MARINE SCENE: One of the most intriguing images in the manuscript is this scene featuring two mythological mermen. Use of mythological figures is not unusual in Jewish art. Many examples are known from mosaic pavements in Beit Alfa and Hammath Tiberias, among others.

MOSES AND AARON: The figures of Moses and Aaron appear on the left and right of the dedication, all crowned with elaborate Rococo-style ornaments of shells, clouds, and cherubs.  Each patriarch can be identified by his attributes: Moses holds the Tablets of the Law and his

Click each  title for a description of the illumination.

 

Louis Lewin (1868-1941) was born in Znin, Posen, but was raised in Frankfurt am Main. He earned a Ph.D. degree at the University of Heidelberg in 1893 for his dissertation on Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, and obtained rabbinic ordination at the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin. While in Berlin he also studied with Moritz Steinschneider, the noted Judaica bibliographer, at the Veitel-Heine Ephraim'sche Lehranstalt. Lewin followed in his mentor Steinschneider’s footsteps and developed a keen interest in collecting books and manuscripts.

The first known Jewish settlement in Auras, Germany (currently Uraz in southwest Poland, 12 miles NW of Breslau) was in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Reports dating it as early as 1657 are apparently inaccurate. In 1682 the city of Breslau informed the Silesian government that the Jews of Auras created competition for the merchants of Breslau, and requested that the government no longer permit Jews to live  in Auras.

The Breslau / Auras Memorbuch was described in the colophon by its scribe, Binyamin Ze’ev (Wolff Jacob) ben Elyakum Getsel Kats of Kempen, as a “kuntres… of selected prayers… for use as necessary…” The manuscript includes lekha dodi, mi-sheberakh prayers, Yizkor prayers, blessings for the haftarot of Yom Kipur and Shalosh Regalim, blessings for the Purim Megilah, and the circumcision ceremony, among others.