A Jewish Scholar Debunks Fears of Halley’s Comet

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

In 1835, a twenty-five-year-old Jewish scholar living in Bialystok published his second book, Kokhava de-shavita (The Comet). A self-taught mathematician and astronomer, Hayyim Zelig Slonimski sought to debunk popular fears associated with Halley’s Comet, in that year making its once-every-seventy-five-year appearance in the night sky. His other agenda was the promotion of knowledge among Jews at a time when few received any sort of education in secular subjects, such as math and science.

This astronomical diagram from a copy of his Hebrew book, published in Vilna, is from the private library of Mattityahu Strashun, now in the collection of the YIVO Library in New York. It was digitized as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project, a seven-year international project to preserve, digitize, and virtually reunite YIVO's prewar library and archival collections located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal.

Search for books and archival documents in the portal.

As Shmuel Feiner writes in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe,

Słonimski published another book on astronomy, Toldot ha-shamayim (The History of the Heavens; 1838). This text received critical acclaim and served as evidence of his success at popularizing the sciences. He also tried his hand at the applied sciences, and a number of his technological inventions received recognition and awards. He was especially famous for inventing an adding machine in 1844, but was also known for creating a device that allowed four telegrams to be sent at once using just one telegraphic wire, and for a chemical formula to create an iron coating for cooking utensils. Some of his scientific essays were published in European journals in German and Russian. The highlight of Słonimski’s scientific career came with his visit to Berlin in 1858, where he was warmly received and was granted an audience with the king of Prussia.

Read the article about Hayyim Zelig Slonimski.

Slonimsk was not the only Jewish scholar to become fascinated with astronomy in the nineteenth century. A YIVO/Center for Jewish History exhibition, “Jews in Space: Members of the Tribe in Orbit,” presents the story of the Jewish relationship to the solar system from ancient times to the present, and is on view at the Center for Jewish History through June 2018.

Learn more about the exhibition.

Roberta Newman is YIVO’s Director of Digital Initiatives.