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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

marriage contract (ketubah); though this valuation is not made judicially, but by agreement of parties (see

Dowkt).

Appraisement Approbation

Hayyim ben Jehiel Raphael ha-Kohen, and Nethanel ben Levi of Jerusalem. Leon's haskamah is as follows:

'

J-

sr.

L.

APPROBATION

N. D.

-,

RECOMMENDATION

or

Hebrew fiMDn, derived from the Aramaic D3D, "to determine," "to agree"): Primarily, a favorable opinion given by rabbis or scholars as recommendation for a book composed wholly or partly in the Hebrew language. The Approbation is not of Jewish origin any more than the censorship. Blau correctly remarks: "Neither the Bible nor the Talmud nor the medieval Jewish literature knows of approbations. No prophet ever asked for the consent of any authority to his promulgations, nor any doctor of the Talmud to his opinion, nor any philosopher to his system. Even in the Middle Ages, when the Jewish religion, influenced by its surroundings, assumed more than ever the character of an authoritative religion, it did not, as far as I know, ever occur that any author had the excellence of his halakic work approved by a recognized authority. Every literary production had to find the recognition which it merited by its own intrinsic worth. There was no previous approbation, just as little as there was no previous censure" ("Jew. Quart. Rev.," 1897, p. 175). It was the Christian clergy, anxious concerning the influence which might be exerted by certain thoughts and ideas over the multitude, (in

'

'

who called both Approbation and

Of Christian Origin.

censure into existence. Examples are to be found as early as the fourth century of certain books designated by the Church as being forbidden to the

faithful for perusal.

The invention of printing materially helped the spread of bad books as well as of good ones, and therefore caused a still closer scrutiny by the Catholic Church of all publications. Alexander VI. (1501) decreed that a license for theological books appearing in any diocese in Germany must be secured from the respective bishop and in 1515, at the fifth Lateran Synod, Leo X. extended the same rule to all Catholic countries with the threat of heavy penalties for non-compliance. But even these early papal bulls had been preceded by regulations concerning publications in Cologne, Mayence, and other German cities, also in Spain and in Venice. In 1480 a " Nosce te ipsum " with four approbations was published in Venice, and a book, with an Approbation by the patriarch of Venice, at Heidelberg (Reusch, "Der Index der Verbotenen Bilcher," i. 56, Bonn, 1883-85). It is about this time that Jewish approbations (liaskamof) first appeared.

They

are of three classes, embodying dation (2) Privilege (3) License.

(1)

(1)

Commen-



Commendation: Commendatory haskamot

approbations serving merely to dework, a purpose frequently attained by ordinary eulogies. In them it was sought to direct the attention of Jewish readers to the book. Of this kind are the haskamot to Jacob Landau's "Agur"(ed. Naples, 1487-92), by JudahMesser Leon, Jacob b. David Provenzalo, Ben Zion ben are original

scribe the merits of the

Raphael

tO

nam Nijb app Y-raa rpSxn -niynj -ib>n ns< .irv>N-i njn mi OHjnm Dim miay 'jn yapi -u« -hs>n u « N -ip:n am -nan nsip noN jnun man mm mn« niSjn ?a dj> inni -iidn

vIJ", Isaac ben

Samuel Hayyim, Solomon

tt»ai

ipsa >nc Dnie>in D'PDidi

jm tdd 1

Dunma

ppn DJm nDN examined the work submitted to me by the Reverend Jacob Landau, who has produced, under the title Agur a collection of the laws touching the daily ritual and that of the festivals and all that is permitted or prohibited thereon, to?

xipin mini

.

(" I have

'

'

gether with all matters belonging thereunto. It is a work which 'giveth pleasant words concerning the customs and observances and the decisions upon them by expert scholars: and therefore have I set my signature unto 'these droppings of the honeycomb,' these words of beauty. '

"Judah, surnamed Messir Leon.")

(De Rossi,

"

Annales Hebneo-Typographici," § xv. 147; Steinschneider, in Ersch and Gruber, "Allg. Encyklopadie," xxviii. 31, note .41; idem, "Cat. Bodl." No. 5564; Wiener, " Friedlandiana, " pp. 142, 143. ) Rosenthal's statement in " Yodea' Sefer, No. 1249, that the haskamah in "Sefer ha-Mekah weha-Mimkar," is the first Approbation, as well as the suppositions of Perles, "Beitrage zur Gesch. der Hebr. und Aram. Studien," p. 202, note 1, and Kaufmann, in "Jew. Quart. Rev." x. 383, "that Elijah Levita's 'Bahur,' the first edition of which appeared at Rome in 1518, contained the first approbation to be found in Jewish books, " is therefore shown to be erroneous. These approbations very soon attained considerable importance in the internal relations of the Jews for they not only served to lay stress upon the excellencies of the works to which they referred, but were also the only protection against piracy which the Jewish printers of that age possessed. They thus came to be, in the second place, a species

of privilege.

Of this class is the haskamah in (2) Privilege Elijah Levita's "Bahur," ed. Rome, 1518, which " It commences with an Perles (I.e.) has reprinted. appreciation of the value of these books, dwells on the expense incurred in the printing, and then threatens with excommunication any one who should dare to reprint them within the next ten years. " Prom this time the threat of excommunication became a standing formula in the haskamot furnished by reputable rabbis to literary productions. They strove to secure to the author or publisher all his rights in the book, under penalty of either the " greater " or " lesser " excommunication, for a term of five, ten, or fifteen years. Approbations of this class have (3) License their origin in the censorship. The outbreaks of persecution that arose in Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century, and were directed against the Talmud and other Jewish books, necessitated a censorship, which occupied itself not only with manuscripts and books about to be printed for the first time, but also with books which had already been printed and published. It was in the interest of the



Jews themselves

to

remove

all

such anti-Christian

expressions as might fan into flame the continuously glowing ashes of bigotry. Pope Julius III. decreed (Aug. 12, 1553), at the suggestion of the inquisitorgeneral, the confiscation and burning of all copies of