A Jewish Wine Merchant in the 18th Century Lviv
Gershon David Hundert
McGill University in Montreal, Canada.June 11, 2013
Center for Urban History, Lviv
Based on newly discovered material, the lecture presented some aspects of Dov Ber Birkenthal's reactions to the events of his time. Birkenthal, born in Bolekhiv, spent most of his life in Lviv as a wine merchant. Some of his writings have been known for a long time, but new material has come to light in the past year. Birkenthal, who had learned Polish, German, a little Latin and some French, often used his knowledge of languages in the service of the Jewish community, most famously as the translator to Polish of Rabbi Hayyim Rapoport’s responses in 1759 to the charges of the Frankists that Jews used Christian blood in their rituals.
Gershon David Hundert
is Professor of History and Leanor Segal Professor of Jewish Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of numerous studies on the history of Jews in the Polish Commonwealth including Essential Papers on Hasidism; The Jews in a Polish Private Town; and Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century. He served as Editor in Chief of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.
Credits
Сover Image: Rabbi Mayer Hirsch at the winches with kosher wine (Stany Zjednoczone,1930s)