New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud. English Translation. Original Text Edited, Formulated and Punctuated by Michael L. Rodkinson. Revised and Corrected by The Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise. Volume I [only]: Tract. Sabbath.

(TALMUD)

Philadelphia

1896

The Kaufmann Kohler copy with his autograph marginal notations in Hebrew and English throughout the volume. Photographic frontispiece portraits. Kohler bookplate.

First edition of the first translation of the Talmud into English. Although a pioneering effort, this abridged translation was not well received by many of Rodkinson’s scholarly peers. The present volume contains detailed first hand manuscript evidence of the degree in which Rodkinson’s text was castigated for his scholarly slovenliness. Born in Fürth, Kaufmann Kohler (1843-1926) was a student of two of the towering figures of contemporary German Orthodoxy: Jacob Ettlinger and Samson Raphael Hirsch. However Kohler later adopted a Reform viewpoint and upon emigrating to the United States eventually succeeded his father-in-law, David Einhorn, as rabbi of New York’s Congregation Beth-El. In 1903, Kohler was appointed president of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. See Marvin J. Heller, The First English Edition of the Talmud Revisited. Michael Levi Rodkinson: His Translation of the Talmud and the Ensuing Controversy, in: Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (2013) Chap. 13.