The History and Future of the Jastrow Dictionary

"In my judgment, Dr. Jastrow has been the most important single man in the development of Judaism in the United States during the last thirty years. [While] others have been more prominent in the public eye, history finds the secret of influence in those who dominate the minds of the popularizers." -Judge Mayer Sulzberger, May 9th, 1899. Philadelphia, PA

This upcoming holiday of Shemini Atzeres marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow. He died at age 74 after a life of service to the greater Jewish community. The work for which Jastrow is most remembered is his magnum opus, "A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature," which he compiled by hand over twenty five years.

Born on June 5, 1829, in Rogasen, Posen, Marcus Jastrow was thirty-seven-years-old when he was called to Philadelphia's Congregation Rodeph Shalom, where he served as senior rabbi until his retirement in 1892. Dr. Jastrow was a prolific writer and published many literary, historical and religious articles in Jewish newspapers and journals throughout the world. Although Rev. Jastrow read, spoke and wrote in a half a dozen languages, he focused mainly on the language of the rabbinic literature. His most enduring work, and on which his fame rests, is his dictionary. First appearing in installments in pamphlet form (1886) until every letter of the Hebrew alphabet was complete, "A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature" evolved into, and was published as, a two-volume work in 1903.

The Talmud, filled with thousands of pages of text edited in a seemingly non-sensible order, was considered a closed book to the 19th century American student. While there were existing Hebrew, Latin and German dictionaries, they were of no use to this group of scholars. In 1876, when Marcus Jastrow began to compile his dictionary, he intended it to serve as a guide for students navigating the vast Rabbinic literature. Without this sort of aid, Marcus Jastrow wrote in the volume's July 1886 preface, Talmud learning "is beset with unsurmountable difficulties."

A man of encyclopedic memory, Marcus Jastrow spent years studying the entire sea of rabbinic literature translating, explaining and cross referencing nearly every Hebrew and Aramaic root word and then arranged them in a clear and concise manner. Jastrow went through the entire rabbinic literature to figure out which words would comprise the dictionary; only then was he able to start the translation and explanation process of studying each root in all its formulations and ramifications. He left out all scholarly digressions and irrelevant matter that did not shed direct light on the meaning and use of a word in the rabbinic literature. His longtime student David Amram remembered that one of the most distinguishing features of his teacher's personality was his literary conscience, which "made him shudder before using a wrong quotation or false interpretation." To explain each term's range of use, Jastrow provided a listing of some of the places throughout the rabbinic literature where each word can be found.

Jastrow's dictionary also won the praise of his contemporary scholars. One of them, Dr. Solomon Schechter, noted that the dictionary is a "gigantic piece of work," with 1736 pages, "extending over the whole area of rabbinic literature, and stocked with references amounting to hundreds of thousands."

He concluded, "the work is almost superhuman, we can hardly appreciate it properly."

Late in life, upon seeing many of his friends pass away, Marcus Jastrow wondered to those around him, "Do you think I shall be spared to finish my dictionary?" On October 8, 1903, a few hours after Marcus Jastrow examined the last sheets of the dictionary (containing its preface and index), he was stricken with the illness which claimed his life five days later.

As Talmud study grew, not only at the traditional yeshiva, but also in the non-Orthodox seminaries, secular universities and Talmud study groups, the Jastrow dictionary became increasingly helpful to these groups of students. Over the past century, the dictionary has been republished more than a dozen times worldwide by various publishing houses. Most recently, Hendrickson Publishers expressed interest in republishing the dictionary in the original large print format (scheduled for completion in December 2003).

As we mark the 100th anniversary of the passing of Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow, it is appropriate to ask, how many people properly appreciate Jastrow and the work which he gave us? This year marks a modern milestone in Talmudic learning for students of all ages and levels. Just walk into any Beit Medrash (lit. house of study) throughout the world, where Jews from across the religious spectrum gather to learn from the rabbinic literature and you will probably find a well-thumbed copy of the Jastrow dictionary waiting to be consulted.