Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
about 1835, died 1912resAnet Record /ref>) was a Polish Jewish
Talmudist
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, editor, and author.
Walden, who was an ardent adherent of
Ḥasidism
Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...
, is known especially for his "Shem ha-Gedolim he-Ḥadash" (Warsaw, 1864), a work of the same nature as Azulai's "Shem ha-Gedolim." Like the latter, it consists of two parts:
* "Ma'areket Gedolim," being an alphabetical list of the names of authors and rabbis, mostly those that lived after Azulai, but including also many of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who were omitted by Azulai; and
* "Ma'areket Sefarim," an alphabetical list of book-titles.
Walden himself says in his preface that he took Azulai's "Shem ha-Gedolim" as a model; and it is evident that he refers to
Isaac Benjacob
Isaac ben Jacob Benjacob (10 January 1801, Ramygala – 2 July 1863, Vilnius) was a Lithuanian Jewish maskil, best known as a bibliographer, author, and publisher. His 17-volume Hebrew Bible included Rashi, Moses Mendelssohn, as well as his own ...
's edition of that work. The alphabetical list in the first part is arranged only according to the first names of the persons mentioned. In many instances the names are accompanied by biographical sketches, especially of Ḥasidic rabbis, whose biographies contain records of the miracles wrought by them and in behalf of them. To the third edition of the work, published in 1882 by Walden's son Joseph Aryeh Löb, the latter added an appendix entitled "'En Zoker," containing names and book-titles omitted in the two previous editions.
Another work by Walden, in which he displayed great erudition, is the "MiḲdash Me'at" (Warsaw, 1890), an edition of the Psalms in five volumes. In it are printed around the text:
* "Bet ha-Midrash," a kind of yalḲuṠafter the model of the "YalḳuṠShim'oni," Walden having gathered all the haggadot referring to the Psalms which were scattered in the Talmudim, in the midrashic literature, and in the Targum, as well as in the Zohar and other cabalistic works
* "Bet ha-Keneset," a fourfold commentary ("PaRDeS") consisting of material taken from the most prominent ancient commentators; and
* "Bet Aharon," a reference index to the "Bet ha-Midrash," giving also variants and an explanation of difficult passages.
Walden also published an edition of Rabbi
Abraham Saba
Abraham Saba (1440–1508) was a preacher in Castile who became a pupil of Isaac de Leon. At the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain he took refuge in Portugal, where he met with further misfortune; for scarcely had he settled in Porto w ...
's work "Zeror Ha-Mor" (Warsaw, August 1879), in which he stated that he had corrected various errors and misprints that had crept into the second and third printings of 1546 and 1566 respectively (both in
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
). This edition was printed by the printing house of Nathan Schriftgiesser.
References
*
Moritz Steinschneider
Moritz Steinschneider (; 30 March 1816 – 24 January 1907) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist, and an important figure in Jewish studies and Jewish history. He is credited as having invented the term ''antisemitism.''
Education
Mo ...
, Hebr. Bibl. viii. 108;
*
William Zeitlin
William Zeitlin (; – 1921) was a Russian scholar and bibliographer.
Biography
William Zeitlin was born in Gomel, Mogilev Governorate, into a prominent Jewish family from Shklov.
His major work was ''Kiryat Sefer'', or ''Bibliotheca Hebraica P ...