Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment* STEFAN REIF Most presidents of the Jewish Historical Society of England, when researching the sources for the learned paper with which they open the proceedings in their year of office, must soon become aware that many of the major figures in Anglo-Jewish history in the course of the last hundred years are also those who have directed the affairs of the Society. For this writer the realization was not novel, but it did make him more conscious of the honour done to him by his fellow members.1 It is to be hoped that this presidential paper will in no way compromise the high standards that have come to be expected of the Society and that the year ahead will lay firm foundations for the coming centenary celebrations. Solomon Schechter was the scholar who brought so much of the Cairo Genizah to Cambridge and lent his name and that of his colleague and mentor, Charles Taylor, Master of St John's College, to the Taylor-Schechter Collection which constitutes the bulk of the Genizah material at Cambridge University Library. It is no surprise to find this red-haired Romanian rabbi at the centre of so much during the years of his residence in Cambridge from 1890 until 1902. Sorting, describing and analysing the Collection was a major part of his life at that time, and it is only to be expected that the many hours that he spent every day on these tasks would be reflected among the various sources that provide first-hand evidence of his Cam? bridge activities. Although Taylor himself and the redoubtable Mrs Agnes Lewis and Mrs Margaret Gibson, as well as the palaeographer, Francis Burkitt, were among the team of researchers who first presented the scholarly and wider worlds with the results of a close examination of the Cambridge Genizah material, another signifi? cant name in the list of dramatis personae is that of the University Librarian of the day, Francis Jenkinson. As the official custodian of the Collection and one who was clearly involved in various aspects of its acquisition, conservation and exploi? tation, Jenkinson appears and reappears in the sources that touch upon the Cam? bridge Genizah material, often in connection with the role of Schechter himself. As he delved further into the records, the writer realized that a closer examination of the parts played by Schechter and Jenkinson in the whole saga, and an under? standing of the relationship that existed between these two scholars, were called * A formal version of a presidential lecture presented to the Society on 10 October 1991. 279</page><page sequence="2">Stefan Reif for and, if successfully achieved, would gready illuminate various aspects of Genizah scholarship and its history. The present paper represents an initial attempt at meeting such needs. It will first summarize the life stories of these two individuals; then move on to use fresh material for building a more detailed and accurate picture of how they interacted; and finally estimate the degree to which their respective biographies should or can be re-assessed to take account of such an interaction. That the literary treasures from the Cairo Genizah in the possession of Cam? bridge University Library are of major, even unique importance for almost every aspect of medieval Hebrew and Jewish studies should by now, almost a hundred years after their discovery, require no rehearsal in any respectable scholarly con? text. A strong argument can be made, and has often indeed been made by the writer, that for all the excitement and publicity attendant upon the slow and controversial treatment and exploitation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the chronicler of Jewish history is better served by the vasdy more extensive, varied and detailed Genizah documents than by their earlier counterparts from the Judean desert. Whatever the validity of such comparisons, it must be acknowledged that it is only over the last eighteen years that a comprehensive programme of conservation, filming, cataloguing, scholarly analysis and public promotion has given scholars the opportunity of fully exploiting its contents and lay people an inkling of their remarkable relevance to the history of Jewish culture in its widest manifestations. Had Solomon Schechter declined the offer of the presidency of the Jewish Theo? logical Seminary and remained in Cambridge from 1902 until his death thirteen years later, there is every likelihood that he himself would have ensured that such progress with the scholarly treatment of the Collection would have been recorded three-quarters of a century before it actually was. To make such a claim is, however, to anticipate part of this presentation. Schechter did begin a programme of Genizah publication, but the historical fact is that it was not until the late 1970s that a Genizah Series, published by Cambridge University Press for Cambridge University Library, was launched and provided a context in which the various parts of the Collection could systematically be analysed and described.2 One of the projected volumes in that series will set out to explain how the Genizah archive (if it may, given its haphazard development over the centuries, be defined as such) was amassed in medieval Cairo; how it became known to scholars; and how about three-quarters of its total contents found their way to Cambridge University Library. It will also summarize the contents of the Collection and sketch the history of its fate since it exchanged a place by the Nile for one by the Granta. The writer has already commenced the task of composing such a monograph and has, during his years in Cambridge at the helm of the Genizah Research Unit, utilized various opportunities of locating and researching materials that will ultimately provide the detailed documentation for each part of what is undoubtedly a remarkable tale.3 In the course of that exercise, the personalities 280</page><page sequence="3">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment and relationships of those who played a major role in the unfolding of the tale have emerged more clearly from the obfuscation to which abbreviated accounts and partisan assessments had consigned them and it has become apparent that there is a genuine need to update the published information currentiy available about them. Mathilde Schechter's characterization of Francis Jenkinson as 'cultured and aristocratic', though brief, could in fairness be used as an accurate description of the ambience in which he was born and reared.4 On his father's side he derived from West Country nobility and his maternal line was of equally distinguished status in the Northern Scottish county of Elginshire (now Grampian).5 Both families, as well as being physically impressive, had demonstrated interests in art, natural history, music and literature, and his mother's brother, having found his reputation as a salmon fisher and deer-stalker insufficiendy impressive, took him? self off to Africa as a lion hunter and made much capital of his exploits, in the literal and metaphorical senses, on his return to his native country.6 Francis John Henry was born to John Henry Jenkinson and his wife, Alice Henrietta Gordon Cumming, in Forres, Elginshire,7 on 20 August 1853, Dut lt was m me counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, to the west of London, that he was destined to spend his boyhood and schooldays. Those early years were marred by the tragic and accidental death of his mother in December 1859, following which his father entered the church as a curate in Reading, where the family, including his sister Nelly, lived until 1872. Young Francis briefly attended school at Woodcote, between Reading and Wallingford, but it was at the public school of Marlborough that he received his education throughout his teenage years, from 1865 until 1872.8 Marlborough had been founded in 1843 t0 provide the usual public school education but, more unusually, to do so at a subsidized rate of fees for the sons of clergymen. It was therefore particularly appropriate for Jenkinson Junior and it was not difficult for him to reach the school from Reading since the Great Western Railway had opened a branch line to Marlborough a year before he enrolled.9 Contemporaries testify to his high level of intelligence, his broad interests in the acquisition of information, and his independence of mind, while at the same time making no mention of that industrious obsession with detailed study that is often the hallmark of the pure academic. Such an obsession on his part was reserved for his entomological pursuits. From an early age and throughout his life the study and collection of flies, moths and butterflies was his passion and he was fascinated by various aspects of the natural world, especially ornithology. Robust health was denied him and he suffered from chronic headaches, so sport did not represent an attractive proposition to him. If, however, he was more of an individual than a team man he was always known, whether as distinguished Cantabrigian or as junior Marlburian, for his kind heart and helpful nature.10 The major educational influence on him during his days at Marlborough came from the remarkable pedagogue who presided over the fortunes of the school from 281</page><page sequence="4">Stefan Reif 1850 to 1870, Dr George Granville Bradley. It was Bradley who removed the uglier excesses of the traditional public school from the young institution entrusted to him and who stimulated his charges to detailed enquiry, accuracy of informa? tion, and a dissatisfaction with vagueness and imperfection. It is reported that Alfred Lord Tennyson, when asked why he sent his son, Hallam, to Marlborough, replied that he had not sent him to Marlborough but to Bradley. While the younger pupils stood in awe of his intellect and demanding standards, those in the upper forms were able to develop an intimacy with him that allowed them to enjoy at first hand the intensity and enthusiasm of a dedicated teacher and to be personally inspired by such characteristics. Bradley brought with him from Rugby, where he had been both pupil and master, the educational philosophy of Thomas Arnold, and Francis Jenkinson was one of those who enjoyed the benefit of an exposure to its practical application.11 In spite of never having driven himself to his intellectual limits, he was able to win recognition as one of the school's brightest boys and to enter Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Classics, as scholar and exhibitioner, in October 1872. At university, as at school, Jenkinson equipped himself well and came close to carrying off a number of prizes, but remained devoted to catholic interests in learning, to his insect research and to music. He cultivated a number of friend? ships, remained among the more serious of his circle, and achieved first class honours in Classics in 1876. Following two further years of somewhat relaxed study and teaching, he was elected to a Trinity fellowship, followed by a lecture? ship in 1881 and a tutorship in 1882. He continued to teach (including 'Newnham young ladies ... which is ... great fun') until 1889 and his sensitive personality and refined manner no doubt impressed his students, as they had done his teachers and companions. This activity did not, however, turn out to be his natural metier. He voluntarily served as curator of various antiquarian and zoological collections, in which capacity he could demonstrate his growing commitment to the acquisition of interesting objects, their careful presentation and exhibition, and the provision of guidance to those willing to examine and analyse them. Such a commitment, married to a love of books and their detailed examination, and to general learning, represented the ideal makings of an academic librarian and it wanted only the personal inspiration of an eminentiy qualified mentor to turn the potential into the real.12 Henry Bradshaw, Cambridge University Librarian from 1867 until 1886, was the man who provided it. Bradshaw had begun his career at Cambridge University Library by assisting the Librarian, J. E. B. Mayor, with his strenuous efforts to bring that institution into the modern world, and when he took over from his predecessor he used his wide knowledge of languages, his devotion to well ordered procedures, and his fascination with manuscripts and incunabula to advance the process of modernization. Although his own special interests were in typographical history, liturgical editions and Hibernica, he presided over a con 282</page><page sequence="5">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment siderable expansion of numerous other areas, including that of orientalia, and it is of no small interest in this context to note that the presence in the University of Cambridge of Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, its first lecturer in talmudic literature, inspired him to expand the Library's Hebraica to a considerable degree and to begin the process of cataloguing its Hebrew manuscripts.13 It was in the i88os that Jenkinson came under the influence of the second 'Brad' in his life and found himself considerably attracted to the bibliophilia, methodology and acquisi? tive tendencies that characterized the University Librarian's term of office. He assisted Bradshaw with his Library work, became something of an amanuensis to him, and developed a fine style of handwriting, clear as well as attractive, that was in no small measure modelled on that of the University Librarian. Having also been a member of the Library Syndicate, he had every reason to expect that on Bradshaw's sudden death in 1886 he would be appointed to succeed him.14 When he heard, however, that William Robertson Smith, the erudite and controversial Semiticist and historian of the Bible, at that time Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic, had been proposed, Jenkinson, who had never been, nor would ever become ambitious and vigorous in the advancement of his own career, gave the proposal his full support. Robertson Smith's presence in the Library, in Christ's College, and in the University as a whole, very much contributed to the promotion of Oriental studies, but his specialized talents were not long suppressed by his administrative duties and he left the way open for the appointment of Jenkinson as University Librarian when he returned to his Arabic studies as Sir Thomas Adams's Professor in 1889.15 The new Librarian now entered an office that he was to hold until his death thirty-four years later. Sadly, for fourteen of these years he lived alone at 10 Brookside since his marriage to Marian Sydney Wetton on 6 July 1887 was tragically ended with her premature death, following a brief illness, six months later on 5 January 1888.16 Though admitting of no particular religious belief, Jenkinson had the inner strength and goodness that enabled him to overcome such personal adversity and remain the quiet, reliable and helpful man of learning who eased the way for so many explorers of the Library's uncharted bibliographical territories. Though he did publish a number of items relating to numismatics and Classics, as well as to books and libraries, and contributed regularly to the Entomo? logist's Monthly Magazine, publication was no more his forte than was teaching. His strength lay in the quiet order that he brought to the affairs of the Library and to the traditions of accurate description and generous guidance that have survived for over a century since he championed them. His love of books, the close and important contacts he cultivated, and his fastidiousness about the preservation of items that some might have dismissed as ephemera ensured that the University Library not only remained a major storehouse of scholarly publications but also the recipient of such remarkable and indeed unique treasures as the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, the Acton Collection (rich in foreign historical works), the 283</page><page sequence="6">Stefan Reif Plate i Francis Jenkinson, Cambridge University Librarian, portrait by John Sargent, 1915 (Syndics of Cambridge University Library) War Collection (mainly propaganda and other ephemeral literature relating to the 1914-18 hostilities), and various other benefactions. He himself was well aware that responsibility for such a library demanded an impressive array of talents and exercises and he once drew up a list for the Syndicate that enumerated fourteen areas of activity covering scholarship, bibliography, codicology, foreign languages, administration, finance, management, maintenance and public relations - all of them expected of the Cambridge University Librarian.17 It should not be supposed that Jenkinson enjoyed administration as such or that he was a born organizer or innovator; far from it, since he very much depended on the Secretary of the 284</page><page sequence="7">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment Library, H. G. Aldis, in that area.18 He simply took pride in providing, himself and through a devoted and knowledgeable staff, a sound and scholarly service to his readers and in maintaining his institution's academic status. When, as has hap? pened in more recent times, there was a challenge to its privileges under the rules of copyright, he struggled hard to ensure that the new Copyright Bill of 1911 did not disadvantage his rich collections. He was popular with his staff but never shirked from exercising authority when necessary and, though he responded to the needs of his day when he had to, the overall theme of his stewardship was one of consolidation rather than innovation. It is significant that he did support the Library Syndicate's decision in 1921 to undertake the building of an expanded library on a new site, but no less so that the successful outcome of the project did not occur until more than a decade after his death. That he overcame bouts of ill health and reached the biblically allotted age of three score and ten was in no small degree due to the care and happiness vouchsafed to him by his marriage to Margaret Stewart ('Daisy') in 1902. On his own evidence, she brightened his existence by her music, her sympathy and her companionship and, though never themselves to enjoy the pleasures of parenthood, they developed close relations with the children of relatives. Keen and accomplished letter-writer that he was, Jenkinson did not hesitate to include youngsters among his correspondents and his ability to communicate with them is another indication of his sensitivity and humanity.19 When Jenkinson, who had held his fellowship at Trinity since 1878, died in a Hampstead clinic on 21 September 1923, there were many tributes and marks of respect to a man who was, as reported by a senior staff member and historian of the University Library of a subsequent generation, regarded by many as a saint.20 Like Jenkinson, Solomon Schechter was born in the middle of the nineteenth century in a place somewhat distant from where his parents and grandparents had once flourished but that is where any resemblance between the facts of their respective upbringings virtually ends. The Hebrew name given to him at his circumcision in either 1847 or J849&gt; namely, Shneur Zalman, is a clear indication of the background of Schechter's parents, Isaac and Chaya. The name was that of the founder of the hassidic sect of Lubavitch or Habad and testifies to the fact that the shohet (ritual slaughterer) Isaac Schechter, belonged to that particular group of Orthodox Eastern European Jews that had originated in Belorussia.21 Stressing the potential of the ordinary worshipper for the achievement of mystical communion with God and the everyday ways in which this could be achieved, Shneur Zalman's brand of hassidism also demonstrated a strongly developed interest in study.22 The Schechter parents had moved to Focsani (Fokschan) in Moldavia at a time when that principality was a Russian protectorate but there was no political stability and the area hovered between Tsarist domination, Ottoman suzerainty and Romanian independence. The purpose of the move was probably to escape the worst excesses of Russian anti-Semitism, but emancipation and civil rights proved just as illusory 285</page><page sequence="8">Stefan Reif there as elsewhere.23 Young Shneur Zalman (or Solomon, as he styled himself when he moved westwards) was physically and intellectually powerful and later claimed that he had inherited passion and energy from his mother, while attribu? ting any religious and scholarly tendencies that he might have to the influence of his father who had been his first teacher. The other influences were naturally those of the Eastern European shtetl (small-town Jewry), the hassidic shtiebl (con? venticle) and the yeshivah (academy for rabbinic studies), although it is important to note that he did obtain access, apparendy through a local maskil infected with the germ of enlightened thought, to books and articles that broadened his mind, at least within the sphere of Jewish scholarship, and led him to seek further education elsewhere. As a teenager he moved on to Lwow (Lemberg), the capital city of Eastern Galicia, still then an outiying province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and studied with the expert halakhist, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson.24 Nathanson was not only an outstanding interpreter of Jewish religious law but also had a number of other tendencies that may have left their mark on the young Romanian hassid. He was critical of hassidism, opposed 'progressive' Judaism but without encouraging communal separatism, and made lenient rulings when circumstances demanded them.25 Schechter may have been going through something of a crisis in his religious and educational oudook at this time since he returned to his native town for a while, continued his studies, and even contracted an unhappy marriage.26 The combination of a commitment to Judaism, a passion for broader learning, and an iconoclastic streak, led him to seek further education in the Wissenschaft des Judentums at the more scientifically based institutions of Jewish learning in Central Europe.27 Having earlier divorced his wife after only a year of marriage, he abandoned the Romanian shtetl for ever (physically, if never altogether spiritually) and entered the Vienna Beth Ha-Midrash, the founder of which, Adolf (Aaron) Jellinek, saw it as his mission to spread scientific Jewish learning, a moderately liberal interpretation of Judaism, and a love of Jewish community and culture. As well as coming under the general influence of the Weltanschauung espoused by Jellinek, Schechter specifically acquired a historical approach to the study of talmudic and halakhic literature from I. H. Weiss and the ability to subject midrash to text criticism and modern exegesis from Meir Friedmann (Ish-Shalom), both teachers more sympathetic to Jewish tradition and the continuity of the Hebrew language than Jellinek himself. It was indeed perhaps because of their similar background, resdessness and religious oudook that Friedmann was so dear to Schechter in his Vienna years. While in that city, Schechter took the opportunity of improving his general education with courses at the university, made a living as a Hebrew teacher, and obtained a rabbinical ordination.28 By 1879 ne was agam looking for new pastures and ready to travel further along the road of Westernization, this time via the Hochschule f?r die Wissenschaft des Judentums that had been founded in Berlin in 1872. Indeed, it may be fair to say 286</page><page sequence="9">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment that at this stage of his intellectual and religious development, the young Eastern European hassid was less enchanted with his background than he would later lead us to believe and the only publications to have come from him by that time had been two satires on hassidism.29 Though officially not attached to any specific form of Judaism, the Hochschule was certainly associated more with progressive than with orthodox trends and this perhaps gave Schechter the opportunity he apparendy sought of sailing near the wind of what many of his family would certainly have regarded as religious heresy. Although there were personally orthodox teachers such as the critical talmudist Israel Lewy at the Hochschule, and more clinical and sceptical scholars such as the renowned bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider also available in Berlin to inspire him with their lectures, Schechter chose to be closest to Pinkus Fritz Frankl, the more centrist rabbi and scholar whom he had known in Vienna, who was now Geiger's successor in Berlin and a teacher at the Hochschule, and in whose home Schechter found lodgings.30 Perhaps under FrankPs influence, he deepened his love of scientific Jewish studies, retained an attachment to traditional observance if not to orthodoxy, and nurtured a growing animosity to the kind of German intellectual anti-Semitism that he encountered in the lectures that he attended at the university.31 He had, however, still not found his ideal milieu, and his students in Berlin, Claude Montefiore from England and Richard Gottheil from the USA, both of them religiously liberal, beckoned to him to exchange the Germany that he was finding politically and socially uncomfortable for the Anglo-Saxon environment in which he might feel more at home. Thus it was that he arrived in England in 1882 as Montefiore's tutor, destined to spend twenty years there, but always subsidized by the generosity of his English student.32 Though he did not find in the Anglo-Jewish community the appreciation of Jewish culture that he was anxiously seeking, Schechter taught and inspired a group of leading Jewish intellectuals in London called 'the Wanderers', read widely and began to write English, and never felt threatened by the kind of orthodoxy championed by Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler and his son and successor Hermann since it still then represented a fairly relaxed observance, with broad communal support, and a theology that was somewhat elastic and inclusive.33 Schechter never took to the centralized bureaucratic system that the Chief Rabbinate and the United Synagogue orchestrated, nor to the Anglo-Jewish cleric, whom he regarded as a" mere flunkey or religious functionary with little or no scholarly achievement, but he did enjoy the liberal environment of England, and the Anglo-Jewish establishment always gave him full rein to express his biting criticisms while still accepting him as one of its own. The close company in which he was best able to express his strong views, 'the Wanderers', was dominated by the writer Israel Zangwill, the literary critic and editor Joseph Jacobs, and Schech? ter himself, and other participants were the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Asher Myers, the Tutor at Jews' College who later became a leading exponent of Liberal 287</page><page sequence="10">Stefan Reif Judaism, Israel Abrahams, and Lucien Wolf, publicist, historian and first president of the Jewish Historical Society of England in 1893.34 While in England, he established his scholarly credentials, much as Montefiore hoped he would, by the critical and historical study of Hebrew manuscripts in the rich collections of that country, as well as in other parts of Europe, by his publica? tion of first scientific editions of such works as Aboth de Rabbi Nathan and of more general articles in the newly founded Jewish Quarterly Review, by teaching at Jews' College, and by contributing items on Jewish learning to the Jewish Chronicle. Almost inevitably, given his character and opinions, he became involved in con? troversies with other scholars, but his marriage to Mathilde Roth of Breslau in 1887 brought him the kind of personal and domestic security, affection and support that certainly smoothed some of the rougher edges of his personality and toned down at least the religious side of his radicalism.35 It also brought him a daughter, Ruth, and a son, Frank, both born in London, and a second daughter, Amy, born in Cambridge.36 But Schechter had still not found what he was seeking in the professional world and his next venture was to be in the rarefied academic atmosphere of Cambridge, where he could be sure (or so he thought) that learning would count above all other considerations in the assessment of his standing among his peers. With the support of references from virtually all the major figures in Hebrew and Jewish scholarship in Western Europe, who had been particularly impressed by his text-critical work,37 he successfully applied for the post of lec? turer in talmudic literature that had been held by Schiller-Szinessy until his death and took up residence in Cambridge in October 1890. If an intensely scholastic environment in which to continue his textual studies was all that he was seeking, Schechter might well have remained in Cambridge for the rest of his life, since it was during his twelve years among its masters and scholars that he either published or prepared his most important contributions to advanced Jewish learning. He continued his research into Hebrew manuscripts, at his own university and elsewhere, and began a systematic description of those codices that his predecessor, Schiller-Szinessy, had not included in his catalogue of the Hebraica at Cambridge University Library.38 Editions of Aggadath Shir Hashirim and Midrash Hag-gadol were published in Cambridge and he also found time to undertake the kind of Jewish theological summaries that Montefiore desperately wanted to see him produce and that were ultimately included in such volumes as Studies in Judaism, commissioned by A. &amp; C. Black as a result of his Cambridge connections, and Some Aspects of Jewish Theology, the chapters of which had initially appeared in the (then still British) Jewish Quarterly Review.39 His greatest and most original coup was, however, his expedition to Cairo in 1896-7 in search of the source of the medieval Hebrew fragments that had come westwards in previous years and his return to Cambridge with what have turned out to be 140,000 items of inestimable significance for the rewriting of Jewish social, literary and religious history in the Middle Ages, especially in the Mediter 288</page><page sequence="11">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment Plate 2 Solomon Schechter, Reader in Talmudic, at work in Cambridge University Library, r.1898 (Syndics of Cambridge University Library) ranean area. It was as a result of his imagination and enthusiasm, as well as of his erudition, that the recovery of the 'hoard of Hebrew manuscripts' from the genizah (storage-room) of the Ben-Ezra Synagogue in medieval Cairo became a reality, while his energy and single-mindedness ensured that the major areas represented in that collection began to be scientifically exploited before he left Cambridge in 1902. Not only did a number of highly original works of scholarship result from his Genizah discoveries; the example he set served as a trail-blazer for the hundreds of books and thousands of articles that have followed in the ninety-five years since 289</page><page sequence="12">Stefan Reif he set out for Cairo.40 His achievements were marked in the University of Cambridge by a promotion to a readership in 1892 and by the award of a D.Litt. in 1898. In addition, he was appointed Curator in Oriental Literature at the Univer? sity Library in 1900 and Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew at University College London, from 1898 to 1902.41 But to imagine that Schechter ever felt, or was made to feel, fully at home in the courts, cloisters and combination rooms of the colleges on the Cam is to under? estimate the gap that still existed between such an exotic personality and the conventional surroundings in which he worked. Though William Robertson Smith, University Librarian when Schechter arrived and subsequendy Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic, had been instrumental in having him appointed as university lecturer and accepted as a member of Christ's College, and many leading members of the university, such as Charles Taylor, Master of St John's College, enjoyed and valued his remarkable mind and prodigious learning, his main friendships were with those who stood on the edge of the established academic society, failing as they did to conform for one reason or another. The Scottish Presbyterian sisters, Margaret Gibson and Agnes Lewis, and the literary and poetic raconteur and librarian, Erik Magnusson, were close to him, and the warmest relationship was enjoyed with the famous and pioneering anthropologist, James Frazer, a fellow of Trinity for most of his professional life who never obtained a tenured teaching appointment at the University of Cambridge 42 Given that Schechter was always dependent on Claude Montefiore for part of his salary, that he was not appointed to a chair, and that no college saw fit to offer him a fellowship, it may fairly be argued that what Lilly Frazer said about her spouse James might equally well have been echoed by Mathilde about her husband Solomon, had she been but half as outspoken as her counterpart: .. you have touched a real sore in saying that Cambridge has shown strange neglect in not providing for him. This is the greatest grievance that we feel... Dons are people who run in grooves and have no imagination ... I always tell my husband that such as he is, he is - and that suffices. .. .'43 On their many afternoon walks together, Frazer and Schechter no doubt exchanged complaints about the Cambridge establishment and its concern to protect its conventions but it would not be accurate to lay the entire blame on the University for the further failure of Schechter to settle down fully. Having gradu? ally abandoned intensely religious institutions for enthusiastically academic ones, he had lost the close Jewish connection somewhere along the way and felt the need to return to a milieu that combined, or could be made to combine, the best of both traditions. In such a milieu he might be able to train a future generation of intellectual rabbis and the by-product of such a return might be to the Jewish religious advantage of his three children who had been brought up in a tiny Jewish community where services were held only during term-time, sabbath could be a lonely affair unless visitors came from London (as they often did), and apostate 290</page><page sequence="13">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment Jews were more common than observant ones.44 And so it was that Schechter's final move was to America, to the Jewish community which had for a number of years already signalled to him that it required his religious ideas, his industry and his fire, and whose blandishments he had hitherto resisted but not convincingly. There he re-established the Jewish Theological Seminary as a scholarly institution with a commitment to traditional Judaism, provided an intellectual power-house that propelled the Conservative movement and its United Synagogue of America for about three-quarters of a century, and disseminated popular presentations of Jewish learning that were valued by a broad spectrum of the community by the time of his death on 20 November 1915. Whether by doing so, he finally found his fulfilment is another matter and it cannot have been easy for such a maverick personality to become a figure of authority and to weigh himself down with administrative burdens.45 A final assessment of his life and achievements must in any case await a fresh biography and what requires to be done in the present context is to examine the relationship that he enjoyed with Jenkinson and the results of their interaction. The obvious starting points for such an examination are the detailed and fairly contemporary biographies of Jenkinson and Schechter that were published by Hugh Fraser Stewart and Norman Bentwich in 1926 and 1938 respec? tively.46 Aware as one is that Schechter spent a number of hours each day at the University Library and that the presence of the University Librarian was generally required at that time to open and close the building and to supervise the research being done there, one expects to find a substantial account of the way in which the two subjects of this paper related to each other on a daily basis. Unfortunately, such an expectation is disappointed. Bentwich specifically refers to 'the polymath Francis Jenkinson' only once in his book, describing him wrongly in fact, if rightly in sense, as the Chief Librarian (there is only one University Librarian at Cam? bridge even now when about 250 staff attend to readers' needs), and referring to the deep respect and attachment between him and Schechter. He then cites, without indicating the source and with a number of inaccuracies, part of the Library Syndicate's appreciation of Schechter sent by Jenkinson to his widow on 13 December 1915, which refers to the memory of'an ineffable [not "inefface? able"] impression of his gentleness and kindness, his industry and enthusiasm, his unfailing loyalty to fellow-workers and his courtesy to all.' Elsewhere, Bentwich, again without detailing the source, cites Jenkinson's claim that 'nothing could give a sufficient notion of him to a person who never saw him', but no more information about the impact of the one character on the other is offered in his book.47 Stewart is even less forthcoming with regard to Schechter's contact with Jenkinson. When recording the notable Oriental additions made to the Library's collections under Jenkinson, he refers to the 40,000 (actually 140,000) 'fragments of Jewish "super? seded" literature, procured by the devotion of Dr Solomon Schechter and made ours by the munificence of Dr C. Taylor' and commends Schechter for his 291</page><page sequence="14">Stefan Reif recovery of the Hebrew Ecclesiasticus and for his other labours on that 'pestiferous wrack' that damaged his health. 'No one who saw him in his nose-bag among the debris', he recalls, 'is likely to forget it.'48 Given the sparseness of such information, one is tempted to believe that there is little further to be said on the subject, but fortunately for our purposes there are a number of manuscript sources in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and at Cambridge University Library that are well worth exploiting in this connection. The former contains the memoirs of Mathilde Schechter that guided Bentwich but were not yet generally available to researchers and an import? ant collection of Schechter's correspondence, while the latter has preserved for the historian a large batch of letters to and from Jenkinson and a set of his personal diaries. Obviously it will not be possible to deal with any more than a select proportion of these sources in the present limited context but an overview will certainly be attempted and a number of especially interesting items will be more closely described. Mathilde Schechter's memoirs make up in personal insight and directness what they lack in detachment, literary quality and accuracy of fine detail. Her lengthy description of her husband's relationship with James Frazer, for instance, speaks of love, friendship, understanding and generosity and of the continuation of the closeness even after Schechter's departure from Cambridge. She remarks that among all the letters of condolence received from friends on the death of Schech? ter, none could be compared with that of Frazer. She also appreciated Jenkinson's 'very dear' tribute on the same occasion, but the degree of warmth expressed in connection with his Library friends is certainly less pronounced than it is in the case of Frazer. Worman was the greatest help on the bibliographical side and Baldrey at the practical level while Bendall the messenger was simply quaint. Only of Magnusson does she say that he was a good friend who lived in the same street and with whom Schechter walked home almost daily. Her recollection is that Schechter spent at least two hours at the Library on a weekday but would often work there for five or six hours in the manuscripts room. The epithets attached to Jenkinson are 'cultured' and 'aristocratic' but at the same time 'most cordial and helpful'. It will become clearer as these manuscripts are examined that Jenkinson was one of those who tried to ease Schechter's way in University matters, and there may therefore be grounds for supposing that he was one of the University authorities who, in Mathilde's words, 'felt it keenly that they could not do more for him in the way of practical acknowledgement; they thought that if he had been a member of the Church of England he would have got a bishopric'49 Perhaps there is here an awareness that there were limits beyond which a traditional rabbi could still not proceed even after the passing of the Religious Tests Acts of 1871 that officially removed Jewish disabilities in England's two ancient seats of learning. Whatever the problems associated with Schechter's status in the University, it is clear from Mathilde's remarks about their family life at that time that there was 292</page><page sequence="15">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment never such a happy time for the five Schechters as those twelve years. Schechter was an affectionate father who, with Mathilde's encouragement, made an effort to understand the different qualities of his three children, but there are occasional hints that he found them sweetest when they were at their tiniest. Certainly, the later adult lives of Ruth and Amy were not models of happiness and stability and it took Frank some time to carve out a niche for himself, aware as he always was of his father's high expectations for him.50 Be that as it may, this personal aspect is of importance in assessing the significance of his years in Cambridge and, as such, will briefly be touched on towards the end of this study.51 The letters and documents concerning Schechter held at the Jewish Theologi? cal Seminary in New York are also a significant source of information for his Cambridge experiences and impressions. One interesting group includes those written by him to his wife in Cambridge in January and February 1897 during his visit to Cairo, which he describes as 'a glorious place, enjoying an Italian opera, French dancing masters, English administration, and Mohammetan houris'. He commends the helpfulness of such contacts as Lord Cromer and his staff, Chief Rabbi Aharon Rapha'el ben Shim'on, and the local Jewish family of the Catauis, and decries the dishonesty, emotional extravagance and 'oriental savagery' of some of the more mundane locals, while parenthetically characterizing Ephraim Deinard, the controversial bookseller and bibliographer, as a mean scoundrel ('Schofel and Lump') and Adolf Neubauer in terms not much more complimentary (also a Lump).52 He is particularly grateful for the respirator, magnifying glass and quinine sent by Mathilde and for the novels despatched to him by Montefiore, and reports that by 12 January he has already filled thirteen sacks of 'many glorious things'. His letters, in a mixture of German and English, are numerous and always include 'kisses for you and the children' and he sends particular regards to the Eicholz, Buckland and Frazer families in Cambridge.53 Schechter's letters to Mathilde are interestingly complemented by others sent her by their Cambridge friend, Agnes Lewis, also in Cairo at that time. Her reports give a colourful impression of a somewhat jolly colonial atmosphere, with a strong Christian presence, and stress how popular Schechter has become in various local circles. In spite of the choking dust, he has worked very hard and is happy that 'he has found a few good things amongst heaps of, well, I won't say rubbish, but unimportant stuff. Mrs Lewis is impressed by the handsome features of Grand Rabbin Aharon and by his competence in five languages, among them the Hebrew in which he converses with Schechter. She explains how Schechter acted as interpreter from English into Hebrew for Dean Butcher, the English chaplain in Cairo, when he met the Chief Rabbi, but is clearly amused by the fact that, in seeking to perform the same favour for that Jewish religious leader, Schechter's translated Hebrew seemed to emerge not as English but as a repeated Hebrew. As far as Schechter's absent-mindedness is concerned, 'occasionally he does leave a thing about, and forgets it. But it turns up.' Regarding Schechter's 293</page><page sequence="16">Stefan Reif avid desire for more contemporary English literature for him to read, Mrs Lewis offers the rather imperious judgement that 'really he has enough to see and study in Cairo without distracting his mind with novels'.54 If we may now return to those items that were written in Cambridge rather than in the cities of Egypt, it should first be noted that the University Orator's address of 15 December 1898, thanking Schechter on behalf of the University of Cam? bridge for his part in obtaining and presenting the Cairo Genizah Collection to that institution, was formally despatched to him on 21 December, in the original Latin, duly 'engrossed and sealed', by the University Registrary, Mr J. W. Clark, and was accompanied by a handwritten note from the latter promising that a Hebrew version would later be appended to the similar Latin letter sent to the Cairo Jewish community once it had been engrossed and the community's address had been established. It seems reasonable to assume from the contents of that note that Schechter was responsible for the translation and it is certainly necessary to question Bentwich's assumption that there was, in addition to the Latin and Hebrew texts, an official English version for the Cairo Jewish community.55 Two other somewhat formal documents shed light on Schechter's status among his academic colleagues, senior and junior, by the time that he was packing his cases for the move to New York in 1902. The first is a note from distinguished members of the University, printed by the University Press, inviting, before 25 February 1902, contributions to a presentation and accompanying document that will mark 'their personal esteem and ... appreciation of the eminent services which he has rendered to learning during his tenure'. The stated aim is to include as many as possible of Schechter's friends and the fly-sheet is signed by seventeen scholars, including the Vice-Chancellor, the Masters of St John's, Christ's and Selwyn Colleges (the last-mentioned also the Regius Professor of Hebrew), the Vice-Master of Trinity, the Professors of Divinity and Arabic, the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the University Librarian. Interestingly, the list also includes a few personalities who were not influential in the University establish? ment as such.56 The other document, written on 13 March 1902, in the hand of the young scholar who assisted Schechter with the cataloguing of the biblical material from 1898 until 1901, Herman Leonard Pass, and signed by him and the office-bearers of the Cambridge Hebrew Congregation, was delivered to the departing Reader in Talmudic together with a set of the Talmud, 'as an expression of our gratitude and esteem'. Specially noted are Schechter's services to Jewish 'national literature' and to those who were interested in its study, and the hospitality received in the Schechter home.57 A more personal letter from Pro? fessor A. F. Kirkpatrick expresses his regret at Schechter's impending departure and his fear that it would be impossible for the University to create an equally important and attractive post in order to retain him.58 However highly esteemed by individuals within the University, and whatever the degree of his scholarly productivity, Schechter was still experiencing feelings of 294</page><page sequence="17">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment frustration, and not only because of the limits on the possibility of his advancement at Cambridge. Having toyed for a number of years with the idea of moving on to the USA, he had clearly made up his mind by the summer of 1899 to make that move. In a letter to Cyrus Adler dated 6 August 1899 and penned in Breslau, he explains that he is determined to accept the American offer, not for the material advantages that will accrue to him but in order to exercise a beneficial influence on the future of Judaism in America. Operating as he then was among non-Jews was, as he put it, a living death from the Jewish point of view and he expressed the hope that emigration to the USA would also be beneficial to his children.59 He touches on similar themes when writing to Herbert Bentwich on 24 December 1901, but in this case admits that the decision to leave Cambridge has been made 'with a heavy heart' and acknowledges the great friendship of the Bentwich family. The Anglo Jewish community, with few exceptions, is not particularly eager to retain him and he has had enough of being dependent on subventions from Montefiore.60 Another point made in the letter to Adler concerns the lack of synagogal services in Cambridge outside term-time, even for the major religious festivals, and this is reiterated in the impressions of Schechter entitled 'Schechteriana' and probably the work of Charles I. Hoffmann, who was one of his first graduates at the Seminary. These impressions clearly convey the message that some of Schechter's views carry more than an element of inherent self-contradiction. He was anxious to operate as a Jewish religious leader but did not want to function as a rabbi. Eastern European orthodoxy had his sympathy but he resented the fact that it might consider him heretical. The hierarchical and official nature of the Anglo-Jewish community did not appeal to him but he suggested the United Synagogue as a model for the establishment of synagogues by those associated with the Jewish Theological Seminary. There was criticism for the official leaders of Zionism such as Moses Gaster and Leopold Greenberg but a wish that it could be as successful at fund-raising as some hassidic rebbes. He used characteristically English expres? sions such as 'perfect blackguards' but urged the use of Yiddishisms, even of the more vulgar variety, in the manner that non-Jewish intellectuals employ Latin and Greek. The compiler of the impressions clearly saw him as direct to the point of provocation, sloppy in appearance and dismissive of many scholarly colleagues, including the orientalists Marcus and Morris Jastrow, Israel Abrahams and the philosopher Moritz Lazarus, although he did regard the future British Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz as a clever man.61 Such unfavourable assessments are also recorded in the copy of Schechter's letter to Cyrus Adler of 26 May 1913, in which he questions the competence of Israel Abrahams and Herbert Loewe in the matter of Genizah research, is apprehensive about Arthur Marmorstein's limited experience in an Anglo-Saxon environment, and characterizes Anglo-Jewish scholars on the whole as 'mere talkers, nothing more'.62 Schechter's hesitancy about the academic ability of Hartwig Hirschfeld comes through from remarks 295</page><page sequence="18">Stefan Reif made in a letter to him from his erstwhile colleague Francis Jenkinson a year after his departure, in which the University Librarian praises Hirschfeld's enthusiasm and stresses the importance of such a characteristic. It also emerges from that letter that Jenkinson has been following Schechter's instructions about not making fragments of the Palestinian Talmud available to other scholars while their discoverer is still engaged on editing them but gendy suggests that he might offer some assistance to A. M. Luncz, who had been in Cambridge in connection with his edition (based on a Vatican manuscript), by at least advising him that the Genizah fragments did not relate to the early tractates on which he was working, assuming that this was indeed the case.63 Jenkinson's personal feelings towards Schechter become clearer from letters he wrote at the latter's death, one to Mrs Schechter and preserved in the Jewish Theological Seminary and the other to Mrs Margaret Gibson. The former records Jenkinson's happy memories of their joint efforts on the Hebrew fragments and Schechter's employment of rare erudition and delightful enthusiasm in the decipherment of even the meanest of them. It also conveys a minute of the Library Syndicate, also no doubt drafted by Jenkinson, to which reference has already been made, and an assurance that the Library staff who worked with him would always speak of him 'with real affection, admiration and respect'. The same assessment is made in the second letter, part of which has also already been cited, and another section of which includes the hope that 'some day a memoir of him will appear'.64 Some attention must now be given to the correspondence files of Francis Jenkinson at Cambridge University Library, and the point should immediately be made that any careful distinction between the private and professional papers of such a leading University figure at that time is sought in vain. It is the norm to find all manner of subjects dealt with and, while this makes the pursuit of the relevant that much more tiring, it does at the same time also promise the bonus of some keen, personal insights that a more clinical divide between home and office would deny the historian.65 It will shordy be appreciated that Jenkinson's contributions to Schechter's research projects were not insubstantial from the early days of the rabbi's appointment and that, by way of reciprocation, Schechter offered the Library advice on the purchase of Hebrew manuscripts so that the momentum built up in this area by Bradshaw and Schiller-Szinessy could be continued under their successors. It is therefore no surprise to find a letter from the Reader in Talmudic to the University Librarian, dated in Rome on 24 March 1893, in which thanks are offered for a letter and a catalogue and apologies rendered for some trouble caused by Ephraim Deinard in the matter of an 'American MS'. The Librarian is advised that he must bargain about the purchase of one Hebrew manuscript from a certain 'Rabbi Schiffmann' (the other manuscript 'is rubbish') and a report on the progress of his manuscript research contains the remarkable revelation that he has, through the great kindness shown to him in the Vatican, been able to examine more than 400.66 A little over two years later Jenkinson asked 296</page><page sequence="19">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment the Master of St John's, Charles Taylor, if he 'could stir up Mr Schechter' and although the context of the remark is not obvious it may be a reference to the description of the Library's Hebrew manuscripts that he had taken over after the death of Schiller-Szinessy.67 Jenkinson, who was instrumental in arranging various aspects of Schechter's trip to Cairo to seek items for the University Library, soon had more Hebrew manu? scripts and more concentrated work to be done on them than he could ever have dreamt possible. In letters from Cairo and during his visit to the Holy Land, Schechter reported to Jenkinson how he had removed the bulk of the contents of the genizah at the Ben-Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, with the help of the local Jewish leaders and in spite of the efforts of some of the minor synagogue officials to enrich themselves at his expense, and that the boxes should be arriving in Cam? bridge within a few weeks. He was anxious that no other scholar should anticipate his research by being given access to the material before his own return and was grateful for Jenkinson's reassurance on this point. Most poignant and significant are Schechter's estimate that 'the matters I brought from Cairo contain many valuable things which make our Library as important for Hebrew literature as Oxford at least' and his communication to the Librarian that he had arranged in Jerusalem for Cambridge to be given first refusal in the case of antiquities and manuscripts being offered for sale.68 Once the Genizah material had arrived in Cambridge, the concern of all those involved was to preserve and sort the thousands of items and to publish the most scholastically stunning of them. As the sponsor and discoverer respectively, Taylor and Schechter used the good offices of Jenkinson to have their conditions for the presentation of the collection to the University accepted by the Senate, and the records here demonstrate Schechter's major concern that he should always be able to borrow items from the collection and the Library's disquiet about an open ended commitment to the expenses involved in the physical treatment of the fragments and their description. At the same time, the potential donors were troubled by what they regarded as the priority given to Arabic over Hebrew in the University and the failure of the Hebraists to give sufficient attention to rabbinic Hebrew, and Taylor pressed for some remuneration for Schechter in considera? tion of his work on the collection. Ultimately, Schechter was appointed Curator in Oriental Literature at the Library but this seems to have been a happy compromise (carefully engineered by Jenkinson not to affect the susceptibilities of either of them) whereby he was not specifically and embarrassingly paid for his Genizah work but did at the same time receive extra income from an additional University post of standing.69 Between the arrival of the fragments in the spring of 1897 and their official presentation on the agreed conditions late in 1898, a group of scholars, with Schechter as the major and most active figure, pressed on with the physical and scholarly work on the fragments in a room set aside in the Library for the 297</page><page sequence="20">Stefan Reif Plate 3 First page of letter from Solomon Schechter to Francis Jenkinson dated 29 (or 27?) December 1901, Add. 6463.4963 (Syndics of Cambridge University Library) 298</page><page sequence="21"></page><page sequence="22">Stefan Reif purpose.70 Although Jenkinson was his characteristically helpful self in many matters, he did have his own ideas of how library work should be formally conduc? ted and these clearly clashed with Schechter's more spontaneous purposes and methods from time to time. On one occasion, on 17 June 1898, Schechter was so anxious about making progress with the Ben Sira edition and consulting Jenkinson about the lack of space in this connection that he rudely disturbed him at a meeting and aroused his considerable anger as a result. This apparently led to a written lecture from Jenkinson on Library regulations and on politeness, since Schechter replied with explanations and apologies and the assurance that nothing was further from his mind than to cause Jenkinson annoyance and to disturb him when he was engaged.71 Jenkinson was soon appeased and was always still prepared to stand up for Schechter whenever others seemed to treat him unfairly. When George Margoliouth of the British Museum rushed to publish two leaves of Ben Sira that had been acquired by his institution, instead of handing them to Schechter for his projected edition, the University Librarian wrote of him as 'a self-advertising tramp'.72 There is no doubt that Schechter must have given Jenkinson trouble on other occasions too since the former's letter from Ramsgate on 29 December 1901 informing Jenkinson of his impending resignation takes the opportunity of expressing his deepest gratitude for Jenkinson's kindnesses and forbearance over the previous ten years when his scholarly excitement had sometimes got the better of him. 'I only hope', he adds, 'that I have not drawn too much upon your patience and goodwill.'73 From that same letter, and one from Norman McLean to Francis Jenkinson, it emerges that the Library's need of a specialist to describe the Arabic material from the Genizah and Schechter's hesitations about engaging Hirschfeld had been satisfactorily harmonized by the diplomacy of the University Librarian.74 Even after Schechter's move to New York, he continued to advise Jenkinson on the purchase of Hebrew manuscripts and carefully reported to him on the safe arrival of the fragments that he had been permitted to borrow and their secure storage in a large fire-proof safe. Arrangements were also made between the two for visits to the Library by scholars interested in researching specific areas of the Genizah Collection to which Schechter himself could no longer give his attention. In one letter Schechter invites suggestions from Jenkinson for regulations that he is to draw up in connection with a Genizah scholarship and in another he talks of his regard and devotion to one whom he styles a Vamericaine his 'old chief in the Library'.75 The final source to receive attention in this paper, and in many ways the richest one, is that containing the diaries of Jenkinson. Once again, the personal and the professional are tighdy intertwined, routine committee meetings sharing space with moving accounts of family joys and tragedies. Happily for the historian, there are consistendy full and consecutive entries for a period of almost forty years, beginning before his first marriage and taking in the whole period of his University 300</page><page sequence="23">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment Librarianship. The writer shares with his diary details of his physical and mental state as well as information about his activities, and therefore provides a most revealing guide to his character and attitude to life on the one hand and to his professional commitments on the other. On closely examining the diaries for the period of Schechter's tenure in Cambridge, one is enriched by the discovery of over 300 references to items of relevance for assessments of matters Hebraic and Jewish in general and of the relationship of Jenkinson and Schechter in particular. What will here be attempted are a summary of these references under a number of headings and an estimate of their significance for the topic in hand, together with some quotations from the original source by way of exemplification, leaving the possibility of a detailed publication of all the germane entries to some alternative future context.76 Much was earlier made of the estimate of Jenkinson as kind and helpful, and it must therefore be one of the first tasks in this analysis of his diary to raise the question of whether this characterization is fully justified by the evidence in that source. Not many entries have to be read before one concludes that the reply must certainly be in the affirmative. In an age when the progress to be made by scholars in an academic library generally depended on the degree to which one or two individuals were willing to meet their convenience, Schechter was more than well served by Jenkinson from the very start of his Cambridge career. He undertook aspects of the arrangements for Schechter's visits abroad to consult Hebrew manuscripts and for their loan by his own Library to facilitate the rabbi's research.77 At a time when copying involved handwriting and not machinery, and artificial light still had severe limitations, Jenkinson himself transcribed lists of importance to Schechter's work and was willing to stay with him at the Library 'till too dark to write'.78 When a particular task, such as the numbering of Hebrew manuscripts, was seen to be urgent, Jenkinson turned out on a Sunday with Schechter and the pair set themselves to work for a few hours to advance the undertaking.79 All the incidents referred to took place in the six years before Schechter's historic trip to Cairo and concerned either Hebrew codices or the few fragments that had arrived in a number of European libraries, had attracted scholarly attention, but had not yet been associated with the Cairo synagogue to which they were ultimately traced. Jenkinson mentioned that these fragments had come from Rabbi Wertheimer and from the Reverend Greville Chester but offered no further information regarding their source.80 Once Schechter had indeed located, transferred and begun to exploit that source, Jenkinson's role was a central one. He assisted Schechter, Taylor and their junior H. L. Pass with the Hebrew items, Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson with the Syriac, Burkitt with the Greek and Hirschfeld with the Arabic, often witnessing their exciting discoveries, and such assistance was not limited to sorting them according to subject matter and interest, and sometimes transcribing them.81 He also spent many a morning and afternoon supervising the matter of their conserva 301</page><page sequence="24">Stefan Reif "h/T"" &lt;v*j|*?jt?fK J$u* ha^mjc i^e^f^'Sp!'*?''-i???^**-^" t**C% xoun t'&lt;&lt;?-v&lt;Cfutrf- A^xe^dcL^t ^tJLunf****tr A4 %&amp;itr*\C*+*.. Hemd* HFS. 2**yU. c++**. k* U**Us. *-3t&gt;lo HH**&lt; Plate 5 Entry for 21 August 1897 in Francis Jenkinson's diary, Add. 7420 (Syndics of Cambridge University Library) 302</page><page sequence="25">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment tion, in so far as techniques of that period may fairly be described in such contemporary terms. Cleaning, repairing and placing between glass were the order of the day82 and some snippets of information retrievable from the diaries make grisly reading for those currendy devoted to the physical treatment of manuscripts. It is revealed that 'Baldrey has not been careful enough with the new fragment and by bending some small pieces dry has broken them';83 that fragments have been sorted away into various drawers in the Librarian's office;84 that benzine is tried on a vellum fragment one day and, having failed, is replaced by chloroform a day later;85 and that no sooner had some precious little pieces of sixth-century Aquila been exacdy joined and placea between glass than 'someone knocked it over. It fell on the iron pipes and was smashed; i.e. the glass: Ms., I hope not injured.'86 Other revelations shed light on the degree to which Jenkinson was involved with Taylor and Schechter in the whole subject of the Genizah Collection, from the first plans for the trip to Cairo to the provision of a room for Genizah research and the matter of the reports to the Syndicate on progress being made with their description.87 It was he who discussed with Schechter the matter of presentation long before the final decisions were made at the end of 1898;88 who set a price on a bundle of additional Genizah fragments offered to the Library by W. S. Raf falovich in December 1897; and who kept the confidences of the researchers regarding their discoveries.89 In addition, Jenkinson dealt with Schechter's suggestion about numbering the fragments, entrusted him with the key to the Hebrew fragment cabinet when he was scheduled to be absent from the Library, and indulged the Reader in Talmudic's cigarette addiction by arranging for a report by him to be copied at the Schechter residence so that he could smoke while he dictated its contents.90 The University Librarian also read the proof of the article about the Genizah discovery that he composed for The Times; helped Schechter to draft a letter to that journal in response to its publication of an anonymous attack on him claiming that the real credit for the discovery of the Cairo Genizah belonged to Elkan Nathan Adler who had visited it and removed material before Schechter; and took delight in a riposte to D. S. Margoliouth (Oxford's Laudian Professor of Arabic) on the matter of Ben Sira that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of 30 June 1899.91 In one entry in his diary he mentions that he succeeded in obtaining for Schechter a ticket to an important University function.92 He even acted as a confidant not only in connection with plans for the discovery and exploitation of the Genizah material but also concerning Schechter's personal feelings about his Cambridge post and his future career. As he himself puts it in his entry for 26 August 1897: 'Schechter ... came to tea with me and told me many things about himself and his position here.'93 It is interesting that Jenkinson evinces a deeper understanding of the intricacies of Genizah discovery than one might fairly expect from a non-orientalist. When Cambridge friends reported to him that they had been offered five sacks of fragments from that famous Cairo source but had declined to purchase because of a warning that 303</page><page sequence="26">Stefan Reif Schechter had removed everything of value, he characterized that evaluation of Schechter's success with regard to the Genizah material as 'rather a hasty assumption'.94 It should not, however, be presupposed that all was sweetness and light in their relationship. Given Schechter's temperament and Jenkinson's undoubted sense of his personal dignity and the authority of his appointment, such a state of affairs would have been unlikely. At times the Trinity man contented himself with a quiet complaint to his diary concerning Schechter's angry explosions about those who had, he felt, been playing him false, concerning crooked dealers apparendy encouraged by Schechter, or concerning the rabbinic teacher's keenness to fill in a quiet summer Saturday by bothering Jenkinson.95 At others he noted his relief that Schechter had not appeared and had therefore given him the opportunity of tidying up after him before his next scholarly onslaught, recorded that he had (and this was a rare occurrence) simply declined to accompany his Romanian colleague to the Library, having had too much of him already, and refused one Saturday to allow him to borrow a novel that the regulations did not make available to him.96 Once, at least, Schechter upset a large box of fragments in the darkest part of his room close to the pipes and begged the Librarian and his staff to set things right. This Jenkinson did but not without noting the event in his diary and adding 'meanwhile, he tramples them like so much litter'.97 There were two occasions when the exchanges between the two scholars became stormy. In the first of these, Schechter had found a diamond-shaped hole in one of his fragments and angrily began to make accusations about such wilful damage. Fortunately for Jenkinson, he had noticed that the fragment had arrived in that state and was thus able to calm Schechter down, at the same time ticking him off Tor his impertinence and violence'.98 In the second incident Jenkinson felt sympathy for Schechter but advised him to accept the situation and take no action. Burkitt had quickly prepared an edition of some sixth-century fragments of Aquila's Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek discovered in the Genizah material at Cambridge, with a preface provided by Charles Taylor, and in the preliminary announcement of the impend? ing publication no mention had been made of Schechter. This had infuriated him and he angrily demanded of Jenkinson that the tide-page of the volume should include his name, no doubt arguing his central role in the discovery of the material. While agreeing that his name ought indeed to have appeared on the announce? ment, Jenkinson forcefully put it to his colleague that to demand the inclusion of his name on the tide-page was impossible and absurd. 'If you are going to be unreasonable,' he mildly threatened, 'the whole situation will have to be recon? sidered.'99 The fact is, however, that when the volume appeared, credit was given to Schechter on the tide-page as well as by Taylor in the preface and Burkitt in his introduction100 and it is reasonable to assume that Jenkinson had worked quietiy behind the scenes to achieve this. 304</page><page sequence="27">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment 1897 si D*y, IS SATURDAY (1S*-3H? fh^9 WhiUnadaj. Scottish QuarUrD?y f//*^0~6fV 0 aor&amp;tYjL Lfkau^, Ofzn&lt;^^ rc^Lc4^Ao&lt; \nj(r ******* (htw*&lt;A i kft&lt; c*v**. y^; 0 J-uo fffe**' Plate 6 Entry for 15 May 1897 in Francis Jenkinson's diary, Add. 7420 (Syndics of Cambridge University Library) 305</page><page sequence="28">Stefan Reif Before bringing this survey of Jenkinson's diaries to a close, it will perhaps be worthwhile to refer to some more general remarks of his that shed further light on his personality. He was, like many liberally-minded intellectuals in his day, most interested in the second Dreyfus trial in 1899 and expressed astonishment at the imposition of a ten-year sentence ('What next?'). He followed the 'world-verdict' in various newspapers and, though elsewhere critical of anti-Catholic sentiment, was particularly impressed by the refutation of the arguments offered by Cardinal Vaughan in defence of the Catholic Church's behaviour throughout the Dreyfus case.101 Snobbery was clearly not to his liking and he had nothing but contempt for 'a very conceited Harrovian mathematician, a sort of professional scholarship hunter'.102 Nevertheless, the growing pressure of the anti-immigration lobby was having its effect, particularly in such newspapers as the Daily Mail, and it would appear that he sympathized with the report in that journal that was critical of the arrival of what Jenkinson called '400 Jews, imposters and blackguards of the worst description'.103 Although he does cite as 'amusing' a rhyme about Jewish-Christian relations that had been attributed to the Bishop of Ripon ('Little bits of paper, Marked with IOU, Daily bring the Christian, Nearer to the Jew') there is no hint of animosity and he might genuinely be seen to be enjoying the joke as much at the expense of the Christian missionaries as of their Jewish targets.104 If ducks may justifiably be regarded as persecuted minorities when confronted by aggressive young boys intent on dispatching missiles in their direction, then Jenkinson may be seen as their liberal champion ('I tried to explain to them how much nicer it was to watch the ducks than to drive them away. No success.'),105 while his bias against Palestinian wine ('like Hock') was occasioned only by the fact that he thought it responsible for depriving him of a night's sleep.106 His complaint against oriental? ists for their 'want of wide interests' is one that one might still hear echoed in circles of perfecdy tolerant intellectuals.107 Humour has no significant place in the diaries although there are a few remarks which bring a smile to the reader's lips, whether or not intended to do so by their originator. Some manuscript arrivals from the Holy Land are referred to as 'plagues', one visit by Schechter is frankly described as 'to no purpose' and a cold mutton lunch at college (not his own!) is worthy of special mention because it had 'a brood of fine maggots in it'.108 Jenkinson was more upset than amused by this, as perhaps also by a suggestion that he, polymath that he was, evidendy regarded as preposterous, for a separate keeper of manuscripts in the University Library.109 Jenkinson should be given credit for not failing to notice the arrival on the Cambridge scene of various manifestations of modernity. He was very taken by what he defined as 'a very clever pair of pliers' but what from his further graphic description was clearly an early form of stapler110 and took the trouble to note, with an exclamation mark, on 2 April 1898, that 'Mrs Horace and Miss Somerset went home in a motor-car'.111 He was also impressed when one of his staff showed him 'sparklets for making your own soda water'.112 One invention about which he had 306</page><page sequence="29">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment mixed feelings was the gramophone (spelt by him 'gramaphone'). At one evening's entertainment to which he was invited a young man introduced such a machine and provided the guests with a miscellaneous concert after dinner. Jenkinson found the experience an interesting one but complained at the same time, as many have since then about similar such inventions, that the device was destructive of conversation.113 Finally, it should be noted that, in addition to the names of all those of central importance to the Genizah story, there appear in the diary references to others known for their activities in the fields of Semitic and Jewish studies, but to pursue their connections with Cambridge and the University Library would take us beyond our self-allotted task.114 It has now become clear that an active and important relationship existed between Jenkinson and Schechter over a dozen years, and some word of explana? tion is therefore in order for the relative silence on this subject in the two relevant biographies. The truth is that each of them is written within a particular context and that there is consequendy a reluctance to move out of these pre-defined parameters. Stewart approached the subject as one member of the Cambridge establishment writing about another,115 while Bentwich's overall concern was to demonstrate the contribution made by Schechter to the development of modern Judaism. Stewart was the brother-in-law of Jenkinson and Bentwich was a very close friend of Schechter's family116 and each was writing about his subject at a time when there was probably more interest in recording a panegyric than there was in achieving a critical and unbiased assessment. Given that the motivation for the undertaking in each case was something of an act of piety, neither biographer wished to take anything away from the conventional image of the biographee that existed within the ambience in which they had primarily operated, either by indicating that they had at times moved beyond that ambience or by pointing to any failures or inconsistencies within it.117 It is perfecdy understandable that there should have been a hesitancy on the part of the authors to acknowledge that at least part of the credit normally ascribed to Schechter and Jenkinson for specific achievements of a more general nature might have been more accurately due to more than one individual. By the same token, it would have been difficult for them to have given too much attention to the relationship between the two subjects without having to admit that, in the specific area of Hebrew manuscript research, the strengths and weaknesses of each man were complemented by the weaknesses and strengths of the other. What is more, the extent of the manuscript sources available to each writer was considerably more limited than it is today and the immediate availability of copied material, however physically far removed the original from the researcher, was still a development of the future. That having been said, one must also ask oneself whether there has not been a change in the writing of such histories in the course of the last few decades. While there was once a tendency to regard more personal material as either too intimate or too vulgar for inclusion in any scholarly investigation, the current trend is to 307</page><page sequence="30">Stefan Reif make much of such items. Indeed, this is nowhere better illustrated than in the history of Genizah research. For Schechter, the minute details of everyday life referred to in many of the mundane fragments were of little consequence when compared with the literary texts recoverable from the more scholarly manuscripts, and yet these very minutiae formed the basis of Goitein's five-volume social history of the Mediterranean Jewish community of the Middle Ages and much research by his disciples.118 Reconstructing history on the basis of such a patchwork of tiny constituents does, of course, have its problems. The spontaneous outbursts of an individual, whether religious, social or educational, may not offer the historian the balanced view provided by the considered comments of the intellectual and may reflect a more personal understanding of the situation than is demanded by the critical scholar. On the other hand, formal documents and texts are notorious for much detail that they doctor or omit, and the insights provided by more uncouth ephemera, as long as they are carefully weighed for their wider significance and not made the subject of unduly imaginative theorization, may help to redress the balance required for a fairer assessment. Given, then, that the evidence presented above puts us in a better position to assess various aspects of the relationship of Jenkinson and Schechter, it remains only to conclude this brief study by sum? marizing what they had in common, wherein they differed, and how the elements of their personalities fused to the benefit of productive scholarship.119 Although their backgrounds appear at first sight to have been very different, there is no doubt that they brought with them into adult life a similar passion for learning based on the education that they had received from their fathers and their most impressive teachers. For both of them, learning meant application and accuracy and neither could easily tolerate ignorance or philistinism. Their family links were close and demanded love and loyalty, and it was perhaps in the course of forging these that they developed a commitment to generosity and consideration, particularly for those in need. Although brought up with a commitment to strong religious traditions, they made their own adjustments to that commitment without in any way betraying its most central values. Common to them both was a respect for piety, whatever outward form it took, an admiration for integrity, and a sus? picion of the bureaucratic and clerical aspects of organized religion. It was difficult for either of them to play-act in life and the admiration they gained from their very different sets of friends was not bought at the cost of compromising their true characters. It was perhaps for this reason that children warmed to them so easily and, were it possible to say so today without attracting accusations of sexism, one might be tempted to attribute the many friendships they made with women, particularly unattached women, to an intuitive feminine capacity for distinguishing the genuine from the pretentious. Though inheriting first-class minds, they never allowed them to be anything but independent and, in spite of the robust health of many of their families, neither may be said to have passed his adult years without physical ailment. Above all, in the present context, they were united in their 308</page><page sequence="31">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment devotion to the University Library and were industrious in promoting its welfare and maintaining the excellence of its collections. But there was of course much about their respective temperaments that gready distinguished them from each other. The aristocratic Jenkinson carried himself nobly, was quiet and well turned out and, though British rather than English in origin, gave every impression of the cultured Cambridge gendeman. Schechter, on the other hand, originating in a more plebeian environment, made a noisy impact on company, was sloppy and unkempt in appearance, and might at best have been seen as a cosmopolitan intellectual. One could not but be impressed by Schech ter's creativity and enthusiasm; one had to accept that Jenkinson was a staid consolidator of earlier initiatives. Schechter quickly made and unmade friend? ships; Jenkinson took time over judging people. While fellow scholars and alterna? tive views often attracted the Romanian rabbi's outspoken derision, the University Librarian was fairly reserved in his comments and widely tolerant. Absent-minded and volatile though the teacher of rabbinics was, he was highly prolific in the middle years of his publishing life, a sobriquet never applied nor deserved in the case of the orderly and stable University Librarian. For all his radical and unpre? dictable traits and his maverick personality (the characteristics that possibly deprived his children of an ideologically constant lifestyle to emulate), Schechter was desperately ambitious and anxiously searched during most of his life for a milieu in which he could win total acceptance and on which he could exercise a formative and authoritative influence. Jenkinson remained ever the moderate conservative who took for granted his place in the establishment but never exploited it, and who maintained a relaxed but confident belief in himself and his abilities. The remarkable and happy truth is that their joint commitment to scholarship, honesty and the treasures of the University Library, far from being adversely affected by their differences of temperament, was decidedly enhanced by them. The characteristics brought to the relationship by Jenkinson nicely complemented those provided by Schechter. The former moderated the latter's intensity, ordered his scholarly pursuits, channelled his brilliance, and gave him instant access to the University establishment. He also appears to have had an effect on Schechter's oral and written expression (who else taught him to use the word 'blackguard'?) and may even have prepared him to a degree for his ultimate transformation into an establishment figure in the USA.120 By way of reciprocation, the Reader in Talmudic added lustre to the University Library's reputation as owner and publisher of priceless orientalia, brought a lively atmosphere of productive research into its otherwise dull corridors, and ensured that a steady stream of outstanding Jewish scholars would find their way to Cambridge not only in Jenkin son's day but during the tenures of all his successors. It is the burden of this paper that their mutual trust and active cooperation, and their confidence that neither constituted a serious threat to the other, were of central import to the advancement 309</page><page sequence="32">Stefan Reif of Genizah research and conservation in their earliest period and consequendy to the later development of Jewish scholarship in the twentieth century. Whether this achievement was ever bettered by Schechter in his later professional life, or whether the harmony of religion and scholarship that he was encouraged to achieve in Cambridge could ever successfully be attained in a Jewish communal context, are questions that must await reply in some future study. NOTES 1 By way of example, the Anglo-Jewish intel? lectual establishment that produced the Authorised Daily Prayer Book edited by Simeon Singer (London 1890) was the one that founded the Jewish Historical Society three years later and the same group that interacted with Solomon Schechter, as will shortly become apparent. See the writer's article 'A Singer with a New Song', LEyla XXXII (1991)36-9. 2 The writer has assessed the importance of the Cambridge Genizah material and given an account of recent work on it in a number of publi? cations. See, e.g., A Guide to the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Colledion (Cambridge 1973); 'Genizah Collections at Cambridge University Library' (Hebrew), Te'uda I, ed. M. A. Friedman (Tel Aviv 1980) 201-6; '1898 Preserved in Letter and Spirit', The Cambridge Review CHI, no. 2266 (29 January 1982) 120-1; Encyclopaedia Judaica Year Book ig8j/8s (Jerusalem 1985) 170-1; Published Material from the Cambridge Genizah Collections: A Bibliography i8g6-ig8o (Cambridge 1988), Introduction; 'Cairo Genizah Material at Cam? bridge University Library', Bulletin of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo XII (1989) 29-34; 'Hebrew Collections in Cambridge University Library', in Hebrew Studies, ed. D. R. Smith and P. S. Salinger (London 1991) 26-34; and 'The Genizah Collection', in Preserving the Jewish Heritage, ed. T. Kushner (forthcoming). 3 The projected volume is no. 1 in the Genizah Series and will be entitled An Introduction to the Cambridge Genizah Collections. 4 For further details of Mathilde Schechter's comments on Francis Jenkinson, see p. 292 below. 5 The alternative name for the county was Morayshire, which came to be used more com? monly at a later date, and this accounts for the apparent discrepancies in the various descriptions of the town's county status. For general bio? graphical details see Hugh Fraser Stewart, Francis Jenkinson. Fellow of Trinity College Cam? bridge and University Librarian. A Memoir (Cam bridge 1926) and the entry by S. Gaselee in The Dictionary of National Biography ig22-igjo (London 1937) 453-4. 6 On Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming see the entry by H. Morse Stephens in Dictionary of National Biography XIII (London 1888) 298-9. 7 The estate of his maternal grandfather, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, was Altyre, 2-3 miles south of Forres, and although his birthplace is usually given as Forres, it is possible that he was born in the mansion house of the estate. The copy of the Episcopalian baptismal entry, kindly provided by Canon R. W. Forrest of the St John's Rectory in Forres, simply refers to residence in Forres. 8 Stewart (see n. 5) 1-2. 9 See A. G. Bradley, A. C. Champneys and J. W. Baines, A History of Marlborough College, revised by J. R. Taylor, H. C. Brentnall and G. C. Turner (London 1923), with the reference to the branch railway on p. 204. 10 Stewart (see n. 5) 3?9. 11 A History (see n. 9) 186-223. 12 Stewart (see n. 5) 10-21. 13 On Mayor and Bradshaw, see D. McKit terick, Cambridge University Library. A History. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cam? bridge 1986) 620-763 and for an account of the life and work of Schiller-Szinessy, see R. Loewe, 'Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, 1820-1890. First Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature at Cambridge', Trans JHSE XXI (1968) 148-89. 14 Stewart (see n. 5) 21-9 and 35 and McKit terick (see n. 13) 763. 15 Like those of Jenkinson and Schechter the biography of Robertson Smith requires to be updated, and a conference being planned by the University of Aberdeen for the centenary of his death in 1994 should help to provide the necess? ary materials. In the meantime, see J. S. Black and G. W. Chrystal, The Life of William Robertson Smith (London 1912), especially 463-556. 16 See the relevant entries in Jenkinson's 3io</page><page sequence="33">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment diaries (Cambridge University Library, MSS Add. 7406-7446, henceforth JD; see n. 76), Add. 7410 and Add. 7411, and Stewart (see n. 5) 24-5. Acknowledgement is gratefully made to Cam? bridge University Library and to the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York for permission to cite their manuscript material. 17 Stewart (see n. 5) 12-18, 119-21, 137-9 and 35-87, specially 35; J. C. T. Oates, Cam? bridge University Library. A Historical Sketch (Cam? bridge 1975) 22; McKitterick (see n. 13) 763-4. For Sargent's portrait of Jenkinson as University Librarian, see plate 1. 18 Gaselee (see n. 5) 454 and Oates (see n. 17) 21. 19 Stewart (see n. 5) 38-9, 53-4, 69-75, 83-7 and 129-31; Gaselee (see n. 5) 454; and see n. 119. 20 Stewart (see n. 5) 135-6 and Oates (see n. 17) 21. 21 N. Bentwich, Solomon Schechter. A Biogra? phy (Philadelphia 1938) 24-6. 22 For the latest approach to the early development of the Habad movement, see N. Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite. The Emergence of the Habad School (Chicago and London 1990). 23 S. Ettinger, 'The Modern Period', in A History of the Jewish People (E.T., London 1976) 822-3 and EJ XIV, cols 387-9 appear to be more precise than Bentwich on details of Romanian Jewish history at the time of Schechter's birth. 24 Bentwich (see n. 21) 25-33. 25 ?7X11, cols 866-88. 26 Bentwich (see n. 21) 33-5. 27 On the history and general nature of Wis? senschaft des Judentums, see N. N. Glatzer, 'The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Studies', in Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History, ed. A. A. Altmann (Cambridge Mass. 1964) 27 45; I. Schorsch, 'The Ethos of Modern Jewish Scholarship', LBIYB XXXV (1990) 55-71. 28 Bentwich (see n. 21) 35-41; M. L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna 1867-1914. Assimilation and Identity (Albany 1983; for general background) and 'Jewish Identity and the Modern Rabbi', LBIYB XXXV (1990) 110-18; EJ XVI, cols 413-4 and VII, cols 192-3. Schech? ter's own appreciation of his teacher Friedmann was published in his Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (Cincinnati 1915) 135-43 29 See A. S. Oko, Solomon Schechter MA. Litt.D. A Bibliography (Cambridge 1938) nos 1-2 on p. 1. 30 Bentwich (see n. 21) 41-5. For the Hoch schule's early years see I. Elbogen, 'Die Hoch schule, ihre Enstehung und Enwicklung', in I. Elbogen and J. H?niger, Lehrnstalt f?r die Wissen? schaft des Judentums. Festschrift zur Einweihung des eigenen Heims (Berlin 1907) 1-98, and for its later history see R. Fuchs, 'The Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the period of Nazi Rule. Personal Recollections', LBIYB XII (1967) 3-31 and C. Hoffmann and D. R. Schwartz, 'Early but Opposed - Supported but Late - Two Berlin Seminaries which Attempted to Move Abroad', LBIYB XXXVI (1991) 267 304. See also ?7X1, cols 181-2; EJ VII, col. 102; Schechter's essay on Steinschneider in Seminary Addresses (see n. 28) 119-24; and Mathilde Schechter's Memoirs (Jewish Theological Seminary Archive 101.21; henceforth MSM) on P. F. Frankl. 31 Bentwich (see n. 21) 45-7 and Schechter's essay 'Higher Criticism - Higher Anti-Semit? ism', in Seminary Addresses (see n. 28) 35-9. 32 Bentwich (see n. 21) 47-9^. Stein, Claude Goldsmid Montefiore on the Ancient Rabbis (Mis soula 1977); S. Bayme, 'Claude Montefiore, Lily Montagu and the Origins of the Jewish Religious Union', Trans. JHSE XXVII (1982) 61-71; E. Kessler, An English few. The Life and Writings of Claude Montefiore (London 1989); and see p. 295 below. 33 For a description of the contemporary Anglo-Jewish religion and culture, see V. D. Lip man, A History of the Jews in Britain since 1858 (Leicester 1990) 20-31 and 89-94. 34 Bentwich (see n. 21) 50-63. On Zangwill, see E. B. Adams, Israel Zangwill (New York 1971). On Jacobs see B. Maidment, 'The Liter? ary Career of Joseph Jacobs, 1876-1900', Trans JHSE XXIV (1974) 101-13. On Asher Myers and the Jewish Chronicle see Cecil Roth, The Jewish Chronicle, 1841-1Q41 (London 1949), soon to be superseded by a new history by David Cesarani to be published by Cambridge Univer? sity Press. On Abrahams, see D. G. Dalin, 'Israel Abrahams, Leader of Liturgical Reform in Eng? land', Journal of Reform Judaism XXXII (1985) 68-83. On Wolf, see C. Abramsky, 'Lucien Wolfs Efforts for the Jewish Communities in Central and Eastern Europe', Trans JHSE XXIX (1988) 281-95, especially n. 2 for updated bibliography. 35 Oko (see n. 29) 2-16; Bentwich (see n. 21) 63-82; and MSM (see n. 30). Here and elsewhere the Latin titles of Schechter's monographs are given as they appear in the orig? inal volumes. 36 For biographical details see n. 50. 37 Among his referees were S. R. Driver, T. 3"</page><page sequence="34">Stefan Reif K. Cheyne and A. Neubauer of Oxford; R. J. H. Gottheil of New York; H. Graetz and I. Lewy of Breslau; A. Jellinek, I. H. Weiss and M. Fried mann of Vienna; W. Bacher and D. Kaufmann of Budapest; and M. Steinschneider and S. Maybaum of Berlin. The testimonials are preserved in Schechter's papers and letters at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (Archive 101; henceforth= SSLP). The relevant parts of that archive in the context of this paper are correspondence (101.1-6), diplomas and references (101.13), Schechteriana (101.14), condolences (101.16), Mathilde Schechter's Memoirs (101.21) and letters from Schechter to Mathilde (101.21). The writer is grateful to the Seminary Library for its kind assistance in con? nection with his exploitation of that archive. 38 The first volume of Schiller-Szinessy's Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts Preserved in the University Library Cambridge was published in Cambridge in 1876, the second volume was set in print but never formally published, while the remainder of his descriptions are still in manu? script form at the Library with the classmark Or. 1116-21. See S. C. Reif, 'Hebrew Collections in Cambridge University Library', in Hebrew Studies (British Library Occasional Papers, 13), eds D. R. Smith and P. S. Salinger (London 1991) 32. Schechter published six articles of 'Notes on Hebrew MSS in the University Library at Cam? bridge', jfQR IV (1892) 90-101, 244-55, 626-7; V (1893) 18-23, 244-5; and VI (1894) 136-45? 39 Oko (see n. 29) 20-41. With regard to the titles of Schechter's monographs, see n. 35. 40 See the writer's treatment of the Genizah discoveries in the publications cited in n. 2. For a detail from the famous photograph of Schechter at work on the Genizah fragments at Cambridge University Library, see plate 2. 41 Cambridge University Reporter nos 921 (9 February 1892); 1198 (8 February 1898); 1360 (12 June 1901, 1086); and 1361 (15 June 1901); and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses II/V (Cambridge 1953) 434. The inaccuracies in Bent? wich (see n. 21) 95-6, should be corrected on the basis of these sources. One must assume that Jenkinson's reference to Schechter's appoint? ment as professor at King's College (in his diary entry for 8 December 1898, Add. 7421; see n. 76) is also erroneous. 42 MSM (see n. 30) and Bentwich (see n. 21) 83-115. On Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson see A. Whigham Price, The Ladies of Castlebrae (Glou? cester 1985). 43 R. Ackerman, J. G. Frazer. His Life and Work (Cambridge 1987) 192. 44 These complaints are a common feature of Schechter's letters in SSPL (see n. 37) and the need to bring kosher food from elsewhere was also doubtless a trial. See also R. Loewe, 'The Evolution of Jewish Student Feeding Arrange? ments in Oxford and Cambridge', in Studies in the Cultural Life of the Jews in England, eds D. Noy and I. Ben-Ami (Jerusalem 1975) 165-84. 45 The details are provided in Bentwich (see n. 21) 164-231 but there are also some frank and significant insights in Oko (see n. 120). 46 See nn. 5 and 21. 47 Bentwich (see n. 21) 89 and 232. The source is a letter from Margaret Gibson to Jenkinson; see n. 64. 48 Stewart (see n. 5) 85. 49 For the manuscript source at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, see nn. 30 and 37. 50 Ruth married the South African Jewish lawyer, Morris Alexander, in 1907. Sadly, their two daughters (Esther and Muriel) spent their later lives in institutions while their son, Solly, clashed with his parents, and his non-Jewish wife Elsie has been the one to have demonstrated the interest in his Jewish family and inheritance. Ruth and her sister Amy both espoused decidedly left wing political causes in the 1930s, the former (who had been very close to Olive Schreiner in South Africa) divorcing Alexander in 1935, mar? rying Professor Benjamin Farrington (an Irish Marxist whom she had met in Cape Town) and dying in Swansea, Wales in 1942, while the latter exhausted herself in her campaigns and apparently died in her sixties in the USA. Frank, too, opted for a role in the wider community and having served in France in the First World War became a distinguished trademark lawyer. He assisted Bentwich with the preparation of his father's biography and died at the age of 47 in 1937. By 1935 relations between the three chil? dren of Schechter appear to have broken down. Some of this information is owed to members of the Schechter family, especially Raphael Levy of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, and Elsie Alexander of Western Australia, and to Morris Alexander. A Biography (Cape Town and Johannesburg 1953) by Alexander's second wife, Enid. See also n. 117. 51 See p. 308-9 below. 52 Mathilde Schechter reports in her memoirs that both the personal and professional relation? ships between Neubauer and Schechter were always somewhat strained. For Deinard's repay? ment of the compliment see Oko (n. 29) 94. 53 SSPL (see n. 37), letters to Mathilde dated 312</page><page sequence="35">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment in Cairo on 5, 12 and 22 January 1897 and at sea on the way to Palestine on 10 February 1897. Alfred Eicholz was the son-in-law of Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler and according to Venn's entry (see n. 41) 'the first Jew to be elected a fellow of a Cambridge College' (Emmanuel 1893) and Wil? liam W. Buckland was then lecturer in Law at Gonville and Caius College and later Regius Pro? fessor of Civil Law (not Roman Law, pace Ben? twich [see n. 21] 89). 54 SSPL (see n. 37), letters to Mathilde Schechter dated in Hotel d'Angleterre, Cairo, 21 January 1897 and Hotel d'Orient, Suez, 7 Febru? ary 1897. On Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson see n. 42. 55 SSPL (see n. 37), J. W. Clark to S. Schechter, as instructed by the Senate's Grace 5 of 10 November 1898 recorded in the Cambridge University Reporter wo. 1231 (15 November 1898) 235. Bentwich (see n. 21) 134, may have had in mind the English translations of the official Latin letters to Schechter and Taylor that appeared on p. 12 of the Jewish Chronicle of 30 December 1898. 56 SSPL (see n. 37). The complete list reads A. W. Ward, C Taylor, John Peile, A. F. Kirk patrick, W. Emery Barnes, A. A. Bevan, F. C. Burkitt, A. T. Chapman, J. Oswald Dykes, J. G. Frazer, M. R. James, F. J. H. Jenkinson, R. H. Kennett, Norman McLean, J. Skinner, R. T. Wright and W. Aldis Wright. 57 The letter (SSPL - see n. 37) was written at 31 Thompson's Lane, presumably then the residence of Pass, and the office-bearers who signed below him were G. M. Lazarus, later call? ed to the bar and an officer in the First World War, Henry G. Lewis of Cape Town, also later called to the bar, and David L. Cohen of Australia, later a businessman, as president, treasurer and secretary respectively. Pass con? verted to Christianity during his residence in Cambridge and was ordained as a priest in 1916. See Venn (n. 41) II/V, 42; II/IV (Cambridge 1951) 120 and 162; and II/II (Cambridge 1944) 85. 58 SSPL (see n. 37), A. F. Kirkpatrick to S. Schechter, 26 December 1901. 59 Schechter's letter to Adler (SSPL - see n. 37), then Librarian of the Smithsonian Institu? tion, was written at the home of his wife's brother in Breslau where they were spending the Jewish festivals. The reference to his hopes for the family is revealing: 'Of course my children will be as I hope H " 2 S? 3 [with God's help] the great gainers of the whole affair in various respects.' 60 Schechter to Bentwich (SSPL - see n. 37), written in Westcliff where he had gone for a rest, and including the sentence: 'I could not bear the idea of taking money from private individuals any longer.' See also n. 116. 61 There are seven typed pages (SSPL - see n. 37) beginning 'It was at the Station at Coblenz on the 24th of August 1900 that I met Schechter.' See C. I. Hoffmann, 'Bentwich's Biography of Solomon Schechter', JQR N. S. XXX (1939) 77 81, especially 79. 62 The points being made are numbered in the letter (SSPL - see n. 37) and the fifth reads: 'As to Dr Marmorstein's offer, I shall be obliged if you would let me see it. I hear he is a good man, but he is only in England for a very short time. You are quite right about the expenses of his going to Cambridge. We must not introduce this. Moreover, there is no one in Cambridge now who could find the MS for him, Abrahams and Loewe knowing less about the contents of the Genizah than the Gentile book binder in the Library.' 63 Jenkinson to Schechter (SSPL - see n. 37) 29 May 1903. On Hirschfeld's work in Cam? bridge, see S. C. Reif, 'Introductory Remarks. Semitic Scholarship at Cambridge' in Genizah Research after Ninety Years. The Case of Judaeo Arabic, eds J. Blau and S. C. Reif (Cambridge 1992) 4. By the time of his death in 1918 Luncz had reached tractate SheviHt of his edition of the Palestinian Talmud, published as Talmud Hierosolymitanum ad exemplar editionis principis, additis lectionibus codicum manuscriptorum cum com mentario, locis parallelis et indicibus copiosis (Jerusalem 1907-14). The fragments were later published by Schechter's Seminary colleague L. Ginzberg as Yerushalmi Fragments from the Genizah (New York 1909) and current research on them is being conducted by Y. Sussmann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 64 Jenkinson to Mathilde Schechter (SSPL - see n. 37) 13 December 1915 ('I regretted his departure from Cambridge') and Jenkinson to Margaret Gibson, 21 January 1916. The copy of the latter letter in the writer's possession has no classmark on it and the original is probably part of the Schechter archival collection (see n. 37). 65 Francis Jenkinson Correspondence (= FJC) Add. 6463 and Add. 6464. 66 Schechter to Jenkinson, FJC, Add. 6463.2295 ('I shall take care not to deal again with Deinard'). On Deinard see p. 293 and n. 52. 67 Taylor to Jenkinson, 16 June 1895, FJC, Add. 6463.2952; see n. 38. Taylor responds that he cannot do so because Schechter is still busy with the contribution he is making to the second 3i3</page><page sequence="36">Stefan Reif edition of Taylor's own Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Cambridge 1897). 68 Schechter to Jenkinson from Hotel Metropole, Cairo, 12 January 1897, FJC, Add. 6463.3416; Schechter to Jenkinson from Zamarin, Palestine, 18 February 1897, FJC, Add. 6463.3453; Schechter (not his hand; perhaps that of his wife?) to Jenkinson from 2 Rock Road (his second residence in Cambridge, after 1 Bateman Street, before 24 Glisson Road) 8 October 1897, FJC, Add. 6463.3648. 69 Taylor to the Vice-Chancellor, 24 May 1897, appendix volume to the Cambridge University Library Syndicate minutes of 26 May 1897; Taylor to Jenkinson, 8 March 1898, FJC, Add. 6463.3811; Report of the Library Syndicate on the offer of a Collection of Manuscripts brought from Cairo, Cambridge University Reporter no. 1215 (14 June 1898) 968-9; appendix volume to the Cambridge University Library Syndicate minutes of 8 November 1899. 70 The group is listed on p. 301 below and it was Andrew Baldrey who provided the main assistance in the physical treatment of the fragments. 71 Schechter to Jenkinson, 17 June 1898, FJC, Add. 6463.3903 and 19 June 1898, FJC, Add. 6463.3908 ('I am really not so impatient of regulations as you think'). 72 Jenkinson to Robert Proctor, 10 April 1899, FJC, Add. 6464.390 ('Would not any decent person have handed them to Schechter to include in his edition, especially as they just come in a gap?'). 73 Schechter to Jenkinson, 29 (or 27? - the handwriting is unclear) December 1901, FJC, Add. 6463.4963 ('But the times, especially since my return from Egypt, were not quite normal ...'); see plates 3 and 4. 74 McLean to Jenkinson, 10 March 1902, FJC, Add. 6463.5055 75 Schechter to Jenkinson, 28 October 1902 (the original probably in one of the archives at Cambridge University Library but yet to be veri? fied) and H. G. Aldis to Jenkinson, 16 June 1903, FJC, Add. 6463.5413, regarding the projected visit of Louis Ginzberg to work on the fragments of the Palestinian Talmud (see also n. 63); Schechter to Jenkinson, 27 December 1910 and 11 January 1911, FJC Add. 6463.7061 and .7072. 76 Although the University Library has Jenkinson's diaries (= JD) from 1866 (Add. 7406) and 1880-1 (Add. 7407-8), the consecu? tive collection belongs to 1886-1923 (Add. 7409-7446) ana* me particularly relevant years are 1890-1902 (Add. 7413-7425); see n. 16. 77 JD, Add. 7416, 3 November 1893, and Add. 7419, 29 August 1896. 78 JD, Add. 7414, 4 November 1891; Add. 7415, 29 June 1892; Add. 7416, 5 November 1893. 79 JD, Add. 7419, 3 May 1896. 80 JD, Add. 7413, 27 May 1890; Add. 7416, 20 December 1893; Add. 7417, 8 July 1894; Add. 7417, 19 August 1894; Add. 7417, 31 December 1894 ('About an hour with Schechter at Hebrew MS. fragments from R. Wertheimer'); Add. 7420, 19 May 1897; see also n. 2. 81 JD, Add. 7420, 11 May 1897; Add. 7420, 23, 26 and 28 July and 1-2 August 1897; Add. 7420, 27 August 1897; Add. 7420, 1 July 1897 ('Schechter found a double-leaf of Hebrew Ecclesiasticus and nearly went off his head'); Add. 7423, 3 July 1900; and Add. 7424, 5 November 1901. 82 JD, Add. 7420, 10, 16, 21, 23, 27 and 28 August 1897; Add. 7420, 31 May 1897; Add. 7422, 24 June 1899; see also Cambridge University Reporter no. 1609 (2 June 1906) 1008-12, Appendix II to the annual report of the Library Syndicate. See plate 5. 83 JD, Add. 7420, 13 August 1897. 84 JD, Add. 7420, 18 June 1897. 85 JD, Add. 7419, 4 May 1896. 86 JD, Add. 7420, 23 August 1897. 87 JD, Add. 7419, 20 November 1896; Add. 7420, 21 January, 28 April, 28 October and 1 November 1897 ('At night a registered letter from Schechter containing a cheque to him for ?100 out of which I am to repay myself carriage etc. and give him the cheque . .. sent Schechter ?60 in notes by regd. post.'); Add. 7422, 3 May 1899; Add. 7424, 11 March 1901. 88 JD, Add. 7420, 12 May 1897 ('At library a talk with Schechter about the Cairo fragments, quite inconclusive. Who presents them?'). 89 JD, Add. 7421, 8 and 9 March 1898; Add. 7420, 13 December 1897 and 13 October 1897; Add. 7420, 13 August 1897. 90 JD, Add. 7424, 18 February 1901; Add. 7420, 29 August 1897; Add. 7423, 11 April 1900. 91 JD, Add. 7420, 1 July 1897; Add. 7420, 3, 4 ('assisted Schechter to answer it, tho' perhaps hardly worth it...'), 5 and 7 August 1897; Add. 7422, 4 July 1899. In addition, Schechter responded to Margoliouth in the Expository Times X (1898-9) 568 and Israel Abrahams also defended the authenticity of the Ben Sira frag? ments against Margoliouth in the Jewish Chronicle 3i4</page><page sequence="37">Jenkinson and Schechter at Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment of 16 June 1899, 26 and 23 June 1899, 24 (Oko [n. 29] 34, no. 108). See also Oko (n. 29) 35-6 and 52, nos 115-8 and 172. 92 JD, Add. 7423,9 June 1900. The University function was apparently the Honorary Degree Congregation of 12 June 1900 which included the award of a Litt.D to W. M. Flinders Petrie. 93 JD, Add. 7419, 20 November 1896; Add. 7420, 21 January 1897; Add. 7420, 26 August 1897; Add. 7422&gt; ll May 1899; Add. 7425, 6 January 1902 ('It was very interesting to hear his aspirations for the Jewish Seminary he is to preside over'). 94 JD, Add. 7421, 24 July 1898. 95 JD, Add. 7422, 30 January 1899; Add. 7416, 19 January 1893 ('Schechter encouraged a German Jew to attempt business with me at "suitable" prices. Rogers sent him off.'); Add. 7420, 13 October 1897; Add. 7420, 21 August 1897 ('and being Saturday he had nothing to do'). See plate 5. 96 JD, Add. 7421, 4 July 1898 ('Found Schechter had not arrived (mercifully)'); Add. 7420, 18 September 1897; Add. 7422, 13, 14 and 17 April 1899; Add. 7420, 21 August 1897. See plate 5. 97 JD, Add. 7421, 16 February 1898. 98 JD, Add. 7420, 15 May 1897. See plate 6. 99 JD, Add. 7420, 24 August 1897. 100 F. C. Burkitt, Fragments of the Book of Kings according to the translation of Aquila (Cam? bridge 1898). 101 JD, Add. 7422, 9, 11, 12 and 21 Septem? ber and 2 October 1899. See Richard I. Cohen, 'The Dreyfus Case and the Jews', in Antisemitism through the Ages, ed. S. Almog (Oxford 1988) 291-390 and A. L. Shane, 'The Dreyfus Affair. Could it have happened in England?', Trans JfHSE XXX (1989) 135-48. 102 JD, Add. 7420, 3 November 1897. 103 JD, Add. 7423, 4 February 1900; Daily Mail, Saturday 3 February 1900, 3. 104 JD, Add. 7419, 10 January 1896. The Bishop, the Rt Revd William Boyd-Carpenter, was in fact actively involved in campaigning for Jewish rights in Russia, addressing the gathering called in the Guildhall in London on 10 Decem? ber 1890 to protest against the pogroms; see the lengthy reports in the Jewish Chronicle and its special supplement of 12 December 1890, especially 23-5. 105 JD, Add. 7422, 10 March 1899. JD, Add. 7421, 4 May 1898 ('After tea bagged a small catapault from a boy named Adams, shooting at the ducks'). 106 JD, Add. 7421, 28 May 1898. 107 JD, Add. 7422, 27 May 1899. 108 JD, Add. 7418, 30 July 1895 ('one of which I actually had in my mouth; hardly got over it all the afternoon'). 109 JD, Add. 7420, 9 January 1897. no JD, Add. 7421, 22 February 1898. The gadget was demonstrated to him by Ernest Wor man, the staff member who took responsibility for the Genizah Collection after Schechter's departure. For his colleagues' recollections of Worman see the anonymously edited Ernest James Worman 1871-iQOQ (Cambridge 1910). in JD, Add. 7421, 2 April 1898. 112 JD, Add. 7421, 20 June 1898. 113 JD, Add. 7421, 11 November 1898. 114 Among those mentioned and yet to be noted in this article are Gollancz, Goldziher, Kahle, Cowley, Browne, Bevan, Reginald Henriques and Stanley Cook. 115 For details of Stewart's distinguished academic career at Cambridge see Venn (n. 41), II/VI (Cambridge 1954) 39. 116 On the Bentwich family see EJ IV, cols 556-8 and Trans JHSE XXIV (1975) 191-2. Schechter's estimate of the young Norman is contained in his letter to Herbert of 24 December 1901 (n. 60): 'I hardly need tell you how grateful I feel to you and to your dear wife for all the kind? ness you have shown to us all the time. As a crowning mercy I consider the fact that I am able to see now so much of Norman, who is with us every day endearing himself to us. I have met few young men who were so improving on closer acquaintance as Norman. Everybody loves and admires him. We do feel grateful to you for allow? ing him to be so often with us. His presence brings light and truth into every corner, God bless him.' As far as Ruth Schechter was con? cerned (letter to Raphael Levy in February 1936; see n. 117), Bentwich on Schechter was 'kind, competent, obtuse, and not wholly honest with himself. 117 Raphael Levy, grandson of Schechter's brother Shulim, reports (personal communica? tion) that Ruth Schechter (in correspondence with him) wrote that she had read most of Bent wich's work in draft and felt that it would be 'a conscientious frock-coat portrait of a Good Jew'. Earlier she had been dissuaded by her brother Frank from producing her own version of her father's life and personality. Levy's papers con? cerning Ruth and other members of the family are being deposited in the Jewish Theological Seminary Library. 3i5</page><page sequence="38">Stefan Reif 118 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1967-88). For the writer's brief assessments of the volumes and for examples of the significance of such 'mundane fragments', see Jewish Chronicle Colour Magazine 26 September 1980, 40-7 and L'Eyla XXXI (1991) 50-1. 119 Stewart (n. 5) deals with the personal characteristics of Jenkinson on pp. 117-36 of his study and Bentwich (n. 21) does the same for Schechter on pp. 232-54 of his volume. These sources have of course here been complemented by the manuscript material earlier cited. 120 In this connection Oko appears to have had important insights not only into the English influences on Schechter but also into the tension between Schechter's true personality and the role he had to play in his American years; see Solomon Schechter (n. 29) xiv-xvi and xx?xxi. 3i6</page></plain_text>