YIDDISH MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY

an additional sheet with parallel text, romanization
and translation, and another sheet with a
fair copy of the translation.
56 Cf. E. Scheid, 'Histoire des Juifs de Haguenau
pendant la periode fran^aise'. Revue des etudes
juives, X (Paris, 1885), pp. 204-31.
57 For the literature on Alsatian Yiddish, see B.
Blumenkranz and M. Levy, Bibliographie des
Juifs en France (Toulouse, 1974), pp. 255-6
(under 'Yiddish'); Astrid Starck, 'Bibliographie
du yidich alsacien', in her Le Yiddisch occidental
(Aarau, 1994), pp. 173-84; and the summary
bibliography appended to Les Cahiers du
CREDYO [Centre de Recherche d'etudes et de
documentation du yidich occidental], no. i
(Mulhouse, 1995), pp. 101-3. See also the
dissertation by Johannes Brosi, 'Southwestern
Yiddish: A Study in Dialectology, Folklore and
Literature', M. Litt. thesis. University of
Oxford. 1990, and his 'Bamerkungen tsu doremmayrev
yidish [Comments on Southwestern
Yiddish]'', in Oksforderyidish [Oxford Yiddish:
Studies in Yiddish Language, Literature and
Folklore], iii (Oxford, 1995), cols. 369-88 (with
bibliographies).
58 See Ernest Anderson's typescript checklist
['Microfilms of Manuscripts not in the British
Library: Hebrew, Judaeo-Persian and Yiddish'],
c. 1975.
59 An export licence was granted for the original
manuscript ('lot 299', late 1972); its present
location has not been recorded. It deserves
study, which can sometimes be very difficult
from a microfilm alone. It may be noted that
microfilms of the entire Sassoon collection (now
largely dispersed) are held in the British Library,
as are microfilms (issued by University Microfilms,
Ann Arbor, Michigan) of various collections
held at the Jewish Theological Seminary,
New York; the Sassoon and Seminary collections
include, of course, Yiddish manuscripts.
60 A bibliographic and literary history of this genre
is currently being prepared by Hagit Matras of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On this
literature in Yiddish, see Steinschneider,
Juedisch-Deutsche Literatur, entries for printed
books nos. 219-222 and 279, and the lengthy
entry for MS. no. 421; J. Baumgarten, 'Textes
medicaux en langue yiddish (XVI'^-XVIP
siecle)', in G. Sed-Rajna (ed.), Rashi
{1040-iggo): Hommage a Ephraim E. Urbach
(Paris, 1993), pp. 723-40; and idem. Introduction
a la Utterature yiddish ancienne, pp. 421-43.
Another example, not cited by Baumgarten, is to
be found in H. Siiss, Raritaten der Jiddischen
Literatur des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts
in der Universitatsbibliothek: Eine Ausstellung
zur Woche der Bruderlichkeit im Handschriftenlesesaal
(Erlangen, 1980; reprinted in his
Collected Studies in Yiddish and Hebrew Bibliography,
s.l.e.a., privately distributed), under
* Vitrine VII'. For relevant secondary literature,
see the entries in E. Yzss\{, Jewish Folklore: An
Annotated Bibliography (New York and London,
1986), index, pp. 299 and 307-8, s.v. 'charms'
and ' folk-medicine'. On Jewish alchemistic
tracts, see the recent study by R. Patai, The
Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book
(Princeton, 1994).
61 An edition of the play in Gothic characters, Reb
Henoch oder was thut me dermit: Ein Familiengemdlde
in drei Abtheilungen, transliterated by
M. Allenstein, was published in Berlin in 1847.
See Zalmen Rejzen, 'Di manuskriptn un drukn
fun Itsik Eykhls Reb Henokh\ Arkhiv far der
geshikhte fun yidishn teater un drame [Archiv fur
die Geschichte desjudischen Theaters und Dramas],
ed. J. Shatzky (Wilno/New York, 1930), pp.
85-146, and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld, 'Leeser
Rosenthal's only Yiddish manuscript', in A. K.
Offenberg et al. (eds.), Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana,
pp. 88-9; Shmeruk, Sifrut yidish, pp. 156-8,
163. See also Max Erik [i.e. Z. Merkin], Di
Komedyes fun der berliner ufklerung (Kiev/
Kharkov, 1933), pp. 42-61, and his 'Di ershte
yidishe komedye', Filologishe shriftnfuft YIVO,
iii (Vilna, 1939). Some characterizations of the
work may be quoted here. Charles A. Madison,
in Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major
Writers (New York, 1968), p. 15, writes:
' Influenced by Moliere's Tartuffe, I. A. Eichel, a
student of Kant, wrote Reb Hennoch (1793), a
refinement on the Purim play in which Hasidic
characters appear as hypocritical and lecherous
and the enlightened protagonists as forthright
and honest.' Emanuel S. Goldsmith, in Architects
of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the
Twentieth Century (London, 1976), p. 37,
writes: 'Isaac Eichel... (i756-1804), a distinguished
biblical scholar who edited the Haskalah
journal Hameasef turned to Yiddish out of
despair at the sight of young German Jews at the
baptismal font and the sacred Hebrew tongue
abandoned. His satire Reb Henokh could not be
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