More than 150 years ago there lived in Yerushalayim a most colorful personality: Rabbi Yaakov Ibn Sapir. A brilliant talmid chacham and linguist, he was able to converse in Russian, Yiddish, German, Spanish, Italian and some English, in addition to Hebrew and Arabic.
He was one of the leaders of the Ashkenazic Jewish community in the Old Yishuv.
Rabbi Yaakov HaLevi Sapir’s travels to Yemen, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, India and Sri Lanka to raise much-needed funds for the Churva shul and Kever Rochel were memorialized in his Hebrew travelogue entitled Even Sapir. His descriptions of the Jewish communities he visited, their institutions and personalities, in cities such
as Aden, Sanaa, Alexandria, Cairo, Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo, Dunedin, Calcutta, Bombay, Cochin, Singapore, Surabaya, Badulla and Columbo, shed much light on the history of the Jews in those areas.
The Poet
Rabbi Sapir served as the secretary of the Ashkenazic chevrah kaddisha in Yerushalayim and in that capacity welcomed important visitors to the city. The beautiful poems he composed honoring the philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore were Kenaf Renanim, Shemesh Tzedakah and Gei Chizayon. Another of his poems marked the visit of King Frederick William of Prussia to Yerushalayim: Kevod Melech, which appears at the end of the second volume of Even Sapir.
Ludwig August Frankl, an Austrian poet and writer, in his book Nach Jerusalem, describes Rabbi Sapir, who came to see him when Frankl visited Yerushalayim. He writes:
I had no idea that my first visitor would be an associate of the immortals, a descendant of the Prophetic singers, a companion of the royal harpist … a poet.
A small, pale, sickly-looking man with bloodshot eyes came in to [my room]. From both sides of his … cap hung the long locks of his peyot. His silk mantle, the smartness of which had long since vanished…; his shoes, which he took off on entering, seemed to be carrying on their riddled surface all the dust of the Valley of Jehoshaphat from time immemorial.
Thus the man, whose name was Jacob Saphir from Vilna, silently held out his hand to me and spoke without any preamble: “Here everything is dust. Since the Destruction
[of the Temple] things have flowered and blossomed in the midst of the ruins and have gone back to their original vigor, everywhere on earth; except that here no greenness has returned and nothing at all grows. Yet with all this a bitter-tasting fruit does sprout and fl ourish here — pain at the desolation of Yerushalayim. It is useless for you to expect any joy here, either from the people or from the hills!”
The Austrian replied:
“I am glad to make your acquaintance. While I was still in Vienna I had heard about you, that you wander among the ruins of the Holy City, bringing light to the darkness of [the] Destruction with your songs.”
“Call them shadows, shadows! But I am surprised that in the far-off city of Vienna they should talk of a poor Jewish poet in Yerushalayim — surely the days of miracles are past!”
“Have you collected your poems together?”
“Does one collect old, withered leaves? Sometimes when I have completed a
new poem, I present it to my friends, and so it flies into the distance, or I burn it,
and so, many are destroyed.
Who or what may survive when Yerushalayim has perished?”
“Bring me one of your poems!”
“If Hashem will inspire me to compose one.”
“Compose a song of lamentation for Zion, like a disciple
of the great poet Judah HaLevi.”
“Can anyone who follows King David be called great?”
Background
Rabbi Yaakov HaLevi Sapir was born in Oszmiana, a suburb of Vilna, in 1822. His father was Nathan Levi Sapir, a shochet, and his mother’s name was Tova. When he was 10, his family joined the Perushim, the students of the Vilna Gaon who immigrated to Eretz Yisrael, and settled in the city of Tzfas. In fewer than two years, he and his sister were orphaned of both parents. His father passed away on 10 Cheshvan 5594/1833 and his mother a year later on 10 Kislev 5595/1834.
On Sunday, June 15/7 Sivan, the day after Shavuos, pogroms against the Jews of Tzfas began in what was to become known as the Peasants’ Revolt of 1834. The spontaneous attack was part of an armed uprising against Egyptian rule under Ibrahim Pasha, Mehemet Ali’s son, whose troops had taken Acre from the Ottoman Turks in 1831. The local Palestinian population revolted against Mehemet Ali when he attempted to conscript them. The Palestinian Arabs began to take advantage of the breakdown in Ottoman authority as a result of the fighting between Ottoman and Egyptian forces and used the opportunity to attack the local Jews and steal their property.
Twelve-year-old Yaakov Sapir described the pogrom: “We sat there for 40 days fearing we would be killed by the rioters. We saw our property being seized by strangers, we lost all hope in our lives, stood there … stripped of our clothes. Everything was taken from our homes, the marauders left nothing — not even small pots. Our doors and windows were all smashed.”
After the earthquake in Tzfas in 1837, young Sapir moved to Yerushalayim, where, at the age of 15, he married Feiga Leah, the wise daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and Elka HaKohen, who had led the Perushim community first in Tzfas and then in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Yaakov was a melamed in the Eitz Chaim Talmud Torah, received semichah and became the secretary and sofer for the Perushim community in Yerushalayim.
Journey to Yemen
On 13 Tammuz 5618/1858, Rabbi Yaakov HaLevi Sapir set forth on a journey that was to last almost five years. Already a seasoned traveler by then, he was described by the prominent bibliographer and historian Avraham Yaari in his Igros Eretz Yisrael as “one of the best travelers, his eyes wide open to see anything worth, seeing, and his ears picking up any news worth hearing.
There was nothing he did not consider worth looking at and describing in great detail. He was not afraidof danger or adventures, and was a learned scholar well versed in our holy literature.”
In the Hebrew periodical Halevanon dated April 26, 1866, Rabbi Sapir describes his visit to Aden for Yom Kippur and Sukkos. He writes that he spent the entire month of Tishrei there to relax, and he requested a chicken of his landlord for kapparos. He was surprised to learn that neither his landlord nor other Yemenite Jews knew anything of this minhag. Yemenite Jews did not practice any din or minhag not mentioned by the Rambam. He learned that Jews in Yemen shave and cut their hair during Sefiras HaOmer since the Rambam does not mention this prohibition.
In New Zealand on Purim
In Even Sapir (vol. 2, p. 141), Rabbi Sapir describes how he traveled from Victoria, Australia, by ship and arrived in
Dunedin, New Zealand, the Wednesday before Purim. “It is a place,” he states, “covered by snow, and it is winter for
nine months of the year, from Tishrei to TammuzHe met with the head of the Jewish community, who had relocated with his family from London two years earlier.
The latter showed him a beautiful room, which contained an aron kodesh and a sefer Torah, used for davening. When Rabbi Sapir asked about a Megillas Esther, he learned that the congregation did not have one. Fortunately, Rabbi Yaakov was a sofer and had in his possession a kosher klaf. By Friday he had a Megillas Esther written in time for the festival of Purim, which began that Motzoei Shabbos.
Rabbi Sapir leined the Megillah Purim night to an audience of four minyanim. Unfortunately, the next day, the shtiebel was rather empty.
The Jews of India
Rabbi Yaakov found the city of Cochin, India, divided into two Jewish communities. In Even Sapir (vol. 2, ch. 23) he details what he observed:
The Jews of this town are divided into two groups: whites and blacks. They do not intermix or intermarry, nor do theyappear similar. The whites are [light-skinned], handsome, dignified and learned in Torah … similar to Europeans in
every way. They have about 50 families living in peace, wealth and happiness. Most of them support themselves with ease….
They do not have a Rav … and are led by five wise elders….There are six main families. The Zakkai family is the oldest and is believed to have arrived from the nearby port of Cranganore in 1219. The Castilia family, exiled from Spain in 1492, arrived in Cochin in 1511, while the Ashkenazi and Rothenburg families came from Germany also during the 16th century. The Rahabi and Haligua families arrived from Aleppo in about 1680.
He relates that the white community was outnumbered by about 300 black families. He writes:
“In this street … live about 60 families of black Jews. The blacks and the whites have two separate shuls as the whites will not mix with the blacks, though they keep all the laws of Moshe and Yisrael like the whites….
Most make a difficult living through agriculture and a few in trade and crafts.”
He discusses the claim of the blacks that they were “the most pedigreed Jews descended from the first who came or were brought from the exile of Yerushalayim and EretzYisrael to live in this land … they were first. The whites came after them from Europe and do not have the samepedigree (yichus) as they do.”
The whites, he says, regard as proof of the blacks’ lack of pedigree the fact that “Among the black Jews there is no Kohen or Levi. They hire indigent Kohanim who come from Yemen and Persia to daven and bless them with Birkas Kohanim. (Recently, however, they intermarried with two Kohanim from Yemen and they now have Kohanim).”
Even Sapir
The first volume of Even Sapir was published by the Mekitzei Nirdamim society and contains haskamos from Rav Meir Leibush Malbim, Rav Zalman Ulman, Rav Shlomo Munk and Rav Shneur Zaks; the latter praises Rabbi Sapir as a “muflag baTorah.”
The second volume of Even Sapir was published by Yechiel Brill, son-in-law of Rabbi Sapir and editor of the periodical Halevanon in Paris. The book is dedicated to Mordechai Strashun and his wife, Chana, who hosted and took care of Rabbi Sapir for 75 days in 1872 in Vilna when he had a broken leg.
The second volume includes an appendix giving extracts from some of the manuscripts Rabbi Yaakov had acquired on his travels. To support himself, he sold some of his manuscripts, one to the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon IV of France. The empress deposited the manuscript in the Hebrew section of the Bibliotheque
Nationale in Paris. Another manuscript he sold to BaronNaftali Herz (Horace) Gunzburg of St. Petersburg.*
Part of a third volume of Rabbi Sapir’s writings was published only in 1970, 85 years after Rabbi Sapir’s passing, together with volumes one and two.
Rabbi Sapir made a two-year trip to France, Germany and Russia from 1865 to 1867, on behalf of Yerushalayim’s Bikur Cholim Hospital. Many of his impressions were published in Halevanon. He traveled to Russia once more
in 1873, again on behalf of the hospital.Rabbi Sapir Fights a False Messiah
In 1868 Rabbi Sapir published Igeret Teiman Hashenit (Vilna) on the appearance of Mori (Master) Shooker Kohail II, also known as Yehudah ben Shalom, a moshiach sheker.
Thanks to its publication, endorsed by many Rabbis in Yerushalayim, the stature of the false messiah deteriorated, as did his cash flow. Forced to borrow money from Arabs, he defaulted on his loan and was imprisoned. After his release, he was unableto regain his former stature and passed away in poverty in 1878.
The termination of the career of Yehuda Ben Shalom as Moshiach was attributed to Rabbi Yaakov Sapir.
The Sefer Torah of Ezra Hasofer
Rabbi Yaakov Sapir was the fi rst Jewish researcher to recognize the significance of the Cairo Geniza and the first to publicize the existence of the Midrash Hagadol. Sapir relates details about his visit to Egypt in 1864 in Even Sapir, vol. 2, p. 21. When he reached Fustat, in old Cairo, he was told that the Jews there took great pride in
the fact that in the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue there existed many items of sheimos stored there, in addition to the sefer Torah of Ezra Hasofer.
Very excited and interested to see these treasures,
Rabbi Sapir wanted to climb up to the attic. He writes in his travelogue that he was curious to know, if it were true that the sefer Torah Ezra wrote was indeed found in the synagogue, why hadn’t the Rambam used it as a reference for his sefer Torah, since he had lived near and davened in this very shul in Fustat? Interestingly, there is no mention of the Rambam being familiar with this sefer Torah.
Rabbi Sapir wondered if the Rambam had been discouraged from going up to the attic, as he himself was now being talked out of doing so. He had been warned by members of the community not to enter the attic because, according to their tradition, whoever did so would be bitten by a snake. The shamash
who lived in the courtyard of the synagogue tried to dissuade him, warning that he would bear no responsibility if Rabbi Yaakov did not live out the year. Rabbi Sapir took full responsibility for his actions, stating that he had been to the mikveh earlier that day and was completely tahor.
When Rabbi Sapir ascended the ladder and entered the attic, he reports, he was greeted by very thick piles of dust. Among the many items of sheimos relegated to the attic he found a wooden case sheathed in copper in which was a sefer Torah written in Ksav Ashuri. Many of the letters of the sefer Torah were erased and
the klaf was so fragile that when it was merely touched it would crumble into many pieces.**
Bringing Attention to
Falashan Jewry
Professor Yaakov Yosef Rivlin points out in his article entitled
“Rabbi Yaakov Sapir” in the Hebrew journal Moznayim (Tel Aviv, 1940), vol. 2, p. 389, that Rabbi Yaakov Sapir was the first to bring attention to the existence
of the Falashan Jews in Ethiopia. Rabbi Yaakov Sapir had met two Falashan Jews in Yerushalayim and wrote about them in the Levanon newspaper, which was then picked up by a German Jewish publication. As a result Rabbi Azriel
Hildesheimer came to their aid.According to Professor Rivlin, Rabbi Sapir was
probably the first one to bring to the public’s attention the poetry of Rabbi Shalom Shabazi of seventeenth-century Yemen. Rabbi Sapir wrote an introduction and published 30 of his poems, which he had found in manuscript form.
It is interesting to note that in the Nachlaot section in Yerushalayim today, there are two streets near each other named Rechov Shabazzi and Rechov Ibn Sapir.
Rabbi Sapir did much research and wrote about Yanover esrogim from Calabria in Italy, shipped through the port of Genova, from which they derived their name.
In an article he contributed to the August 10, 1877 issue of Halevanon, he discusses the halachos of the esrog’s pitom. In his description of his visit to Aden, Yemen, in 1866, in the second volume of his travelogue, he wrote that on the
day after Yom Kippur, large sacks of esrogim were brought to the synagogue there, and the majority of them did not have a pitom.
Toward the end of his life, Rabbi Yaakov Sapir spent his days at the Churva Synagogue in Yerushalayim in the company of his friends, one of whom was Harav Shmuel Salant, the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the city. He passed
away at the age of 63 on 10 Tammuz 5645/1885. His wife, Feiga, passed away three years after him. They are both buried on Har Hazeisim.
*See article on Baron Gunzburg by this writer in April 26, 2017 issue of Inyan.
**See Maamarei Tovia by Rabbi Tovia Preschel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook,
2018) vol. 3. In a chapter entitled “Sefer Torah Bashevi,” Rabbi Preschel (this
writer’s father) discusses at greater length the sefer Torah of Ezra Hasofer. “Sefer
Torah Bashevi” is reprinted from the Hebrew Hamodia, 22 Tammuz 1954.
29 Shvat 5778 Inyan Magazine of HaModia