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Siddur commonly known as Landshuth’s Prayer-Book due to the annotations of Lesser Lanschuth published with the work, compiled by Hirsch Edelmann. There is a German forward by Dr. Michael Sachs, and scholarly apparatus and an introduction from Edelmann, followed by the siddur. There is an essay by Lanschuth on the origin of Hebrew prayers and glossaries, emendations, and notes by Edelmann. The prayers,which are comprehensive, are for the whole year. There is also a lengthy essay, entitled Noam Megadim (pp. 94-152) on customs in the siddur.
Hirsch Edelmann was an author and editor; born in Swislocz, Russia, 1805; died at Berlin, Nov. 20, 1858. He was the son of a rabbinical scholar, and received a good Talmudical education, which he later supplemented by acquainting himself thoroughly with ancient and modern Hebrew literature. In 1839 Edelmann published his first work, "Haggahot u-Bi'urim," notes and commentaries to the "Me'irat 'Enayim" of Nathanson and Etlinger, Wilna, 1839. Five years later he published "'Alim le-Mibḥan," specimens or extracts from his work on difficult passages of the Haggadah in the Talmudim and Midrashim, with an appendix, "Megillat Sefer," on Purim and the Megillah, Danzig, 1844. The following year he published in Königsberg (where, as at Danzig, he had charge of a printing establishment) two critical editions of the Haggadah for Passover, with introductions, annotations, etc.
Edelmann spent about ten years in England, and was one of the first competent scholars to examine the manuscripts and rare printed books of the Oppenheim collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and to give the outside world some knowledge of their contents. In this work he was assisted by Leopold Dukes; and they jointly edited and published "Ginze Oxford" (with an English translation by M. H. Bresslau, London, 1851). To this period of Edelmann's activity belong also: Derek Tovim, ethical wills of Judah ibn Tibbon and Maimonides; also ancient Arabic and Greek proverbs rendered into Hebrew, with English translation by Bresslau, London, 1852; "Dibre Hefeẓ," extracts from various unprinted works, London, 1853; "Tehillah la-Yesharim," poem by Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto from an Oxford manuscript, with preface by Edelmann, London, 1854; and Hemdah Genuzah, unedited manuscripts by early rabbinical authorities, with a literary-historical introduction, Königsberg, 1856. Edelmann also brought out a valuable critical new edition of Estori ha-Farḥi's "Kaftor u-Feraḥ," Berlin, 1851, and wrote "Gedullat Sha'ul," a biography of Rabbi Saul Wahl, the one-day King of Poland, with an appendix, Nir le-Dawid ule-Zar'o, the genealogy of Denis M. Samuel of London, a descendant of that rabbi, London, 1854. In 1852 Edelmann settled in Berlin. For three months before his death he was in the insane department of the Charité hospital of that city.
Lesser Lanschuth was a German liturgiologist; born Jan. 15, 1817, at Lissa, Posen; died in Berlin March 23, 1887. He went to Berlin as a youth to study Jewish theology, and there he became acquainted with Zunz and Abraham Geiger, the latter of whom was then staying in that city in order to become naturalized in Prussia. Landshuth soon gave up his intention of becoming a rabbi, not being willing to conceal or renounce his liberal opinions; and Moritz Veit aided him in establishing himself as a Hebrew bookseller. Meanwhile Landshuth kept up his literary activity; and in 1845 he published as an appendix to the prayer-book issued by Hirsch Edelmann ("Siddur Hegyon Leb"; commonly known as "Landshuth's Prayer-Book") a valuable essay on the origin of Hebrew prayers. His essay on the Pesaḥ Haggadah (Berlin, 1855) and the introduction to the "Ma'abar Yabboḳ," a handbook of the funeral customs of the Jews, are along similar lines ("Vollständiges Gebet- und Andachtsbuch zum Gebrauche bei Kranken und Sterbenden," Berlin, 1867). A number of inscriptions from the tomb-stones of prominent men are added to the latter work.
Landshuth's chief work was his "'Ammude ha'Abodah (Columnæ Cultus): Onomasticum Auctorum Hymnorum Hebræorum cum Notis Biographicis et Bibliographicis," on Hebrew liturgical poetry (2 vols., ib. 1857-62), a painstaking and important contribution to the subject. No less valuable are his works relating to the history of the Jewish community of Berlin, parts of which have been incorporated in L. Geiger's "Gesch. der Juden in Berlin" (ib. 1871); other portions have been published in "Die Gegenwart" (ib. 1867) and other periodicals. He published also "Toledot Anshe ha-Shem u-Pe'ulatam," history of the Berlin rabbis 1671-1871 (ib. 1884). Many valuable manuscript notes by Landshuth have passed into the possession of Dr. S. Neumann of Berlin; and other matter has been reprinted by Dr. S. Bernfeld from Landshuth's notes in Ha-Meliz" 1886. Landshuth also copied and arranged the early communal archives of Berlin (written in Hebrew) and the inscriptions of the old cemetery in that city, which was closed in 1827. |
