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THE MODERN RABBINIC DICTIONARY that came into existence towards the end of the nineteenth century emerged in the context of profound reevaluations of the authority of revealed traditions, the historicity of written documents, and the nature of orally transmitted beliefs. What had once been taken to be eternal and unchanging was now shown to have evolved over time. Ancient languages, such as Ugaritic and Akkadian were being discovered and deciphered while stupendous new archeological discoveries were changing the face of the historical past. To further complicate matters, Jews were engaged in the greatest population movement in their entire history as they migrated from Central and Eastern Europe to North America and Palestine. In the face of these modern upheavals, one seemingly unremarkable element of rabbinic lexicography quietly remained virtually unchanged. Not unlike the way the formatted page of the rabbinic Bible and the Talmud in the 16th century was patterned on Christian scholastic glossed texts, modern Jewish rabbinic lexicographers continued to replicate the format of the dictionary entry popularized by the Christian Hebraist lexicographer Johannes Buxtorf, the Elder. This is especially evident in the formatting of Jacob Levy’s rabbinic dictionary, considered the first modern critical work of its kind. From Buxtorf to Jacob Levy to Alexander Kohut to Marcus Jastrow to Barukh Krupnik, continuity of form, if not content, persisted. Those who adopted a scientific approach to the study of religious texts, no matter where that path might take them, often invested their methods with a new kind of rational conviction. Consequently, the task of the rabbinic lexicographer (secular or devout, Jewish or Christian), like the format of the lexical entry itself, would in some sense remain the same: to establish the authentic meaning of the most sacred words on the most secure grounds and in the most stable way possible.
71. Jacob Levy [Leberecht Fleischer, and Lazarus Goldschmidt].
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Marcus Jastrow.
73. Marcus Jastrow, compiler.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature.
New York : Judaica Press, 1996
Jastrow’s dictionary, while generally well-received, also endured a fair amount of criticism. Recent scholarship has faulted Jastrow for lumping together all Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary under one cover and for not taking into account the different times and places when and where each was used. At the time of its publication, some critics also took issue with new etymologies Jastrow proposed for various words. In at least one area, however, Jastrow certainly could not be faulted for adopting a radical new approach. The visual presentation of the Jastrow dictionary entries did not depart from the traditional format transmitted from Johannes Buxtorf to Jacob Levy to Alexander Kohut to himself.
74. Paula Arnold-Kellner.
ha-Milon ha-shalem ‘Ivri-Angli : ‘im hosafat reshimat rashe ha-tevot ha-shegurim.
[Added English titlepage: Complete Hebrew-English dictionary].
London: Shapiro, Vallentine & Co., [5]784 (1923 or 1924 C.E.).
Paula Arnold-Kellner is the first woman to have published a dictionary under her own name which explicity includes “words of Talmudic origin” . Arnold was born and raised in Vienna, was a skilled linguist and translator, and eventually moved to British mandate Palestine in 1933 at the age of forty-eight, where she continued to write and translate. This Hebrew-English dictionary (it does not include an English-Hebrew component), written with Moses David Gross, also contains a supplementary list of abbreviations.
76. Baruch Karu [Krupnik].
Milon shimushi la-Talmud la-Midrash vela-Targum : ‘im perush ha-milot be-‘Ivrit, be-Anglit uve-Germanit : ve-‘im dugma'ot u-mar'e mekomot... be-hishtatfut A. M. Zilberman.
[Added title pages in English and Hebrew: A dictionary of the Talmud the Midrash and the Targum, with quotations from the sources/ Handwörterbuch zu Talmud, Midrasch und Targum].
London: Shapira, Valentin ve-shutafav, [5]687 (1927 C.E.)
Barukh Karu (Krupnik) was born in Podolia (Ukraine), worked as a journalist, editor, translator and lexicographer, before migrating to Palestine. His practical dictionary of rabbinic literature, written with the scholar and translator A. M. Silberman, was published in London in two volumes in 1927. Its entries are alphabetically arranged for easy use. Its format clearly follows the pattern established by Johannes Buxtorf and subsequently adopted by Jewish rabbinic lexicographers from Jacob Levy to Marcus Jastrow.
