Thursday, January 13, 2011

A Galician Rabbi, of sorts, 1805.

In a short 1805 review we are told in the Eclectic Review of a travel book by Joseph Rohrer, a Habsburg "enlightened bureaucrat," which contains a plate of "a Jewish rabbi, of Gallicia." So I thought, cool. It would be nice to see a picture of a Galicianer Rov from 1805.

Alas, it turns out that it's actually a picture of a Karaite Chacham, which is still interesting. Apparently this is the Karaite scholar and Chazan Shalom Zachariasiewicz, also known as Shalom Ha-Chelitzi, showing Rohrer the Karaite cemetery in Halicz. Rohrer wrote of him that he was 37 years old, although he appeared as if he was 57, with a bent back. He also noted that his boots were very clean, unlike the boots of "our dirty Jews."


From Bemerkungen auf einer Reise von der türkischen Gränze über die Bukowina durch Ost- und Westgalizien, Schlesien und Mähren nach Wien (Pichler, 1804).

For more see The Karaites of Galicia: an ethnoreligious minority among the Ashkenazim by Mikhail Kizilov.