The Jerusalem Talmud: The Beta Version of the Gemara

The Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud had roughly the same starting point, so why did only one of them become a canonical book?

Bar Nativ | 04.09.24

Drawing by E.M. Lilien

The Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud are like the Coke and Pepsi of Jewish literature.

They were created in the same period and deal with the same subjects, but one achieved eternal glory and the other is a bit… bleak.

What makes a book canonical? One thing’s for sure: It’s not the book itself.

Let’s begin with a story:

For hundreds of years, Jews were forced to accept the fact that Seder Kodashim, one of the six orders of the Jerusalem Talmud, simply didn’t exist.

Some were sure it had disappeared, and some thought it had never existed. Until one day in the year 1905, when it simply popped up, out of nowhere

The mysterious copy was signed by the printer “Shlomo Algazi, AKA Friedländer.”

Algazi, who presented himself as a “pure Sephardi,” claimed that a single copy of Seder Kodashim had ended up in the possession of his brother in Turkey, and that he had copied it. The book was a huge success and the money started flowing in. But that’s when things started to go wonky.

שער סדר קדשים — Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Kodashim, 1909

The buyers soon noticed all sorts of puzzling details. The language and style matched the rest of the Jerusalem Talmud, but there was hardly any new information presented in these hundreds of new pages. Suspicions were raised.

Slowly, readers began to realize that the entire book simply contained variations on existing sources, and Algazi was accused of forgery.

He of course denied any wrongdoing and explained that the fact that the new order lacked new information was exactly the point! He argued that since the text already appeared in other places, no one thought it was worthwhile to preserve Seder Kodashim in its own right.

The readers weren’t convinced and even debated whether it was better to hide the book away or burn it. The lively debate reached its peak when rabbis published pamphlets in favor of Algazi, with sharp titles like “Avenging Sword” and “Answer to the Fool.”

חרב נוקמת — The “Avenging Sword” pamphlet, 1911

But it soon emerged that these pamphlets were written by none other than Shlomo Algazi, AKA Friedländer. Ultimately, Algazi confessed that he hadn’t actually found the book, and that he in fact wrote it himself.

He then also admitted that he wasn’t exactly Sephardi and that his name wasn’t Shlomo. He confessed that his real name was Zosia and that he was just an ordinary man from the very Eastern European town of Beshankovichy.

When I heard this story, I chuckled. But I was also curious about how such a large part of the Jerusalem Talmud could simply disappear. Seder Kodashim is one of the six orders of the Mishnah, upon which both the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud are based.

It isn’t even the only part that is missing from the Jerusalem Talmud. Entire chapters from other tractates have been lost over the years. Moreover, if you compare the Jerusalem Talmud to the Babylonian Talmud, you discover that the discussions in the former are much less developed and have been less thoroughly edited.

What happened? How is it possible that we have the Babylonian Talmud as a complete and developed work, while the Jerusalem Talmud seems like something you might have ordered on Ali Express?

I found the answer in this letter:

Nnl Aleph11383352240005171 Ie161057506 Fl161057523 — A letter written by Pirqoi Ben Baboi that was found in the Cairo Genizah, late 8^th century

Discovered in the Cairo Genizah, the letter was written approximately 1200 years ago by a Babylonian Jewish sage named Pirqoi Ben Baboi. Aside from the fact that his name is particularly fun to say, he provides a glimpse into an interesting moment in the history of the Jerusalem Talmud.

At the time that Ben Baboi wrote the letter, a halakhic struggle was underway between the rabbis of the Land of Israel and those residing in Babylon. Ben Baboi tried to convince the Jews of the Holy Land to adopt Babylonian Halakha, as embodied in the Babylonian Talmud. However, the community in Israel stood by the Jerusalem Talmud, which was created in the city of Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Upon encountering this resistance, Ben Baboi then redirected his efforts to communities outside the Land of Israel that were still undecided between the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds.

In a letter to the community in the North African city of Kairouan, he writes that it is forbidden to follow the Halakha as it appears in the Jerusalem Talmud.

Take the following as a somewhat shocking example of differences in the two Talmuds’ halakhic rulings.

According to the Babylonian Talmud, an engaged couple is forbidden from being alone together to prevent them from engaging in forbidden relations before the wedding. In contrast, the Jerusalem Talmud allows the couple to meet alone before the wedding and even engage in intimate relations. Why? When the Land of Israel was under Roman rule, it was decreed that the local governors had the “right of the first night” with every virgin. The Jews of the Land of Israel preferred the bride and groom to consummate their marriage before this could happen, and thus possibly prevent rape.

Ben Baboi argues that customs of this nature are reasonable when facing harsh decrees imposed by the authorities. However, once the decrees are no longer imposed, it is forbidden to continue following them. He asserts that the entire Jerusalem Talmud is filled with these types of irrelevant rulings.

Lilien The Samaritan — Drawing by E.M. Lilien

There’s another issue as well: Even before the Talmuds were written down, they were transmitted orally from generation to generation. Ben Baboi claims that due to the harsh political situation, oral transmission in the Land of Israel was fragmented; People transmitted the knowledge, stopped when Torah study was prohibited by the rulers, and then tried to pick up where they had left off when it was permitted again.

What that means is that various fundamental principles which weren’t written down, or details that were handed down orally from generation to generation, simply dissipated over time. Imagine trying to reconstruct the Passover Seder without ever having experienced it. You might manage to understand more or less what’s happening, but a lot will be lost in the process.

Ben Baboi’s letter was another step towards the downfall of the Jerusalem Talmud. Its standing was questionable, so fewer copies were made, fewer people worked to interpret it, and it hardly ever served as a basis for halakhic rulings. Editors did not continue to refine the text over generations, as was the case with the Babylonian Talmud, and halakhic discussions came to a halt at an early stage, as can be seen in the book itself.

I find this process fascinating. The two Talmuds had similar starting positions and the Jerusalem Talmud even possessed a certain advantage. But one failed because the audience didn’t engage with it, and that engagement was essential.

Books aren’t preserved simply because they are “important” or “sacred”. A pile of words becomes a canonical text only if people consider it meaningful. The point here isn’t about the book itself; the encounter between people and the book is the whole story.

What’s interesting to me about studying old texts isn’t so much the content itself. After all, it’s not really relevant to my life. What interests me is understanding what happens in the space between a book and its readers – both those who preserved it until now and those who are currently trying to interpret it.

In other words, every encounter with a text enriches the text itself – the interpretation, the editing, and the meanings attributed to the words. When I read a text that has passed through many hands, I don’t just see the book placed before me; I engage in a dialogue with everyone who has engaged with it previously. And that’s pretty awesome.

Remembering Ephraim Kishon, Israel’s Champion of Satire

Israel is marking a century since the birth of its greatest satirist. No doubt, he would have a lot to say about the current state of Israeli society…

Hillel Kuttler | 25.08.24

History of Israel Israeli Culture

Ephraim Kishon in his office, 1971, photo by Boris Karmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

During Iftach Leibovich’s childhood in Jerusalem, the family would play a board game called Havila Higiya (“A Package Arrived”). The premise was this: You receive a letter stating that something reached the post office and to come pick it up. Along the way, you confront obstacles to attaining the package: missing identification papers, needing a new photo for the ID and so on.

The game was all too realistic for Israelis used to the daily struggles of accomplishing basic tasks in a bureaucracy-laden society.

“It was the stupidest game and the most brilliant game,” said Leibovich.

Havila Higiya was created by Ephraim Kishon, still acclaimed as the greatest humorist, satirist and social commentator in Israel’s history. Kishon, who died in 2005, was born 100 years ago this month.

Ephraim Kishon in 1966, photo by Boris Karmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

One of his legacies is that Leibovich is the artistic director of the Israel Comedy Festival in Honor of Ephraim Kishon, a week-long celebration held each August at Jerusalem’s Incubator Theater.

The event includes lectures and stagings of Kishon’s work, along with contemporary comedic plays and stand-up appearances.

Experts tie Kishon’s keen observations of society, from the perspective of an average Israeli, to his being an outsider. Kishon was a Holocaust survivor from Hungary whose name — he was born Ferenc Hoffmann — was Hebraicized by a port official upon immigrating in 1949.

Chaim Topol and Esther Greenberg in the film *Sallah Shabati*, written and directed by Ephraim Kishon. From the Chaim Topol Archive, courtesy of the family and with the cooperation of the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, the National Library of Israel and the University of Haifa (colorization by MyHeritage)

He quickly learned and mastered Hebrew and soon was penning columns in the language in local newspapers. He went on to write books and screenplays and make films. Two of the five movies he directed, Sallah Shabati (1964) and The Policeman (1971), which he also wrote and co-produced, earned Academy Award nominations as best foreign-language films.

997001754100405171 — A promotional poster for the 1971 Oscar-nominated Hebrew film *The Policeman*, written and directed by Ephraim Kishon and starring Shaike Ophir, the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israel Film Archive Collection, available online via the NLI digital collection

11026 004 23 — Ephraim Kishon pictured with Shaike Ophir and wife at the premiere of the film *The Fox in the Chicken Coop*, May, 1978. Photo by Danny Gotfried, the Dan Hadani Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

The Family Book (titled in its English translations as My Family, Right or Wrong), Kishon’s 1977 collection of essays and fiction stories about home life during his early years in Israel, is said to be the second-most-purchased book in Hebrew after the Bible.

500 Golden Globe — Topol and Kishon with the Golden Globe, *Maariv*, February 19, 1965, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel

Both Leibovich and Ziv Hermelin-Shadar — who at the festival hosted podcasts discussing each of the films screened daily, dubbed “Kishoncasts” — cited The Family Book as a key influence.

It was the first book Leibovich’s father gave him — the boy was about 13 — and, “from that, I became a big fan of Kishon,” he said.

Hermelin-Shadar was about 10 when he first read it. “It’s a book that’s very Jewish and very family-oriented,” he said. “It makes me laugh. Kishon, in his stories, is trying to live life, and other people are ruining it for him. He succeeds in capturing the wackiness … of Israeli society.”

11026 003 02 — Ephraim Kishon with Menachem Begin, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, at the premiere of the film *The Fox in the Chicken Coop*, May, 1978. Photo by Danny Gotfried, the Dan Hadani Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

Such wackiness arose recently over a play scheduled for this summer’s festival. The play’s promotional poster unintentionally sparked a controversy Kishon might’ve enjoyed.

The poster shows the faces of three men and the play’s title, Naked. The word is meant as a metaphor for the show’s theme as a behind-the-scenes look at how a circus operates. No one is nude. But some Jerusalem residents presumed indecency and pressured the mayor’s office to withdraw its funding for the festival and to shut down the show. Leibovich wrote a long letter defending the work and stressing that no one appeared naked.

“It’s poetic that this happened at a Kishon festival,” he said. “To make a big deal about it was a farce. There was nothing for me to fight against because there was nothing to censor.”

The show’s three performances proceeded as scheduled.

11026 007 44 — Ephraim Kishon with Yitzhak and Leah Rabin, at the premiere of the film *The Fox in the Chicken Coop*, May, 1978. Photo by Danny Gotfried, the Dan Hadani Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israely

Kishon’s accomplishments went hand-in-hand with insecurity. Alongside placards of his films and plays on his office’s walls appeared articles written by critics.

990044968010205171 — Ephraim Kishon in his office, 1973. Photo by IPPA staff photgrapher, the Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

“He felt he wasn’t appreciated. He wanted more love from critics,” said Hermelin-Shadar. “He was a great success, but felt that he wasn’t accepted here as [such].”

Following his father’s death at his summer home in Switzerland, Rafi Kishon was asked to develop a one-man show for Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theater. As a veterinarian, he’d spoken about animals on numerous television programs and was comfortable appearing before the camera. But writing and performing in the show, Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Ephraim Kishon, was extra-gratifying, he said.

He performs it monthly at the Cameri — it’s now titled Ephraim Kishon: Humor, Life and Films — and accepts private bookings from groups. The appearances involve screening movie clips and telling stories about his father.

“What I say is unique about Ephraim Kishon’s humor is that it unites Israelis of all types,” he explained.

“I take it as a compliment when I perform and people say, ‘The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.’ It’s a good feeling to walk in my father’s shoes.”

997009327551305171 — Ephraim Kishon in his office, 1971, photo by Boris Karmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, the National Library of Israel

Leibovich, too, has walking in mind. For a Kishon festival, he’d like to organize an interactive version of Havila Higiya, with participants following the game’s instructions to traipse around Jerusalem in an effort, challenging as it promises to be, to pick up a package at the post office.

“I’ve dreamt of it,” he said, “since the first festival.”

Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at [email protected]

Dan Hadani: A Life Documenting Israel

The story of how one man's successful photography company was able to document life in Israel across several decades. Why did he later decide to destroy his life's work? Dan Hadani is celebrating his 100th birthday, and to mark it he told us of his personal journey which led him to granting all of us an invaluable gift of photographic documentation. This was his creation – now it’s our story.

Liron Halbriech | 22.08.24

History of Israel Photographs Zionism היסטוריה ישראלית

Left: Dan Hadani during a visit to the National Library of Israel, 2024. Right: Dan Hadani taking photos during a visit to Egypt during the peace talks, 1977. Photo by David Peretz, the Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel

On August 24, 2024, Dan Hadani marked his 100^th birthday. He celebrated this joyous event with a party, almost an act of defiance against life itself – against everything he experienced as a child in Poland, against everything the State of Israel has been through, and against the terrible ordeals of the past year – letting everyone know: I’m still here!

He uses a walker and is easily tired, but his mind is clear and sharp and his memory promises to provide us with a fascinating story, spread out over a century, a story which cannot be done justice even with a thousand pictures.

In the hundred years that have passed since his birth, he has managed to reinvent himself a number of times and live multiple lives with the resourcefulness of the proverbial cat. In his most significant incarnation, the one based in Israel, he built one of the most important visual archives collected here with his own two hands, a monumental life project for one man.

In 2016, that project faced destruction – at the hands of its creator. After decades of devotion to photographs and documentation, Hadani decided that the two million negatives, meticulously cataloged and a photographic testament to events in Israel from 1965 to 2000, would be destroyed.

***

Dan Hadani was born Dunek Zloczewski in Lodz, Poland.

He began life as a Polish Jew raised by a Zionist family. As a child, he saw his parents take pride in their work and craft, and that striving for professional excellence became a part of him. From his father, he learned the difficulty of living as a Jew in a state that was not his own, dealing with emerging antisemitism, and the importance of mutual aid and charitable works.

He spent his youth trying to survive in the Lodz Ghetto and then in Auschwitz, where he met Dr. Mengele and where he was largely able to avoid the wrath of his Nazi workmasters. He managed to survive and to offer support to others who suffered worse fates. He used everything he had – knowledge of languages, the ability to learn quickly, as well as technical skills – in order to show how necessary he was to the SS men. At the same time, he served as an assistant to the ghetto doctor and tried to do everything he could to help his friends in need.

In 1945, Hadani was freed from Nazi captivity. His parents and his only sister, however, had already been murdered by the Nazis. Although he had other options, Hadani felt it was clear that he would fulfill his parents’ unwritten will, realizing their Zionist dream and making Aliyah to Israel.

A year later, Hadani went to study seamanship in Italy. He passed the course with flying colors and immediately returned to Israel: “I came on Aliya Dalet – 3,000 people with forged passports. I had a Dutchman’s passport, a Jew who lived in Israel.”

A day after he arrived, he was enlisted in the navy of a country that had just been established: “I didn’t know a word in Hebrew; here and there ‘Shalom’ or words like that,” he recalled. “But on the ship the orders were in Hebrew. I often asked ‘What’s that word?” and they translated it for me. That’s how I learned. There were a hundred and twenty soldiers on the ship, the vast majority of them new immigrants and they gave us orders in this way. That’s how I learned Hebrew.”

It wasn’t the first time Hadani was thrown into a situation alone and without basic knowledge. As he had done before, he used his amazing resourcefulness and survival abilities to develop within the navy, from a new immigrant who knew no Hebrew to an officer who served for 15 years.

Independence Day 1973 — David Ben-Gurion, photographed by Dan Hadani on Israel’s 25th Independence Day. May 7, 1973, the Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel

And then, somewhat surprisingly, his last appointment in the IDF was as a press officer for the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The change had a dramatic effect on him: “In the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit I received the shock of my life. I met with reporters at Sokolov House, suddenly I heard all the stories.” Instead of making efforts to hide secret operational activity, Hadani now had to think differently. As a press officer, he was responsible for managing, accompanying, and briefing journalists and photographers from Israel and around the world, helping them cover events related to the IDF. This, he admits, was his apprenticeship in journalism.

When he was released from the IDF a year later, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to do next. He was 41 years old: “The moment I got out of the army, I had an idea what I would do. I wanted to form an association, a group of photographers, and open a company, a cooperative of press photographers. I wanted to be the one organizing it, just like I was during my time in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.”

While serving in the unit, Hadani had identified the need for a professional agency for photography and press purposes, which could quickly cover events across the country: “I wanted to establish a large cooperative and see to people’s livelihood. I saw that we lacked a specific body in the country, that we weren’t initiating contact with people from outside of Israel, with the foreign press.” Everyone who heard the idea tried to talk him out of it, saying it was too big a project for him and that he would fail before he even started.

Despite this, he gathered together some photographers he knew to pitch the idea: “Some 10, 12 photographers came, and I told them what I wanted to do. And then one photographer got up in the middle and asked: ‘Tell me, you want us to run out and take pictures while you sit in the office? I’ll be running around and you’ll get money to sit at a desk? You want me to hand over my salary to you?”

כתבה של דן מעריב 20 בםברואר 1976 — An article and photos by Dan Hadani, dedicated to artists Meir and Makvalla Pichhadze. *Maariv*, February 20, 1976, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel

כתבה על משפחה בעוני מעריב 11 באפריל 1969 — An article about a poverty-stricken family, photos by Dan Hadani, *Maariv*, April 11, 1969, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel

Nothing came of the meeting, but Hadani wouldn’t give up and decided to go it alone. For many long months, he worked as a freelance photographer, even getting writing opportunities from foreign journalists: “If I needed a photographer, I ordered a photographer for pay – on one condition: that the negatives were mine,” he said. When at one point he couldn’t find a photographer, he bought a camera and began taking his own pictures.

Slowly but surely, Hadani gained success and clients, ultimately realizing the dream he envisioned when he first left the army. He established the Israel Press & Photo Agency, or IPPA. He worked with salaried and freelance photographers, both in Israel and around the world. Over the course of 45 years of activity, the agency covered almost every important event in Israel: if there was a big concert, government meeting, or terror attack – Hadani’s photographers were there. In fact, if you were reading newspaper reports about Israel during this time, you probably saw thousands of his agency’s photographs.

מתוך עיתון דבר 3 ביולי 1980 — A photo by Dan Hadani, featured in an article about Israel’s new F-16 fighter jets. *Dava*r, July 3, 1980, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel

Hadani took care to properly preserve all the photos he received and all the rights he acquired. With admirable care for detail, he cataloged and maintained the negatives from all the photos which reached the agency, quietly cultivating an archive which documented much of life in the State of Israel at ground level.

Hadani is proud, and rightly so, of his journalistic achievements: The photo of the father of Robert Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, reading a newspaper with the article on the murder, became world-famous. A photo showing Menachem Begin bending over before Anwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter (he was picking something up) during a peace treaty ceremony was also a hit and a nice change from the generally rigid statesmanship of the time. There was also an article featuring the first photos of legendary Soviet WWII-era spy Leopold Trepper following his arrival in Israel. Trepper immigrated in 1974 and spent the last few years of his life in the country. To this we can add hundreds of thousands of pictures, piles of film documenting major cultural and political events as well as wars and terrorist attacks.

A photo by Dan Hadani, showing Israeli PM Menachem Begin bent over next to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. US President Jimmy Carter is standing behind Sadat. This photo was taken on March 25, 1979, ahead of the signing of the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel

When he decided to close the agency and retire, he didn’t know what would become of the archival treasure trove he had developed over decades: “I created something that doesn’t exist in the country. It was my own little quirk. It’s hard for me today to understand how I even ended up doing it. You cultivate it. You keep perfecting it. And it’s hard. It’s hard to let go…”

He tried to find a place which would take his life’s work in its entirety and understand its incredible inherent value. After a few years of fruitless searches and failed deals, he decided with sadness to destroy the project he had dedicated much of his life to: “I was about to buy two shredders to begin destroying the negatives. I cried. To destroy such a thing? I knew there was a treasure here.”

Fortunately, Hadani discussed his intentions with his daughter-in-law, Batya Calderon, who quickly appealed to Dr. Hezi Amiur, curator of the Israel Collection at the National Library. Amiur immediately understood the value of this archive and succeeded in convincing Hadani to provide the National Library with the entire collection, which could then serve the broader public.

Despite the great difficulty in saying goodbye to the illustrious project he’d cultivated for years, Hadani had finally found a home for his life’s work: “I am happy and I am content,” he said. “I am very proud that it’s in the best hands I could have dreamed of.”

Watch our special interview with Dan Hadani (English subtitles available via Youtube’s auto-translate option)

Even at 100 years old, Hadani refuses to sit back and take it easy. Last year, he built up a website on the Wix platform which tells the story of his life and his journalistic achievements, as well as other challenges he overcame in life. He still drives a car and takes care to remain curious and incisive, even today: “I expect and am waiting to enjoy the future. And I will rest a little, because I work very hard.”

With the look of a sober, knowledgeable man, keenly aware of the past and looking firmly towards the future, he made a very specific request in honor of his birthday: “I want to see a good future. I want to see the state I built. Today I don’t see it.”

The Bible of the Conversos

Years after being forced to leave Judaism behind, many of the conversos of Spain and Portugal sought to return to their suppressed roots. The Ferrara Bible, which was printed in the 16th century and revised countless times, helped them rediscover their religion. Dozens of copies of this Bible are still scattered around the world today.

Daniel Lipson | 14.08.24

Conversos Jewish books Rare Books Rare Jewish Books Sephardic Jewry סודות כתבי היד העבריים

After many years of being cut off from Judaism, the conversos of Spain and Portugal migrated to other countries around the world, with many of them attempting to return to the Jewish faith. They didn’t have much knowledge of Judaism, and they didn’t even know the Hebrew alphabet. However, childhood memories, family stories, and discreetly maintained traditions encouraged these “New Christians” to try to reconnect with their roots in their newly adopted homes.

Throughout the 16th century, converso communities began to print Jewish books in Spanish. Initially, these printed works included the foundational Jewish texts, followed later by works on Jewish philosophy, anti-Christian texts, and books of poetry. A Portuguese grammar book and a play based on the Book of Esther, both printed by conversos during this period, have been preserved. A little later, in the 17th century, conversos published what is considered the world’s first Jewish newspaper, the Gazeta de Amsterdam. The newspaper was published in Amsterdam and was primarily intended for Jewish merchants.

It all began in the city of Ferrara, in northern Italy. Conversos settled there in the 16th century, and established the earliest printing industry dedicated to works of Spanish and Portuguese conversos. The publishing work later moved to Venice, and then in the 17th century to Amsterdam, where it remained for approximately 200 years. During the expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the last decade of the 15th century, there was already a Jewish community living in Ferrara, and the Jewish printing house had been operating there for several years. From 1477 to 1551, it published the Arba’ah Turim (a work dedicated to Jewish religious law) and commentaries on the books of Job and Daniel.

מעיני הישועה — *Ma’ayanei Ha-Yeshua*, a commentary on the Book of Daniel by Don Isaac Abarbanel, Ferrara, 1551 (with the censors’ stamps on the last page)

Against this backdrop, Ferrara attracted many conversos wishing to return to their Judaism, since the location offered them such a comfortable environment. Among those who settled there was Abraham Usque, a converso who had printed Latin books in Portugal. In 1543, he came under suspicion of practicing Judaism in secret and fled from Portugal to Ferrara.

Shortly after the arrival of the conversos in Ferrara in 1552, a Spanish member of the community named Yom-Tob Atias published a siddur (prayer book) and later a book of the Selichot penitential prayers. Usque and Atias met each other and in 1553, they published a complete Bible in Spanish together. According to an inscription found on the inside cover, this was done with the approval of the Duke of Ferrara. The full title of the Bible they published was: “The Bible in the Spanish language, translated word for word from the true Hebrew by very excellent scholars, seen and examined by the office of the Inquisition.” To this day, it is commonly known as “The Ferrara Bible.”

Since it is a very literal translation, it is a bit of a strange read in Spanish; rather than writing the biblical stories in Spanish, the text is translated word for word, sometimes without syntax, exactly as it is written in the original Hebrew. While the Ferrara Bible was printed in Roman letters, some people consider the translation to be written in the Judeo-Spanish language of Ladino, because it adheres strictly to the original Hebrew text.

תנך — The Ferrara Bible, 1553. An inscription reads *Iblia en lengua española traduzida palabra por palabra de la verdad hebrayca por muy excelentes letrados vista y examinada por el officio de la Inquisicion* (“The Bible in the Spanish language, translated word for word from the true Hebrew by very excellent scholars, seen and examined by the office of the Inquisition.”)

The Ferrara Bible was first and foremost intended for conversos who wanted to study the Bible but did not have sufficient knowledge, if any, of Hebrew. The other target audience included Spanish-speaking Christians.

In the past, certain scholars surmised that in order to serve both types of readers, the Ferrara Bible was printed in two similar versions, with the differences reflecting the two target audiences’ respective expectations. In any case, the National Library of Israel has a copy of each version.

The “Christian” version states that it was printed by Jerónimo de Vargas and Duarte Pinel. The first page includes a long dedication to Duke Ercole II d’Este, who ruled Ferrara at the time of publication and granted Jews equal rights. The Jewish version was printed by the same two publishers, but in this version, they appear under their Hebrew names—Yom-Tob Atias (who some claim was Jerónimo de Vargas’ father) and Abraham Usque. In this version, the dedication is to Doña Gracia Nasi, the famous Portuguese converso and Jewish philanthropist. Doña Gracia may have funded the project or supported it in other ways.

הקדשה דונה גרציה — The dedication to Doña Gracia Nasi in the Jewish version of the Ferrara Bible

In the colophon – the final note attached to a book or manuscript summarizing its production process—some copies have the year written as 1553, while others have it written as the corresponding year in the Hebrew calendar, 5313.

קולופון — In the colophon at the end of this version of the book, the year is written in its Hebrew form – 5313.

However, the differences between the two versions of the Ferrara Bible don’t stop there. For example, they were printed in two different sizes and on different types of paper.

In the 1950s, Professor Stanley Rypins, a scholar of English literature, conducted a thorough examination of the existing copies of the Ferrara Bible. He found 49 different copies around the world and demonstrated that there were many differences among them, though most of these differences were small and insignificant.

Contrary to the assumptions of past scholars that the Ferrara Bible had both a Jewish and a Christian version, Rypins argued that there was in fact no version specifically tailored for Christian readers. On the contrary, over the years, some have even claimed that this Bible is anti-Christian and that the translations of certain verses that have been interpreted as a historical basis for Christianity maintain the original literal text, in an effort to undermine official Christian doctrine.

Nevertheless, in some copies, there is one significant change favoring Christian dogma. One of the verses used in Christianity for missionary purposes appears in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. In the original, it reads as follows:

“Behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.”

In Christian literature, the verse was translated according to Christian theology, which asserts that Jesus’ mother is the Virgin Mary:

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

In some copies of the Ferrara Bible, the Hebrew word almah is translated into Spanish as moca (young woman). In others, it is translated as virgen (virgin), and in most cases, the printers simply wrote alma in Roman letters, thus avoiding controversy. In about half of the copies found, the word alma appeared, and Rypins demonstrated that this was how the Bible was originally printed. He claimed that the word was later changed to virgen, likely for political-religious reasons, and after several printings, to moca. Each change required the printer to adjust the font to maintain a uniform length of the row of text. To achieve this, abbreviated words were sometimes expanded to their full forms, and sometimes small spaces were added between words.

Throughout the period of publication, errors in page order and typos were corrected in the various printed copies that were released. Nevertheless, typographical errors can still be found here and there in some of the copies. Rypins viewed all these issues as proof that the different editions of the Ferrara Bible were indicative of an ongoing process of corrections; it wasn’t that there were two versions, each intended for a different audience, rather – all copies of the Ferrara Bible were intended for Spanish and Portuguese conversos in the mid-16th century. In the copies Rypins found, it was also evident that due to the prohibition against writing or pronouncing the name of God unnecessarily, most copies used the capital letter “A” as a substitute for the name. Some copies also included a list of the weekly Haftarah portions read in the synagogue.

God’s name written as the capital letter “A”, from the beginning of the *Va’etchanan* portion in the Ferrara Bible

The illustrated title page of the Ferrara Bible includes a drawing of a ship being tossed about by stormy waters at sea. One of its masts is broken, and it is surrounded by waves, gusts of wind, and sea monsters. The illustration alludes to the situation of the Jewish People in general and the conversos of Spain and Portugal in particular. The printers were hinting at the eternal nature of Judaism, which is forced to fight against its spiritual enemies but manages to survive and persevere despite it all.

שער פררה — The title page of the Ferrara Bible. The ship being wrecked at sea symbolizes the Jewish People.

The ship is also depicted with an armillary sphere, an instrument that serves as a model of objects in the sky and which was used in maritime navigation. The armillary sphere was the symbol of Abraham Usque’s printing house and appears in other books he printed as well.

Masotav — An armillary sphere, Abraham Usque’s trademark, which appears on the title page of a travel journal by Benjamin of Tudela

Usque published over 25 books before his printing house was closed in 1558. One of his books, Shiltei Giborim (“The Signs of Heroes”) by Rabbi Yaacov Ben Yoav Elia of Pano, included a lamentation for 24 conversos who were executed in Ancona in 1556. News of this lamentation reached the ears of Bishop Antonio Ghislieri (later, Pope Pius V), who then demanded that the book be burned and Usque be punished.

Ushka — From the lamentation for the martyrs of Ancona, *Shiltei Giborim*, Ferrara 1556.

In 1996, literary and theater scholar Moshe Lazar published an accurate facsimile edition (that is, a new print completely identical to the original) of the Ferrara Bible, with a print run of 1,000 copies. Earlier, in 1992, to mark the 500th commemoration of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Lazar released a critical edition (one that traces all known editions) of the Ferrara Bible. In the introduction, Lazar wrote that to prepare this edition, he located some 60 copies of the Bible. These copies and others, which might still be circulating and unaccounted for in remote parts of the world, helped the conversos of Spain and Portugal return to Judaism in the 16th century.