Mareh Mussar - Der Tzucht Shpiegel.

GINZBURG, ZELIGMAN ULMA.

Frankfurt a/Main

1680

Manuscript family record (1713-26) at beginning and end. Text in Hebrew and Judeo-German in waybertaytsch type.

Vinograd Frankfurt a/Main 47; Mehlman 1394a; Cat. Bod. 7172, 5; Zedner p. 691.

A collection of alphabetically arranged idioms and proverbs from the Talmud and other writings, along with Yiddish translation - or rather paraphrase – often in rhyme. Targeted for women, so that they have appropriate reading material for the the quiet hours of the Sabbath. Not all sayings are sourced and many seem to be rather homespun. For example under the letter “Kaf” we find: “As a wolf can live with a dog, so can a bride live with her mother-in-law.” The Yiddish translation gives a 16-line exposition upon this universal concept. This copy contains more leaves than called for by Mehlman and Vinograd. Although the title states Frankfurt, 1680 the colophon is dated 1678 by a typesetter “from Cracow presently in Prague.” Zedner’s Prague 1678 copy lacks the title page while Ben Yaakov lists this Frankfurt addition with a question mark. Steinschneider, however notes this anomaly in the Bodleian copy as well. Last page with detailed manuscript inscription (dated 1719) of grandson’s anger at communal leaders for refusing to allow him to bury his grandmother in her rightful burial-plot alongside her late husband – without the payment of, what the writer (Moshe ben R. David Ozer of Nieder-Weisel) regards as, extortion.