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Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Let's erase our history

S has a post up about the new frum habit of erasing aspects of Jewish history when they don't correspond to modern standards. The post is quite long, and quite interesting, but for those too lazy to bother I provide this summary:

The original Romm edition of the Vilna Shas dating to the late 19th century, contained an afterward describing how the edition was prepared, an adventure that required access to the Vatican Library and the cooperation of various Catholic Cardinals. Along with naming and thanking these Cardinals, the afterward also includes the dates when the various Tractates were completed and other historical details about its preparation. In the new edition of the Romm, recently issued by Wagshal, all of the best parts of the afterward have been excluded, including the points mentioned above. According to S, even the name of the leader of the original Romm project, one Shmuel Shraga Feigensohn, has been deleted.

See it here


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