Leeser Rosenthal (1794-1868) / Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana (founded 1880)Author(s): Emile SchrijverSource: Studia Rosenthaliana, Vol. 38/39, Omnia in Eo (2005/2006), pp. 10-14Published by: Peeters PublishersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41482660 .

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StRos38/39

Leeser Rosenthal (1794-1868) /

Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana

(founded 1880)

Emile Schrijver

Leeser Rosenthal (Nasielsk 1794-Hanover 1868). Photo , Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana

It is the privilege of book collectors to know that their library may be cherished by future generations. Their fate, although some may regard this as a privilege too, is that in most cases the personality behind the col- lection is gradually forgotten. This was the prospect that awaited Leeser Rosenthal, the founder of what has become known as the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the collection of Hebraica and Judaica at the library of the University of Amsterdam.

Rosenthal, however, has been spared this inexorable slide into obscu- rity. In 1977 Simeon Brisman published his version of what may be con- sidered the classic account of the history of the celebrated bibliophile's library, based largely on information from the pre-war systematic cata- logue.

Leeser (Eliezer) Rosenthal, was born in Nasielsk, Poland in 1794. He came to Germany at a young age as a teacher and later became a rabbi in one of the synagogues of Hamburg. His fascination with books on Jew- ish topics was so great that he spent his wife's dowry on purchasing such works. When he died in 1868, he left a collection of 32 Hebrew manuscripts and about 6,000 printed volumes among which were many incunabula and rare books. He also left a catalog in manuscript, which he himself had prepared, of a large part of his Hebrew books.1

A manuscript biography of Rosenthal written on a notepad is held by the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana. It was completed in Amsterdam on 11 January 1934 by David L. Freund, 'als einer der Gole Aschkenas', as he describes himself at the close of his account. It is entitled 'Der Begründer der Biblio- theca Rosenthaliana: Biographie eines Gelehrten, Dichters, Bibliogra- phen und Bibliophilen'. It was bought by the Rosenthaliana from the

1 1 Leeser Rosenthal (1794-1868) / Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana (founded 1880)

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author in 1935 for the sum of 150 guilders.2 Freund's biography is a treas- ure trove of information based on a careful study of Rosenthal's writings preserved in manuscript at the library, and his most complete catalogue Yode'a Sefer , which was published by Meijer Roest as an appendix to his 1875 catalogue of the Rosenthal collection.

Freund describes how, after receiving a traditional Jewish education in his native Nasielsk in Poland, Rosenthal moved to Paderborn some- time in 1814 or 1815, where he studied German literature and other non- Jewish subjects, as well as furthering his Jewish knowledge. He earned his living teaching in a Jewish school. It was in this period that Rosenthal pro- duced the majority of his own literary output, including epigrams and translations into Hebrew of German poems.3 Most of these have re- mained unpublished. Rosenthal stayed in Paderborn until the spring of 1823, and judging from the pessimistic tone of his verse, he does not seem to have been especially happy there. By then he had already started to col- lect books, particularly works by medieval Spanish authors and works on Bible criticism. In his appreciation of medieval Sephardic culture, he was a child of his time, a typical scholar of Wissenschaft des Judentums.4

At around the age of thirty, Rosenthal moved tò Hanover, where he accepted a position as a private teacher and so-called Klausrabbiner at a rabbinic school. He became engaged to Sophia (Sippora) Blumenthal in 1826 and after eventually receiving a guarantee from his brother in Poland that he would perform halitzah in the event of his death, Rosenthal mar- ried her in 1827. His marriage, which provided him with ample funds to acquire books and with plenty of time to study and appreciate them, ena- bled him to dedicate his life to his bibliophilie passion. By 1843 his collec- tion had grown to 645 volumes, and to no less than 2,264 titles by the mid- dle of the century, as testified by the surviving manuscript catalogues. When he died on 7 August 1868 , the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana contained 5,200 titles, comprising 6,000 volumes in all. It was generally acknowl- edged to be the largest private Jewish library in Germany.

This is not the place to retell the story of how Rosenthal's heirs sent the books to Amsterdam, commissioned Roest to catalogue the books and eventually donated them to the city in i88o.s Here, in these introduc- tory lines and in the two following articles,6 a critical examination of Rosenthal's activities as a collector is more appropriate. This is especially true since, by today's standards, David Freund's ode to the nobility of the collector's mind and his industrious efforts on behalf of his religion ap- pears to lack a certain critical acumen.

The two analyses of Rosenthal's bibliophilie activity in this volume focus on his interest in the fields of philosophy and mysticism. Generally, he collected first and second editions of all the major texts and only tried to acquire as many editions of a text as possible when he took a particular interest in that text. In these cases he often added a comment in his Yode'a Sefer.

1 2 Emile Schrijver

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There are three other areas of his collection that deserve attention in or- der to complete the picture: the Hebrew Bible, liturgy and belles lettres. Both with regard to his acquisition of Bibles and of liturgical books it is interesting to note that while Rosenthal's collection contains a number of rare early editions, the overall total is comparatively small. Roest lists some 300 editions of the Hebrew Bible, approximately five percent of the total collection. In Joseph Zedner's 1867 Catalogue of Hebrew Books now in the British Museum Bible editions make up nine percent of the total (900 books of 10,000), which is significantly more. The difference is explained by the number of editions containing the Bible text without commentar- ies, of which the British Library holds many more than Rosenthal's col- lection. Rosenthal was a man of letters, interested in the commentaries and less in owning yet another edition of an identical text.

The same holds true for the liturgical works in Rosenthal's collection. Roest lists some 340 editions, approximately five-and-a-half percent of the total, whereas Zedner lists more than 1,000 editions, that is ten per- cent of the total number of entries. Rosenthal collected everything pub- lished by Wolf Heidenheim's press in Rödelheim, but sufficed with a few examples of different rites and a number of famous Italian and Amster- dam editions of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The British Li- brary's collection, apart from showing an obvious bias towards English material, clearly aimed at completeness.

Rosenthal was above all an ardent lover of belles lettres , both of the Spanish and Italian Middle Ages and of later periods. A cursory review of his library shows that he acquired numerous editions in different lan- guages of all the major collections of medieval fables, such as the Berehiah ben Natronai's Mishlei Shu'alim , Isaac ben Solomon Ibn Sahula's Meshal ha-Qadmoni and Judah ben Solomon al-Harizi's satirical Sefer Tahkemo- ni. Perhaps the most striking example is Immanuel of Rome's Sefer Mah- barot. Rosenthal owned the principal early editions, and in Yode'a Sefer he inserted some additional secondary references, not only to contempo- rary scholarly literature, but also to the paragraph in Shulhan Arukh in which the reading of Mahbarot is forbidden explicitly on account of its indecent content.7

This brief survey does not do full justice to Rosenthal the scholar, for perhaps the best part of the collection is the Haskalah library. Practically every work by all the greater and lesser authors of the Jewish enlighten- ment is represented here, as well as all the leading Haskalah periodicals. Moreover, in Yode'a Sefer Rosenthal provides all sorts of contemporary information on the lives and works of these authors, with many of whom he corresponded regularly. The library is currently in the process of pre- paring a number of digital presentations of parts of the collection, and the Haskalah collection is top of the list. Unfortunately, it is too early to present even the most rudimentary information here. The planned digital publication of the most important part of Rosenthal's original collection

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will underscore once again the unique combination of perseverance and connoisseurship that characterised 'the man, the poet and the collector, Leeser Rosenthal, whose creation was', in the words of his biographer David Freund, 'the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana'.'8

i. S. Brisman, A History and Guide to Judaic Bibliography ( С innc innati & New York 1977), p. 55. 2. Hs. Ros. 472: see L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections. I: Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana , University Library of Amsterdam (Leiden 1973), no. 630, p. 277-278. A full transcript of the manuscript was prepared by Heide Warncke, Hebrew cataloguer at the library, and short abstracts were published in the Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad of 10 November 1933 and the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 21 July 1934. 3. For a discussion of Rosenthal's translation of Friedrich Schiller's 'Lied der Glocke' see H. Warncke's contribution below. 4 . The Hebrew department of the University of Amsterdam and the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-lnstitut of Duisburg organised a Colloquium at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, entitled 'Sepharad in Ashkenaz: Medieval Knowledge and Eighteenth-Century Jewish Enlightened Discourse', which took place in February 2002 and dealt with the maskilic appreciation of medieval Sephardic culture. Rosenthal's interest must be seen in this light. The proceedings of the colloquium, under the editorship of A. Schatz, R. Fontaine and I.E. Zwiep, are expected to appear in 2007.

5. See I.E. Zwiep, 'No Friend of Humbug: Meijer Roest Mz., First Custodian of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana (1881-1889)', below. 6. See R. Fontaine, 'Medieval Jewish Philosophy in Leeser Rosenthal's Collection' and M. Grant, 'Mystical Literature in Leeser Rosenthal's Collection', below. 7. Yode'a Sefer, p. 197, paragraph 1028. 8. 'Zoo was de mensch, de dichter en de verzamelaar Leser Rosenthal. Zijn scheppingis - de Rosenthaliana.' in Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad , 10 November 1933.

14 Emile Schrijver

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