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Shanghai Imprints - Apart from J.J. Sulaiman's Kunteres Seder ha-Dorot (1921), the main period of Hebrew printing in Shanghai was during World War II and immediately after (1940–46), when remnants of Lithuanian yeshivot (Mir, Slobodka), as well as Lubavitch Hasidim, found refuge in Shanghai and printed – mostly photostatically – rabbinic, ethical, and hasidic works in limited editions for their own use. To the 80 items enumerated by Z. Harkavy (in Ha-Sefer, no. 9, 1961, 52–3; Hashlamot le-Mafte'ah ha-Maftehot (by S. Shunami, 1966), 3–4) have to be added – at least – the above work by J.J. Sulaiman and S. Elberg's Akedat Treblinka (Yid., 1946). Hebrew newspapers were printed in Shanghai as early as 1904. |
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On exile, messianic redemption, and repentance. R. Lowe states that exile is a "departure" (deviation) from the natural order of the world, a breakdown in the universal system of relations, in the otherwise unchangeable regularity. The exile expresses itself in three ways:
(1) Uprooting from the natural locality; every nation has a country specifically its own, and separation from one's country and of dwelling beyond it deleteriously affects the natural order;,p> (2) Loss of political independence and subjection to aliens - "for the subjection of one nation to another does not accord with the proper order of reality, for it is the right of each nation to be free";
(3) The dispersion - every nation is a distinct entity and in the absence of a territorial center it loses its unity; it is not "a complete compact nation" (Nezah Yisrael ch. 1).
However, every departure from the natural order is but a passing phenomenon - hence the conviction of, and faith in, the messianic redemption which will inevitably come about and remedy the anomaly of the exile. Yet despite all his attachment to the messianic faith, he was utterly opposed to "forcing the end" (of the exile) and to the actual messianic speculations of his time.
R. Judah b. Bezalel Loew (known as Der Hohe Rabbi Loew and Ma-Ha-Ra-L mi-Prag; c. 1525–1609), rabbi, talmudist, moralist, and mathematician. R. Judah Loew was the scion of a noble family which hailed from Worms. His father, R. Bezalel b. Hayyim, was brother-in-law of R. Isaac Klauber of Posen, the grandfather of R. Solomon Luria. R. Judah Loew's older brother, R. Hayyim b. Bezalel, and his two younger brothers, Sinai and Samson, were also scholars of repute. (According to one tradition, however, Judah was the youngest son.) His teachers are unknown. From 1553 to 1573 he was Landesrabbiner of Moravia in Mikulov (Nikolsburg) after which he went to Prague. There he founded a yeshivah called Die Klaus, organized circles for the study of the Mishnah, to which he attached great importance, and regulated the statutes of the hevra kaddisha, founded in 1564. He remained in Prague until 1584, and from then until 1588 served as rabbi in Moravia (according to others, in Posen), eventually returning to Prague. On the third of Adar 5352 (Feb. 16, 1592) he was granted an interview by Emperor Rudolph II, but it is not known what its purpose was. There seems little basis for the belief that it was due to their common interest in alchemy. Shortly afterward he left Prague for Posen, where he became chief rabbi, and several years later again returned to Prague, becoming its chief rabbi and remaining there until his death. |
