a

token of appreciation,67 and so to England. Arrived in this country, he resided for a

time at the improbable-sounding address of

Stoke Poges, near Slough, learning English from two retired governesses who chose as their

text Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of

England.68 He soon, however, moved to

Manchester, where he set up as a freelance

scholar in Cheetham Hill, offering to 'give instruction in the Hebrew language, Biblical

and Rabbinical Literature, and History'.69 He

must have acquired great fluency in English

surprisingly quickly, for on Sabbath Nahamu, 1850, he preached a sermon which, printed in

extenso in the Jewish Chronicle,10 occupies

nearly six columns of print. As a sustained piece of Victorian pulpit oratory it is a remarkable

achievement for one who, though doubtless

assisted with the English, but a few months

previous will have been unacquainted with a

word of the language. On the ensuing New

Year, he was preaching at Birmingham,71 his

sermon having been translated for him, and on

the Day of Atonement and on Tabernacles he

was again preaching at Manchester. The press

report72 of the great stir created by these

addresses is borne out by the glowing terms of a

letter of thanks from the Wardens of the Old

Hebrew Congregation,73 who allude to his

having opened 'the Eyes & Hearts of our

Coreligionists... to the necessity of Oral

instruction', and look forward to the implemen? tation of the programme that he had outlined

for them. It is clear that the possibility of his taking spiritual charge of the Congregation had been mooted, and on January 18 next, 1851 (Sabbath Beshallah), Schiller-Szinessy was

formally inducted as Minister.74 The special

prayer for the occasion expressed the hope that

'this Congregation?the Congregation of Jacob ?may, under his banner, become indeed a

Congregation of the Lord;?observers of thy

Religion and of thy Law'. As in his former

rabbinate at Eperies, he at once made the

improvement of the religious education of the

children a major preoccupation; and his

endeavours found sufficient favour from his

flock to elicit from a Ladies' Committee, within

a year, a presentation in the form of an address

and a needlework purse, embroidered by two

of the ladies and containing fifty-five

sovereigns.7 5

He had held his new cure of souls for less

than a year when on 10 October 1851 Queen Victoria visited Manchester. Schiller

Szinessy's sermon,76 delivered at the end of the

day of her visit (it being the eve of Tabernacles), is in its printed form entitled The feelings of the Israelite on beholding his sovereign, and is evocative

of Tennyson's poem To the Queen written two

years later:

'In the course of centuries [he said] many women have sat on various thrones in

Europe ... There have been an Elizabeth, a

Catharine, a Maria Theresa, and others; but the

first was not a wife, the second was neither a

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 153

good wife nor a good mother, and the third was not a loyal patriot; the first stifled the

feelings of the heart, the second those of

virtue, and the third those of the country; but as wife, mother, and patriot at once, there

has existed and does exist but one Queen? Victoria!'

A month later Manchester was the scene of

another visit, this time from Schiller-Szinessy's erstwhile revolutionary leader Kossuth, who was by now in exile. Although the city fathers

denied him any civic cognisance of his presence in their midst, he was accorded a reception of

remarkable enthusiasm, and Schiller-Szinessy formed one of the party that welcomed him on

arrival at the railway station.77 It was doubt?

less the close succession of this visit on the royal one that prompted Schiller-Szinessy to append to his printed version of the sermon just cited a

'Dedication to Lewis Kossuth (late Governor

of the Hungarian Empire)'. In it he sets himself

to justify his combination of British with Hungarian patriotism (he was not, in fact, to

become a naturalised British subject until three

years later),78 and emphasises that for all their

determined opposition to the Hapsburg regime in Hungary, 'we' had no objections to monarchy

per se as a form of government?herein echoing sentiments to which Kossuth had given voice in

London a week earlier, when in a speech at

Copenhagen Fields he had expressed his own

respect for the constitutional monarchy of

England and for the Queen.79

Schiller-Szinessy had preached, a few weeks

previous, in Liverpool, on the occasion of the

reopening of the Hardman Street Synagogue. In his remarks80 he was circumspect in the use

that he made of the dangerous word reform,

calling upon the Congregation to reform their

service 'not in a destructive81 manner, not on the

plan of those who remodel things till no part of

the original is left. . . reform your Divine

service; that is . . . take heed that the life

giving word of instruction may never fail here'.

In his own parish he was meanwhile carrying out the normal administrative duties of a local

Rabbi, including that of the examination of

shohetim82 The extent of his innovations seems, as (probably) at Eperies, to have been limited

to the confirmation of girls. On the first occasion on Pentecost, 1852, he defended the practice in a sermon entitled Confirmation a genuine Jewish institution,** and at the end of his life, when

writing of five such ceremonies conducted by him, he was to express the conviction that 'the

orthodox Synagogues of England will introduce

it sooner or later with the consent of their

Spiritual chiefs'.84 A full description of one

such celebration in 1854 was printed by the Hebrew Observer85 The fifteen candidates for

confirmation, who had received two years'

preliminary instruction from the Rabbi, first

received their respective parental blessings while the choir sang a Hebrew poem of

Schiller-Szinessy's composition.86 The children

thereupon made profession of their faith in the

three cardinal principles of the divine unity, revelation, and reward and punishment?

principles which were likewise embodied in the

foregoing hymn, and which had constituted the

three basic ar ticles of Judaism for Joseph Albo in his 'Iqqarim. This was followed by an anti

phonal, each candidate reciting the verse

selected by him or her as a life's motto and the

choice being commended by the Rabbi. The

following is a specimen:

Master Bennet Oppenheim: I [have selected from Holy Writ, as a watchword for

life, the sentiment contained in the] 3 v.,

xxi, I Book Kings:? 'God forbid that I should give away the

inheritance of my fathers'.

The Rabbi: A cheering promise, my son, for all connected with thee by nature and

religion. Would that every son and daughter in our community formed the same resolve, 'God forbid that I should give away the in?

heritance of my fathers.' Never, my son, must thou allow the inheritance of thy fathers, the holy religion of Israel, to be wrested from

thy heart, neither by life's bitter trials nor

by life's sweet temptations; and God will

always be thy heavenly friend and protector, &c.

A marked note of tenderness87 in the full

length accounts of two of these confirmation

ceremonies suggests that Schiller-Szinessy's intense interest in them was in part the outcome

154 Raphael Loewe

of a feeling of unfulfilled bachelorhood. His appointment had been as Rabbi of the

Old Hebrew Congregation,88 with which a

one-time dissident group had reunited89

under the title of the United Hebrew Congrega? tion of Manchester.90 He was, of course,

generally accepted as 'Local Rabbi'?a title

of which he was himself to make use,91 and

later on (though in due course it ceased to

correspond to realities) retrospectively to under?

line by describing himself as 'formerly Rabbi of the Entire Jewish Community in Man?

chester'.92 Indeed, so sensible was he of the

advantages (public, no doubt, as well as

material to his own interest) of maintaining communal unity, that he apparently even

countenanced hankerings after the establish? ment of a Reform synagogue. It seems that he

nurtured hopes that such leanings (which

perhaps were primarily concerned with the

introduction of an organ into synagogal

worship, and were of quite long standing in

Manchester)93 could be satisfied by the

establishment of a branch place of worship, of

minimal heterodoxy, alongside the parent body under his own spiritual jurisdiction, and he is

alleged actually to have canvassed the member?

ship of the United Hebrew Congregation in

secret for financial support for 'a place of

worship which he contemplated establishing', thereby inviting the criticism that he was

'underminfing] the foundations of our Con?

gregation by sowing the seeds of dissension'.94

His judgment was clearly at fault?clouded,

perhaps, by the recollection that his own

teacher, Aaron Chorin, had approved the

introduction of an organ95?but it is im?

probable that this piece of business by itself would have embroiled him with his congrega? tion. It is, moreover, a likely possibility that

Reformists in Manchester, led by Tobias

Theodores96 (himself a loyal supporter of

Schiller-Szinessy rather than his manipulator), and encouraged by the viability of the Reform Congregation in Margaret Street, London, would sooner or later have seceded from the

main community. The statement by historians97

that Schiller-Szinessy's activities were in part

responsible for the schism needs the qualification that his own parting of company with the

parent congregation was occasioned not by

theological or ritual considerations so much as

by a piece of inept indulgence on his part in ecclesiastical politics to which we shall revert

below.

We must first, however, take a closer look at

the complexion of the Manchester Reform

community, which, on emergence from its

chrysalis stage in 1856-1857 as the Manchester

Congregation of British Jews, carried Schiller

Szinessy with it as its own Rabbi. The founda?

tion-stone of their new synagogue in Park

Place98 was laid in March, 1857, and in his sermon on the occasion99 Schiller-Szinessy was

at pains to remind his flock as much of their common ground with the parent community as

of their justification in leaving it:

'For unless [he said] you keep this [sc. the historical significance and purpose of the

Synagogue] steadily before your eyes, what can compensate you for having severed your? selves from your brethren, with whom you have the same truths, the same vocation, the same trusts, the same hopes in common?

What will compensate you for having dis?

connected ties which had become dear to

you, what but the consciousness that by

changing the form you have not changed the

spirit of the universal synagogue, but that

you have rather strengthened it, and that

you have thereby saved Judaism for your? selves and your children, and yourselves and

your children for Judaism? Having found that in the old congregation the spirit was

made subordinate to the letter, that religious progress was negatived by mundane con?

servatism, it became your sacred duty to dis?

regard holy and dear ties for still holier and

dearer ones, the ties between yourselves and

your religion, you were impelled to the

establishment of a new congregation . .. let,

therefore, the new synagogue be the palla? dium of religious progress, not merely in

theory but also in practice . . .

The same point was emphasised by him in the sermon preached a year later at the opening of the synagogue,100 in which he stressed the

inherent orthodoxy of the changes in refusing to agree to which the parent synagogue had

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 155

compelled the dissidents to fend for themselves.

No abolitions of any real halakhic substance had

been contemplated?even observance of the

second days of Festivals had been retained (a

discrepancy with London Reform practice that

had earned the Mancunians a polite rebuff

from the West London Synagogue at their

first attempt to affiliate).101 All that had been

done was to 'la[y] down the general principle that we would return to biblical truth, and

that we would admit only such post-biblical usages in our synagogue teachings and in our

domestic practices, as are not contradictory to

the law of the Bible. . . . Was not this the ideal

of many of the greatest and most pious teachers

of the Talmud?' As regards synagogal ritual, recitation of the piyyutim had been abolished

(a move that was to be sanctioned somewhat

later for the general Ashkenazi community by Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler) and their place taken by a more elaborate use of the Psalter;

Marks's London Reform prayer-book of 1841

had been adopted; and an undertaking entered

into by the Rabbi 'to preach the Word of God in the vernacular on every Sabbath, Festival

and solemn occasion'. This sermon had been

preceded by a flysheet,102 circulated to his

congregants, which in view of its rarity and its

importance for the history of the Manchester

Congregation of British Jews is reprinted below

(Appendix I). This refers, in addition to the details cited from the sermon, to the institution

of an English form of Service for the Memorial

for the Departed, and to the confirmation of

children of both sexes. Although the flysheet is

clearly apologetic, it apprises us of two salient

facts. First, that though Schiller-Szinessy may

(as he admits) have been injudicious103 in his

choice of means to promote his ideas in the

parent congregation, he had been misrepre? sented by mischief-makers?to the traditionalists as being a radical reformer, and to the would-be

modernisers as being a violent reactionary.

Secondly, that it was the leading lights of the new Reform Congregation who had them?

selves been instrumental in securing his

original appointment in 1851 to 'fill the Rabbinical chair in the then Hebrew Congrega? tion of Manchester.104 This circumstance

strengthens the impression that the emergence

of an independent Reform synagogue was in?

evitable, and that Schiller-Szinessy set himself

to retain it within as conservative a pattern as

possible, at all events as far as concerned such

halakhic considerations as marriage regulations the disregard of which would involve grave communal disruption. It is probable that his

confirmation of girls did alienate the diehards

in the parent congregation, and perhaps such

disaffection as may have been found among the

less doughty membership may have owed some?

thing to a sentimental (rather than validly

orthodox) hankering after the familiar

Hebrew memorial service. But it is quite clear

that the casus belli which had led to his resigna? tion of the Rabbinate of the United Congrega? tion lay on a different plane.

In (or shortly before) 1856 a split had occurr? ed in the Jewish community at Hull.105 A

group, dubbed by the Hull leadership as

'foreign' Jews, first formed a 'Psalm Society'

(i.e., Hevra tehillim) within the main community and then graduated to independence as the

'Seceders from the Old Congregation', or

New Congregation under the leadership of a

certain Barnard (or Barnett), an erstwhile

shohet in Birmingham who had been dismissed.

This group made overtures to Schiller-Szinessy

early in February 1856, and then made capital of their success in persuading him to visit Hull to solemnise a marriage on their behalf. There

is nothing to suggest that the union concerned was halakhically improper?Schiller-Szinessy would not have been party to anything of the

kind?but for some unknown reason it did not

comply with the rules current in the Hull

congregation, which considered itself under the

ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Adler, Chief

Rabbi in London. Having got wind of what the

dissidents intended, Bethel Jacobs, the President

of the established Hull community, wrote to the

officers of the Manchester synagogue, asking them to ascertain Schiller-Szinessy's intentions

in the matter and bespeaking their good

offices, if needed, to dissuade him from exacer?

bating by any interference a breach between

the Hull congregation and 'a few discontented

persons'. Adler was meanwhile advised by Hull

about what was happening. An official letter, couched in courteous and kindly terms, was

156 Raphael Loewe

addressed by the Manchester Executive to

Schiller-Szinessy, who saw fit to ignore it and

to proceed to Hull without informing his Wardens. On arrival, he sent a message to

Bethel Jacobs, requesting him to wait upon him to discuss communal matters, since 'certain

persons in the town had elected him their

Chief Rabbi'. On February 19, after a civil ceremony at the Register Office, Schiller

Szinessy solemnised the marriage concerned

according to Jewish rites, producing a certifi?

cate ('signed by 3 or 4 malcontents') without

which he would not have acted, and announc?

ing that he would grant his authorisation for

marriages at a fee of 10/6, providing that civil marriage had first taken place. The next day Manchester, apprised by Hull of what had

occurred, suspended Schiller-Szinessy from the

office of Rabbi. Subsequently (30 March) he submitted his resignation, which was accepted; but he was asked to remain as Superintendent of the Jews' School, with full responsibility for religious instruction106 (clear evidence that

matters theological and halakhic were not in

dispute). The United Congregation was perhaps

acting with its tongue to some extent in its

cheek, being doubtless not unaware that there was at least an informal understanding that

Schiller-Szinessy was to be appointed Rabbi of

the emergent Reform Congregation. Schiller

Szinessy himself, quite unrepentant, less than three weeks afterwards, required the dissidents at Hull to sign a document in parallel German

and English texts acknowledging him as Chief

Rabbi of Hull?a title analogous to that

assumed by him in Manchester on transference

to the Reform Congregation.107 Since, how?

ever, the Hull dissenters rejoined the parent

community in the following July, his experience of ecclesiastical plurality proved short-lived.108

It had lasted just long enough for his special prayer at a service of thanksgiving on the con?

clusion of the Crimean War to have been read

on the same day in both Manchester and

Hull.109

The whole incident is at once puzzling and

revealing. Puzzling, because Schiller-Szinessy was so palpably acting against his own best

interests: for had he refrained from flouting the

United Manchester Congregation's feelings,

there was at the least a reasonable chance of his

retaining ecclesiastical rule over that body as

well as over the Reform synagogue then

emerging from it, to which he seems to have

pledged himself. Revealing, inasmuch as it seems possible to distinguish three public and

two personal strands from the tangled skein.

On the personal side there was, no doubt, the

desire of the Hull community's established

leadership (in the person of Bethel Jacobs) to assert itself over against the upstart seceders

whom, being new immigrants, it chose to

label as 'foreigners', 'malcontents', or '3 or 4 of

the lowest order of travelling Jews who lived in

the town'. On the same level, we must assume

some empire-building aspirations on Schiller

Szinessy's own part, even though symptoms of

ambition are not evident in what else is known

of his career. On the public side, Hull

acknowledged the moral ascendancy of the

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbinate in London,

although under no formal obligation to do so;

and, whereas Manchester had preferred to

maintain its ecclesiastical independence, it was

rightly sensitive about allowing itself to be

construed to have challenged Adler's ever

widening prestige as Chief Rabbi in England by, so to speak, leaving its money on Schiller

Szinessy once he had been warned off the course. It was Adler's deliberate policy to con?

centrate as far as possible all Rabbinical

authority throughout the country in his own

hands, and he may not have been flattered that

it was to Schiller-Szinessy rather than to him?

self that the Liverpool community had turned

for the rededication of their synagogue in

1851.110 Adler and he were perhaps not on

terms, for although he could, at the end of his

life, write that 'Dr. Adler is not the man to run people down at random',111 I am the

recipient of a tradition that he sardonically

interpreted Job xxviii, 21, where Wisdom is said to be hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from Hhe fowls of the air\ as alluding in un?

mistakable terms to the King of the Birds (Adler).112 The third public consideration

again concerns Schiller-Szinessy personally. It seems to me not unlikely that in responding to the overtures made to him by the Hull

dissidents, he had convinced himself that he was

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 157

championing the immigrant underdogs, who, he may well have thought, were not getting a

fair deal from their fellow-Jews of but slightly longer English standing in the Establishment at

Hull. Such egalitarianism would be in charac?

ter in one who had espoused Kossuth's brand

of liberalism; and it would chime in with sentiments expressed by him twenty-six years

later, when before an English audience he

characterised the Jews of Russia (and Eastern

Europe generally) as 'frugal, industrious,

moral, religious, charitable, affectionate, faithful to their sovereign, and much attached

to their father-land; in a word, that they

practise all the virtues, which only the very exalted portion of Society is supposed to

practise'.113 It of course goes without saying that if championship of what he considered the

oppressed classes was indeed Schiller-Szinessy's motivation in this affair, it may well have

obscured any element of personal ambition

from his conscious self, while by no means

excluding its coincident promptings. His ministry to the Manchester Congregation

of British Jews lasted for about four years, since

by October 1860 he had resigned?at his own

request, as an enthusiastic testimonial from

Horatio Micholls, its president, made clear.114

It is appropriate at this point to consider

whether in the course of transferring his

sympathies to the self-avowed Reformists of

Manchester (or allowing himself to be captured

by them, as the case may be) he in fact

consciously altered his theological or halakhic

position. The latter aspect, as affording

opportunity for pragmatic tests, is perhaps the more significant. The regime that he established

for his new flock was, with the exception of the

tolerance of organ music in synagogue, an

observant one;115 and if he accepted the

London Reform synagogue's prayer-book for

his new congregation, he was himself in due course to bring up his family on the traditional

one, adopting the Sephardic rite but not the

Sephardic pronunciation of Hebrew.116 His

standards of personal observance remained, to

the end of his days, as rigorous as they had

been when he turned vegetarian while escaping from the Austrians.117 A couple of anecdotes

make this clear. One relates to an incident in

a Jewish eating-house in Paris, where he was

observed to refuse a fried sole because of a

faint suspicion that it had been cooked in lard,

despite the waiter's indignant protestations that oil had been used.118 The other concerns

an occasion when he wished on a certain

Sabbath to visit the house of a friend in Shelford, some six miles distant from his own home in

Cambridge. In order to be able to do so without

contravening the regulations relative to the

length of a Sabbath-day's journey, he deposited some sandwiches in a tree-trunk on the previous

day, thereby establishing for himself an extended 'residence' and bringing Shelford

within the permissible radius for a journey on

foot.119

As regards theory, it deserves notice that in

1860 he was still using Albo's three principles of unity, revelation, and retribution as a kind of

catechism for his confirmands;120 and he may therefore be deemed to have articulated his

personal faith on lines postulated by a philoso?

pher of Judaism who was not merely broadly

speaking acceptable to nineteenth-century traditional Jewry, but whose three principles

were actually presented as the summary of

Judaism by Nathan Adler in a sermon in 1848, three years after he had come to London as

Chief Rabbi.121 That the more detailed

picture, however, was less in harmony with

what was conventionally regarded as orthodox

Jewish thinking is made clear by an exchange of letters between himself and David Woolf

Marks, Minister of the London Reform

synagogue.122 When the Manchester

Reformists' plans were getting under way in

1856 Schiller-Szinessy was encouraged to make

contact with Marks and to obtain experience of

the minhag of the West London Synagogue, with a view to its adoption in Manchester; and after

the London executive had been apprised of the

exchange of views and the measure of agree? ment obtaining between them, Schiller

Szinessy was invited to preach at Margaret

Street, London, on Shemini 'Asereth (Tuesday, 21 October). Marks had written:

'the principle that has invariably guided my Congregation's services, [is] that whilst

Rabbinical dicta are to be regarded with great

158 Raphael Loewe

consideration, they are not to be placed on a level with the Divine Code of the Bible ... let it not be supposed that it is the

intention... to infringe in any way the

character of traditionary records. On

the contrary, we recognise in them a valuable aid for the elucidation of many passages in Scripture. We feel proud of them as a

monument of the zeal and activity of our

ancestors . . . but we must. . . deny that the

belief in the divisibility of the traditions con? tained in the Mishna and the Jerusalem and

Babylonian Talmud is of equal obligation to the Israelites with the faith in the divinity of the Law of Moses. We know that these books are human compositions and . . . we cannot

unconditionally accept their laws. For

Israelites there is one immutable Law . . .

commanded by God to be written down for the unerring guidance of his people until the end of time.'

To this Schiller-Szinessy had replied: 'Permit me to assure you that your

doctrine is nothing more than I have in?

variably taught in public and in private. No

one, who has made himself acquainted with the writings of the Talmud can fail to enter?

tain the highest respect and veneration for such devoted friends to Judaism and I do not think that any of their teachings should be rejected without a patient and critical

investigation of their object. But there is a

vast difference between appreciating the merit of the Talmudical writings and believ?

ing in the inspiration of their contents. If

you have by you a copy of my pamphlet, published eleven years ago, you will perceive that it lays down the same doctrine as that contained in the extract of your Margaret Street discourse [transcribed in the foregoing

letter], a doctrine from which I have seen no

occasion to swerve in mature years. Tn the congregation over which I am

appointed to preside, the second days of

Festivals will be kept, but such observances can in no manner contravene the principle

already admitted inasmuch as they will be

observed, not as Mosaic and Biblical

ordinance but purely and professedly as

ancient institutions with [sic] which many of our members look with a feeling of reverence'.

The extraordinary thing about this letter is

Schiller-Szinessy's reference to his pamphlet of

1845?i.e., presumably his diatribe against the Frankfort conference of Reform rabbis123, in which he had inveighed with all the emphasis at his command against the impropriety of

tampering with Rabbinical interpretation and

elaboration of the institutions of Judaism?to the extent, inter alia, of transcribing Mai

monides' ordinance that rules against the

permissibility of douching instead of immersion for ritual purposes, and of water supplied from a cistern instead of direct from the flowing stream.124 The whole atmosphere of the

pamphlet is so utterly at variance with the spirit in which he writes to Marks that his identifica? tion of his standpoint in the two amounts to

sheer self-deception. And yet, as we have seen,

alongside this eirenic cooperativeness evinced towards the spiritual leader of a congregation that had relinquished any claims to be re?

garded as orthodox, he was himself at pains to

vindicate the orthodoxy of modifications, etc., introduced125 or sanctioned126 by himself.

The truth is, perhaps, that his theological and halakhic views did, in point of fact, shift but little during the course of his life, but that he

was forced to a realisation that 'Orthodoxy' was becoming less a one-word symbol of a given 'philosophy' of Judaism than a party-line shibboleth. With the need for the latter he came to learn to dispense?taught, perhaps, by the distance from those centres of intenser

Jewish existence in the homeland from which he had fled, as well as by the collapse of his rather absurd coup aimed at establishing for

himself a kind of ecclesiastical province north of the Humber. In consequence, though never

himself either repudiating or abandoning his own claims to be regarded as orthodox, he came in later life to think of the issue as

sufficiently unimportant for him to be able to pass in silence over insinuations of his own

heterodoxy; save that he seems occasionally to

have replied to them inferentially, by affirming that so classical a figure of the Jewish past as

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 159

Abraham ibn Ezra,127 or a figure so secure in

the esteem of the right-wing Jewry of his own

day as Z. H. Chajes,128 could not be validly described as orthodox Jews.

The account of Schiller-Szinessy's sojourn in

Manchester may be rounded off by two less

disputatious incidents. He seems to have

decided by the early summer of 1860 to retire from his Rabbinical position with the Reform community, for on 20 May he was presented with a silver qiddush-cup by the children of his religion classes.129 He apparently continued to

reside in Manchester, where he met the lady who was in 1863 to become his wife. The

circumstances of his marriage connect up,

quite incidentally, with a piece of routine

administration back in the days of his occupa? tion of the rabbinate of the United Manchester

Congregation. On 18 October 1854, he had

solemnised the marriage of a French Jew to the

daughter of one of his congregants.130

Prompted, perhaps, by this occasion, and

perhaps already at this stage concerned to

avoid dealings with Adler, he must have

referred a question regarding the acceptance of some would-be female proselytes to Lazard

Isidor, then Grand Rabbin of Paris.131 The

reply from Isidor, who was himself an

opponent of the Reform movement, is in cordial

terms. Writing in Hebrew, he expresses

scepticism as to the bona fides of most proselytes, since in his own experience nearly all cases

were matrimonially actuated, but nevertheless

counsels a liberal policy132 inasmuch as the

halakhic consequences of rigour would be even worse than those of lenience; and he under?

takes to convert Schiller-Szinessy's candidates

after due preparation. Nine years later Schiller

Szinessy had occasion to refer to Isidor again. He had met, at the house of a certain Mrs.

Jacobs, who was a widow in his congregation,133 a Miss Georgiana Eleanor Herbert, herself

accustomed to attend a Unitarian place of

worship. (It may be of significance that in 1859 he had devoted two sermons to the harmony and dis-harmony between Judaism and Christi?

anity,134 in the first considering Trinitarian

Christianity and in the second Unitarianism, the incompatibility of which with Judaism he does not in any way minimise). The two fell in

love, and after the lady had received the

necessary catechumenical training they visited

Paris, where, under the auspices of Isidor and

the baptismal name of Sarah, she was converted

to Judaism.135 On 19 May 1863 she was

married to Schiller-Szinessy in Isidor's drawing room, Isidor's son-in-law and successor Zadoc

Kahn being a witness.136 It remained an ideal

marriage to the end of his life. On their return

to England the couple moved out of Manchester

into the Cheshire countryside, where Schiller

Szinessy seems to have supported himself by

taking private pupils;137 and it was here that

their first child, Alfred Solomon, was born.138

This rustic interlude can have been but a

honeymoon idyll, for in the same year139 he

exchanged Merseyside for the banks of the

Cam. He had, perhaps, heard of the existence

of a collection of Hebrew MSS. in Cambridge, but what actually directed his steps thither with

a view to settlement must be a matter of con?

jecture. My surmise is that someone?possibly some Gentile pupil in the Midlands who had been up at Cambridge?intimated to him that

there was enough scope for a freelance Jewish scholar to maintain himself there. Since the

time of Isaac Abendana at the end of the

seventeenth century there had been, more or

less continuously, a succession of Jews of

scholarly competence whose presence at its

fringes the University had both welcomed and,

indeed, to some extent financially subvented?

although, of course, no one who was not an

Anglican could take a degree. The latest of

these Jewish teachers had been Rabbi Joseph Crool,140 who had deputised for the Regius Professor of Hebrew between 1806 and 1838.

Crool had been followed by Dr. Hermann

Bernard,141 son of an Austrian Jewish father

himself converted to Christianity, in which

faith the son had naturally been reared. Bernard

was enough of a Rabbinic scholar to publish a

volume of selections from Maimonides' Code, and was a successful teacher of Hebrew at

Cambridge. His death in 1857 had left a gap which, it would seem, Schiller-Szinessy decided six years later he might fill. He consequently installed himself at Cambridge, at first on the

Trumpington Road and subsequently in a small

terrace house near the Hills Road railway

160 Raphael Loewe

bridge,142 and advertised his availability to

teach, as in his early days in Manchester, Hebrew language, literature, and history, with

the addition now of Latin, German, and

French.143 And it was in Cambridge that he was to spend his remaining twenty-seven years

?years which, when in 1881 he was toying with an invitation to accept a Rabbinical post in an

unidentifiable (but presumably Orthodox) community, he declared to have been the best ones of his life.144

For three years, apparently, Schiller-Szinessy taught unofficially and perhaps supplemented his income by writing. But his presence in

Cambridge did not go unmarked by Henry Bradshaw,145 of King's College, then Keeper of

MSS. in the University's collections and sub?

sequently (1867) University Librarian. At mid? summer 1865 Bradshaw engaged him, at his

private expense, to work on the Hebrew MSS.

in the University Library, which, since they had been received from the Duchess of

Buckingham two centuries before, had lain

entirely neglected.146 There developed in the

embryonic Oriental Faculty the realisation that the University ought not to fail to take ad?

vantage of Schiller-Szinessy's presence in its

midst; and with the passing of the Cambridge University Reform Act in 1856 it had become possible to take Jewish scholars formally into

participation in academic business without recourse to backhanded invitation. Supported by Bradshaw, R. L. Bensly,147 of Caius, a

distinguished Arabist and a Hebraist, and others as well, a Grace was accepted by the Senate in

1866 for Schiller-Szinessy's appointment, on a

triennial basis, as Teacher of Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature.148 (By way of comparison it may be noted that a proposal to establish

Jewish Studies as a formally recognised academic discipline, with its own professorial Chair, had been put forward to the University of Berlin in 1853 but had been turned down.)149

When in 1876 his post (which had from time to time been renewed) was placed upon a ten

year footing, his title was advanced to Reader

and he was granted a stipend of ?300 per annum.150 The University also then conferred

upon him the title of M.A., propter merita;151 it was possibly the first occasion at Cambridge

when the degree had been fully conferred on a

Jew without repudiation or dissemblance of

Judaism;152 in any case, Schiller-Szinessy's accession to the University's Parliamentary electoral roll marks (together with Neubauer's

Oxford M.A of 1873) the beginning of an

epoch in which Rabbinic scholarship has

been accorded comparable status to that

enjoyed by its sister disciplines. He was, as it

happened, the very first graduand to be pre? sented by J. E. Sandys,153 the distinguished Latinist of St. John's College, as Public

Orator. In his Latin oration154 Sandys made

graceful allusion to the appropriateness of

Schiller-Szinessy's name, which, hard though it

might be on an English tongue, signified that enlightenment which the motto of his adoptive

University now bade him dispense.155 He was

admitted a member of Christ's College on 18

October 1877.156

We have now to see what Schiller-Szinessy made of this last phase of his life?close on

three decades spent entirely in academic

pursuits: and we shall do well to turn first to

his chefd'wuvre, the Catalogue of Hebrew MSS. in

the Cambridge University Library, a monu?

mental piece of scholarship that will both

perpetuate his name for all who need the

bibliographer's help and keep it green for

bibliographers themselves. It has to be borne

in mind that he was working in an age which

was, bibliographically speaking, an expansive age, before the days when printing costs have

made elaborate descriptions too much of a

luxury and microphotography has made them less of a necessity. But it is precisely because the austere limitations of the modern-style catalogue raisonne impose such limitations on him that the

Hebrew bibliographer of today is the more

grateful to have available in print, for com?

parison with the material that he is himself

examining, the detailed descriptions which were the fruit of Schiller-Szinessy's loving meticulousness and ripe scholarship. The first

volume of the Catalogue appeared in 1876,157 dedicated to Zunz; it covered but the Biblical texts and Biblical commentaries, and ran to an

average of some thirty-three octavo pages'

description per MS. A thin second volume,

dealing with twenty-five Talmudic MSS., was

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 161

printed but never formally published and is now correspondingly rare. The bulk of his

work, however, still remains in manuscript form; the holograph of closely packed fools?

cap folios has been bound up into six volumes and is available to students on application in the Anderson Room of the Cambridge Uni?

versity Library.157 There is a tradition that the Cambridge Hebrew MSS. rest under a

curse of some 300 years' standing,158 and it is

charitable to think that it is this circumstance that has effectively inhibited the production of a printed catalogue of more than a small fraction of them until today. Being myself the successor

of several scholars whose lot it has been to work on Schiller-Szinessy's material, with a view to

getting more of it published, I must pay my own tribute of gratitude for what I have learned from dipping into his pages, from the quite un-self-conscious prolixity of which a warm

personality vivaciously communicates itself to

the student: and I cannot do better than to make

my own the words of my father, V'!: Tf un?

counted hours [he wrote]159 spent in intense

study of a man's handwriting can in any way

bring about a knowledge of his personality and a spiritual communion with him, then I feel

that I have learned to know Schiller-Szinessy and certainly to love him'. In addition to the

University's collection he also catalogued, assisted by his pupil W. Aldis Wright,160 the

Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. in Trinity College Library:161 and his bibliographical

publications include a pamphlet (1878) des? criptive of the Leiden codex of the Palestinian Talmud.162

As well as bibliographical research, he found time for other matters, including two books. The first of these is an edition of David Qimhi's commentary to the first forty-one psalms163 on the basis of MSS.164 and early printed editions. Although the republication of this text was a service to scholarship inasmuch as it made available again Qimhi's controversial

passages directed against Christian exegesis which had been suppressed in the prints subse?

quent to the editio princeps,165 the valuable

research underlying it was wasted by his

omission to print a critical text.166 In preparing this edition he was assisted in the collation of

MSS. by his favourite Gentile pupil, W. H.

Lowe;167 and his preface, composed in the traditional rhymed Hebrew prose, is a de?

lightful piece of autobiography. It not only records their joint labours at Paris in the

Bibliotheque Nationale,168 in which connection

Schiller-Szinessy generously allots most of the

credit to his pupil; but it also lists both his teachers in his Hungarian youth and the

distinguished roll of his own pupils in Cambridge.169 An index of the academic

climate there in the eighties is afforded by the

fact that the dedication to George Phillips,170 President of Queens' College and himself a

pupil of Schiller-Szinessy and a Syriac scholar

of ability, takes the form of a poem indited not

in Hebrew but Aramaic. Another book?a

slight affair?was a reprint of the Hebrew account of travels in Morocco at the end of the

eighteenth century, entitled Massa Ba'arab,111

by the Mantuan Jewish poet and translator

Samuel Aaron Romanelli.172 Further items to come from his pen were contributions to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica113 in which the articles on Mishnah, Targum, Talmud, Sa (adiah, Maimonides, etc., are his, and

also articles connected with psalmody in

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.174 The full list of his academic publications in so far as it has

proved possible to reconstruct it is set out below

(Appendix III), together with his contributions to the Jewish (and, very occasionally, the

general) press, particularly the Jewish World; at the fringe of which there stand his not in?

frequent involvements in the correspondence columns. Here he shows himself, indeed, at his worst: for in the heat of controversy with

Schechter, Neubauer, and others he was some?

times deserted by that modesty to which those

who had personal knowledge of him testify.175 Though Neubauer, Schechter, and Schiller

Szinessy between them represented the zenith of Jewish scholarship in late nineteenth

century England, they scarcely constituted a

triumvirate; and when any one of them scented

battle in the press, imputations of scholarly

incompetence, plagiarism, and questionable

integrity tended to fly thick and fast.176 If in its leading article with which the Jewish Chronicle accompanied its own obituary notice177 on

162 Raphael Loewe

Schiller-Szinessy it not unfairly commented

that he had at times 'sinned against the canons

of good taste in speaking of himself and others', the editors of the Jewish weeklies must them?

selves be held in part to blame, since they were

happy enough to give their outraged corres?

pondents as much acreage of newsprint as they chose to fill. No doubt it was all great fun; and one hopes that it did not always rankle after?

wards. Schechter, I am sorry to say, somewhat

ungenerously pursued his vendetta beyond the

grave, and a decade after Schiller-Szinessy's death he was still disparaging him in his lectures to Cambridge undergraduates.178

We may perhaps deduce what Schiller-Szinessy

might have said, had the tables been turned, from a story that illustrates his half-belief in the

power of cursing. He is alleged to have com?

mented, regarding some other controversialist

who had predeceased him, that although he had

himself procured the other's demise, he had not

consigned his soul to Gehenna; since he would, on account of his great learning, be required elsewhere.179

The lecture-room, as well as the library, has

claims on a don's time; and Schiller-Szinessy's

gifts as a teacher are attested in the explicit statement of Israel Abrahams180 and mirrored in his own pupils' achievements. He was,

indeed, so sedulous for their examination success that he actually lectured to them from his bed a week before his death. A public lecture delivered before the Vice-Chancellor and Senate in 1882 on the famous 53rd

Chapter of Isaiah was printed as delivered;181 and there survive in the Cambridge University

Library MS. notebooks182 of his pupil E. B.

Cowell183 containing notes on the Talmudic tractate Berakhoth taken at Schiller-Szinessy's lectures in 1877, as well as notes on the Zonar

by Cowell embodying one on Heykaloth

symbolism, marked as derived from 'Rabbi

Szinessy'.184 The fruit of this work matured in

1892, when Cowell, who was the first Pro?

fessor of Sanskrit at Cambridge, was president of the Aryan section of the London Congress of

Orientalists. In his inaugural address he

suggested that a comparison of the discussions

recorded in Talmudic literature with the Sanskrit P?rva Mim?ms? would be a worth

while study, and pointed to the parallel between the Mim?ms? canon regarding the relative

value of proofs for subordinacy with the

thirteen rules of Rabbi Ishmael for halakhic exegesis.185 Of Schiller-Szinessy's pupils who

cultivated Rabbinics sufficiently to achieve

scholarly recognition themselves the best known are Charles Taylor,186 Master of St. John's and

colleague of Schechter in the acquisition of the

Cairo Genizah for the University, who edited the Ethics of the Fathers, and his beloved disciple

W. H Lowe,187 of Christ's, editor of the

Cambridge MS. of the Mishnah.188 Another, A. W. Streane,189 of Corpus, translated the

Gemara to the tractate Hagigah into English.190 Before 1890 a Jewish undergraduate was indeed a rar a avis in Cambridge (Israel Gollancz191 was one), and although Jews who were up before that date of course met Schiller

Szinessy,192 his only Jewish pupil seems to have

been Harry S. Lewis,193 the communal worker, who was also one of his successors in the

pulpit of the Manchester Reform Congrega? tion. The roll of his pupils listed by himself in 1883,194 and supplemented from other sources,

musters two subsequent bishops,195 one

dean,196 three heads of Cambridge colleges197 and one of an Australian college,198 seven

professors,199 a Reviser of the English Bible in

the person of W. Aldis Wright,200 in addition to a number of others, some of whose names are

honoured in circles of Biblical scholarship but not so well known outside them.201 It is a

record in which any Cambridge don might take

legitimate pride, and one which eminently justified the modest claim which Schiller

Szinessy was fond of advancing, that he was 'the

disciple of great teachers and the teacher of

great disciples'.202 He was a popular member of Christ's

College senior combination room, and although the staunchest adherence to the dietary laws

restricted him to boiled fish in hall, he enjoyed the convivial company of college feasts.203 In

the town he was known, affectionately, as 'The

Rabbi', and in the wider University he was accorded respect. Legend, indeed, credited him with the thaumaturgical powers of a

Ba'al Shem: for when on one winter Friday afternoon he had been accidentally locked inside

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 163

the precincts of the Senate House and the old

University Library (now the Squire Law

Library), had he not found himself miraculously

transported outside the railings ? 2 04 By virtue of

his position he was able in 1887 to sponsor an

appeal for funds for the rebuilding of Eperies, his old alma mater, when the town was burnt

out; and the subscription list of those who

responded205 includes the names of leading

lights in Anglo-Jewry, the established Church, and both ancient Universities. Five years

before, on the outbreak of violent persecution of the Jews in Russia, a meeting had been held

in the Cambridge Guildhall convened at the request of no fewer than fourteen heads of

Cambridge Colleges, together with many other leading figures in town and gown.206

Anglo-Jewry was represented by Arthur

Cohen,207 who had been President of the

Cambridge Union in 1853, and was currently President of the Board of Deputies, and by

Schiller-Szinessy, who moved an urbane, if

generously autobiographical, vote of thanks208

to the Mayor?ending with the invocation of

the divine blessing on town and University. The fact that he was, in a sense, himself the

instrument of that blessing is evinced by the

manifestations of respect to his memory when

he died,209 on Tuesday, 11 March, 1890,

leaving a widow and four surviving children.210

He was buried in a small Jewish plot adjoining the main town cemetery at Ipswich.211

Schiller-Szinessy's personality comes through both in his writing, which even in matters

bibliographical tends always to be idiosyncratic, and in a few anecdotes of which he is the

centre. In his reminiscences212 his pupil W. H.

Lowe records his abstemiousness,213 which

was yet free from asceticism, his fascination by the sight of precious stones displayed in shop

windows, and his humour. He could never allow

the divine title Ribbono shel 'olam to go by with? out rendering it, as he had once heard an un?

lettered synagogal official render it, by 'Lord

of the University'.214 An orally transmitted

tradition tells how he once cast his vote in the

Senate House at a Parliamentary election.

The Vice-Chancellor, presiding over the poll as

returning officer, had tentatively queried

Schiller-Szinessy's entitlement to vote; where

upon he recalled to his companion, Lowe, that

he had been lecturing the previous day on the

text of Zechariah, iii, 1, 6and Satan was standing at his right hand to accuse him*. 'Last night', he

said, 'the devil appeared to me in the guise of

the Vice-Chancellor, and challenged my right to vote today. I have consequently brought with

me my Patent of Naturalization . . .',215 and he

proceeded to pull a long envelope out of his

pocket. The Vice-Chancellor confusedly

apologised; 'but,' commented Schiller-Szinessy

subsequently, 'it is a good thing that the Vice

Chancellor did not examine the envelope, for in

error I had taken with me not my Naturalisa?

tion papers, but my insurance policy'.216 How are we to sum him up? As a scholar,

he was an early if lesser figure in the movement

that gave post-Biblical Jewish studies an

academic standing emancipated from Christian

theology, which even now often claims academic

suzerainty over the Hebrew Bible. He had not,

indeed, the mental self-discipline or critical

ability of Neubauer, or the perceptiveness of

Schechter. But he did possess not only a deep

personal piety and sturdy spiritual self-discipline but also a love and an infectious enthusiasm

for Jewish learning and institutions, which

found its reward in the solid Hebraic and

Rabbinic achievements of a distinguished list of

pupils. More important, perhaps, he imbued a

wider circle of students and colleagues with an

appreciative attitude towards the positive

aspects of Rabbinism. His own modesty and

genial disposition will have contributed

towards this, as also his marked tolerance and

appreciation of the validity, for others, of their

own convictions.217 This cannot, in the context

of his whole life-story, be ascribed to mere

indifference; and it is therefore the more

remarkable that he could extend the same

appreciative open-mindedness towards an

ex-Jewish convert to Christianity.218 Such an

attitude of mind is naturally exposed to detrac?

tion and misrepresentation: and those who

have seen in him a mere obsequious and

unprincipled turncoat, prepared to play what?

ever tune the paymaster of the hour might choose to call,219 seem to me to take in?

sufficient note of a strength of character

evinced by him on occasions when it was in

164 Raphael Loewe

patent discord with his own material interest. It is significant, too, that the legends surround?

ing him that continued to circulate in

Cambridge for half a century after his death,220

quaint though they be, contain none known to me (save perhaps the atavistic quirk of a

belief in the efficacy of curses) that suggests any

self-centredness, self-seeking, or any cynical side to his character. The presence of a resident

M.A. who was himself neither an apostate from Judaism nor in effect a crypto-Jew, but

who instead lived a full Jewish life while not holding himself aloof from the social life of his College, had a certain civic as well as an

academic significance in Cambridge: for it meant that both for town and gown the Jew was no longer an unknown or mysteriously transient figure, but became identified with a

familiar character, traversing Hills Road and

St. Andrew's Street as he made his way to

synagogue of a Sabbath morning in a British

long-tailed coat and white tie.221

Within the wider Anglo-Jewish context, he

emulated the example of his forefather

Abraham, who (according to Rabbinic tradi?

tion)222 wherever he went would preach the

word of God, and the remarkable impact that

he made from the pulpit was perhaps enhanced, in the staid setting of established Victorian

Jewry, by the fact that the preacher had shed

his blood in the cause of Hungarian liberty. His emphasis on Jewish religious education for

the young, and his markedly successful results

while actively concerned with it, were of a

piece with the religious conservatism that his

example perhaps, rather than his leadership, was able to imprint on his dissident congrega

tion in Manchester so long as he stood at its

head. That he was not a reformist, in spite of his acceptance of the rabbinate of the Man?

chester Reform synagogue, is underscored not

merely by his basing his religious training of the young on what are Albo's three principles of

Judaism223 and the upbringing that he gave his own children,224 but by a contribution to

the press225 written within ten weeks of his own death; in it he gently dissociates himself

from such endeavours as Ludwig Philipp son's226 Israelitische Religionslehre, since 'we

believe that the Jews ought to have only one

Catechism and only one Book of Religious Instruction (the Bible and the Talmud)'. As

far as concerns communal harmony and soli?

darity, he had clearly been wrong-headed in

almost inviting a casus belli from Adler and a

snub from responsible communal leadership in

Manchester. But had Adler had the perspicacity to see that Schiller-Szinessy's undoubted gifts

were potentially a tremendous advantage to

him in his scheme for the unification of the English Ashkenazi synagogue, and had he set

himself tactfully to woo Schiller-Szinessy's

cooperation227, the synagogal pattern of the

second half of the nineteenth century might have been somewhat different in England. But

if Manchester lost a minister, not only Cam?

bridge but the republic of Hebrew letters

gained a servant. It was Schiller-Szinessy's boast that he was the teacher of great disciples. To be just that was the ideal of the Men of Great

Synagogue:228 and it is no mean epitaph.

*** This paper was delivered to the Society on 18 June 1962.

APPENDIX I Text of Flysheet (see Doc. (ii), 9); another

copy of the original is in the Loewe Collection. See supra, p. 155.

to the members of the manchester con?

gregation of british jews.

Office of the Rabbi, 20 South Hall Street, Strangeways,

Manchester, Rosh Chodesh Nissan 5618 {March 16th, 1858).

Dearly Beloved, Under the aid of a gracious Providence, the

Synagogue, raised through your generous endeavours and the solicitude of those worthy sons of Yisrael whom you have entrusted with

the external government of our Congregation, is on the eve of being opened for public worship.

Within a few days, a building, creditable to all engaged in its erection, will be ready to receive

you for prayer and thanksgiving to Him, who is

the fountain-head of all goodness and grace:

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 165

and on me, your spiritual guide, will devolve the

pleasing duty of consecrating the holy edifice.

Let me avail myself of this opportunity for the

purpose of addressing to you a few earnest

remarks, which, I trust, will have the effect of

drawing still closer the sacred ties which

connect me with your respected body. In the first place, let my soul praise the Lord

for all His mercy shown me during the period of my spiritual connection with you. Although,

owing to circumstances over which I had no

control, my official activity during the last

eighteen months has had but little scope, I am

happy to say that this time has not been allowed to pass totally unimproved. I look back with

much gratification on the solemn services which

united us in prayer on various occasions, but

particularly on those at the laying of the

foundation-stone for our sacred Temple, and

during the season of our great festivals in the

month of Tishri. Nor has the performance of Divine Service, according to our ritual, ceased for a

single day since Pessach last!

And, in the next place, let me most heartily thank you for the personal attachment, evinced

towards me by the fact of my election to be

your religious teacher. I remember, with

gratitude, that it was mainly owing to the

exertions of the active members of your con?

gregation that I was called, more than seven

years back, to fill the Rabbinical chair in the then Hebrew congregation of Manchester.

No one, beloved brethren, can be more

thoroughly penetrated with the consciousness

of my imperfections than myself; nevertheless, I am free to declare that, however I may have

failed in the selection of the right means, I have

nothing to reproach myself with as to the ends I

always proposed to myself in the service of my God and my people. My aim has constantly been to promote, by moderate improvement, the

real religious reformation of my fellow

worshippers: to eject from the Temple of the

Lord everything derogatory to decorum; to lop off all those excrescences from ceremonial

religion, which?though at one time useful?

had, through the progress of the age and the change of circumstances, become subversive of

the original purpose; and to introduce, in their

stead, institutions directly calculated to revive

the Idea and the Power of biblical Judaism. I may refer to the partial abolition, on my

authority, of the Piyutim from the service in use at the late Halliwell-street Synagogue; to

the introduction of religious confirmation for

the young of both sexes; to the institution of an

English service on behalf of departed souls, &c.;

but, above all, to the delivery of sermons on

Sabbaths, festivals, and all solemn occasions, and to the religious instruction afforded on

Wednesdays and Sundays to the children of the

community in?that establishment, so creditable

to its patrons?the Manchester Jews' School! /

cannot sufficiently deplore that time was not allowed me to carry out these endeavours?in peace. You are aware that certain persons, whose motives I

will not scrutinise, industriously cast suspicion on the sincerity of my exertions, representing

(with strange inconsistency!) to those of a

conservative leaning, that mine were extravagant efforts at innovation, and to those of a progressive turn of mind, that I mainly laboured to re

plunge the congregation, under my guidance, into the religious barbarism of the middle ages.

By the mercy of God, and by your kindness, I have been placed in a position, practically, to

prove, that as, on the one hand, I am far from

wishing to abolish anything that is dear to the

Jew, and that can stand the test of biblical and

historical criticism, so, on the other hand, I am

equally remote from wishing to uphold any?

thing that tends to retard the legitimate develop? ment of the Religious Idea in Yisrael.

Now, dearly beloved, let me most earnestly beseech you to support me in my endeavours to

ameliorate the religious and moral condition of

my community. Foremost of all, come and wor?

ship with me agreeably to the forms established

in our Synagogue. The Prayer-book, originally

adopted by our esteemed sister-congregation in London, contains all that is deservedly valued

in the rituals of both the Sephardim and

Ashkenasim. Now, granting that nothing human is perfect, and hence that a time may come when there will be a necessity of altering one or the other passage capable of improve?

ment (as has been, and ever will be the case),

still, in its totality and principle, this Prayer book is the efflux of biblical and historical truth. I, on my part, will instruct you in the

166 Raphael Loewe

principles of our Holy Religion, on every Sabbath and Festival, &c., to the best of my limited ability. Secondly, I pray you, give me

your confidence; let no event, either public or

private, so it be connected with religion, pass without claiming my services; allow me to

heighten your joys, in joy, through religion; let me, through religion, assuage your sufferings, in sorrow. But, above all, tPDJH ]X)

give me the souls, the precious souls of your children; for material gains / care

not. Send your children to the semi-weekly instructions in religion; let me educate their

minds in attachment to the God and the law of our forefathers?the law of the Holy One of

Yisrael!

Dearly beloved, the Pessach draws nearer, the spring-tide of our religious existence; the

time for commemorating our deliverance, not

only from the "iron furnace" of corporeal serf?

dom, but, more so, of spiritual bondage. Let us rouse ourselves, then, from religious apathy, and awake to a life of godliness and true piety. Let us, individually and collectively, take to

heart the honour of our congregation?the congregation of God. Let us duly consider that the eyes of all our Brethren in the land are

fixed upon us, and that with our worthiness or

unworthiness, the cause of vital Judaism in

Great Britain must stand or fall!

May the God of our fathers cause the light of His countenance to shine upon us, and lead us

in the right path! I remain, in fervent affection,

Your faithful fellow-worshipper and pastor,

SCHILLER-SZINESSY, Dr.

NOTES 1 ... T?n H?1? 'H Ps. xvi, 8. 2 Gen. xiv, 21.

APPENDIX II

CATALOGUE* OF PERSONAL AND OTHER DOCUMENTS OF SCHILLER SZINESSY DEPOSITED IN THE

MOCATTA LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON (Reference B.20 SCH).

The papers have been arranged in sections, each in a folder, as follows: (i) Hungary, (ii)

Manchester, (iii) Cambridge, (iv) pamphlets and offprints, (v) press-cuttings, (vi) marriage, children, obituary, (vii) Alfred Solomon

Schiller-Szinessy, (viii) miscellaneous.

(i) Hungary 1. School report, 3 November 1832, of

Salomone Marcus Schiller. Deutsch-ungarische Normal Schul. Signed Salomon Neumann.

Affixed embossed stamp (Normalschule d.

Israelit. Gemeinde i. Altofen K.K., with

crest). 2. Testimonium Scholasticum, Gyongyos * I must record with gratitude that in 1940 the

late Dr. Samuel Krauss, of Vienna, then settled in

Cambridge, assisted me in a preliminary sorting of these documents, particularly with Hungarian phrases and occasionally with Hebrew palae? ography.

Gymnasium, 25 July 1841. Affixed embossed stamp (with crest: sigilum [sic] . . . gyongyo

sinensis). Describes S.-S.'s father as mercator. 3. Testimonium Scholasticum, Eperies

Evangelical College, 20 January 1847, relating to examination held 4 December 1843. Signed Fridericus A. Hazslinszky, rector. Affixed em?

bossed stamp (crest, legend [?Latin]). Gives date of S.-S.'s birth as 23.12.1820.

4. Testament, in German, of Philipp H?nigsberg, of Szegedin, 11 September 1848.

Hungarian attestation.

5. Instrument, in Hungarian, of the widow Malkah H?nigsberg authorising S.-S. to act for her. Baja, 24 November 1849. Two seals (well

preserved) of Hungarian officials. Endorsed in

German, Vollmacht v. Malkah geb. H?nigs?

berg. 6. Letter, in German, of Hazslinszky (see 3),

former Rector of Eperies College, to S. Joseph, 13 Quay Street, Manchester, dated 11 Novem?

ber 1850. Testimonial to S.-S. (Typed copy of text annexed), intended for Manchester

Jewish community, which is addressed (L?bliche Gemeinde).

PLATE XV

^^^^^^^^^^

Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schiller-Szinessy?engraving by I. Fischer [See p. 171

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 167

7. Letter, in German, of Leo Hollander, President (Vorsteher) of the Eperies Jewish community, dated 24 November 1850. Address?

ed to 'Euer Wohlgeboren', i.e., Manchester

Jewish Community. Seal (Crest: legend Eperjesi Isr?elita K?zseg). Typed copy annexed.

8. Acknowledgment (printed), in Hun?

garian, of donation towards Jubilee testimonial

fund for Prof. Andras Vandr?k. Dated

January 1884. Signed Bams? Anton (?). 9. Multigraphed letter, in German, dated

Budapest 1 November 1882, relating to blood accusation. Signed Leopold Lipschitz, Oberra

biner zu A. Szant?, and Menachim Katz, Oberrabiner zu d. Kreis (?). Encloses state?

ment (Erkl?rung) over the same signatures. Total 2 folios. Letter on headed paper, Hun?

garian (A Magyar. . . Izr. Aut. Orthod. Hit

felekezet, etc., i.e., Central Committee of

autonomous Orthodox Jewish communities in

Hungary and Transylvania), invites collabora?

tion in refuting the charge. Cf. Bib I. 45.

10. The fire at Eperies, 6 May 1887. (a) Photograph of Evangelical Church

(part of rebuilding appeal literature). (b) Reply-paid postcard addressed (in his

own hand) to S.-S. at Cambridge, dated 21

May 1887, from Prof. Otto Ludmann, Rector of Eperies College; in German. Gives

details of damage caused by fire, estimated

costs of rebuilding, and invites S.-S.'s

assistance in raising funds.

(c) Letter, German, to S.-S. dated Eperies, 16 July 1888, from the municipality. Signed

Andor Fuhrmann, B?rgermeister, and Geza

Kyss, Obernot?r. Stamp (Crest, and legend

Eperjes Sz. Kir. Varo? Hivatalos Pecsetje).

(d) Subscription list (third and final issue) of donations for Eperies. After 5 November

1888. Reprints acknowledgments from local

Burgomaster, Jewish Community, Lutheran

Church, Evangelical College, and the

College's Library.

Jewish contributors include Leopold de Rothschild, David Sassoon, Julian Goldsmid, James Sylvester, Joseph Sebag-Montefiore, F. D. Mocatta. Others are Christopher

Wordsworth, the Vice-Chancellor of Cam?

bridge (Charles Taylor, Master of St. John's

M

College), the Bishops of Lichfleld, London, Durham, and Ely, Wescott, Hort, S. R.

Driver, C. D. Ginsburg, A. W. Verrall, Prof. G. D. Liveing, Lord Rayleigh, etc. Cf. The Times, 9 May 1887.

(e) Receipt (Best?tigung), on-reverse of incomplete proof of (d), dated Eperies, 5 November 1888, from municipality of Eperies. Signatures and stamp as in (c). For S.-S.'s interest in Eperies, see supra, pp.

149, 151 and Bibl. 50. 11. Wedding invitation, printed in Hebrew

(TSn? *np?), dated 11 Tammuz 5557 [1797], to marriage of Moses K?nitz (^ttp), bookseller, of Altofen (pIKTD) and Friedl, daughter of Solomon Cohen, on 1 Elul

following. Text occupies 34 lines of Rabbinic type and is couched in Melisah style. Cf. infra 12, verso (6).

12. Single folio, containing: (i) recto

(1) Letter, in Judaeo-German, from R.

Sebi Hirsch Katz (?) to R. Libermann (?), dated 5 March (?) 1803, authorising pay? ment to the signatory's brother-in-law, R.

Abraham, of 3,000 T[halers ?] in part payment of a debt.

(2) (Second hand) Transcript of tomb? stone of Rezel (*?!*H), wife of R. Manasseh

Horin (pan), died 8 'Iyyar 5592 [1832]. (3) Copy of attestation (unsigned) stating

that the aforementioned 'widow' was grand? child of 'my aunt Hannah, sister of my uncle . . . Moses son of Vnn?,9 Ab beth din of

Boskowitz'. Dated 45th day of 6 Omer,

5592 [1832]. (ii) verso

(1) (Third hand) Draft of letter, German (not Judaeo-German) in Ashkenazi cursive

Hebrew characters. Requests an unnamed

Rabbi to arbitrate in a testamentary case.

From the stepchildren of R. IJayyim Wolff Baer, of Arad. Undated.

(2) Copy of letter, in Hebrew, in reply to the above, from an unnamed Rabbi of Pest,

reluctantly agreeing to arbitrate and re?

questing certain documents in return for

which quitclaims can be issued.

(3) (Second hand) Copy of attestation, certifying the gift of seat No. 210 in the

168 Raphael Loewe

women's gallery of the Altofen Synagogue to

R. Marqol B?ks by his stepfather. The seat,

together with seat No. 264 in the men's part, had previously been the property of Marqol Baks's father and the latter's wife Molsche

(? wVi?). (4) Transcript (Second hand?) of tomb?

stone of Shendel (VtW), wife of R. Me'ir Treibitsch (WWO), died 5592 [1832].

(5) Transcript of tombstone of R. Baer

Oppenheimer, died ? (date omitted). (6) (Third hand) Expression of good

wishes on wedding day to his son and daughter-in-law Peninah from Moses K?nitz

(see Doc. No. 11, supra). 13. Notebook, Hebrew, from S.-S.'s boy?

hood, containing part ii of animadversaria on

T.B. Kethubboth TOXto SirD1? VwiK T\"V2) (an? tn *]i nanpn. "won w p*?rr mmro shortly after 1834. Colophon, f. [10a] n"V2 *?snttn ymin Vran [rnip pnT]n pnr roa jtd iwpD (?)pwm fnrin rtDnam .rrMw rrnVst (?>pp pam s.-s.'s brother

Moses Isaac Gershon died newly-wed in 1834, see Qim., pp. x, xvii n. 21.

14. Two sermons, MS. Hebrew with inter?

posed German translation in Ashkenazi cursive

Hebrew characters.

(i) Sermon prior to the blowing of the Shofar on first day of New Year. ff. 4. Cf. Bibl. 27.

(ii) On Ps. civ (? fragmentary), verses 12

19. ff. 11. Contains two poems in Hebrew

(square characters, pointed).

(ii) Manchester

1. Flysheet, undated [1849-50], advertising S.-S.'s availability to 'give instruction in the

Hebrew language, Biblical and Rabbinical

Literature and History'. Address for applica? tion given as 19, Derby Street, Cheetham Hill

Road, Manchester.

MS. alterations in order to adapt for use as

advertisement in Cambridge. See pp. 152, 160.

2. Letter, dated Manchester 30 Sepr 5611 [1850], from the Wardens of the Manchester

Old Congregation, to Profr dr S M Schiller (Szinessy); expresses thanks for his visit and preaching, Tn bidding you adieu for the

present'. Signed Simon Joseph, John M

Isaac, Wardens. Seal (Hebrew and English).

Cf. Jewish Chronicle after 23 September, 1850, and supra, p. 152.

3. Flysheet, Order of Proceedings for the

Installation of the Rev. Dr. Schiller Szinessy As

Minister of the Old Congregation, Manchester, on Saturday, January 18th, 5611-1851, at Half

Past Two o'clock. . . . Includes special prayer, Hebrew and English ('implore . . . blessings . . .

on . . . our pastor, ... to bring again into thy flock such as have gone astray . . . may he

restore once more the broken fences, and

strengthen every weak point. . .'). See p. 152.

4. Illuminated address to The Reverend

Doctor Schiller Szinessy, dated Manchester, 9 January, 1852, from 'The Ladies of his Flock', expressing appreciation of 'his valued

services to the Youthful Members of his Com?

munity . . . and . . . satisfaction at the recent

appointment of the Reverend Doctor to the

important office of Local Rabbi to this Con?

gregation'. Accompanied by a 'Purse of

Money'. Signed Isaac A. Franklin (see infra, No. 10), Honorary Secretary to the Ladies, and

listing the following contributors: Mesdames

Philip Lucas, Henry Micholls, Horatio Micholls, Asher, I. M. Isaac, Ralph Isaac, Lewis Isaac, Segre, E. Moses, A. Sington, Levy

Sampson, B. Hyam, David Hesse, Henry Salomons, Leveaux, David Falk, Joel Casper, Samuel Isaac, Joseph Levy, Reuben Levy,

Benjamin, S. D. Bles, Saul Mayer, Philip Bauer, A. Spier, L. Beaver, I. Joel, Jacob

Casper, Louis Behrens, Oppenheim, Salomon

son, A. S. Sichel, H. Brower, T. Theodores,

Aronsberg, E. Albert, Davieson, M. Goldstone,

Jacob Myers, Nathan Mayer, Selig, Prax,

Voorsanger, Simon Joseph, Moro, H. S.

Straus, Jonas, Rudolph Behrens, N. Sington, Adam Casper, Lewis Levy, Sternberg, I.

Simmons, Sampson Sampson, Elias Levy, Louis Berend, Joseph A. Spier, David Cowen,

Franks, I. Goodman, L. Goodman, I. S. Moss,

Mendelson, The Misses Behrens, G. Behrens, A.

Behrens, Theresa Segre, Victoria Segre, Elizabeth Isaac, Alice Isaac, Henrietta R.

Isaac, Camilla Segre, Moses, Hyam, Leveaux,

Sampson, Sophia Sampson, Hesse, Cohen,

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 169

Matilda Davis, Lucas, Abby Lucas, Franks, Eliza Franks, Emma Franks.

See Jewish Chronicle, 16 Jan. 1852, with text of S.-S.'s letter of reply. The list of names probably

represents, substantially, the foundation

families of the Reform Congregation of British

Jews founded in 1856. 5. Letter, in Hebrew (Ashkenazi cursive),

from Eliezer Isidor, Grand Rabbin of the

Consistoire Israelite, Paris, dated 4 Noah 5615

[25 October 1854], replying to S.-S.'s query about conversion of certain unnamed persons

(female) desirous of adopting Judaism. Type? script annexed.

See supra, p. 159.

6. Form of certificate, in French, designed for signature by S.-S. but not in fact signed,

attesting his solemnisation of the marriage in

Manchester on 18 October 1854 of Alexandre, son of Moise Leon, of Paris, and Alice, daughter of Eleazar Moses, of Manchester, witnessed by B. Hyam, M. K. Wagner, and Godfrey Levy

(Registrar). S.-S. apparently added 'Docteur en Philoso?

phie' beneath the space for signature. Doubt?

less a copy of the official certificate.

7. Instrument of Divorce (Get), undelivered, dated Manchester, 13 2 Adar 5616 [Thursday, 20 March 1856]. Abraham b. Ephraim Ha

Kohen Fischl divorces his wife Rebecca d. of

Sebi Hallevi. Witnesses: Reuben b. Jacob,

Joseph David b. Abraham Ha-Cohen.

8. Short address, in English, MS. in S.-S.'s

hand, on occasion of a circumcision occurring on Sabbath Bo\ No names, no year mentioned.

9. Flysheet, to the Members of the Man?

chester Congregation of British Jews, dated 16

March, 1858.

Printed, Appendix II supra, pp. 164f. See

p. 155.

10. Songsheet, Confirmation Hymns (Fourth

Edition), 1860. Composed in Hebrew verse by the Rev. Dr. . . ., Rendered into English Verse

by I. A. Franklin, Esq., Honorary Secretary of

the Manchester Jews' School. Music by J.

Boss, of Eperies. Choir Director?Jas. F.

Shepley, Esq., Organist of the Manchester

Synagogue of British Jews.

English text only. Three stanzas preceding the Confirmation, three thereafter. The topic of

each of the first three stanzas is indicated by

caption, viz., God's Unity, The Divine

Revelation, and Reward and Punishment.

11. Testimonial, English, from Manchester

Congregation of British Jews to S.-S. on his

retirement from the office of Minister, dated

3 October, 1860. Signed Horatio Micholls, President. Seal (Hebrew and English) and

printed letter-heading give the Congregation's Hebrew name as

JVE fiSHS. States that S.-S.

left the Congregation of his own free will.

(iii) Cambridge 1. Fragment of printed pamphlet (8 pp.,

pp. 3-6 missing). Testimonials in favour of the

appointment of Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, Late

Professor of Hebrew at the Protestant College of

Eperies, and Rabbi of Manchester, As Teacher

of Talmudic and Rabbinic in the University [sc. of Cambridge]. [1866.]

The surviving portion reproduces letters

from J. Davies, Rector of Walsoken, near

Wisbech, Henry Bradshaw, Keeper of MSS. in

the University Library, and R. L. Bensly, of

Caius.

Lists (p. 8) Docs. Hungary 1, 2, 3, 6, Man? chester 11, Diploma of Ph.D. Jena, 1845, Patent of Naturalization, 1854, Testimonial

relating to Talmudic knowledge from Oberra

biner Pinhas Cohen, 1847, and Testimonial

from Oberrabiner Schwab, 1850, as available

for inspection by members of the Senate. S.-S.

had obtained confirmation of his earlier

semikhah (from Aaron Chorin) from Judah Loeb Schwab, of Pest, and Pinhas Cohen, of Telek; see Qimhi, p. xi, nn. 27, 28.

2. (a) Printed pamphlet, 30 November 1876, Cambridge, Orationes Primae ab Oratore

Cantabrigiensi I. E. Sandys pridie Kalendas

Decembres Habitae A.S. MDCCCLXXVI.

The first speech presents S.-S. for degree [of

M.A.].

(b) English translation of foregoing, Jewish Chronicle, 15 December 1876. (Refers in?

correctly to 'honorary degree'; Christ's College

Register states propter merita, but gives date

wrongly as 1877). 3. Letter, in Hebrew (Ashkenazi cursive),

from Dr. Christian D. Ginsburg to S.-S., dated 5 Norham Road, Oxford, 10 Sivan 5639

170 Raphael Loewe

[2 June 1879]. Signed (in Hebrew) David Ginsburg, and headed with the abbreviation

n"22. Typescript annexed. Ginsburg writes in

cordial terms, introducing himself to S.-S., whom he has never met, and asks for biblio?

graphical information regarding the Cambridge MS. of Moses ibn Ezra's Sepher he-anaq or

Tarshish (perhaps = MS. Add. 508, 3, 4a, 4b, or MS. Add. 1245). Mentions he has heard tell of S.-S. from Senior Sachs and from Neubauer

(from whose Oxford address he writes). German

postscript by Neubauer ('Geben Sie mir das

datum von Euer IT?ttll TlTHD von Fischl gekauft, genau wie in dr?cke und wo u' durch (?) wem gedr?ckt. Was kostet Lowe's rmfl?

[i.e., W. H. Lowe's Fragment of Pesachim,

Cambridge, 1879] f?r fre?nde? Schreib (?) deutlich (?)...(?) British M[useum] Monday A.N.).

4. Draft of a letter, in English, from S.-S. to an unnamed correspondent ('My dear Friend'), undated but mentioning S.-S.'s age as 61 (i.e., after 23 December 1881). Declines to become 'a

Candidate for the vacant Rabbinate', but dis? cusses the possibility of commuting at week?

ends from Cambridge were he in fact to agree to '[stand] at the head of such an ancient

congregation and its affiliated bodies'.

Geography, S.-S.'s Rabbinical past, and the

foregoing terms suggest that either Birmingham

(Singer's Hill), or possibly Norwich, or the Western Synagogue, London, may be referred

to. S.-S. had worshipped at the last-named

(Matthias Levy apud Cecil Roth, Records of the Western Synagogue 1761-1932, p. 185. Arthur

Barnett's Western Synagogue through Two Cen?

turies, 1961, throws no light on the matter). 5. Reports, Jewish Chronicle, 17 February, and

Cambridge Independent Press And University Herald, 18 February 1882, of meeting in the Cambridge

Guildhall to protest at the outbreak of persecu? tions of the Jews in Russia. Report in Cambridge

Independent Press of S.-S.'s speech proposing thanks to the Mayor (see Bibl. 18, 44).

6. Postcard, in Hebrew (reply-paid, addressed by S.-S.), from (?) Moses Samuel. . .

Hallevi, professing inability to trace the name

of the mother of a certain woman named

Sprintza on the basis of the vague details

supplied. Dated Poznony [= Pressburg], 10

July 1889. 7. Multigraphed letter of thanks, dated

Ramsgate, 15 November 1883, from Sir Moses

Montefiore acknowledging congratulations on his 99th birthday. Facsimile of Montefiore's

signature; the body of the text reproduced

(apparently) from hand of Dr. L. Loewe.

Embossed crest, Montefiore arms.

8. Fair copy, in German, signed by S.-S., of a (? unpublished) review, Der Neue Catalog Der Hebr?ischen Handschriften In der Bodleiana [by Neubauer, 1886]. Controverts favourable re?

view by Euting in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl?ndischen Gesellschaft, xlii, 1888, p. 31 lf., and speaks scornfully of Neubauer and (to a

lesser degree) Steinschneider (the gibe at the foot of p. 2 recurs in a letter published in the

Jewish World, 1 March 1889). Relates (p. 14) an incident which possibly cost Neubauer the commission to catalogue the Hebrew MSS.

in the British Museum. Submitted to Z-^.M.G. but not, apparently, published there.

(iv) Pamphlets and Offprints See Bibl. (a) pp. 172f. Items contained in this

file are marked Mocatta 'Library'.

(v) Press-cuttings

SeeBibL, (b) pp. 176f. Most items there listed will be found either in this file or (where appropriate) alongside the document to which

they refer.

(vi) Marriage, Children, Obituary 1. Certificate, in Hebrew (Ashkenazi

cursive), by Eliezer Isidor, Grand Rabbin of

Paris, dated 18 May, 1863, that Georgiana Eleanor Herbert has been accepted by him as a

proselyte and duly baptised under the adoptive name of Sarah b. Abraham. Consistoire

stamp. Typescript annexed.

States that nsm ftTT *W? T? BP ?WK m VwnVi pinb rib ?r? m bmb t> rya pKnVi rmb ffons mm

ynv nmix 2. Marriage document (Kethubbah) of S.-S.

and Sara Georgiana Eleanor Herbert, 1 Sivan

5623 [19 May 1863]. Witnessed by Isidor, Zadoc Kahn (?) (cf. supra, p. 159), and Joseph b. Menahem. S.-S. signs as mb TK? p ?? W

Consistoire stamp.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 171

3. (a) Certificate, in English, by Henry Samuel, M.R.C.S., Mohel, of 53 Mansell

Street, Aldgate, London, dated 22 April 1876, that TK? Alfred Solomon Schiller

Szinessy, born 20 July 1863 and circumcised by 'his Father, my Pupil' on the 27th, had been

duly and properly circumcised.

(b) Certificate by the same that he circum?

cised Wim pBTtt Sidney Herbert Schiller Szinessy on Saturday 22 April 1876 in Cam? bridge; dated Sat. even, 7 College Terrace,

Hill[s] Road, Cambridge. (c) Letter, in English, from the same to

S.-S. ('Dr Schiller'), 39 Mansell Street, Goodmans Fields, E., dated 15 August, 1861,

instructing him how to carry out the operation of circumcision on a child (not named or

identifiable). 4. Notice of funeral of S.-S., from Cambridge

by rail for Ispwich on Thursday, 13 March [1890].

5. Obituary notice, Jewish World, 14 March 1890.

6. Dr. S. M. Schiller-Szinessy. In Memoriam.

By the Rev. W. H. Lowe, M.A. Three articles,

Jewish World, 28 March, 4, 11 April 1890. 7. Letter of condolence to Mrs. Schiller

Szinessy, dated 14 March 1890, from A. F.

Kirkpatrick, Chairman, on behalf of the

Special Board for Oriental Studies.

8. Transcript of the entry in Christ's College

Register relative to S.-S., admitted Member of

the College 18 October 1877. Not all the facts as therein stated are accurate.

9. MS. (pencil), in English, Notes on the Life of S.M.S.-S. Ph.D. by his youngest

daughter, Henrietta Georgina, died Fulbourn,

Cambridgeshire, 1939. Typescript annexed.

Also letters from Lloyd's Shipping Editor, 28 June 1962, giving known shipping movements

between Trieste and Cork, April 1849, and

from C. A. Macartney relative to the chronology of the career of T?r?k. A letter from L. G.

Montefiore (1961) gives, from reminiscence

based on oral tradition, variant details regard?

ing S.-S.'s escape from captivity. 10. Photographs of S.-S., three-quarter

length, in cap and gown, dated on verso 3

December 1888, 'Der liebe Grossvater'; his

daughter Eleanor; and his daughter Henrietta

at the age of 28. 11. Engraving of S.-S., head and shoulders,

in cap and gown. Engraving signed I. Fischer. See Plate XV. His signature reproduced

pK noia mmn sma tk? p n?V&) .(rCTD1? D*?D "IDT

(vii) Alfred Solomon Schiller-Szinessy (b. 1863) 1. The Testaments of the XII Patriarchs.

Introductory notice. Jewish World, 29 April 1887.

2. MS. poems, now mounted in exercise

book (by R.L., 1940). 23 pieces, +one printed, viz., a metrical version of Ps. 2 ('Why doth the

heathen rage in ire, . . .'), from ?one of the

Jewish weekly papers. Titles and first lines of the MS. poems: (1) . The Singer. She gently strikes the

answering chords (2 copies).

(2) . Song. When fate was stern and love

denied. Dated Cambridge, 1886.

(3) . Song from the French. Come, little birds, 'tis I who call. Dated Cambridge, April 1886.

(4) . Blighted Love. No more I greet the noon-day light.

(5) . / Pray Thee Tune. I pray thee tune the sighing harp.

(6) . Sonnet. For love of thee my fainting spirit sighs.

(7) A Scene. He lingered on the winding shore.

(8) . My Heart. They stood beside the lofty walls (2 copies).

(9) . Sonnet. While here below we dwell, in every breast.

(10) . Evening Strains. Now evening wraps the earth with gloomy pall.

(11) . Lines. Methinks who dwelt on Earth in Heaven do know.

(12) . Contentment Within my soul I feel a touch of Heaven.

(13) . An Evening Walk. Now vanished is the noon-day light.

(14) . The Death of Sappho. The power of Love, the power of Love!

(15) . Unto The End. Within the Cavern of my brain.

(16) . Farewell! I look my last upon the hills.

(17) . Liberty. I care not to be he who dwells in state.

172 Raphael Loewe

(18) . Found. My heart was lonely, with one

empty room.

(19) . The Toy of Fate. I am the toy of Fate. Around me wheel.

(20) . Down to Death. On the wave walked

love and wailed. (Unsigned, and in a different

hand. A fragment of the same on the verso of

No. 23).

(21) . / Did Not Hear. I did not hear thee call me back to Love.

(22) . To a Flirt. You tell me, Mary, that you never flirt. (Dated Cambridge, February

1887). (23) . Sonnet to Death. Death! thou hast

garnered all the flowers of Life. (Fragment on

verso, cf. No. 20). 3. Exercise book (owner's name B. N.

Mehta, Downing College, Cambridge, 13

September 03), largely filled with stories, poems, a play, etc., in English. Hand similar to

but not identical with that of Alfred S. S.-S., ?a

brother or sister. Much colour and flower

symbolism. A similar piece, entitled The

forget-Me Not of Prince Lily. A Death-Play in One

Part, and in the same hand, is found in blank

pages of a Hebrew MS. now in my possession

(Rashi, nnm niOK, transcript by S.-S. No.

15). (viii) Miscellaneous

1. Transcript, by S.-S., in Ashkenazi

Rabbinic Hebrew characters, of Midrash

Bereshith Rabbathi from an unnoted MS. source (T T)Tt\[d] "?nxs? im nwin), ff. 191.

2. Bound volume of Der Ungarische Israelit, 13th year, 1886 (Budapest, ed. Ignaz W. Bak),

with a (?) specially printed leaf bearing dedication to S.-S., giving his title (inaccurately) in English. On the cover: Ehrw Herrn Dr S.-S.

In Cambridge 1886. 3. Biblical Hebrew Grammar, in English

(MS.), including exercises. Blue paper. The

hand (both Hebrew and English) is not S.-S.'s.

The first leaf has been repaired with fragments of a coal bill from a Cambridge firm, giving client's name as Coward. (Perhaps Thomas

Coward, of Queens' College, Tyrwhitt's Hebrew Scholar in 1838; of his sons, John Noble C. died as a medical student in Cam?

bridge, 1871, and another, Thomas Holford

C. (d. 1927), practised for a time there as a

conveyancer. Both were likewise at Queens', but neither apparently a Hebraist [Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses]).

4. Single leaf, with Abraham ibn Ezra's

reshuth to Nishmath D'TtVkV w hk?s (Davidson, Thesaurus, '2 No. 350) in Ash?

kenazi square characters (probably not S.-S.'s

hand). A few words pointed. 5. Correspondence relative to the latter

years, death, etc., of Sydney Herbert Schiller

Szinessy, died June 1964.

APPENDIX III

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF KNOWN PUBLICATIONS BY

SCHILLER-SZINESS Y

(a) Independent works, contributions to

learned periodicals, sermons, etc. (excluding

popular press, for which see (b)). Brief lists of S.-S.'s published works are to

be found in J. Fuerst's Bibliotheca Judaica, ed.

1863, and M. Schwab, Repertoire des articles

relatifs ? ... la litterature juives 1783-1898, i,

Paris, 1899 (Soc. des Etudes juives). The additional items have been recovered from

Doc. (Appendix II), etc., and where appro?

priate the location of known copies is given. Items listed in printed sources but of which

no copy has been seen or traced are shown in

square brackets [ ].

[(1) 1844: Die Befreiung durch unsern Glauben!

Gottesdienstlicher Vortrag ?ber Jes. 44, 23 im

Tempel der Israeliten zu Eperies gehalten von

Schiller, Rabbinen.

Advertised at end of No. 3, part i, 1845. Printed at Kaschau; Reines, p. 173.]

(2) 1845: Der Bund Gottes mit Israel! Gottesdienst?

licher Vortrag ?ber Jes. 59, 21. zur ersten

Confirmationsfeier... im Tempel der

Israeliten zu Eperies gehalten. Leipsig.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 173

[(7) 1846: De quinque Librorum Mosis Authentia.

8?, Eperies. Dissertation (Reines, p. 174). Cited by S.-S., Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 1885.

Untraced.]

[(7a) 1847: mm Wh? mns. Abschiedungspredigt. On

relinquishing the pulpit of Eperies. Reines,

p. 173.]

[(8) 1848-9 (?): Verse rendering into Hebrew of the Szozat

(Hungarian patriotic song). Cf. Reines, p. 178.

Possibly published anonymously as 'patriotische

Ges?nge eines Ungars\ Untraced; mentioned by M.?.L. (also Win.)

as 'amongst his published verse*. Doc. (vi), 9, refers to a 'small Hebrew book, of poetry,

Prayers before and after the Confirmation

(Barmitzvahy, dedicated by S.-S. to (the memory of) his brother Gershon Isaac Joshua.

Cf. 12.]

(8a) 1848: Kochbe Jizchak, 12, p. 56f. nipfln. A poem,

dedicated to L. Lewy, written when S.-S. was

aged 12.

(9) 1850: The Olden Religion in the New Year. A

Sermon preached before DSTpfi in the Birmingham Synagogue, on the second day of the festival of the New Year 5611 (Sept. 8, 1850), by the Reverend Rabbi. . . late of the

Synagogue of Eperies, in Hungary, translated under the superintendance of the author, By

Miriam Nathan, printed by . . . the wardens of the congregation, pp. 8. London: Wertheimer

& Co. (Miriam Nathan subsequently married, c. 1850-60, a Wertheimer from Altona and a

connection of Samson W. See S.-S. in Jewish World, 1889 (Bibl. 70), where S.-S. erroneously describes this as his first sermon in England. It was however, preceded by Bibl. 35).

Jews' Coll. 50. h. 2(30).

(10) 1851: The feelings of the Israelite on beholding his

sovereign. An Address delivered to the United Hebrew Congregation of Manchester on the

10th October, 1851 = 1YD?. pBKH V?

Brit. Mus. 1358. i. 32(5). In a letter to the Jewish Standard, 8 June 1888,

S.-S. asserts that a second sermon by himself on

the same subject, in German, had also been

printed. No details given.

(3) 1845-1846: Die zweite Rabbinerversammlung zu Frank?

furt a M. Eine vollst?ndige Beleuchtung der

Tendenz . . . sowie insonders der Geistes, der

bei und in derselben vorwaltend war. Von

Salomon Marcus Schiller, approbirten Rabbi?

nen; Prediger am Israel. Tempel zu Eperies und

Privatdocenten auf dem Evangel. Collegio daselbst &c. &c. Zweite Auflage, Heft 1, 2.

Leipsig, 1845, 46. Brit. Mus. 4033. b. 68.

Mocatta Library (2. Heft, -J~ photostat of 1.

Heft). Part ii contains separate title: Die Versamm?

lung deutscher Rabbiner. Mit besonderer

Beziehung auf die zweite zu Frankfurt a. M. vom 15.-28. Juli 1845 abgehaltene. Durch Dr.

Phil. S. M. Schiller, Rabinnen; ... pp. 32.

Leipsig, 1846. Dedicated to his parents, on his

25th birthday.

[(4) 1845: Israel. Eine Sammlung religi?s-politischer

Kanzelreden in den Synagogen zu Miskolcz,

Kaschau, Eperies, Bielitz, Teschen &c. gehalten von S. M. Schiller, approb. Rabbinen;

Prediger am israelitischen Tempel zu Eperies und Privatdocenten auf dem Evangelischen

Collegio daselbst, &c.

Advertised at end of No. 3, part i, 1845, as

about to appear on subscription, listing titles of

30 sermons. Not listed in Fuerst or Schwab, but

dated by Win. 1845. Untraced. ? never

published.] See supra, p. 151, n. 51.

[(5) 1846: OtPn t?TTp. Die Heiligung des g?ttlichen

Namens. Ein Kanzelvortrag u.s.w. Leipsig. Listed by Fuerst.]

[(6) 1846: Bef?rdert das Wohl des Vaterlandes. Predigt

u.s.w. Leipsig. On the birthday of Ferdinand I

of Austria, 19 April. Listed by Fuerst.]

174 Raphael Loewe

5612, in honour of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Visit to that city. [Contains as an

appendix] a Dedication to Lewis Kossuth (late Governor of the Hungarian Empire), pp. 8+2.

See p. 153.

Brit. Mus. 4477. bb. 43; Jews' Coll. 25. c. 23.

[(10a) 1852: Inauguration sermon, Manchester. Reines,

p. 173.]

(11) 1852: Confirmation a genuine Jewish institution:

A Sermon, delivered on IWDtf bti JlttWI DY? 5612, (24th May, 1852), at the solemniza? tion of the first ceremony of confirmation, in

the Halliwell-Street Synagogue, Manchester.

By the Rev. Dr. . .. Local Rabbi, pp. 12.

(Dedicated to the children of the religion classes, viz., Henry Harris (Hac-cohen), Camilla Segre, Mary Prax, Esther Hesse, Henrietta Rose Isaac, Elizabeth Goldstone, Sarah Leveaux, Sarah Abrahams, Sarah

Nathan. Answers the critics of the introduction

of confirmation).

Jews' Coll. 25. a. 12(3).

[(12) 1852: The Gate of Zion, comprising occasional

prayers, addresses, benedictions, &c.

Mentioned among S.-S.'s publications in

obituary notice, Jewish World, 14 March 1890. Reines, p. 177. Probably includes No. 8. Un

traced.]

(13) 1855: Charity: A Sermon preached on behalf of the

'Benevolent Fund', at the Halliwell-Street

Synagogue. On Sunday, the 5th of Chanuccah, 5616 (9 Dec. 1855). pp. 8.

Jews' Coll. 26. d. 13.

(13a) 1856: KochbeJizchak, 21, pp. 64f. imp Vlp. A poem

on the Hungarians who fell in the revolution, after the Hungarian poet M. V?r?smarty

(author of 'Szoz?t', cf. {S)).

(14) 1858: Flysheet, dated Rosh Chodesh Nissan 5618

(March 16th, 1858), 'To the Members of the Manchester Congregation of British Jews'.

Doc. ii, 9. Reprinted, Appendix I, pp. 164f. See supra, p. 155).

(15) 1859: :*iam rmrrV fiKtt. Harmony and

Dis-Harmony between Judaism and Christi?

anity. Two Sermons preached on the Sabbaths m?W & *n*tt 5619 (December 25th, 1858, and January 1st, 1859) at the Manchester Synagogue of British Jews by the rev. the Rabbi, ... 1.

Judaism and Trinitarianism. 2. Judaism and

Unitarianism. pp. 16. Dedicated to Horatio

Montefiore.

Brit. Mus. 4478. bb. 98.

Jews' Coll. 50. h. 2(32).

(16) 1870-71: J?dische Zeitschrift f?r Wissenschaft und

Leben (ed. A. Geiger, Breslau), (i) viii (1870), p. 237-9; (2) ix (1871), p. 141.

'Aus Briefen'. (1) Remarks on articles by Zunz in the same Zuschrift, vi (1868), p. 194f., and Steinschneider, ibid., p. 122f. (Letter dated

14 Dec. 1868). (2) Preliminary report, dated 19 July 1869, on recent acquisitions of Hebrew

MSS. by the Cambridge University Library, including the Cambridge Mishnah Codex (cf.

No. 25).

(17) 1870: Appendix containing A Catalogue of the

Hebrew and Samaritan MSS, to E. H.

Palmer, A descriptive Catalogue of the Arabic,

Persian, and Turkish Manuscripts in the

Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 8?.

Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co. Appendix, pp. 209-35. A postscript to the

preface, p. vii, reads: 'The Catalogue of the

Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. has been drawn

up by myself, with the assistance of the Rev.

Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, to whom, in many cases, I have been little more than an amanuensis.

William Aldis Wright.'

(18) 1872: Transactions of the Society for Biblical

Archaeology, i, 2, p. 263f. The Prideaux Penta?

teuch.

Description of scroll presented to the Society

by Captain Prideaux.

(19) 1876: TTCna nm [+full title-page in Hebrew].

Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts pre? served in the University Library, Cambridge.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 175

Volume I. containing Section I. The Holy

Scriptures. Section II. Commentaries on the Bible.

Cambridge: Printed for the University Library. 8?, pp. 248. Dedicated to Zunz. Covers Nos.

1-72.

Part III. Talmudic Literature, was printed

(without separate title-page and not formally

issued); pp. 94. Covers Nos. 73-97 (= MSS.

Add. 470, 1; Add. 1207. 2; Add. 1020-21; Add. 1229; Dd. 5.63; Add. 863.3; Oo. 6.70.2; Add. 554.2 (now 4); Add. 1009.1; Add. 487.2; Add. 487.3; Add.1236; Oo. 1.45; Add. 494; Add. 1207.3; Add. 478; Add 479.2; Add. 479.1; 1213; Add. 655; Add. 1209; Add. 674.4;

Add. 494.1 (now 508.1); Oo. 6.63. The holograph of Schiller-Szinessy's Catalogue

of MSS. in the Cambridge University Library, covering a large number of items not included

in the printed portion, is now itself an item in the collection, pressmark, Or. 1116-1121. The

six volumes cover MSS. in the following

sequences: 1116, Dd. 2. 30-15.5. 1117, Ee. 5.

8-Mm. 6. 32. 1118, Oo. 1. 3-6. 71. 1119, Add.

169-438. 1120, Add. 445-562. 1121, Add. 626-676.

(20) 1878: tWiflM n?m Occasional Notices of Hebrew

Manuscripts. No. I. Description of the Leyden MS. of the Palestinian Talmud. Cambridge:

Deighton, Bell and Co., pp. 16, 1 plate, + Specimen (pp. 4) of ed. of Qimhi on Pss (different typeset from No. 24). All issued.

Jews' Coll. 99. g. 1, bound with reprinted specimen of Catalogue (No. 19), Nos. 73-75, and

Excursus III (Talmud), ? not found in all copies of the Catalogue.

Loewe Collection, Bibliog. I. 9.

(21) 1878: The Academy, vol. 13, Feb. 23, p. 170f.

Review of Charles Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, 1877.

Discusses Babylonian and Palestinian recen?

sions of the Talmud.

(22) 1882: Persecution of the Jews in Russia. Speech of the

Rev. Dr.... at the Meeting in the Guildhall,

Cambridge, February 15, 1882. Printed by

Request. Cambridge, pp. 8.

Mocatta Library. Loewe Collection, Antisemitism IV 8.

(Presumably the original of the speech

printed in Ungarische Israelit, 1882, Nos. 13-14, see No. 53 [c].)

(23) 1882: ??TW V?W mn an Exposition of Isaiah LII

13 14 15 and LIII delivered before the Council of the Senate in the Law School on Friday April 28, 1882, by. . . Reader in Rabbinic and

Talmudic Literature . . . formerly Professor

Publicus Extraordinarius . . . in . . . Eperjes, and subsequently Rabbi of the United Con?

gregation of Manchester. Printed by Request.

Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co. pp. 31.

(Dedicated to James Porter, Master of

Peterhouse.) Loewe collection, Bible VI 1.

(24) 1883: tzmsn os... ro^rmn ?nm pwnn n&on

TI&p . . ? TTT TEnV THKH [with full Hebrew title-page]. The First Book of the

Psalms according to the Text of the Cambridge MS. Bible Add. 465 with the Longer Commen?

tary of R. David Qimchi critically edited ... by . . . Formerly Rabbi of the Entire Jewish

Community in Manchester. 8?. pp. 130. Cam?

bridge: Deighton, Bell & Co. [Printed in Vienna.]

Dedication to George Phillips, D.D. (see supra, p. 161 n. 170).

(25) 1883: Foreword in Hebrew (entitled nST^?) to

W. H. Lowe's edition of The Mishnah on which the Palestinian Talmud rests, Cambridge, 1883.

(26) 1886 (November): Expositor, 3rd Series, vol. iv, p. 32 If. St

Paul from a Jewish Point of view.

See criticism by Schechter, Jewish Chronicle, 19 November 1886, p. 14. (Doc. (v).)

(27) 1886: my3 Km [Full Hebrew and Latin title

pages]. Massa Ba'Arab. Romanelli's Travels in

Morocco towards the end of the eighteenth century. Fifth Edition. With Preface, Notes, and Life of the Author by. .. formerly

176 Raphael Loewe

Professor Publicus Extraordinarius . . . in . . .

Eperjes. In two parts: Hebrew and English I.

Hebrew Text [all issued?]. 8?. pp. [v] + 72. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell and Co.

(Dedicated to Judah Guedalla and his son and daughter-in-law, Henry and Jemima

Guedalla.)

(28) 1888: The Journal of Philology, xvi, No. 31, pp.

131-52. The Pugio Fidel [A postscript states that this article is

substantially the same as the article on Ray mundus Martini prepared for the Encyclopaedia

Britannica, vol. xx, but withdrawn out of

deference for Zunz, who in his last years had

prepared an article on this topic]

Jews' Coll. 37. c. 50 (offprint).

(29) (1875-) 1889: Encylopaedia Britannica, 9th edition.

Articles on Kimhi, Maimonides, Mahzor,

Mishnah, Midrash, Rashba, Saadia, Talmud, Tar gum (etc.). Full list in Reims, pp. 175-6.

(30) ? (after 1888): Our Redemption from Egypt and Our

Redemption in the Future. A Sermon for the

seventh day of Passover, by the Rev. Dr. . . .

Formerly Rabbi of the Entire Jewish Community in Manchester, London, pp. 8.

[p. 6, note # refers to The Times report of the death of the German Emperor Wilhelm, issue

of 12 March 1888.] Mocatta Library. Loewe Collection, Sermons III, 5.

(31) 1893: A Dictionary of the Bible, 2nd edition, ed.

William Smith and J. M. Fuller.

Articles on Aijeleth Shahar, Alamoth, Al

Taschith, Cithern, Cornet, Cymbals, Harp (?+ others).

(Only the first two parts, comprising vol. i

(A~Juttah) actually appeared, sets being made up with older parts. Proofs in Doc. (iv).)

(32) ? (Date uncertain): The Understanding of the Shophar-Sound.

A Sermon for the first day of New Tear. By the Rev. Dr. . . . Formerly Rabbi of the Entire Jewish

Community in Manchester. Reprinted from 'The

Jewish Standard'. London, pp. 7.

Mocatta Library. Loewe Collection, Sermons III, 4.

(33) ? (Date uncertain): At Evening-Time It Shall Be Light! A Sermon

for the Ne'ilah-Service of the Day of Atonement By the Rev. Dr. . . ., Formerly Rabbi of the Entire

Jewish Community in Manchester. London, pp. 3.

Mocatta Library.

[(34) ? Never published: The New Testament illustrated by the

Talmuds and Midrashim (I. Matthew). Announced as 'forthcoming' by S.-S. in

Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 1885. Probably still? born.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY, (b) NON-ACADEMIC PERIODICALS

AND THE PRESS

Note: The following list is based on a file of press-cuttings in Schiller-Szinessy's archive, now deposited in the Mocatta Library. Some

items not in that file have also been noticed; but the Jewish Chronicle,* the Hebrew Observer, the Jewish World, and Jewish Standard have not

been systematically scrutinised. It is possible that they might yield further items. (Chrono? logical readjustment has not been invariably carried out where extensive renumbering would

have been involved.) Reines, p. 178, refers, without dates or

details, to further contributions by S.-S. to the

Orient, Kochbe Jitzchak, and the Allgemeine

* As far as the Jewish Chronicle is concerned, virtually all references to Schiller-Szinessy, personal, literary, and as the writer of letters in his own name

(he may also have used a pseudonym, as was a very frequent habit in those days), in the years 1841? 1880 are now available in the Cumulative Index to that paper (compiled by John M. Shaftesley), now in the office of the J.C., and references after that date are in the continuation 1881- still being compiled by the same author. The index discloses some additional material concerning Schiller

Szinessy's clashes with the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Nathan Marcus Adler, partly referred to in Mr. Shaftesley's paper on 'Anglo-Jewish Religious Conflicts in the 19th century', delivered to the Society for the

Promotion of Jewish Learning, London, on 23 March 1967. Two additional references to Rabbi

Schiller, of Eperies, occur in the Index to the Voice

of Jacob, 1841-1846, also compiled by J.M.S.? Editor's note.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 177

Zeitung des Judenthums, as well as to items in the

periodicals mentioned in the following list.

[(34a) 1845: Sabbatblatt (Leipsig, ed. A. Jellinek). Die erste Confirmationsfeier im israelitischen

Tempel zu Eperies. Reines, p. 173.]

(35) 1850: Jewish Chronicle, 19 July. God's Love to Israel. A discourse for the

Sabbath of 'Comfort'.

(36) 1850: Jewish Chronicle, issue following 23 Septem?

ber.

(Report: Manchester Synagogue. (From a

Correspondent). Devoted to two discourses

delivered by 'Dr. Schiller' on the first two days of Tabernacles ('. . . surely there was but one

wish paramount in all?that those with whom rests the care of this congregation's prosperity

may be able to devise means for the securing to

the Hebrews of Manchester the great privilege of periodically hearing similar discourses from

this rarely-gifted teacher in Israel'). Con?

ceivably by Tobias Theodores.)

(37) 1851: Jewish Chronicle, 3 October.

Light and Truth. The Two Indispensable Guides to an Israelitish Sanctuary. A Sermon,

preached at the Re-opening of the Hardman-street

Synagogue, Liverpool, on the . . . 21st September, 1851.

[For treatment of the term 'reform' in this

sermon, see p. 153].

(38) 1852: Jewish Chronicle, 16 January. Testimonial to the Rev. Dr. Schiller-Szinessy.

(From a Correspondent).

Reports presentation of address and purse by Ladies (Doc. (ii), 4) and gives text of S.-S.'s

reply. See supra, p. 152.

(39) 1852: Jewish Chronicle, 18 June. Of what significance is Jerusalem to Israel

through all ages ? A Sermon for the Sabbath

"[niVynn. By the Rev. Dr_Local Rabbi of Manchester.

Republished in The Asmonean, New York, 16

July, 1852, p. 103. (Not in Doc.)

(40) 1852: The Asmonean (New York), 23 July, p. 114. Mosheh the Model of every Rabbi. By the

Rev Dr. S.M.S.-S.

(Not in Doc).

(41) 1854: Hebrew Observer, 7 July. The Law of God as Delivered on Sinai.

Confirmation Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. . . ., Local Rabbi, on .JWDIP last, at the

Manchester Synagogue.

(Full-length report of ceremony, and res?

ponses of individual confirmands. These are

named as Eugene Beaver, Samuel Goodheim, Albert Lev[e]aux, Bennet Oppenheim, Leopold Barnett, Aaron Flugeltaub, Victoria Franks, Rebecca Flugeltaub, Rosetta Hesse, Helen

Goodman, Rebecca Cohen, Sophia Goldstone, Rosa Golding, Rosa Nathan, Augusta Jacobs.

In the Jewish Standard, 8 June 1888, S.-S.

refers to a report of a similar ceremony on

Pentecost, 1860, in the appropriate number of

the Jewish Chronicle. This has not been located

either in the 1860 file or in that of any earlier year.

(42) 1856: Jewish Chronicle, 18 April. Publishes exchange of letters from Isaac A.

Franklin, Secretary of the Manchester Jews' School, inviting S.-S.'s continuance in charge of Jewish education after his ceasing to exercise

Rabbinical functions for the United Congrega? tion, and from S.-S., who replies affirmatively and appreciatively, from the address of 'Office

of the Chief Rabbi'. [Publication was doubtless prompted by a

current anonymous correspondence in the

Jewish Chronicle, which had reported S.-S.'s

resignation as accepted (4 April). A letter

signed attacked him (25 April) and was answered by ?^STI J1?X on 2 May, referring to S.-S. as Chief Rabbi of Hebrew Congrega? tions in England. This elicited a letter signed nilftNI TON, pouring scorn on the new

synagogue?a mere handful meeting for prayer

178 Raphael Loewe

in S.-S.'s private residence in South Hall

Street?and refers to his 'former admirers'.]

(43) 1856: Jewish Chronicle, 16 May. Translation of prayer offered at service in

South Hall-street, Manchester, on Sunday 4

May, Thanksgiving Day [after conclusion of the Crimean War]. Prayer composed by the

Rev. Dr_

[On text of this, and circumstances, see

supra, p. 156, n. 109.]

(44) 1857: Jewish Chronicle, 27 March.

An Address Delivered on Shushan-Purim,

5617, at the laying of the Foundation-stone of

the Synagogue of British Jews, Manchester, by the Rev. Rabbi Dr_

(See supra, p. 154.)

(45) 1858: Jewish Chronicle. 9 April (Supplement). Report of sermon at the opening of the

Synagogue of the Manchester Congregation of

British Jews, Park Place.

Reprinted by Goldb., p. 25f.

(46) 1858: Jewish Chronicle, 18 June.

Unsigned obituary notice of Judah Guedalla.

[Probably not by S.-S., who may, however, have

supplied some of the material.]

(47) Before 1859: The Asmonean (New York). The Late Rev. Dr. Salomon Sachs, of

Lichtenstadt. Chief Rabbi of the District of Ellenbogen and Saaz, in Bohemia. By the Rev.

Dr_

The Asmonean was published 1849-1858.

Sachs is stated to have died 'on 5th May last', he is not listed in Win., etc. (Press cutting in

Doc.(v).)

(48) 1859: Jewish Chronicle, 9 Dec. The Refugees from Morocco.

Abstract of a sermon preached by the Rev.

Dr.... in the Synagogue of the British Jews,

Manchester, on Sabbath rntP ^TT.

(49) 1860: Jewish Chronicle, 1 June.

Report of presentation of silver goblet to

S.-S. by the children of the religion classes.

See supra, p. 159, note 129.

(50) 1874: Jewish Chronicle, 27 March.

Y'l nW?. Hebrew text of a poem,

Cambridge University Library MS. Mm. 6. 24.

(51) 1876: Jewish Chronicle, 15 December.

(Dr. Schiller-Szinessy. English translation of

the Latin Speech made by the Public Orator,

J. E. Sandys, in presenting S.-S. for degree of

M.A. See Doc, Cambridge 2.)

(52) 1879: Jewish World, 5 December.

Jacob & Isaac Abendana.

Correction, 12 December. Further letter

26 December, with supplementary information

on the family from MSS. Cambridge U.L.

Hebrew Add. 1020, 1021.

(53) 1882: (a) Jewish Chronicle, 17 February. (Report of meeting of protest against Russian

Jewish persecutions in the Guildhall, Cam?

bridge. S.-S. moved vote of thanks to the

Chair.)

(b) Cambridge Independent Press and University Herald, 18 February.

(Longer report of S.-S.'s speech, for full

text of which see No. 22.)

(c) Ungarische Israelit, Nos. 13 and 14.

Speech on the Persecution of the Jews in

Russia. Presumably a translation of the Cam?

bridge speech.

(54) 1883: The Times, 24 January. Refutation of the ritual murder charge,

arising out of the Tisza-Eszlar Affair. Citing letter from J. B. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham.

Receipt of letters in the same sense from the

Dean of Peterborough, the Master of Christ's

and the Master [sic] of Queens' College, Cambridge, Westcott, and Lumby is editorially noted.

(For the Tisza-Eszlar accusation, which

began with an incident on 1 April 1882, see

J.E., s.v.)

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 179

(55) 1885: (a) Jewish Chronicle, 19 June.

Quotes Bib I. 23, pp. 30-31, with reference to

the quality of being a 'Gentile Saviour* con?

ceded by S.-S. to Jesus, and claimed by S.-S. to be allowed by Maimonides.

(b) 26 June. Objection. Signed 'M'. (c) 3 July. Aloof rejoinder by S.-S., dis?

daining to reply in detail to unsigned letter.

(d) 10 July. 'M' identifies himself as Isaac S. Meisels and elaborates his criticisms.

(e) 17 July. Long substantiation of his position by S.-S.

(f) 24 July. Extended refutation by Meisels, accusing S.-S. of obsequiousness towards

Christianity.

(g) 31 July. An anonymous correspondent cites Maimonides' 9Iggereth Teyman in support of

Meisels' strictures.

(56) ? 1885: Jewish World. Review of S. K?nigsberg's 'Alluph Thephillah,

Prague (Jacob B. Brandeis, for the Conference

of Jewish teachers of Bohemia).

(Contains reminiscences of S.-S.'s contacts

with former pupils of R. Aaron Kornfeld at

Golc Jenikau.)

(57) 1889: Jewish World, 15 November.

Review of Samuel Back [ =

Baeck], Tzeror

Hachayyim, Ged?chtnis (s)reden auf hervorragende Manner des Judenthums {viz., Montefiore,

Frankel, L?b Back, Albert Cohn, and Zunz).

(Contains material relative to the Bak family, of which S.-S.'s mother was a member, assert?

ing that Jacob Bak was descended from a pre

expulsion Anglo-Jewish family.)

(58) 1887: Jewish World, 25 March. Obituary letter on Adolphus Sington, late of

Manchester. [Records that for 30 years S.-S.

and Sington had been 'somewhat estranged';

Sington had 'only accepted the wardenship of

the now Old Congregation [Manchester] when utter ruin threatened it in 1857'.]

(59) 1887: c. 8 November.

Copy of circular appeal 'to some of our

coreligionists' for funds for the rebuilding of the

Synagogue and of the Evangelical District

College, Eperies, destroyed by fire.

(For the response to this appeal, see Doc. (i),

10> Untraced in Jewish World or Jewish Chronicle.

Copy in Doc. (v).

(60) 1887: Jewish World, 8 April. Records holding of religious services, with

minyan, in the Austrian Imperial Parliament by R. Simon Sopher (Schreiber), of Cracow, and

of facilities for Jewish worship afforded by Franciscans in Pest during the inundation of

Budapest in 1838.

(61) 1887: Jewish World, 8 July. Note on Jellinek's Gedenkrede over Joseph von

Wertheimer, died 15 March 1887. Mentions

that W. was responsible for securing Jellinek's

appointment at Vienna, having heard him

preach at Leipzig.

(On Wertheimer see J.E., s.v.)

(62) 1887: Jewish World, 4 November.

On Moritz Gottlieb Saphir. Refers to site of S.-S.'s own birth, (see supra, p. 148).

For Saphir, Hungarian humorist (1795?

1858), see J.E. Details there given as to his

birthplace do not tally with this account.

(63) 1887: Jewish World, 11 November. A MS. Hebrew Bible in the possession of W.

Robertson Smith, and its dating relative to MS,

Cambridge Heb. Mm. 5. 27.

(64) 1888: Jewish Standard, 27 April. The abbreviation ?"? after Sephardi sig?

natures.

(65) 1888: (a) Jewish World, 27 April.

Review of Rosin's Rhyme und Gedichte des Abraham ben Ezra (Denies that Ibn Ezra

possessed poetic feeling, despite his dexterity as a versifier, and states that Ibn Ezra was not

truly orthodox).

180 Raphael Loewe

(b) 25 May. Reply to Mr. Zimmer, reasserting that Ibn

Ezra was not orthodox even though doubtless a

fully observant Jew (Geiger's observant practice is compared).

(c) 15 June. Further reply to Zimmer, distinguishing

Abraham ibn Ezra from Joseph ibn Ezra, the

seventeenth-century author of the 6Asmoth

Toseph on Qiddushin.

(66) 1888: (a) Jewish Standard, 25 May.

Confirmation. [Contraverts letter from SJ\]

(b) 8 June. Confirmation.

(Further letter in answer to 'J'. reasserting

Jewish authenticity of Confirmation, giving details of five performances of the ceremony by S.-S., and appending remarks relative to

halakhoth le-Mosheh missinai.)

(67) 1888: Jewish Standard, 25 May. Tosaphoth. By the Rev. Dr_, M.A.

(68) 1888: Jewish Messenger (New York). 22 and 29

June. The Talmud. By Prof. Dr. ...

(69) 1888:

Jewish World, 21 December. OTTtt, ttrrm and pm* (Remarks on

Neubauer's articles in Revue des Etudes Juives, xvii, 33, accusing both Neubauer and Schechter

of plagiarism. S.-S. explains the phrase trrm DlDOin as abbreviated for '??Dm "TOO 'in

i.e., Rhineland).

(70) 1889: Jewish World, 4 and 18 October.

ffWlM nnSO n&Vtf Reviews of Leo N. Levi, The Intellectual and Ethical Development of the American Jew; Chayyim M. Horowitz, Tosephotho

'Attiqotho; David Kaufmann, Samson Wertheimer

(Polemises against Schechter's ed. of 'Aboth de

Rabbi Nathan. Contains animadversaria regarding Samson Wertheimer and his family, to which

S.-S. was connected, and an anecdote of how

Prince Esterhazy of Eisenstadt in 1722 secured

all the synagogal honours for his court-Jew, Moses, whom the congregation were ostra?

cising) .

(71) 1889: Jewish World, 25 October. Table Talk xviii* (* An unpublished work by

Dr S. M. S.-S.). Anecdote regarding Samson Wertheimer's

philanthropy. Reference is made to this series of Table Talk

in the Manchester Guardian's obituary, Bibl. 79.

(72) 1889: Jewish World, 1 March. Dr. Schiller-Szinessy and Mr. Schechter.

(Reply to attack by Schechter which had been supported by S. Singer and Neubauer.

Mentions that S.-S. had been a fellow-student

with Edersheim. The whole series of letters to

the press regarding this controversy, which

revolved round a charge of plagiarism, is listed

with references by Adolph S. Oko, Solomon

Schechter, M.A., Litt.D. A Bibliography, Cam?

bridge, 1938, p. 11, No. 35. It had begun in 1888 and was closed editorially on 15 March 1889.)

(73) 1889: Jewish World, 14 June. (Ruth iv, 7, 8.) (Explains na'alo in loc. as meaning glove

rather than shoe.)

(74) 1889: Jewish Standard, between 8 and 15 September. A long, polemical letter in reply to 'Joseph

Levy'.

(75) 1889: Jewish World, 27 December.

Review of D. Eaton's translation (vol. iii) of

Delitzsch's Commentary on the Psalms.

(Refutes the current belief that Delitzsch was of Jewish origin, but indicates that he had

been the pupil of Jewish teachers and was

competent in Hebrew bibliography.)

(76) 1890: ? Jewish World, 10 January.

Obituary notice on Ludwig Philippson. (For Philippson see J.E.) See supra, p. 164.

(77) 1890: The Academy, c. 1 February.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 181

Obituary notice on Dr. Karl von Hase, of

Jena. See supra, p. 149, n. 26.

(78) 1890: Jewish World, 7 February. Review of S track's Mischnatraktat Sabbath,

and abstract of an obituary notice by S.-S. in

the preceding week's Academy on Karl August von Hase, of Jena.

(79) [1890: (a) The Times, 13 March. Obituary.

(b) Manchester Guardian, 14 March (p. 8). Obituary (Largely concerned with anecdote

illustrative of eleemosynary vagaries of August

Sylvester Sichel and S.-S.'s handling of him).

(c) Jewish World, 14 March. Death of Dr. Schiller-Szinessy.

(d) Jewish World, 28 March, 4, 11 April Dr. S. M. Schiller-Szinessy. In Memoriam I,

II, III. By the Rev. W. H. Lowe, M.A.

(e) Jewish Chronicle, 14 March. Obituary and leading article. (Not in Doc.)]

APPENDIX IV

(a) Pedigree Menahem (Schill, i.e.,

"? *V)*

I Solomon =

Malkah, of family of Shabbetai Cohen, 17th cent.

(1) A relative = Me'ir/Marcus = (2) Theresa (Teltse) of (2) Schiller, of

Altofen, 1780-1861

4 sons, all

deceased by end of 1820

Antonia B?k;t married in Italy, d. 1859

Shabbetai Menahem 3

daughters

7 children deceased by end of 1820

Moses Joshua Isaac Judah:

Gershon, Rabbi.

1813-34; issue

d. during betrothal

Solomon Marcus

Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-90

Phineas Uri Hindel = d. aged Sheraga: Gershon

5, 1831 Rabbi, Schwartz d. after

1890 Eva

(1863) Georgiana Eleanor ( +Sarah) Herbert, of Manchester

1831-1901

Alfred (Me'ir) Theresa Eleanor Henrietta Geor

Solomon Schiller- Antonia d. un- giana, 1869

Szinessy, 1863-? 1864-5 married 1939; d. un ? Issue, with married

descendants living

(1963) in Hungary? * Abbreviation of HJQ1? "? TTItP, Ps. 16,8 (I have set the Lord before me), Menahem Me'iri and Abraham b. David of Posquieres.

t She was also connected ancestrally to her husband. Daughter of Phineas and Hedel B?k and

granddaughter of Jacob B?k, of the family of printers in Italy and Prague. Connected also with the Wertheimer and Oppenheimer families. Phineas B?k's sister Esther was the grandmother of

Adolf Jellinek.

Sydney Herbert

(Gershon Joshua) Schiller-Szinessy, 1876-1964; d. un?

married

Claimed descent from

182 Raphael Loewe

(b) Sepulchral Inscriptions From the Jewish plot in the Municipal Cemetery, Ipswich

(1) nasan psV nn ttk ira n??ii asrpn ptwn? a'^a tVk pst tk? p n?^m ann n> In Memory of Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy. M.A. Ph.D. Born at Buda-Pesth 1821 [sic].

Died at Cambridge. 1890. Formerly Rabbi of the Jewish Community in Manchester and after?

wards Reader in Rabbinic in the University of Cambridge, and of his daughter Theresa Antonia.

Born 1864. Died 1865. Oh how great is thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee [For the discrepancies of the dates as here given see infra, note 2.]

(2) In Loving Memory of Sarah widow of the Revd S. M. Schiller-Szinessy Who died April 21st 1901 Aged 70 Years Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.

SOURCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Schiller-Szinessy's preface to his edition of

Qimhi's commentary on Psalms (see Bibliography, supra, p. 175, No. 24) contains some genealogical and

biographical material. This may be supplemented from the collection of personal documents and press cuttings calendared supra, Appendix II. Included therein are a MS. memoir by his daughter Henrietta

((vi), 9) and published reminiscences by his pupil W. H. Lowe (BibL No. 79).

On Schiller-Szinessy's death obituary notices

appeared in the press (Bibl. No. 79), and bio?

graphical articles are to be found in the standard

Jewish reference books, notably the Jewish En?

cyclopedia, the Magyar Qido Lexicon, and thence S.

Wininger, Grosse J?dische Mational-Biographie (see infra, abbreviations). Moses Reines's Dor wahakha

maw (Cracow, 1890), part i, pp. 162ff., 185, con? tains an article and a portrait (reproduced, plate

XV). In the matter of Schiller-Szinessy's escape from Hungary, the details given in these printed sources are hard to reconcile with information available from the standard histories of the Hun? garian revolution of 1848-1849 on the one side and

sundry details in Schiller-Szinessy's own documents,

etc., of later date; and it is probable that in this instance the standard source-books depend ulti?

mately on a certain element of exaggeration either

by his admirers or possibly, in retrospect, by Schiller-Szinessy himself, of the importance of the role which he played (see infra, nn. 58, 62). It is

likely that the source is furnished by an apparently (?auto-) biographical piece, referred to by S.-S. as

'Jahrbuch f?r 5640-1880, Budapest, 8vo, p. 6', in a footnote on p. 6 of item No. 23 in Bibl. I have failed to identify this, so far, with any Hungarian Jewish periodical available to me. (The only periodical published in Budapest listed in J.E., ix, p. 616f., that seems at all plausible is the Jahrbuch zur

Bef?rderung des Ackerbaus, Handwerks, und der Industrie unter den Israeliten Ungarns, ed. Ignaz Reich, 1872.) The records of what is now the Manchester Great

Synagogue and of the West London Synagogue of British Jews also contain important material.

I am glad to acknowledge the assistance generously given me by Messrs. Norman Cohen, Israel

Finestein, and A. L. Schischa in connection with sundry matters relating to the material here utilised.

ABBREVIATIONS

Bibl.?Bibliography of Schiller-Szinessy's publica? tions, supra, Appendix III, pp. 172f.

D.N.B.?Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 1885f.

Doc.?Documents, personal and otherwise, pre? served in the Mocatta Library, University College, London, and calendared supra, Appendix II, pp. 166f.

Goldb.?P. Selvin Goldberg, The Manchester Con?

gregation of British Jews 1857-1957, Manchester, 1957.

J.E.?The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. I. Singer, New

York, 1901.

Kos.?Hungary and its Revolutions . . . with a Memoir of Louis Kossuth, by E.O.S., London, 1889.

M.Z'L.?Magyar ?mWo Lexikon, ed. P. Ujvari, Budapest, 1929 (Article on Schiller-Szinessy by R. Geltrnann, p. 772).

Qim.?Schiller-Szinessy's edition of Qimhi on

Psalms, see Bibl. p. 175, No. 24. Reines?M. Reines's biography (see supra, Sources

and Abbreviations). Win.?S. Wininger, Grosse J?dische National

Biographie, Leipsig, Cern?uti ( =

Czernowitz), n.d.

(Dependent on M. ?.?.).

NOTES 1 The name Mayer given in various works of

reference is unsupported by S.-S.'s own usage or by Doc; Marcus appears in Latin, etc., but never

Me'ir in Hebrew. His father apparently used both forms.

2 Doc (vi), 9, and Bibl. 62, Doc, (i), 3. 23 Dec.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 183

1820 was a Saturday. The date 12 Marheshvan

(5)581 given on his tombstone (Appendix IV) does not correspond and is doubtless an error, as is

certainly the allegedly equivalent civil year (1821 instead of 1820). 3 OTT!? p na1?!? p TK?, Qim. title-page and p. xvii, n. 15. Died aged 81, 20 'Iyyar 5621-1861. 4 Doc. (i), 2. Reines, p. 163, n. 2, records that he also held a Rabbinical diploma. 5

M.Z-L., Qim., p. xvii, n. 15. 6 Doc. (vi), 9. 7 See family tree, Appendix IV, p. 181. They had

been married in Italy (Qim., p. x). She was a cousin of the wife of B?r Oppenheimer, of Pressburg, and a connection of the Wertheimer family (Bibl. 57). Died 18 'Ab 5619-1859 (Qim., p. xvii, n. 16). 8 Bibl. 57.

9 J.E., s.v. Bak (A. Freimann). Bibl. 79 (Jewish

Chronicle). 10 Doc. (vi), 9. S.-S. tells something similar of his

regimen in the house of R. Ephraim of V?r?svar (d. 29 Shevat 5604-1844), with whom he spent his school holidays between his eighth and twelfth years (Qim., p. xvii, n. 19; Reines, p. 166). According to S.-S. himself (Bibl. 70), he was studying with

Kornfeld in 1837, i.e., in his 17th year. See also reminiscences of contacts with Kornfeld's former

pupils, Bibl. 56, and Qim., p. xviii, n. 24. Jewish World, 2 Dec. 1881. On Aaron Kornfeld (d. 1881) see J.E. 11 Doc. (vi), 9. On the plague, see Kos. p. 177f.

12 Bibl. 23, p. 6. Reines, p. 165. 13

Qim. pp. x, xvii, n. 21. He died 21 'Iyyar 5594 1834. Cf. Doc. (i), 13.

14 Doc. (i), 1. In a footnote to his article (Bibl. 29) on Aijeleth Shahar he refers to this institution as the

Imperial Royal Normal School of Old Buda and mentions a Hebrew teacher on its staff named J. H. Kohn.

15 See note 10. 16

Qim., p. xvii, n. 23, Bibl. 70. 17 Bibl. 70 (part ii). Oppenheimer was the

author of 1X3 *b (responsa, Vienna, 1829). 18 Doc. (vi), 9. Reines, p. 168. 19

J. L. Pyrker, 1772-1847, Archbishop from 1827; patriotic dramatist and epic writer (Grosse

Brockhaus, 1956, s.v.). Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 1885. No conversionist approaches were at any time made to him; Reines, p. 168, n. 2.

20 Doc. (i), 2. Also at B?torkesz and Dindis: Reines, p. 166f. A perceptive Franciscan teacher

(Ferenczy) initiated him into patristic literature; ibid., p. 167.

21 See note 10. 22 Doc. (i), 10 (a)-(e). 23 Bibl. 59. 24 Doc. (i), 3. 25

Qim., p. xviii, n. 27. Cf. Bibl. 72, listing Bachmann, Vandr?k, and Verney as his teachers in

logic (for Vandr?k see also Doc. (i), 8), and men?

tioning Alfred Edersheim (see J.E., Diet. Nat.

Biography) as his fellow-pupil. Doc. (i), 9, implies

that S.-S. also studied at Vienna. In the Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 1885, he mentions, in addition to the names here cited, the following as Christians

who had taught him: Szezsnitsky, Ferenczy, Eichst?dt, Munyay, Fuchs. He makes it clear that he felt indebted to them all for spiritual as well as for technical education. The names of the first two and of Archbishop Pyrker were regularly included

by him in his personal Commemoration of the

Departed; Reines, p. 168, n. 2. 26 Bibl. 77, 78. For von Hase see Enc. Brit., 11th

ed. 27 Doc. (iii), 1; Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe in Jewish

World). In Bibl. 23, p. 10, n., S.-S. writes of Delitzsch as 'my friend', and Delitzsch's home was at Leipzig, not far from Jena. Had they met, however, S.-S. would doubtless have made more of it in Bibl. 75.

28 In addition to the names mentioned above, S.-S. lists his teachers in Qim., pp. xf, xvii, n. 15f.

M.J^.L. and Win. mention particularly Hirsch Harif (Heller), of Altofen (Qim., p. xvii, n. 20, see also J.E.?he was the teacher of Chajes and Rapo port and died in 1834), Judah L?b Schwab (Qim., p. xviii, n. 27, J.E.; died 1857), and Aaron Tauber, of B?torkesz (Qim., p. xviii, n. 22). In Bibl. 23, p. 7, he mentions having studied under Karaite as well as Rabbanite teachers, but perhaps is referring to books of Karaite authorship. 29

Qim., p. xviii, n. 25, J.E. Died 1844. Reines, p. 169.

30 See note 28. 31

Qim., p. xviii, n. 28; died aged 89 on 14 'Ab 5634-1874, after 58 years' Rabbinate in Telek. As

Mr. A. Schischa kindly informs me, he was the son of Rabbi Lazi Cohen, of Koyetan, who c. 1792 1793 was accused on insubstantial grounds of

Sabbatean-Frankist sympathies. Phineas Cohen also used the name Phillip Glueksmann.

32 Qim., p. xviii, n. 29 (gives the date of his

death as 6 Tebeth 5635-1874/5, as against J.E., 10 Dec. 1869). 33 Doc. (i), 7, . . einen sehr begabten Kanzel? redner, u.s.w.' Reines, p. 169.

34 Bibl. 22, p. 4; Doc. (i), 4, 5, perhaps also 12. 35 Doc. (i), 6 (ausserordentlichen Lehrer der hebr?i?

schen Sprache und Alterth?mer). Contrast title-page to Bibl. 3 (Privatdocenten auf dem . . . Collegio) with that of Bibl. 23, etc. (Professor Publicus Extraordinarius). Reines, p. 169.

36 Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe). 37 Bibl. 74. 38 Doc. (i), 7. Bibl. 2, 3, part ii, p. 27. Cf. Bibl.

66, and similar ceremonies later in Manchester (infra, p. 153). 39 See J.E., s.v. Conferences, Rabbinical, vol. iv, p. 212.

40 See L. Ginzberg, Students, Scholars, and Saints, 1928, p. 200. I am grateful to Mr. Norman Cohen for drawing my attention to this reference.

41 Bibl. 3. 42 Bibl. 3, part i, p. [2], 'In den n?chsten Tagen

?im II. Hefte der "zweiten Rabbinerversamm

N

184 Raphael Loewe

lung"?hoffe ich mit Dir auf rein wissenschaft? lichem Gebiete zusammenzukommen; bis dahin nimm diesz!'

43 Ibid., p. 4, 'Tendenz . .. destructive, . . .

Richtung . . . falsche, . . . Gesinnung . . . unlautere, Geiste . . . des Unfriedens und des Zankes ist'.

44 Ibid., p. 10, 'ihre Duodezrabbinerchen und

Sedezpredigerchen'. 45 Qim., p. xviii, n. 25. The quotation may have

been suggested by reminiscence of its analogous application by R. Hayyim of Volozhin in his introduction to the posthumous (1820) commentary to the Siphra di-seni'utha by his teacher Elijah the

Ga'on of Vilna; the pupil is concerned to vindicate his master from the charge of depreciation of the

Zohar and of Isaac Luria. 46

Reprinted, Reims, p. 176f. 47 The summary of events here given follows

W. A. Phillips's article on Hungarian history in Erie. Brit., 11th ed., vol. 13, p. 916f., and, for the

military campaign, Kos. and the Cambridge Modern

History, vol. xi (chronological table p. 986f.) The most recent English presentation is that of G. A.

Macartney, Hungary. A Short History, Edinburgh, 1962 (see pp. 155f.). 48 See J.E. (art. Hungary), vol. vi, p. 500f.

(Alexander B?chler), following Bela Bernstein, Az

1848/9-iki Magyar Szabadsdgharcz es a ?sid?k, Budapest, 1898.

49 J.E. (L. Venetianer), vii, p. 93, Kos., p. 397.

50 M.Z-L., Win. 51 So (perhaps) Bibl. 1 (1844); Bibl. 6 (1846).

The list of sermons in Bibl. 4 advertised at the end oiBibl. 3, (i) includes the titles Gott, F?rst und Vater? land and Israels dritte und letzte Befreiung, which

may be relevant here. 52

M.Z-L., Win. 53 His pronunciation of it is indicated by his

Hebrew signature on (vi), 2 (W?TO-IX1?^?). 54 Kos., p. 173.

55 Doc. (vi), 9. 56 Doc. (i), 6. It is an interesting example of the

vicissitudes suffered by oral tradition that the story of Schiller-Szinessy's revolutionary activities should have become attached to the name of Adolf Neu?

bauer, later to be Schiller-Szinessy's opposite number at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, of whom E. Craster erroneously states that 'in his

youth he had fought under Kossuth at the storming of Buda-Pesth' (History of the Bodleian Library 1845-1945, Oxford, 1952). 57

Kos., p. 427. 58

J.E., xi, p. 102, locates the incident at Szegedin, M.Z-L. at Sz?reg (Win. Sz?res), but Szegedin and

Sz?reg in fact lie respectively west and east of the Theiss at the same point. Doc. (vi), 9 mentions

merely the River Theiss; Reines, p. 170, specifies a

bridge of boats. The Austrians forced the crossing of the Theiss here after the Battle of Szegedin on 5 August 1849. A complication is reference to an officer named T?r?k?according to Doc. (vi), 9, a captain, but described by M.Z-L. as a general

(tdbornok)?on whose behalf (according toM.^.L.) Schiller-Szinessy 'drafted the order for the demoli? tion of the bridge at Sz?reg and supervised its demolition'. T?r?k, an Austrian officer of engineers who went over to the Hungarians, was promoted general in Feb. 1849 and after the failure of the revolution was ultimately shot as one of the Thirteen

Martyrs of Arad (Kos. p. 488). He is recorded to have fortified Szegedin.

If Szegedin is abandoned as a location for the

incident, Debreczen may deserve consideration, for the Hungarians were fighting in that neighbour? hood (higher up the river than Szegedin) after the battle of K?polna (26 February 1849), when Dembinski was attempting to force the Theiss, eastwards, against them (see Kos., pp. 415, 417, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. xi, pp. 205, 211). Schlick, by whose forces Schiller-Szinessy was taken

prisoner (see n. 58), was in command on this front; but T?r?k cannot have taken part in the fighting there, since he was commanding the fortress of

Kom?rom (under a government commissioner), which was invested from about 7 February till 22

April. I am grateful to Dr. G. A. Macartney for information regarding T?r?k's career (Doc. (vi), 9, annexe), 5 9 His wounds, in six places, were severe and he was still limping (or worse) on arrival in Dublin; Reines, p. 171.

60 Bibl. 22, p. 4. 61 Doc. (vi), 9. 62 Dr. G. A. Macartney (privately, see end of

n. 57) hazards the suggestion that Schiller-Szinessy's career may have been confused with T?r?k's.

63 Doc. (vi), 9, J.E., M.Z.L. 64 Bibl. 22, p. 4. An anonymous sympathiser supplied him with Austrian currency and a letter of credit; Reines, p. 171.

65 Doc. (vi), 9, describes it as a 'Scotch fishing vessel'?but Trieste seems an unlikely port of call for such. Mr. R. C. E. Lander, of Lloyd's, kindly informs me that the master of the Asia, which sailed from Trieste on 31 January 1850 and arrived at Queenstown on 26 March, was named Campbell, which might account for the alleged Scots connec? tion. This length of voyage (54 days) might cohere

with the 60 days' voyage of which S.-S.'s daughter heard tell (Doc. (vi), 9). 26 March 1850 was a

Tuesday, and in that year Passover eve fell on

Wednesday, 27 March?hardly time for a contem?

plated voyage to London. There seems to be little reason to doubt Reines's circumstantial reference

(p. 171) to the Royal Adelaide, even though S.-S.'s

daughter (cf. also W. H. Lowe, Bibl. 79) in her later years stated that the (unnamed) vessel that sank was out of Trieste, and that he took the risk of waiting there until the conclusion of Passover

(11 April 1849 or 4 April 1850). If S.-S. was cap? tured not at Szegedin in August 1849, but elsewhere in late February or early March (see note 57) and

escaped almost immediately, he might just have reached Ireland within the time available (Passover

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 185

began in 1849 on 3 April), but this is improbable; and Lloyd's records show no shipping movements

during the material period that would fit (Pantaloon, Trieste 7 February?Cork 24 March; Virgilia, arrived Cork from Trieste 22 March; Alexander Cochrane, Trieste 20 January?Cork 18 March; Why-Not, Trieste 20 January?Cork 17 March). It is easier to assume that S.-S. was a prisoner of

war from August or even March 1849 (see note 58) until the end of that year, than to assume that he

escaped from Trieste soon after 11 April 1849, spent a year unaccounted for, and then reached Ireland late in March 1850.

66 Doc. (vi), 9. 67

Bibl., 79 (Jewish Chronicle). Reines, p. 171. 68 Doc. (vi), 9. The twelfth and final volume

appeared in 1849. 69 Doc. (ii), 1. 70 Bibl. 35. 71 Bibl. 9. (I have subsequently realised that both

the Birmingham and the Manchester sermons were delivered in German; Reines, p. 171.) 72 Bibl. 36.

73 Doc. (ii), 2. 74 Doc. (ii), 3. 75 Doc. (ii), 4, with list of 85 contributors, Bibl.

38. 76 Bibl. 10, see p. 6. 77

Kos., p. 516; Manchester Guardian, Wednesday, 12 November 1851, p. 5, col. i; Manchester Examiner and Times of same date, p. 5, col. ii; Manchester Courier & Lancashire General Advertiser, Saturday, 15

November, p. 9, col. v. 78 Doc. (iii), 1. 79 On 3 November, Kos. p. 515. 80 Bibl.37. 81 A significant word, in view of his 1845

pamphlet as cited supra, n. 43. 82 Bibl. 74. 83 Bibl. 11. 84 Bibl. 66. 85 Bibl. 41, with list of confirmands. 86 The Hebrew is lost. For an English poetic

version, see Doc. (ii), 10. 87

Cf. especially Bibl. 11, p. 4f. 88 Doc. (ii), 2, 3. 89

J.E., viii, p. 286, Gold., p. 9. 90

See, e.g., Bibl. 10, 23. 91 E.g., Bibl. 11.

92 Bibl. 24, 33, 34. Cf Bibl. 22, p. 4. 93

Golb., p. 9. 94 Manchester Great Synagogue, General Minute

Book, 1856-1880, p. 11 (General Meeting, 30 March 1856. I am grateful to Mr. J. G. Schwalbe, Secretary of the Synagogue, for this and other extracts from the minutes utilised below, and to Mr. Israel Finestein for making them available to me after drawing my attention to them). The West London Synagogue's Council Minutes, 3 November 1856 (printed by Goldb., p. 16f.), make it clear that

already by then he was committed to the idea of

founding a Reform Synagogue in Manchester. He

had himself preached in the London Reform Syna? gogue on the foregoing festival.

95 J.E., vol. iv, p. 44.

96 Orientalist and foundation member of the

teaching staff of Owens College, Manchester; Jewish Chronicle, 30 April 1886, p. 10, Goldb., p. 28f.

97 E.g., J.E., vrii, p. 286, and most recently

V. D. Lipman (ed.), Three Centuries of Anglo-Jewish History, 1961, in his own essay ('The Age of Emanci?

pation5), p. 100, n. 48. 98

Photograph in Goldb., facing p. 22. Destroyed, with the loss of its records, by enemy action on 1

June 1941. 99 Bibl. 44. 100 Bibl. 45. Reprinted by Goldb., p. 25f. 101 \/yest London Synagogue, Council Minutes,

18 November 1856, reprinted by Goldb., p. 17. 102 Doc. (ii), 9, Bibl. 14. 103 ]yjr Finestein draws my attention to a letter

in the Jewish Chronicle, 29 February 1856, signed 'Manchesterian', which, while complimenting Schiller-Szinessy on doing 'his best' to restore communal unity, adds that 'after he obtained moreh morenu [i.e., recognition as their rabbi] (from the

executives) ... he has acted against all common sense and reason in many instances'.

104 ̂ he names 0f most of the founding families of the Reform Synagogue can therefore probably be inferred from Bibl. 11, 41, and Doc. (ii), 4. Few

obviously Sephardi names are included; Horatio Montefiore, who was present at the laying of the foundation-stone and at the opening of the Syna? gogue, was there as a delegate from London (West London Synagogue Minutes, 26 March 1857 and 22 March 1858; Goldb., p. 23). On Montefiore sec Jewish Chronicle, 23 August 1867. Bibl. 15.

105 The source material for this schism (which is distinct from an earlier one referred to by C. Roth, The Rise of Provincial Jewry, 1950, p. 71) is a

correspondence, appended to the Manchester United Congregation's Minutes because of the crucial involvement of Schiller-Szinessy in the

affair, between the executives of the Manchester and Hull communities (see note 94; p. 5). The

background is furnished in a letter from Hull (11 March, also, in part, that of 17 February). A brief reference to Schiller-Szinessy's suspension from function as their Rabbi by the Manchester

Synagogue is given by the Jewish Chronicle, 14 March 1856.

106 Bibl. 42, cf. Goldb., p. 21. 107

Ibid., cf. also advertisement in Jewish Chronicle, 2 May 1856, for jAo?e?-cum-assistant Hebrew-teacher, requesting that testimonials be sent to Schiller-Szinessy as Chief Rabbi of the new

congregations of Manchester and Hull. los 'pjjg affajr seems not to have been forgotten

in a hurry. When Theodores, as secretary of the Manchester Reform Synagogue, wrote in 1858 to the London Reform Synagogue requesting that Schiller

Szinessy be certified as secretary (for marriages) to the Registrar-General, the London executive

186 Raphael Loewe

adjourned the question for further information; after which the Manchester wardens were reported as having 'postponed for the present' their intention to seek such certification. When Manchester renewed its application in 1859, there was no longer any reference to Schiller-Szinessy (still, apparently, their minister; see Doc. (ii), 11), whose name is

replaced by that of Benjamin Eger (West London

Synagogue Council of Founders' Minutes, 22 March, 24 June 1858, 10 April 1859). 109 Bibl. 43 (Sunday, 4 May 1856; although hostilities had ceased on 26 February, the peace treaty was signed in Paris on 30 March). Schiller

Szinessy presumably had an honorary 'curate' in

Hull, as it is improbable that he can himself have officiated there at 12.30 p.m. and have returned in time to preach in Manchester in the evening, it

being a Sunday. In Schiller-Szinessy's own press cutting (Doc. (v)) the words from the following sentence shown in square brackets have been cut out: '. . . hast exalted the horn of the royal host of our [sic] Gracious Majesty the Queen, [and the

might of her faithful allies] . . .', and in the phrase 'strife shall afflict no more the children of man' the last word has been struck out and India substituted.

Presumably this was for reapplication to the Indian Mutiny (1857-1859), or a later retrospective confusion. Schiller-Szinessy did, however, maintain a disparaging attitude towards the French?Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe). 110 See supra, p. 153.

111 Bibl. 74. 112

Writing as late as 1883 (Qim., p. x) he re? called that the heads of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities had made unwonted common cause

against him: ]wot ,0111 wh ,Dntf 11112 *2 arrrn ,cmD0i trmm ,on nan yvih

annai dw m ,annxi r?n .onim 113 Bibl. 22, p. 5. 114 Doc. (ii), 11. Reines, pp. 171-2, asserts that he

resigned rather than countenance the closing of his synagogue on weekdays and the disregard of the second days of Festivals; but his account of S.-S.'s

Manchester Rabbinate can be shown to be, in certain other respects at least, tendentious. A notice inserted in the German periodical Sinai, edited in Baltimore (iv, 1859, p. 128), relays an appeal by 'Rev. Dr. Schiller in Manchester' for two brothers

Ehrlich to communicate with their relatives. The New York relayer (S. Adler) dates it 5 April 1859.

115 Supra, notes 95, 100, 101.

116 Bibl. 73: T and my household worship according to the Sepharadic Custom (although we avoid the Sepharadic mispronunciation; for the

Sepharadim, alas! mispronounce Hebrew as well as the Ashkenazim do, though not quite so much)'. I have in my possession a copy of the London

Sephardi daily prayer-book as translated by D. A. de Sola, 1852 edition, bearing the autograph of his daughter Henrietta. For some particulars of his

pronunciation of Hebrew see Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe, III).

117 Supra, p. 152. Reines, p. 185, makes clear that

his meticulousness in Jewish observance continued

throughout his life. 118 Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe). 119 See Shulhan 'Arukh, '0. ? 408 (? 409, 11,

treats of trees as possible locations). This story was transmitted to me by my teacher T. R. Glover (see

D.N.B., 1941-1950, p. 300), who, despite a generally negative attitude towards Jews and Judaism, was much interested in Schiller-Szinessy (he may just have seen him as a first-year undergraduate, but was certainly not in personal touch). He refers to him in his Cambridge Retrospect, Cambridge, 1943, p. 9, footnotes, alluding to the reputation of

Pumpedithans? T.B. Hullin 127a). 120 Doc. (ii), 10; cf. Bibl 41. Cf. infra, note 226. 121 The Jewish Faith. A Sermon Delivered ... 29

January 1848. London 1848. See p. 5. 122

Copied into the West London Synagogue Council of Founders' Minutes, following 18 Novem? ber 1856, and thence printed (not entirely accu?

rately) by Goldb., p. 18f. 123 Bibl. 3. 124

Ibid., part ii, p. 23. Cf. A. Freimann, Te shuboth Ha-rambam, Jerusalem, 1934, No. 97, p. 91 (a fuller text than Schiller-Szinessy's, which follows that edited in Amsterdam, 1765 (IMTi *1kd), f. 31 b). 125

E.g., Bibl. 11. 126

Cf supra, notes 99, 100, Appendix I, pp. 164f. 127 Bibl. 65 (a), (b), comparing Ibn Ezra to

Geiger: 'Whilst he, no doubt, was an observant

Jew, his views and teachings were most unorthodox'. 128 Bibl. 74: 'R. Hirsch Chajes was well known

to me. . . . He was a man of considerable genius, but his learning had no solid foundation, even as his

orthodoxy was not solid. A similar opinion of him was held by the great R. Moses Sopher. . . .'

129 Bibl. 49, Goldb., p. 22. The cup, which is now in the possession of the Cambridge Hebrew Con?

gregation, is inscribed: 'A tribute of affection from the children attending the Synagogue of British

Jews to their beloved Pastor the Revd Dr Schiller

Szinessy in gratitude for his valuable religious instruction?Manchester May 20th I860'. Cf. supra, note 87.

130 Doc. (ii), 6. 131 See J.E., s.v. (Joseph Lehman). 132 Doc. (?), 5. bpnb nbxn dtim Kin atra

?idio rrrr na ?o T?nnVa 133 Doc. (vi), 9. 134 Bibl. 15. He acknowledges (p. 9) that Jewish

apostates are, on the whole, attracted ('fortuitously') to Unitarianism rather than to Trinitarian Chris?

tianity. The Jewish Chronicle, 18 August 1865 (p. 5, col. ii), notes the prevalence of Jewish-Unitarian fraternisation in Sheffield and Nottingham. 135 Doc. (vi), 1.

136 Doc. (vi), 2, 9. 137 Doc. (vi), 9. 138 Doc. (vi), 3 (a), Appendix IV. For his

reliquiae see Doc. (vii). i*9J.E., M.Z-L.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 187 140

J.E., iv, p. 368; dates from Doc. (iii), 1

(Bensly). 141 J.E., iii, p. 89.

142 Doc. (ii), 1, giving his address as c/o Mr. W.

Brewer, Tmmpington Road, near Cambridge. His

subsequent residence, where he died, was No. 7

College Terrace (later renumbered as 111, Hills

Road; Doc. (vi), 9). 143 Doc. (ii), 1. 144 Doc. (iii), 4. Bradford, the only Reform

Congregation in England at the time besides London and Manchester, would hardly have qualified for

description as 'such an ancient congregation and its affiliated bodies', quite apart from geographical difficulties.

145 See D.N.B., Supplement i, p. 251. 146 Doc. (iii), 1. 147 See D.N.B., Supplement i, p. 171. 148 Doc. (iii) 1. 149 See Max Lenz, Geschichte der Universit?t

Berlin (1910-1918), ii, 2, p. 302f. 150

Jewish Chronicle, 14 March 1890, p. 9. In? creased to ?350 by subvention of Charles Taylor, ibid., 27 February 1885.

151 Doc. (vi), 8; not, as stated in the Jewish Chronicle, 15 Dec. 1876, honoris causa.

152 Schiller-Szinessy's degree is sometimes

erroneously stated to have been the first Jewish one at Oxford or Cambridge (e.g., Doc. (vi), 8). Nathaniel Meyer Rothschild had proceeded M.A. as a non-declarant, as also his brother Leopold (in 1870). Schiller-Szinessy's M.A. may well have been the first taken on conventional lines by a Jew. An

Anglican declaration was requisite until after the Test Act (1871) had abolished it. See H. P. Stokes, Studies in Anglo-Jewish History, 1913, p. 237. Non declarants lacked the right to vote in the Senate.

153 D.N.B., 1922-1930, p. 740.

154 Doc. (iii), 2. 155 Nomen viri nostis omnes; quod, quamquam

nonnullis nostrum quo potissimum sono exprimatur obscurum est, darum tarnen et illustre aliquid significare accepimus; laetamur saltern hunc . . . in hac Academia Ulis esse ascriptum quibus 6hinc lucem? diffundere est

propositum. 156 Doc. (vi), 8. 157 Bibl. 16. 158 I have been unable to find written reference

to this other than an allusive and uncircumstantial one in the preface mentioned in the next note: but I fancy it concerns the gift of MSS. bought from the widow of the Dutch Orientalist Erpenius by the

Duke of Buckingham, who was Chancellor of Cam?

bridge. Buckingham was murdered in 1628 and the MSS. were presented to the University after his death by his Duchess.

159 In the preface (1927) to his own handlist

(still unpublished in 1968) of the Cambridge Hebrew MSS.; it is itself included in MS. Or. 1772.

160 D.N.B., 1912-1921, p. 595.

161 Bibl. 17. 162 Bibl. 20.

163 Bibl. 24. 164 Listed in Qim., p. xiif, notes 3,9,10,11,12,14. 165

Bologna, 1477. 166 The text followed was that of MS. Cam?

bridge Add. 465. An interleaved copy of Qimhi's commentary to Psalms (ed. Spira, Zhitomir, 1867) now in my possession bears corrections in Schiller

Szinessy's hand for the first few leaves only, with a few text-critical annotations, arid a draft

title-page (embodying the name of Lowe as co

editor) differing from that printed (see Qim., p. viii). 167

J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, II, iv, p. 219.

168 Qim., p. viii. For Lowe's complementary

account see Bibl. 79 (Jewish World). 169 See infra, p. 162. 170

D.M.B., s.v, p. 200. Cf. note 217. 171 Bibl. 27.

172J.E., s.v., x, p. 443. 173 Bibl. 28. 174 Bibl. 29. 175

Thus, in Bibl. 74 he could permit himself to write: 'My "autobiography" [sc. in an earlier

letter] was not the outcome of personal vanity. . . . Had it been a point of personal vanity I should have mentioned my secular studies rather than my religious ones, seeing that there are few people either in England or abroad who have had such a brilliant academical career as myself. . . .'

176 Bibl. 72. 177 Bibl. 79. 178 I have this on the testimony of my father,

Herbert Loewe, who matriculated at Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1901 and was one of Schechter's last pupils there.

179 This anecdote, which reached me by oral

tradition, conceivably refers to some other con?

troversialist?my memory is uncertain. It is, how? ever, not out of character for Schiller-Szinessy; cf. Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe, especially iii, towards the

end). 180 Obituary of Charles Taylor, Jewish Chronicle

21 August 1908, cf. also W. H. Lowe (Bibl. 79). 181 Bibl. 23. He dated the Targum of the passage as c. 30-10 b.c.e., and understood the prophecy itself as referring to Israel as represented by its

pious core and culminating in the Messiah. He conceded the validity, for Christians, of the messiah

ship of Jesus, and could speak (p. 31) of 'our and

your Saint Paul, the Jew and the Christian'. When

Schiller-Szinessy gratuitously obtruded this

pamphlet on Jewish notice in the press (Bibl. 55) in support of his contention, alleged by him to have

Maimonides' support, that the 'Gentile Saviour

[hood]' of Jesus is an actual one, he stimulated a

sharp counter-attack, charging him inter alia with

obsequiousness, from Isaac S. Meisels. 182 MSS. Or. 305, 406. 183

D.N.B., 1901-1911, i, p. 427. 184 MSS. Or. 368, 401, 402, 403. One of these is

dated 17 February 1880.

188 Raphael Loewe 185 Transactions of the ninth International

Congress of Orientalists, London, 1893, vol. i, p. 391f.

186 D.N.B., 1901-1911, iii, p. 480. Schiller

Szinessy paid tribute to him in Qim., p. viiif.

(translated into English by G.A.Y[ates] in The

Eagle (Magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge), xlvi, No. 206, 1931, p. 122). 187 See note 167. Doc. (vi), 9, emphasises the bond that existed between teacher and pupil, as do Lowe's own reminiscences (Bibl. 79). 188

Cf. Bibl. 25. 189

Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, II, vi, p. 65. 190

Chagigah. Cambridge, 1891. Streane pays grateful tribute to Schiller-Szinessy in the preface (p. xvi) and declares his book the outcome of

Schiller-Szinessy's lectures. 191

D.N.B., 1922-1930, p. 351. 192 Included in this group is Israel Hersch, of

Caius, subsequently master of the Jewish house at the Perse School. See Jewish Chronicle, 29 August 1947.

193 J.E., viii, p. 69, Jewish Chronicle, 3 May 1940,

Goldb., p. 70. See the preface (Hebrew) to Lewis's Tar gum on Isaiah, i-v, London, 1889.

194 Qim., p. xii.

195 J. J. S. Perowne, of Worcester (D.M.B.

1901-1911, iii, p. 108) and J. B. Lightfoot, of Durham (ibid., xxxiii, p. 238). Lightfoot may possibly not have been his pupil in the strict sense, but Schiller-Szinessy was his colleague at Cambridge and enjoyed his respect and friendship; see Doc. (iii), 2, end, Bibl. 54.

196 A. F. Kirkpatrick, of Ely; see Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, II, iv, p. 56. Kirkpatrick was probably, but not certainly, his pupil; see Doc. (vi), 7 and (i), 10(d). 197

George Phillips, of Queens' (see note 170), Charles Taylor, of St. John's (see note 186); Kirk? patrick had been Master of Selwyn before going to Ely as Dean.

198 A. Lukyn Williams, Principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney, N.S.W. (Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, II, vi, p. 484). Williams died in 1943, and I recollect talking to him about Schiller-Szinessy. In his Adversus Judaeos (1935), p. 249, n. 4, Williams refers to him as 'my dear and revered teacher'.

199 J. B. Lightfoot (see note 195) and J. R.

Lumby (D.N.B. Supplement iii, p. Ill), both

Lady Margaret Professors of Divinity; R. L. Bensly, Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic (ibid., Supple? ment i, p. 171), and A. A. Bevan, who held the same chair (ibid., 1931-1940, p. 74); E. B. Cowell, Professor of Sanskrit (see note 183); A. F. Kirk?

patrick (see note 196) and R. H. Kennett (D.N.B. 1931-1940, p. 505), Regius Professors of Hebrew.

200 See note 160. 201

Qim., p. xii, refers, in addition to names mentioned in the body of this article, to E. G.

King, A. T. Chapman, C. R. Bingham, D. G.

Davies, A. T. Warren, J. McKinney, A. E. Budge

(i.e., E. A. Wallis Budge, of the British Museum, see

D.N.B., 1931-1940, p. 121; for the remainder, Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses). 202 Bibl. 79, Jewish World (obituary). Cf. Reines, p. 168.

203 Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe). 204 A. S. F. Gow, Letters from Cambridge (1939-44), London, 1945, p. 105, records this story, which is still current among Jewish members of Cambridge

who graduated before approximately 1925. 205 Doc. (i), 10(d). 206 Bibl. 22, 53, Doc. (iii), 5. 207 D.N.B. 1912-1921, p. 120, J.E., iv, p. 146. 208 Bibl. 22. 209 Doc. (vi), 4, 7. The Hebrew date was 19

Adar; see Appendix IV(b). 210 See Appendix IV(a), p. 181. 211 The inscription on his grave is given in

Appendix IV. Part of his library was acquired by Montefiore College, in Ramsgate, the books from which are now deposited in the Mocatta Library at

University College, London. See D. A. J. Cardozo and P. Goodman, Think and Thank, 1933, p. 165.

212 Bibl. 79. 213 He is stated (ibid., I) to have been a lifelong

teetotaler, not on grounds of conviction but because he felt no need for alcoholic stimulants; so much so that when making a ritual blessing over wine, he

would in fact pass it to another to consume on his behalf without tasting it.

214 Ibid., III.

215 He had been naturalised in 1854; Doc.

(Hi), 1 216 'pkg conclusion, as transmitted severally to Professor Norman Bentwich and myself, runs: 'for then I should have cursed him, and he would have died'. Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe, III, near end) and

supra, note 179, indicate that Schiller-Szinessy took such things seriously. An incident in his own family's history, of which he learned as a child, may explain why; Reines, p. 164, note.

211 Cf. note 181. In the dedication to Qim.

(see page 161) he refers to himself as ̂12111 iTV!S7T

and to Phillips as TP f?m T ,Ky"7S Ta 1T\

218 In Qim. (p. xiii, n. 7) Schiller-Szinessy writes in warmly appreciative terms of C. D.

Ginsburg, the Massoretic scholar (D.N.B., 1912

1921, p. 215, J.E., v, p. 669). After remarking on the coincidence that Ginsburg, like Bomberg's

Massoretic editor in the sixteenth century, Jacob ben Hayyim of Tunis, was a convert to Christianity, he concludes with the formula tiVk nr? mat naitt1? OnpHS. For a cordial letter from Ginsburg to Schiller-Szinessy see Doc. (iii), 3.

219 Cf. Bibl. 55, and occasional passing references

to him in more recent publications. 220 Cf. notes 119, 204; H. P. Stokes, Studies in

Anglo-Jewish History, 1913, p. 239, writes: 'This scholar created a school and a legend, and quaint stories are still current about him'.

Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890 189 221 Bibl. 79 (W. H. Lowe, III). 222

Cf. T. B. Sotah 10a, infra, on Gen. xxi, 33

(Resh Laqish), Gen. R. ? 39, 14, on Gen. xii, 5, etc. 223 See supra, note 120. 224 See supra, note 116. 225 Bibl. 76. 226

J.E., ix, p. 684. 227 Adler had, apparently, entered into some

formal agreement by which S.-S. should enjoy the title of Local Rabbi and morenu as its synagogal counterpart (having at first recognised his position,

neologistically, as menahalenu ('our guide')), but he failed to secure (or more probably interdicted) such

synagogal courtesy towards him in London ( Jewish Chronicle, 29 October, 12, 26 November, 1852). In

1856, after S.-S.'s dismissal by the original Man? chester congregation, Adler publicly denied his continued rabbinical jurisdiction over divorces,

Kashruth, etc. (Jewish Chronicle, 27 June, 1856, p. 640). I am grateful to Mr. J. M. Shaftesley for these references.

228 Ethics of the Fathers, i, 1.