Morris Jastrow, Jr.

Morris Jastrow, Jr., (August 13, 1861 – June 22, 1921) was a Polish-born American orientalist and librarian associated with the University of Pennsylvania.

Biography

He was born in Warsaw, Poland, and came to Philadelphia in 1866 when his father, Marcus Jastrow, a renowned Talmudic scholar, accepted a position as Rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom. He was educated in the schools of Philadelphia, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1881. His original intention was to become a rabbi. For this purpose, he carried on theological studies at the Jewish Seminary of Breslau in Germany while pursuing the study of Semitic languages at German universities. He traveled to Europe and studied at the University of Leipzig, where he received his Ph.D. in 1884. He then spent another year in the study of Semitic languages at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France and the École des Langues Orientales Levant Vivantes.

On his return to the United States in 1885, he was appointed assistant to his father in Philadelphia, which position he voluntarily resigned after one year. His farewell sermon, entitled "Jews and Judaism" was generally understood to be a personal repudiation of traditional Judaism. He went on to devote himself entirely to linguistic and archaeological studies. He gradually extended his field to include the history of religions. He joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1885 as an instructor of Semitic languages, and became professor of Semitic languages in 1891. In 1888, he became a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania, becoming librarian-in-chief in 1898.

Marcus Jastrow

Marcus Jastrow (June 5, 1829, Rogoźno – October 13, 1903) was a Polish-born American Talmudic scholar, most famously known for his authorship of the popular and comprehensive A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature. He was also a progressive, early reformist rabbi in America.

Jastrow was born in Rogasen in the Grand Duchy of Posen. After receiving rabbinical ordination, Ph.D., and Doctorate of Letters (D.Litt), he became the rabbi of the then Orthodox Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1866, at the age of thirty-seven. In 1886, he began publishing his magnum opus, A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature, in pamphlet form. It was finally completed and published in two-volume form in 1903, and has since become a popular resource for students of Talmud. In the preface to this work, Jastrow sharply criticized those linguistic and etymological scholars who claimed that obscure terms in Talmudic literature are primarily derived from Greek. Jastrow held that Greek influence on Talmudic Aramaic was minimal, and that most obscure terms could be much more simply traced to Hebrew origins. Jastrow was also responsible for most Talmud-related articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia.