Chapters on Jewish Literature
CHAPTERS ON JEWISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I THE "VINEYARD" AT JAMNIA Schools at Jamnia, Lydda, Usha, and Sepphoris.--The Tannaim compile the Mishnah.--Jochanan, Akiba, Meir, Judah.--Aquila. The story of Jewish literature, after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Christian era, centres round the city of Jamnia. Jamnia, or Jabneh, lay near the sea, beautifully situated on the slopes of a gentle hill in the lowlands, about twenty-eight miles from the capital. When Vespasian was advancing to the siege of Jerusalem, he occupied Jamnia, and thither the Jewish Synhedrion, or Great Council, transferred itself when Jerusalem fell. A college existed there already, but Jamnia then became the head-quarters of Jewish learning, and retained that position till the year 135. At that date the learned circle moved further north, to Galilee, and, besides the famous school at Lydda in Judea, others were founded in Tiberias, Usha, and Sepphoris.
Belleville to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the
triumphal Arc de l'Etoile, that one morning, refreshed by tea,
amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and die like rockets
from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you tossed to
my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann,--that casket of unrecognized
gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to
hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat
them, playing on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the
stress of divine inspiration, believing that he is expressing
celestial music to his bewildered listeners.
It was you who created GAMBARA; I have only clothed him. Let me
render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, regretting only
that you do not yourself take up the pen at a time when gentlemen
ought to wield it as well as the sword, if they are to save their
country. You may neglect yourself, but you owe your talents to us.
GAMBARA
New Year's Day of 1831 was pouring out its packets of sugared almonds,
CHAPTERS ON JEWISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I THE "VINEYARD" AT JAMNIA Schools at Jamnia, Lydda, Usha, and Sepphoris.--The Tannaim compile the Mishnah.--Jochanan, Akiba, Meir, Judah.--Aquila. The story of Jewish literature, after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Christian era, centres round the city of Jamnia. Jamnia, or Jabneh, lay near the sea, beautifully situated on the slopes of a gentle hill in the lowlands, about twenty-eight miles from the capital. When Vespasian was advancing to the siege of Jerusalem, he occupied Jamnia, and thither the Jewish Synhedrion, or Great Council, transferred itself when Jerusalem fell. A college existed there already, but Jamnia then became the head-quarters of Jewish learning, and retained that position till the year 135. At that date the learned circle moved further north, to Galilee, and, besides the famous school at Lydda in Judea, others were founded in Tiberias, Usha, and Sepphoris.