YIDDISH MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Sefer 'amude 'olam. Jacob Maitlis, in his essential
study, 'Der bodleyaner ksav-yad Libes-briv: a
far-haskoledike reform-shrift', in Yivo-bleter, ii
(Vilna, 1931), pp. 308-33, regards tbe Bodleian
'Libes briv' manuscript (Mich. Nr. 364 = New
No. 297 = Neubauer no. 743) as rare (originally
owned by H. J. Michael in Hamburg and
described in the catalogue by Steinschneider,
Otsrot Hayim [Hamburg, 1848], it was sold to
the Bodleian), but he is aware of a second and
even a third manuscript in England, copy or
original, owned by Sassoon and Porges respectively.
See David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel
David {Ohel Dawid): Descriptive Catalogue of the
Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon
Library, London (Oxford, 1932), vol. ii, p. 995,
no. 930, 'Liebes brief, of which the British
Library has a microfilm copy. Or. Mic. 2811.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York,
also has two manuscripts of this work; see J.
Rovner (ed.), A Guide to the Hebrew Manuscript
Collection of the Library of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, vol. i (New York, 1991),
vol. i, nos. 2256 and 2333. Maitlis claims there
are sixteen chapters in the Bodleian 'Libesbriv',
as opposed to Neubauer, Catalogue of the
Hebrew Manuscripts m the Bodleian Library,
vol. i, p. 146, no. 743, who counted seventeen.
Comparison of the Bodleian and British Library
texts might prove instructive. One of the latter
(Or. MS. 10668) is a copy, made in 1777 by
Solomon Zalman ben Jacob Eschau, of the 1749
original attributed (by Maitlis, Porges and
others) to Isaac Wetzlar. The second British
Library copy (Or. MS. 10086) is apparently also
an eighteenth-century one.
42 Isaac Wetzlar is not to be confused with two
other early Yiddish authors bearing the name
Wetzlar, of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries respectively. On the latter two, see Z.
Rejzen, Leksikon fun der yudisher literatur un
;)rf5f, ed. Sh. Niger (Warsaw, 1913), cols. 256-7;
cf. also A. Lewinsky's entry 'Wetzlar', in The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. xii (New York and
London, 1905), p. 511. Rejzen records the Libes
hrif not under any 'Wetzlar', but rather (following
Steinschneider, op. cit.) under 'Hekshir,
Itsik', col. 220.
43 One might also mention here the satirical verses
in Hebrew and Yiddish which are appended
(on f. 6ib) to Add. MS. 27O45(B) (Margoliouth
no. 925), a fifteenth-century miscellany of
Hebrew poetry, comprised of ethics and (mostly)
satire.
44 On Levita, see G. E. Weil, EUe Levita^ humaniste
et massorete {i46g-iS49) (Leiden, 1963), and J.
Baumgarten, Introduction a la Utterature yiddish
ancienne, pp. 201-51. On the Bove bukh and its
early printing, see also Baumgarten, ' Une
Chanson de geste en yidich ancien: le Bove bukh
(Isny 1541) d'EIie Bahur Levita', Revue de la
Bibliotheque Nationale, xxv (Paris, 1987), pp.
14-31. Ironically, it has been universally forgotten
by Yiddish scholarship in England that
this classic work of Yiddish literature is based
ultimately on an Anglo-Norman epic inspired by
a figure from (South) Hampton; a student of
Yiddish literature cannot but smile when encountering
a pub named ' Sir Bevis of Hampton'
in this Hampshire port town. On the early
editions of this work, see M. Marx, History and
Annals of Hebrew Printing in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries (microfilm, Cincinnati,
1982), under Isny, 1541.
45 On Bochner, see the entry by S. Roubin in The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. iii (New York and
London, 1903), p. 280. For the editions and
abridgements of Levita's grammar, see Zedner,
p. 227; A. E. Cowley, A Concise Catalogue of the
Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library
(Oxford, 1929; reprinted 1971), pp. 172-3; I-
Benjacob, Otsar ha-sefarim [Thesaurus Librorum
Hebraicorum] (Wilna, 1880), pp. 497-8; M. M.
Slatkine, Otsar ha-sefarim, helek sheni (Jerusalem,
1965), p. 316, no. 228; and Steinschneider,
Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur, no. 384. *"
46 As noted earlier, Borochov recorded only printed
works in the field of Yiddish philology, not
manuscripts.
47 See Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts
104
igi6-ig20 (London, 1933), p. 45- C. G. Leland
Collection, Vol. X. Vocabularies in various
languages compiled by C. G. Leland [including]
Schmussen, or the Jewish-German dialect, with
(f. 46) a few Romany-English words and notes
dated Sept. 1879. f. i. A Vocabulary of
Schmussen, or the Jewish-German Dialect [ff.
ia-3oa, arranged by roman alphabet]; Our
Father-in-Heaven prayer in Juedisch-Deutsch at
the end.
48 At a later period the term 'Mauschein' (which
carries the root name of 'Mausche', i.e. Moses)
was used by antisemites to imply that Jews were
corrupters of German language and culture. It