A machzor (prayerbook), printed in Sulzbach in 1794, with a contemporary Hebrew manuscript account bound in of the Jews murdered in a Polish pogrom on the 2nd day of Pesach 1655, together with an additional later Yiddish translation written in pencil. 1/ - ThreadSky

incunabula.bsky.social • 107 days ago

A machzor (prayerbook), printed in Sulzbach in 1794, with a contemporary Hebrew manuscript account bound in of the Jews murdered in a Polish pogrom on the 2nd day of Pesach 1655, together with an additional later Yiddish translation written in pencil. 1/

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incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

The manuscript is undated, but the text has the character of a first-hand account, clearly written by someone who witnessed the pogrom himself, and likely dates from before 1700, thus predating the book itself by more than a century. The Hebrew vowelization was apparently added at a later period. 2/

incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

Written in the form of a lamentation, it describes the pogrom starting on the 2nd day of Pesach in 1655 throughout the cities of Poland. "Rabbi Yitzchak the head of the Beth Din, who was an expert in the Torah, they injured his head, ripped his beard & threw him from the windows into the trash." 3/

incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

"Rabbi Israel who was from the tribe of the Leviites, the enemies placed fire and sulphur on the heart, and his soul exited as he said the verse Shema Yisrael."
"...Rabbi Mordechai, who wrote the Holy Sefer Torah on parchments, and from them the enemies made sandals". 4/

incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

"Fathers and children together were slaughtered next to each other. They slaughtered them and shed their blood, like the blood of rams and oxen.... The pillar of our world, Rabbi Judah, who had been a leader in the region for many years – they severed his head with an axe." 5/

incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

There is debate as to when the pogroms associated with the Khmelnytsky Uprisings ended. The pogroms started in 1648, some historians put their end at 1654, but the pogrom described in this manuscript indicates otherwise. The general consensus today puts the end of these pogroms at 1657. 6/

incunabula.bsky.social•107 days ago

The vowels in this manuscript seem to be written in at a later date, and use a distinctly Polish Yiddish pronunciation. Many words are voweled in a Yiddish distortion of the Hebrew word, such as the word Ashpeh - in modern Hebrew it would be pronounced Ashpah, etc. 7/

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