jewish memory and local history: a commemorative liturgy from early modern prague
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This article was downloaded by: [Heriot-Watt University]On: 08 October 2014, At: 05:59Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK
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Jewish Memory and LocalHistory: A CommemorativeLiturgy from Early ModernPragueRACHEL L. GREENBLATTPublished online: 31 May 2012.
To cite this article: RACHEL L. GREENBLATT (2008) Jewish Memory and LocalHistory: A Commemorative Liturgy from Early Modern Prague, Jewish Cultureand History, 10:2-3, 159-171, DOI: 10.1080/1462169X.2008.10512105
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Jewish Memory and Local History: A Commemorative Liturgy from Early
Modern Prague
RACHELL.GREENBLATT
When the Jews of Prague had passed unhanned through the volatile events of the early stages of the Thirty Years' War, from May 1618 to November 1620, they instituted a local annual commemoration of their safe deliverance observed, in part, by the recitation of se/il,lot [liturgical poems] composed for the occasion by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller. The observance and its liturgy not only expressed gratitude to God, but also sought to crystallise the community's pro-Habsburg political stance. Moreover, in choosing locally-based models for the liturgy's form, its author both rellected and helped shape his community's historically-based local consciousness.
Jews in early modem Frankfurt memorialised their own past, and in so doing contributed to the construction of a unique local identity, in a variety of ways described in this volume: in the writing of nineteenth-century historical texts, in the design of particular ritual objects and their description in works of art, and in the cemetery.1 Such embraces of local tradition as part of community members' sense of self could also be called a 'historically-based local consciousness'. With this notion in mind, I tum eastward, to a point almost due north of Vienna; to a community that, alongside Frankfurt, had one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe throughout the latter part of the early modem period; to Prague.2 Jewish intellectual life had llourished in Prague during the reign of Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II (1576-1611), who moved his capital to the city in 1583 and attracted a vibrant, multi-lingual and multi-confessional community of artists and scholars.3 During this period, David Gans (1541-1613) visited Jonhannes Kepler's observatory in Prague and wrote books of history and astronomy, Judah ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague, d. 1609) published many of his works, and Ephraim Luntschitz (d. 1619), known as the Kelt Yakar, preached in the synagogues. During the latter part of Rudolf's reign and that of his successor, his brother Matthias, however, the area's already tense political situation deteriorated rapidly. The situation came to a head on 23 May 1618, when assembled members of the Bohemian Estates, incensed at Emperor Matthias's support of an order commanding them to disperse, marched to the Prague Casde and tossed two imperial Catholic regents out the window, the notorious 'second defenestration of Prague'.
Jewish Culture and History, Vol.lO, No.2&3 (AutuJll11/W"mter 2008) pp.l59-171 PUBLISHED BY VALLENTINE MITCHELL, LONDON
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160 JEWISH CULTURE AND HISTORY
This event, considered by historians to be the opening salvo of the Thirty Years' War, and the defeat of Bohemian forces at the Battle ofWhite Mountain two-and-a-half years later, in November 1620, constitute two of the central 'memories' around which the modern Czech nation has taken shape. 4 These two events were memorialised as well by the contemporary Jewish community in Prague, in the form of a special commemoration instituted by the communal leadership to be observed annually on 14 fteshvan, the day, according to the Jewish calendar, on which Imperial troops entered Prague's Old Town (Stare Mesto, Altstadt), where the Jewish Quarter is located. In the first half of the day a fast was to be observed, and in the city's synagogues the daily service was expanded to include the recitation of three particular liturgical poems, penitential prayers known as 'seli}?ot', inserted into that special day's liturgy.5 Two of these seli}?ot were written by Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller (1579-1654), also called 'The Tosfot Yom Tov' after the name of his best-known work. At the time, Heller was a local rabbinic judge; in 1627, he would become Prague's chief rabbi.6 Following the afternoon prayers on 14 Hreshvan, the mourning was to turn to celebration, an expression of thanksgiving for the Jewish community's safe passage through these stormy events.
The phenomena of annual local commemorations of particular events by Jewish communities throughout the world in general- including Frankfurt's 'Purim Vmz'and that of liturgy commemorating historical themes in particular, have received little attention in modern scholarship.7 Rather, much scholarly writing about the relationship between history and memory in the Jewish world rests on the sharp polarity between 'collective memory' and 'modern historiography' posited by Maurice Halbwachs and, following him, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi.8 Likewise, Pierre Nora, in his introduction to Les lieux de memoire, seems to presume that prior to the fateful break with traditional society, memory was preserved selectively but organically, free of the artificial manipulations necessitated by the loss of this 'natural' memory and imposed by the processes of modern critical historical research and writing.9 Such analyses tend to leave aside the role oflocal history. More specifically, Yerushalmi calls seli}?ot, 'the single most important religious and literary response to historical catastrophe in the Middle Ages', but unfortunately devotes barely half a page to their exposition. He points out that, on the whole, the seli}?ot contain very little historical detail while, on the other hand, what detail they do contain is generally assigned meaning by linkages created with paradigmatic Jewish themes, particularly those of suffering, vengeance and divine justice. 10
In this paper, I examine these issues through a reading of Heller's selU,ot for 14 fteshvan. While they adhere to the classic forms of Hebrew liturgical writing, these works also go beyond the level of mythos, containing much more 'history' than one might have expected based on the current research. On one level, Heller's seli}?ot seek to portray recent history in a particular manner, in a way that served the needs of the Jewish community leadership in the particular circumstances of the early years of the Thirty Years' War, and not solely to identify that history with universal Jewish
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A COMMEMORATIVE LITURGY FROM EARLY MODERN PRAGUE 161
themes. On another level, they constitute an important expression of Prague Jewry's local identity, and the way in which its own history was institutionalised in the city's synagogues. Towards the end of the discussion I also look briefly at the other side of this coin, asking to what degree this community expressed an interest in its particular past by continuing the observance of this day once it had been established.
Let us move, then, to Prague, and to 31 October 1619, when the Calvinist Elector Frederick V of the Palatine, newly-elected King of Bohemia, entered the city with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of King James of England. Frederick's coronation took place several days later, and, the day after that, representatives of the city's Jewish community had an audience with the King and bestowed lavish gifts upon him, his family and his entourage. 11 This action seems simple enough on the face of it, but the particular circumstances surrounding it bespeak a rather complicated situation. Beginning in 1526, the Bohemian kings had been elected from the House of Habsburg. During the reign of Emperor Matthias (1612-19), tensions between the Habsburgs and the Bohemian Estates that had been simmering during the first decade of the seventeenth century burst out in open armed struggle: 23 May 1618 saw the defenestration of three Habsburg officials. In August of the following year, the Bohemian Estates elected Frederick as king, replacing Matthias' appointed Habsburg successor, the ardent Counter-Reformer Ferdinand II. 12
It is hard to say to what degree the Jews' gifts to Frederick had been presented of necessity - motivated solely by proper protocol and the need to seek the protection of the new king - and to what degree genuine feeling; could have stood behind them. The Jews, it seems, were more generally associated with the Catholic party in this conflict, 1l but at the very least they would have tried to bet on both horses at once, as at were, as best they could, protecting themselves for any eventuality. Very few written records survive that are able to provide insight as to the true feelings of Prague's Jews regarding the stormy events that engulfed them. On the ideological level, in recent years, a few scholars have pointed to possible religious affinities between the Jews and some Bohemian and Moravian Protestant sects, 14 but it is not clear what the political implications of such religious leaning; might have been. There is also no reason to think that opinion was wholly united within the confines of the Jewish Quarter, where internecine political battles surrounding other issues were as common as they were fierce.
A year later, in November 1620, as imperial forces neared Prague, Jews were drafted to help build fortifications to protect the capital city of independent, religiously mixed Bohemia against the coming Habsburg onslaught. As far as the Bohemian party was concerned, the efforts were in vain. On 8 November 1620, just over a year after his entry into Prague, Frederick's armies were soundly defeated by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand's Catholic forces at the Battle of White Mountain, just outside Prague, and by the following morning the de-facto former king had slipped quietly from the city. In one fell swoop, the political and religious balance of power into which the Jewish community had to make itself fit had changed radically, though perhaps not unexpectedly.
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162 JEWISH CULTURE AND HISTORY
In a tense state, and having made all the necessary overtures to the Protestant government, it is understandable that the Jews would have been, at this point, fearful of the worst. Indeed, Habsburg forces pillaged the city. But Ferdinand himself had sent word that the Jewish Quarter, like homes of loyal Catholics, should be protected, and in that part of the city, life, limb and property were spared.
The impulse to give thanks for what may well have been a seemingly miraculous tum of events can readily be understood. The first two seliJ?ot included in the special liturgy for 14 ijeshvan were written by Heller, most likely a year or two after the Battle of White Mountain.15 The third work in this special liturgy was of a type known as a pizmon, a rhymed poem with a repeating chorus. This composition, 'Ele barekbev', by Simon ben Isaac (b. c. 950), was culled from the large corpus of medieval selii!ot known to Jews of the period through their inclusion in liturgical collections recited on various days throughout the years particularly preceding and during the Jewish New Year ('Rosh Hashanah'), the Day of Atonement ('Yom Kippur'), and the ten days between the two, known as the 'Days of Awe' ('Yamim Nora'im') .16 The impulse to give thanks explains that something was done to commemorate this day and its attendant redemption, but it is not sufficient to explain what was done. At least two different possible models stood before the rabbinic and lay leadership of Prague Jewry as they made their choice. Less than a decade earlier, in 1611, during a series of events known as the 'Passau Invasion', Prague's Jews had faced potential physical danger first from the armies of Bishop Leopold ofPassau, who invaded the city, and then from mobs of locals who rioted in protest. 17 After surviving the ordeal unharmed, the community leadership had established a commemorative day on 2 Adar, whose observance centred around the recitation of three liturgical poems composed by then Chief Rabbi Ephraim Luntschitz, two selil?ot and a pizmon.1
" Both stylistically and thematically, the pizmon closely resembles the medieval 'Ele barekbev' later re-appropriated for the 14 ijeshvan observance. This model of the three special compositions for 2 Adar was, in tum, based on an earlier model, used in mourning Jews killed in a pogrom in Prague in 1389.19
Just a few years after the Passau Invasion, the Jewish community in Frankfurt had chosen a different approach to commemoration, following the 1614 expulsion ofJews from the city during the Fettmilch Uprising. Over the course of several years (1612-16), a group of burghers led by Vincenz Fettmilch had both challenged the legitimacy of the city's government - and for a time overtaken it entirely - and attacked the Jewish Quarter, before expelling its inhabitants.'" In commemoration of their triumphant return to Frankfurt and the execution ofVincenz Fettmilch, in 1616, the Jews of Frankfurt established three commemorative days: a fast day on 27 Elul, in memory of the expulsion, a second fast on 19 Adar I, and a celebration called 'Purim Vill?' on 20 Adar 1.'1 As opposed to the longer history of special liturgical compositions mourning tragedies that befell Jewish communities, local Purim days, established in thanksgiving for an individual community's rescue from mortal danger, were a phenomenon that had first appeared sporadically in medieval times, and had begun
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A COMMEMORATIVE LITURGY FROM EARLY MODERN PRAGUE 163
to flourish in the Mediterranean basin and then in Italy during the sixteenth century.22
These celebrations were based on the biblical Purim festival described in the Book of Esther, known in Hebrew as 'Megillat Esther', or, according to early modem Ashkenazi pronunciation, 'Megillas Esther'. Aside from one brie( very elusive reference from early sixteenth-century Fulda, 'Purim Viflt is the earliest known case of a local Purim established in Central Europe.23
The major text associated with this celebration is 'Megillas Viot, a poem of over 100 stanzas, each appearing fJCst in Hebrew and then, immediately thereafter, in Yiddish.2
' This composition focuses on those aspects of the Fettmilch Uprising that affected the Jewish community, and at one point compares Fettmilch to Haman, the villain of the biblical Book of Esther. The two fast days also featured the recitation of selil!ot. As far as I have been able to determine, however, those used were not written specifically for the occasion as were most of the Prague selil!ot, but like the pizmon in the Prague collection for 14 ij:eshvan, were drawn from the extant liturgy as reflected in local selil!ot collections.25
Jews in Prague were aware of these events in Frankfurt, and almost certainly the literary response to them.26 Frankfurt's 'Megillas Viot, might have been a more appropriate model for commemorating the events surrounding the outbreak in Prague of what came to be known as the Thirty Years' War than was the series of selil!ot written for the Passau Invasion. In 1620, Prague's Jews, as opposed to those in Frankfurt a few years earlier, had not, in the end, been at the centre of any particular anti-Jewish action. There was no villain who could play the role of Haman assigned to Vincenz Fettmilch. Nevertheless, the longer format of a local megillah would have allowed for more historical detail, and, more importantly, it was a format more fitting to the happy outcome. Fourteen ij:eshvan even came to be known as the 'Prager Purim'. 27 But the leadership of Jewish Prague chose instead to repeat the local model, and commissioned a new series of selil!ot accompanied by an appropriate pizmon. I would argue that this was not only a result of the different nature of the events in the two cities but also, in part, a conscious choice to continue a local tradition. Unfortunately, I cannot say at this point whether this model originated in Prague, or was adapted by Prague Jewry from an earlier tradition, perhaps with roots in the Rhine valley during the Crusader period. Scholarly attention to the poetry written in response to the events of that period, like that paid other Ashkenazi liturgical works, has focused on the individual compositions, and told us very little about the ritual setting and combinations in which they were recited.
Once a special day and selil!ot were chosen as appropriate forms of remembrance in Prague, the question would have remained as to how those selil!ot would be written, what was to be included in them, and how the author would choose to represent the events and the community's reactions to them. 28 A close reading of these texts will show that beyond simply redirecting biblical passages in order to give thanks for their rescue (or redemption) from a dangerous situation, the community leadership, through its official mouthpiece, represented itsel( and all the Jews of
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Prague, as wholeheartedly pro-Habsburg, in part seeking to consolidate support for the Habsburgs among the surely bedraggled, perhaps befuddled Jewish population, both for the contemporary community and for posterity. At the time when the selil?ot were written, during the years immediately following the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs were still working to consolidate their hold on Prague. Members of the Jewish community numbered among those who took advantage of the volatile situation for financial gain. Some helped Bohemian 'rebels' conceal their goods in the Jewish Quarter in an attempt to avoid anticipated confiscations by the soon-to-bevictorious Habsburgs. 29 various individuals were also involved in different schemes, from minor dealing in stolen goods, to, in the case of the community's wealthiest member, Jacob Bassewi, participation in a currency-minting consortium that, in the course of a single year, helped bring collapse to the entire Bohemian economy.3
"
The original published pamphlet containing the selil?ot for 14 J:Ieshvan begins with an historical introduction that paves the way for the works' pro-Habsburg stance. Drawing on biblical language, it narrates the story of the 1618 defenestration and subsequent political and military crisis while clearly siding with the emperor as against the Bohemian 'rebels'. The Bohemian nobles who 'rose up' against Emperor Matthias's officers in the Prague Casde are portrayed as 'weaving a conspiracy' against him.31 The Bohemian rebels are tacidy compared to sinners referred to in nearly identical language in the Book of Isaiah.32 This historical narrative leads eventually to the main point of the introduction: the need to give thanks to God for the Jewish community's having been spared, thanks to the Emperor Ferdinand, during urban combat and plundering of Prague by imperial troops that followed the battle of White Mountain in 1620, and the establishment of the commemorative day to be celebrated annually_ll
The first selil!a, 'Anusa le'ezrab adekba', looks back three or four years from the time it was written to describe the events surrounding the defenestration of 1618. It continues the theme introduced in the pamphlet's introduction by clearly siding with the Habsburg party, while writing out of its narrative any support, however pro-forma, the Jewish community may once have demonstrated for Frederick's government. The first several stanzas praise God in rather general ways, but beginning in the sixth stanza the text turns direcdy to the days of the Emperor Matthias and continues in a chronological description of the defenestration and subsequent events. The text turns the notion of a struggle for Bohemian independence on its head by implicidy accusing the leadership of the Protestant rebellion of being tyrants who misled those of their fellow countrymen who took up arms to support their cause. It portrays these Bohemian soldiers as blindly following the 'rebels', and compares them to the Israelites who preferred slavery to freedom, putting in their mouths the words, 'for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians [than to die in the wildemess)'.34 The selil!a describes the Jews' reaction to the defenestration as having been one of fear and trembling, expressed by their wailing and lamentations. 35 In its conclusion, this selil!a describes Frederick's coronation in terms that hardly betray any support the Jews might once have accorded him. 'They crowned him (Frederick] with the wreath of
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A COMMEMORATIVE LITURGY FROM EARLY MODERN PRAGUE 165
kin~hip and anointed him as King, (that is] to say, God will comfort me /The enemies of the Jews in their trickery plotted (against our]lives to consume me.'36
The crowning of Frederick as king is viewed here as closely related to a plot against the jews. I am not aware of any evidence besides the selil?ot themselves linking the Bohemian party and its new king to specific anti-Jewish policies, though I also cannot rule out the possibility of their existence. In either case, in Frankfurt, just a few years earlier, the popular, pro-burgher Fettmilch, who had, like the Bohemians, replaced the governing authority viewed as legitimate, had indeed expelled the Jews from the city. Thus, even a superficial comparison between the situation in Prague and the Fettmilch Uprising in Frankfurt suffices to show that in the context of early modem urban politics in Central Europe, the Jews in Prague certainly had grounds to fear that victory of the burgher and noble Bohemian 'rebels' over the centralised Habsburg authority could indeed pose a serious threat to their own safety.
The second selii,Ja, 'Arkhu hayamim utela'ah ravtah', brin~ this same overall point of view to the second instalment of this saga, the events surrounding the Battle of White Mountain, two and a half years following the defenestration, and just a year after the coronation of Frederick. While the first poem emphasised the illegitimacy of the Bohemian Estates' actions against the imperial rulers, the second focuses on the good grace shown by Emperor Ferdinand in preserving the Jewish community from the post-Battle of White Mountain pillaging.37 It also describes the establishment of the annual commemoration at some length, and ends with a wish for the ultimate return to Zion. like the first poem, it concerns itself as well with portraying the Jews as expressing the 'proper' feelin~ in the face of particular events, offering a particular interpretation of the facts that must have been known to all. Thus the Jews' assistance in helping to build the ramparts before the approaching Habsburg forces is described in the following language:
My vigour dried up like a shard, my taste has not remained, my fragrance is spoiled I I have heard a decree of destruction and my flesh creeps from fear: 38 I 'Go labour and make fortifications and ramparts to defend against the approaching enemy!'39
By describing the Jews' feelin~ of fear and disgust when ordered to build the ramparts, Heller has given a pro-Habsburg 'spin' to the community's patently antiHabsburg action, an action that would have been highly visible to the entire local population. The third selii,Ja, the eleventh-century 'Ele barekhev', contrasts 'we', the Jews, who battle the enemy by spiritual means, with 'those', the non-Jews, who instead employ physical force. The implication is that the Jews, too, made a unique and substantial contribution to the Habsburg war effort.
Thus this special liturgical addition written for the synagogues of Prague annually brought certain reminders before the worshippers in those synagogues: reminders of the unjust rebelliousness of the Bohemian Estates in their struggle against the
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Habsburgs and their election of a new king, of the distaste with which the Jews had helped to prepare the ramparts to defend against the returning Habsburgs a year later, and especially of the great thanks due to the emperor Ferdinand for having saved them and their property amidst the looting and destruction that followed the Battle of White Mountain. This annual liturgy worked in tandem with various other means employed in the effort to keep members of Jewish community in line with the official policy of loyalty to and cooperation with the Habsburg administration, including various announcements by beadles [shamash) in the local synagogues . .o This conscious construction of the community's memory was one way in which its leadership sought to cope with the volatile local political landscape. Regarding the first set of issues I described at the outset, the leadership of the Jewish community in early seventeenth-century Prague did indeed seek to portray recent history in a particular manner, in a way that would serve its own needs, and not solely to identify it with universal Jewish themes.
Until this point, I have discussed the attempted intentional construction of memory: the ways in which the leadership of the Jewish community in early seventeenth-century Prague sought to shape how future generations would view it. Such a discussion leaves us with a problem of this community's 'actual' memory in the rest of the seventeenth century and beyond, of the success of this attempted construction: how long did Prague Jewry continue to demonstrate its interest in its own past by continuing to maintain its special observance of 14 .,eshvan? As in the second question I posed at the outset, did this community continue to be concerned about this particular chapter in its own past, and if so, for how long and to what degree? This is somewhat difficult to judge. Though several editions of at least two slightly different version of the SeliJ,ot for 14 /feshvan have survived, they were apparently not printed again after the early 1620s. A printer from Cracow, however, attests to their still being recited in Prague on 14 H[eshvan at least as late as approximately 1650!1 The various secondary sources are mutually contradictory: one author wrote in the early 1880s that the practice was still alive, while another wrote in 1892 that 141:feshvan had not been celebrated within the memory of anyone living in Prague at the time.4
' The best I can offer, therefore, is that the practice continued for at least the span of one generation, into the 1650s, and perhaps as long as a century and a hatt; until the mid-eighteenth century or longer.
This type of generational memory can be related, with some reservations, to theories suggested by Jan Assmann in his Das kulturel/e Gediichtnis.'3 Assmann suggests that 'communicative' as opposed to 'cultural' memory includes those experiences shared by a group of people, often a generation as its members come of age, and perpetuated more or less equally and informally among them. While based on the vagaries of unaided human recall and retelling, and generally dying with the last of their bearers, communicative memories can have a lifespan of 80 to 100 years or more, memories reaching into the lifetimes of their original bearers' children and grandchildren. Assmann's cultural memories, on the other hand, touch on the
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fundamental origin myths of a society. They are perpetuated by ritual, song, dance, or other means consciously designed by elites of the group concerned for their preservation. Thus they become part of mythic time, freed from the ephemerality of the human lifespan, and celebrated particularly on festive days that are set apart from the regular calendar. 1f the observance of 14 ijeshvan did indeed cease to be practised in the mid-to-late seventeenth century, or even in the early part of the eighteenth century, it would fit well with Assmann's notions of communicative memory, especially as it relates to generational memory. Yet in all other ways, the observance of 14 ~eshvan is closer to Assmann's notion of 'cultural memory': it was characterised by particular liturgical ritual written consciously by an elite from within the celebrating group and celebrated on a particular day. As opposed to Assmann, I would therefore hold that this mode of formal, artistic commemoration, not only represents a mode for the eternal preservation of mythic-type memories, but also answers a need felt even by the original bearers of a particular memory - and perhaps especially by those groups and individuals. In this, the Jews of Prague displayed a strong, historically-based local consciousness.
It is also clear that the celebration of this day did not spread to other Jewish communities. In fulfilling the day's prescriptions, Prague's Jews, then, were aware of being in this particular way different from Jews of other communities, differentiated by their history and the way in which that history was institutionalised in Prague's synagogues.
When modem Jewish historians draw a clean line between 'collective memory' and 'Jewish historiography', they often tend to deny the possibility of any substantial concern with the immediate past among pre-modern Jews. In this way, a disservice is done not only to the understanding of 'traditional' Jewish communities, but also to the understanding of what exacdy it is that sets 'modernity' apart. From our brief examination of Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller's selil!ot for 14 ~eshvan, we can see that attention was paid to particular details about the history of a particular place, and even more so, to the particular interpretation that was provided for those details. These selil!ot, while they adhere to the classic forms of Hebrew liturgical writing, also go beyond the level of mythos, containing much more 'history' than one might have expected. Moreover, local identity was expressed not only in the content of the selil!ot, but also in their form- in the Prague community's choice of the local model over its alternative. Certainly Heller's selil!ot, and the view of history that stood behind them, did not constitute an integral pan - and probably not any pan at all -of the way seventeenth-century Jewish residents of Prague defined themselves as Jews. They did, however, play a significant role in how they defined themselves as Jews of Prague. Overall, the question of a growing, historically-based local consciousness is one that can be posed regarding many European Jewish communities during the early modem period, including, of course, that in Frankfurt.
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NOTES
This article is based on a part of my doctoral dissertation, 'A Community's Memory: Jewish Views of Past and Present in Early Modem Prague' (Hebrew University of jerusalem, 2006). I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Richard I. Cohen and Professor Israel J. Yuval, my dissertation advisors, to Professors Robert Uberles and Hillel Kieval, and to the anonymous reader for jewish Culture and History. I am also grateful for the constructive suggestions of the numerous receptive audiences before whom I presented various versions of this paper, particularly during the 2003-04 academic year. I would like to thank the Posen Foundation, The Hebrew University's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for their generous support.
1. See especially the article by Chisthard Hoffmann in this volume. 2. On the jewish Quarter in Prague, see Alexandr Putik, 'On the Topography and Demography of
the Prague Jewish Town Prior to the Pogrom of l389',Judaica Bobemiae, 30--31 (1994-95), 7-46; Wilfried Brosche, 'Das Ghetto von Prag', inDiejuden in den biibmischen Uindern ed. by Ferdinand Seibt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1983), pp.87-122; Jan Herman, 'La communaute juive de Prague et sa structure au commencement des temps modemes Qa premiere moitt' du 16e sii:cle)',Judaica Bobemiae, 5 (1969}, 31-70; Kathe Spiegel, 'Die prager Juden zur Zeit des dreissigjahrigen Krieges', in Die ]uden In Prag ed. by Samuel Steinherz (Prague: Independent Order ofB'nai Brith. Loge Prag, 1927}, pp.107--86; Ignatz Hermann, Joseph Teige and Zikmund Winter, Das Prager Ghetto (Prague: Unite, 1903); Otto Muneles, Tbe Prague Ghetto in the Renaissance Period trans. by Iva Dr:ipalov:i (Prague: Omis for the State Jewish Museum, 1965}; Milada Vilimkov:i, Tbe Prague Ghetto trans. by Iris Urwin (Prague: Aventium, 1993).
3. R.}.W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, 1973; corrected papemack edition, London: Thames and Hudson, 1997).
4. Josef Petr:iii and Lydia Petr:iiiova, 'The White Mountain as a Symbol in Modem Czech History', in Bohemia in History ed. by MikuhiS Teich (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998}, pp.143-63. See also: R.J.W. Evans, 'The Significance of the White Mountain for the Culture of the Czech Lands', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 44.101 (May 1971), 34-54.
5. Seliqot for 14 lfesbvan (Prague, c. 1621). This edition is in the possession of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (hereafter: JTS) (rare books shelf number 1760: 12). A slighdy different edition is held by the Bodleian library, Oxford, see Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bib/iotheca Bodleiana (Berlin: A. Friedlaender, 1931; Original edition, 1852--60), Yol.2, No.2945 (A.E. Cowley, A Concise Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), p.188}; C£ Jewish Museum of Prague, Pressmark 1286, Se/iqot Keseder Beit Hakneset Hayeshanab (Prague, 1605), bound together with additional seliqot, including Heller's for 14 !Jeshvan. I am grateful to David Wachtel of the JTS library Special Collections department and Olga Sixtov:i of the Jewish Museum in Prague for their assistance regarding these early prints. Heller's seltqot were also published in A.M. Haberman, 'The Piyyutim and Poems of Rabbi Yom Tov Iipman Heller', Lekhvod lVm Tov ed. by Y.L. Hacohen Maimon (Jerusalem: Mossad harav Kuk, 1955/6}, pp.129-33 [in Hebrew). While the seliqot in the JTS copy themselves are virtually identical to the version published by Haberman, which may have been based on the Bodleian copy, the historical introduction differs in a number of places. For the historical introduction, I quote from the Seltqot for 14 lfesbvan in the possession of JTS; for the selil!ot themselves I quote from the more commonly available publication by Haberman. For a literary analysis of these seliqot, placing them squarely in their Bohemian context, see: Jirina Sedinov:i, 'Hebrew literature as a Source oflnformation on the Czech History of the First Half of the 17th Century. The Reflection of the Events in Contemporary Hebrew Poetry',Judalca Bohemiae, 20 (1984), 3-30.
6. On Heller, see Joseph M. Davis, Yom Tov Lipman Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (Oxford: Unman library of Jewish Civlization, 2003). On the relationship between these selil,ot and Heller's views on miracles and providence in particular, see esp. pp.106-112. The
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account here also draws on Guttman Klemperer, 'The Rabbis of Prague: A History of the Rabbinate of Prague from the Death of Rabbi Loewe B. Bezalel ("The High Rabbi Loew") to the Present (1609-1879)', trans. Guido Kisch, Historia]udaica, 12 (1950), 33-66.
7. A recent work that does consider some of these phenomena is Dean Phillip Bell,Jewtsh Identity in Early Modern Germany: Memory, Power and Identity (Aidershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007). For lists of local annual commemorations, both sad and joyous, throughout the Jewish world see Leopold Zunz, Die Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Louis Lamm, 1919), pp.126-30; D. Simonsen, 'Freud (sic] und Leid. Locale Fest· und Fasnage im Anschluss an Zunzens Fastentabelle', Monatsscbrift for Geschichte und Wissenschaft des]udentums, 38 (1894), 524-7; Yom-Tov Levinsky, 'Second Purim Days in the Communities of Israel', Sefer Mo'adim, 6 (1955), 297-322 (in Hebrew]. For Prague and Bohemia specifically, see Salomon Hu_Bo Ueben, 'Megillath Samuel',]abrbuch der Gesellschaft for Geschichte der ]uden in der Cechoslovakischen Republik, 9 (1938), 340-42; idem, 'Denkmliler jiidischer TragOdien BOhmens in der Uturgie', Das Zeit, 1 (1924), 241-3. On Frankfurt's 'Purim Vmz', see below.
8. Maurice Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de Ia memoire (Paris: F. Alcan, 1925); idem, lA memoire rollective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950); idem, lA topographie legendaire des evagiks en terre sainte (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1941). In English, see idem, On Collective Memory trans. by Lewis A Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); idem, The Collective Memory trans. by Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida fudi Ditter (New York: Harper and Row, 1980); Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakbor (Seattle: University of Wdshington Press, 1982). Much has been written about these figures and their central arguments; here I name but a few examples: Robert Bonfil, 'How Golden was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish Historiography?', Essays in jewish Historiography ed. by Ada Rapaport-Alben (Atlanta 1991) [ = History and Theory, Beiheft 27 (1998), 78-102]; Robert Chazan, 'The Timebound and the Ttmeless: Medieval Jewish Narrations of Events', History & Memory, 6 (1994), 5-34; Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of jewish History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), esp. pp.9-10; Patrick Hutton, History as an Art of Memory (Hanover, NH: Univesity Press of New England, 1993); Yael Zerubavel, 'The Death of Memory and the Memory of Death: Masada and the Holocaust as Historical Metaphors', Representations, 45 (1994), 72-100; idem, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National'!raditton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
9. Pierre Nora, 'Between Memory and History', in Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past ed. by Pierre Nora and lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), vol.l, pp.1-20.
10. Yerushalmi (see note 8), pp.5-6. 11. Moritz Popper, 'Les juifs de Prague pendant Ia guerre de trente ans', Revue des Etudes juives,
29 (1894), 128-31; Spiegel (see note 2), pp.117-18. 12. The literature on the Thirty Years' War, including these opening stages, is vast. For a Bohemian
perspective see: Hans Sturmherger, Aufstand in BObmen. Der Beginn des Dreiftigjiibrigen Krteges (Miinchen: R. Oldenbourg, 1959); J.V. Polisensk.Y, The Thirty Yean War trans. by Robert Evans (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971).
13. E.g. Hillel ]. Kieval, Languages of Community: The jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), pp.18-20.
14. On the possible level of]ewish understanding of and affinity with Czech-Protestant theology in this and earlier periods: Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson, 'The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes', Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 4.12 (1971), 239-326; Otto Dov Kulka, 'The Historical Background of the National and Educational Teachings of Rabbi Judah Loeb ben Bezalel of Prague: A Suggested New Approach to the Study of Maharal', Zion, 50 (1985), 277-320 (Hebrew, English summary]; Orit Ramon, 'Moses and Mordekhai: An Examination of the Maharal's Commentary to the Book of Esther', Masekhet, 6 (2007), 141-52 (Hebrew]; Israel]acob 'fuval, 'Juden, Hussiten und Deutsche, nach einer hebriiischen Chronik', Zeitscbrift for Historiscbe Forschung, Beiheft 13 (1992), 59-93; Ruth Kestenberg, 'Hussitentum und Judentum' ,]abrbuch der Gese//scbaft for Geschicbte der ]uden in der C ecboslovakischen Republile, 8 (1936), 1-26.
15. For speculations on the date of composition and printing, see Alexander Kisch, 'Die Prager
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170 JEWISH CULTURE AND HISTORY
Judestadt wahrend der Schlacht am weiBen Berge', Allgemeine Zeitung desjudenthums, 56.34 (19 August 1892), 400-403 (p.401).
16. A German translation appears in Leopold Zunz, Die synagogale Poeie des Mittelalters (Frankfurt a.M., 1920; reprinted, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1967), pp.175-6. The first line is based on Psalms 20:8.
17. On the Passau Invasion, see James R. Palmitessa, 'The Prague Uprising of 1611: Property, Politics, and Catholic Renewal in the Early Years of Habsburg Rule', Central European History, 31 (1998), 299-328. A Jewish eyewitness also recorded the events: Abraham David, ed., Cbronikab Ivrit Meprag, mereishit hame'ab hasheva-esreh, Jerusalem 1984, pp.22-8 (English translation: Abraham David, ed., A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c. 1615, trans. Leon J. ~inberger with Dena Ordan (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993], pp.62-9).
18. Selil!ot for the Second Day of Adar, Prague 1613. I have seen the copy housed in the rare book room at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (shelf number 1760:9). Ct: Steinschneider (see note 5), nos.2849, 2945 (Cowley, see note 5, pp.188, 189). A facsimile appears in Binyamin Zeilingold, 'Haben yakir li ephraim: History and Introduction to the Books of Rabbi Solomon Ephratmluntschttz (Saint Paul, MN: Adath Israel Community Services Bureau, 1987) (Hebrew].
19. On the progrom of 1389 see FrantiSek Graus, Struktur und Geschichte: Drei Volksaufstiinde im mtttelalterlicben Prag (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1971), pp.5(}....6(), 76-8; Germania judatca m, Vol.2, pp.1121, 1134, 1150 n.357. The liturgical compositions concerned were published in: Simon Bemfeld, ed., Book of Tears (Sefer Hedema'ot): the Occurrences of Decrees, hrsecutions and Destructions (Berlin: Eshkol, 1923-26), vol.2, pp.155-64 (Hebrew).
20. For a balanced survey of the events and the extensive historiography concerning them see Christopher R. Friedrichs, 'Politics or Pogrom? The Fettmilch Uprising in German and Jewish History', Central European History, 19 (1986), 186-228. See also Robert ]tine, 'Der Frankfurter Fettmilch-Aufstand und die Judenverfolung von 1614 in der kommunalen Erinnerungskultur', in Memoria Wege jiidischen Erinnern: Festschrift fiir Michael Brocke zum 65. Geburtstag ed. by Birgit E. Klein and Christiane E. Miiller (Berlin: Metropol, 2005), pp.163-76.
21. These days are mentioned in the book oflocal customs from Frankfurt wrinen by Joseph Hahn and first published in 1723, see Joseph Hahn, ltJsef ()mq (Frankfurt a.M, 1928; reprinted Jerusalem 1965), pp.211-12, no.953; pp.242-3, nos.1107-9 (Hebrew). C£ the kinab (poem of mourning) recalling the massacre of]ews in Frankfurt in 1241, inserted into Frankfurt's local liturgy for 1isha B'av, a Jewish day of mourning for the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem: S. Baer, ed., Die Trauergesiinge fiir llschah beAb, ROdelheim 1893, No.43 (Hebrew and German); Isidor Kracauer, Gescbicbte der juden in Frankfurt a.M. Vol I, Frankfurt a.M. 1925, pp.5-9. On the symbolism of the German Frankfurt as the destroyed Jerusalem, see Israel Jacob Thval, 'Heilige Stadte, heilige Gemeinden. Mainz ais desJerusalems Deutschlands', in]iidiscbe Gemeinden und Organisationsformen von der Antike his zu Gegenwart ed. by RobertJiitte and Abraham P. Kusterman (Wien: Bi:ihlau, 1996), pp.91-101. For extensive lists oflocal Purim days in various locales, see above, note 7.
22. On local Purim days, see Ellion Horowitz, Reckless Riles: Purim and the Legacy of jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp.278-315. Horowitz bolds that twelfth- and thirteenth<entury local Purim days listed by scholars may never even have been actually celebrated as annual commemorations.
23. See Steinschneider (note 5), pp.1186-7, No.22, under 'Jakob b. Asher'. 24. The full bilingual text, together with German transliteration of the Yiddish and an English
translation, appears in Rivka Ulmer, Turmoil, Trauma and 1Humph: 1be Fettmtlcb Uprising in Frankfurt am Main (1612-1616) According to Megillas Vmtz (Frankfurt a.M: P. Lang, 2001) ( = Johann Maier, ed., judentum und Umwelt, Vol.72]. For an additional discussion of 'Megillas VUlZ' and the annual Frankfurt celebration, see Chava Thmiansky, 'The Events in Frankfurt am Main (1612-1616) in Megtllas Wnts and in an Unknown Yiddish "Historical" Song', in ScbOpferische Momente des europiiiscben judentums ed. by Michael Graetz (Heidelberg: Winter, 2000), pp.121-37.
25. Hahn, ltJsef ()mq (see note 21), p.212, no.953; p.242, no.1107. See Frankfurt Seltbot, e.g.: SeltQot lekol hasbanab (Frankfurt a.M., 1763), and particularly the instructions on the reverse side of the tide page, opposite p.1a, listing the seltJ,ot to be recited both for 'The Fast of VlllZ', and for a fire that occurred later, in 1711.
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26. One Prague jew, a community officiant named NaJ,man son of Eliezer Pukh, even wrote a second Yiddish song about the Fettmilch uprising. See Turniansky (note 24), pp.l31-7.
27. E.g. Spiegel (see note 2), p.l18. 28. This fonnulation draws on a similar argument regarding Jewish historical writing published by
Robert Bonfll (see note 8), pp.81-2. 29. Kisch (see note 15). 30. The affair is described in many places, though no study of which I am aware sufficiently explores
Bassewi's particular role. E.g., Arnost Klima, 'Inflation in Bohemia in the Early Stage of the 17th Century', in Proceedings of the Set•enth lnternatiatJal Economic History Congress ed. by Michael Flinn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978), pp.375-86; Golo Mann, Wallenstein: Sein Leben (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1971), pp.237-45.
31. Se/U,ot for 141;1eshvan, p.la. In an apparently slightly later version of the introduction, this exchange from the Book of Isaiah is summarised simply as, 'and they rebeUed', see Habennan (see note 5), p.l31.
32. Isaiah 1:19-20. 33. Selil!ot for 14/feshvan (see note 5), p.la. 34. Habennan (see note 5), p.130, lines 29-32 (Proveros 21:16; Exodus 14:12). Translations of the
selil!ot are my own. In translating direct biblical quotations I have relied heavily on Tanakb: the New fPS Translation, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: jewish Publication Society, 1999). For translations of more extensive selections from the selii!ot, see Davis (note 6), pp.l06-9.
35. Habennan (see note 5), p.l30, lines 35-38. 36. Ibid. p.l30, lines 53-54. Translation partially based onNew]PS, Psalms 31:4. 37. E.g. Habennan (see note 5), p.132, lines 22-4; p.133, lines 33-5. 38. Translation partially based on New ]PS for the foUowing verses: Psalms 22:15, jeremiah 48:11,
Isaiah 28:22, Psalms 119:120. 39. Habennan (see note 5), p.l32, lines 13-15. 40. Among these were special announcements made by the beadles in the synagogues, and bans
{~em] pronounced against anyone who cooperated in concealing Protestant goods from the officials who came to confiscate them, or anyone who dealt in stolen goods. For the text of bans against those who deal in stolen goods, and a prayer for the weU-being of those who do not, see jewish Museum of Prague Ms. 83 (Jewish National and University Library, Institute for Microfilmed Manuscripts, film no. 46971), 'Kuntras from the Meisel Synagogue', Fol. 5b. A Kisch claims to have seen a manuscript including what appears to be a different ban, which referred specifically to the requirement of handing hidden (as opposed to stolen) goods over to the authorities, Kisch (see note 15), p.402.
41. Habennan (see note 5), p.126. 42. Klemperer (see note 6), pp.65-6; Kisch (see note 15), p.400; Spiegel (see note 2), p.118. 43. Jan Assmann, Das kulture//e Gediichtnis: Scbrift, Erinnerung und politiscbe Identttiit in friiben
Hocbkulturen (Miinchen: C.H. Beck, 1999), pp.20-21, 48-59.
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