(Goldschmidt, Lazarus). Baraitha DeMa’ase Bereishith.

(PARODY).

Joseph Fisher

Argentorati (i.e. Cracow)

1894

Friedberg, “Beth” 1461.

A supposed Midrash with Kabbalistic undertones concerning the story of the Creation, translated from the Syriac, and ascribed to one “Arzelai bar Bargelai.” As Goldschmidt later admitted, the work was his own parody and he published it as a practical joke on the scholarly world. Indeed the name of the supposed author is an anagram of Goldschmidt’s own Hebrew name, Eliezer ben Gabriel. Scholars had earlier surmised that this “Midrash” was an Aramaic translation of the Ethiopic “Hexaemeron” of pseudo-Epiphanias. When Dr. Elimelech Rimalt (who wrote a thesis on the work) inquired of Goldschmidt as to the whereabouts of the original manuscript, Goldschmidt admitted that it did not exist in any place other than his own brain. See E. S. Rimalt, Ma’aseh Na’aruth shel R. Eliezer Goldschmidt (Lazarus Goldschmidt’s Hoax) in: Aresheth Vol. I pp. 484-5. See also JE Vol. VI p. 26 and EJ Vol. VII col. 730. Lazarus Goldschmidt, a noted, though querulous scholar, was adroit amidst a vast expanse of Semitic studies. His monumental achievement was his Talmud translation in German. Following the rise of Nazism, he found refuge in England where he died in 1950.