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Only edition of this eulogy for Tsvi Hirsch Todesko by Abraham Menahem Mendel Mohr. Todesko, a philanthropist who resided in Vienna, died on 17 Kislev 605 (Thurday, November 28, 1844). The verso of the title page has a quote from Bava Batra 11a concerning an episode involving Munbaz the king who depleted his treasury and that of his fathers to feed the poor in years of famine. His brothers complained that he had depleted the family wealth, to which Munbaz responded that his fathers had horded wealth below but that he, by giving charity, had hoarded merit in Heaven. Next is verse and then the text of the eulogy.
Abraham Menahem Mendel Mohr (1815–1868), Hebrew scholar. Born in Lemberg, he was a maskil who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish. His fecund literary work commenced in 1834 when he published Magen ha-Hokhmah, in which he defended science and philosophy. Together with N. I. Fischmann, Jacob Bodek, and Jacob Mentsch he issued the two volume Ha-Ro'eh u-Mevakker Sifrei Mehabberei Zemannenu (1837, 1839), in which famous scholars were harshly criticized. The book aroused the anger of his contemporaries. His publication Yerushalayim, which appeared for three issues (1844–45), was more moderate. In 1848–49 he published a Yiddish newspaper, Tsaytung, which at the time was the only Yiddish newspaper in the world. Mohr wrote about Sir Moses Montefiore (Keter Shem Tov, 1847); the Rothschilds (Tiferet Yisrael, 1843), Columbus (1846), Napoleon III (Hut ha-Meshullash, 1853), and a biography in praise of Archduke Karl, brother of Kaiser Franz (Ariel, 1848). His works also included Mevasseret Ziyyon, (1847), a geography of Palestine and its Jewish inhabitants, and his Purim parodies Kol Bo le-Purim (1855) and Shulhan Arukh Even ha-Shetiyyah (1861). He published editions of Mikveh Yisrael by Manasseh Ben Israel (1847) and La-Yesharim Tehillah by M. H. Luzzatto (1859). |
