By Rabbi Yosie Levine
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
2024
296 pages
Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein
Since the 2024 pogrom in Amsterdam cast a grim shadow over the Dutch city’s reputation, this book serves as a poignant reminder of a bygone era when Amsterdam stood as a beacon of religious tolerance. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this city was a sanctuary for Jews from across Europe and the Ottoman Empire, boasting vibrant Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities. Descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, Ashkenazic Jews escaping the horrors of the Chmielnicki massacres that started in 1648, and others who had run into trouble in their homelands for various reasons all found a safe haven in Amsterdam. It was within this milieu that Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi rose to prominence.
Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi (1658–1718) was a rosh yeshivah and (briefly) the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Amsterdam, and his literary legacy has been cemented by his responsa Chacham Tzvi. In Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate, author Rabbi Yosie Levine offers a meticulously researched and highly engaging intellectual biography of Rabbi Ashkenazi, revealing him to be one of the most fascinating figures of early modern Jewish history. Rabbi Levine adeptly situates Rabbi Ashkenazi’s life and works within the broader context of Jewish social, intellectual and rabbinic history.
Rabbi Ashkenazi was raised by an Ashkenazi family living in Ottoman-occupied Old Buda (which later became part of Budapest). His surname was actually Zak (which, the author tells us in the last chapter, is actually an acronym for the Hebrew phrase zera kodesh, “[of] holy seed”). Rabbi Ashkenazi spent much of his early life immersed in Sephardic rabbinic centers elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire (such as Salonica and Constantinople), experiences that informed his unique position at the crossroads of Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions. In fact, despite his Ashkenazic heritage, Rabbi Ashkenazi was often referred to with the traditional Sephardic honorific “Chacham,” rather than the more Ashkenazic title “HaRav.” Rabbi Levine unpacks this fascinating aspect of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s dual identity, including the enigmatic samech-tet acronym that Rabbi Ashkenazi appended to his signature (which is traditionally interpreted as Sephardi tahor, “pure Sephardi”).
The book excels in its exploration of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s tumultuous tenure as chief rabbi of Amsterdam, where his unyielding stance against Sabbateanism, intermarriage and the encroachments of lay leadership on rabbinic authority placed him at odds with powerful factions within the city. In that context, Rabbi Ashkenazi was not afraid to stand up to the emerging lay leadership, which was growing in influence and increasingly audacious in flouting rabbinic authority.
The author dedicates a particularly compelling and comprehensive chapter to the infamous Nechemiah Chiyya Chayyun (1655–1730) affair, where Rabbi Ashkenazi’s efforts to ostracize a known Sabbatean heretic and ban his books ultimately led to his forced departure from Amsterdam. Although Rabbi Ashkenazi garnered the support of rabbis outside of Amsterdam, the city’s lay leadership and the Sephardic rabbinic leadership supported Chayyun, which eventually forced Rabbi Ashkenazi to flee Amsterdam for London. These dramatic conflicts are vividly brought to life, illustrating the challenges of maintaining rabbinic authority in a rapidly evolving Jewish Diaspora on the cusp of modernity.
Rabbi Ashkenazi’s efforts to ostracize a known Sabbatean heretic and ban his books ultimately led to his forced departure from Amsterdam.
Rabbi Levine does not limit his study to biography alone. He skillfully weaves Rabbi Ashkenazi’s halachic responsa into the narrative, presenting them as windows into the broader “rabbinic republic of letters.” This network connected Jews from London all the way in the west to White Russia (modern-day Belarus) and Ukraine in the east, crisscrossing through Amsterdam and Hamburg where Rabbi Ashkenazi served, and including the rest of Germany, Italy and even Crete. Rabbi Ashkenazi’s sphere of rabbinic influence spanned the entirety of Ashkenazic Jewry, and he eventually took up a prestigious rabbinic position in Lemberg (modern-day Lviv, Ukraine) not long before his death in 1718.
As a work that focuses on social and intellectual history, it does not delve much into the technical, stated reasons for Rabbi Ashkenazi’s rulings, but instead emphasizes their broader implications for Jewish communal life and authority. The author contextualizes some of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s halachic responsa, including those dealing with questions as diverse as the permissibility of counting a golem in a minyan, the kashrut of a “heartless” chicken,1 and the observance of two days of yom tov by Diaspora Jews visiting the Holy Land.2 In doing so, Rabbi Levine illustrates how the ramifications of these questions and the ways in which Rabbi Ashkenazi framed the legal discussions still have implications for contemporary times.
Recurring issues explored in this book related to the most pressing and contentious debates of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s times continue to resonate in rabbinic discourse today. Rabbi Levine examines the question of when rabbis have the authority to issue halachic rulings on matters that fall outside of their official geographic jurisdiction (especially when those questions were already decided upon by local rabbinic authorities). That question—precipitated by the development of a reliable postal system—not only shaped communal dynamics in Rabbi Ashkenazi’s time but also affected him personally and raised broader questions about the boundaries of rabbinic influence in a rapidly globalizing Jewish world. The book also grapples with the complexities of adjudicating inter-rabbinic disputes, highlighting how disagreements over halachic and ideological matters often became flashpoints for larger communal tensions and political power struggles.
Another key issue discussed is the permissibility of disseminating esoteric Kabbalistic teachings to the broader public. This debate, exacerbated by the invention of the printing press which could mass produce books on an unprecedented scale, is situated at the intersection of theology and pedagogy. Rabbi Levine highlights the absence of Kabbalistic sources in the responsa Chacham Tzvi and contrasts this with Chavot Yair, written by Rabbi Ashkenazi’s contemporary Rabbi Chaim Yair Bacharach, whose openness to such sources is evident in his responsa. (Rabbi Levine’s attempt to portray Chacham Tzvi as a proponent of Mishnah study through his use of sources is less compelling.) Essentially, while Rabbi Ashkenazi himself was a master of Kabbalah, he took the view that knowledge of its secrets was not the province of the masses.
Another question explored by this book is the precise definition of what it meant to be a Sabbatean during a period of heightened fear and division within the Jewish world. Rabbi Levine explores the multifaceted nature of this identity, questioning whether a Sabbatean was defined strictly by participation in antinomian practices, by adherence to messianic or Sabbatean ideologies, by social affiliation with known Sabbateans, or even just by financial support of individuals or causes associated with the heretical movement. Through this nuanced discussion, Rabbi Levine illuminates the far-reaching implications of these definitional struggles for both individuals and communities, as well as for the broader fabric of Jewish life in early modern Europe.
This book’s approach makes it both accessible to general readers and invaluable to scholars. By drawing on a wealth of duly footnoted and referenced sources, especially the writings of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s son, Rabbi Yaakov Emden (sometimes known as Ya’avetz), Rabbi Levine enriches the narrative with scholarly and historical insights. Ultimately, this work—based on Rabbi Levine’s doctoral dissertation in Jewish history at Yeshiva University—is a masterful feat of writing, blending scholarly rigor with readability. It paints a vivid portrait of a towering rabbinic figure and his turbulent times, while drawing connections to enduring challenges in contemporary Jewish communal life. This reviewer sincerely hopes that Rabbi Levine will continue to produce more intellectual biographies of the gedolim of yesteryear in the same style.
Notes
1. Regarding these two responsa, see also Maoz Kahana, A Heartless Chicken: Religion and Science in Early Modern Rabbinic Culture (Bialik Institute, 2021) [Hebrew].
2. For a more in-depth exploration of this responsum, see Rabbi Yosie Levine, “Pilgrims’ Progress? Hakham Zevi and the History of Visitors to Israel Observing One Day of Yom Tov,” in Emet leYa’akov: Facing the Truths of History: Essays in Honor of Jacob J. Schacter, eds. Zev Eleff and Shaul Seidler-Feller (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023), 421-439.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is a freelance scholar, author and lecturer living in Beitar Illit, Israel.