Detailed Description |
|
Sir Rothschild was a member of the family of financiers and philanthropists, patrons of the arts and sciences who greatly contributed to Jewish causes, particularly to the settlement of Erez Israel and the State of Israel.
The greeting is signed by R. Hayyim ben Jacob Hirschensohn (1857–1935). He was born in Safed and in 1864 went with his father to Jerusalem. In addition to studying Torah, he applied himself to secular studies, and as a result he too was persecuted by zealots. He also worked for Zionism; he supported Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in his effort to revive spoken Hebrew and was one of the founders of the Safah Berurah (Plain Language) society in Jerusalem. From 1885 to 1889 he edited and published a monthly for Jewish scholarship entitled Ha-Misderonah. In 1892/93 he published in Jerusalem - together with his wife Eve and his brother Isaac - a Yiddish paper, Beit Ya'akov, as a supplement to the Ha-Zevi of Ben-Yehuda. In 1904 he went to the U.S., where he was appointed rabbi of the four communities of Hoboken, New Jersey, and died there. R. Hirschenson wrote, in addition to these Hiddushim, many books on Jewish subjects, including: Ateret Hakhamim (1874), on the relationship between the views of scientists and those of the talmudic aggadists; Yamim mi-Kedem (1908), on biblical chronology; Malki ba-Kodesh (6 parts, 1919–28), on the laws which should govern a Jewish state according to the Torah. He was the father of Tamar, wife of David de Sol. |