Of Sukkahs and Refugees

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

Among the books in the YIVO Library that have been digitized for the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project is Sefer ta’ame sukah (Foundations of the Sukah), printed in Amsterdam in 1652. A sermon on the holiday of Sukkot delivered in Krakow in 1646, it is the earliest published work of Natan Note Hannover, who was at the time an itinerant preacher.

Hannover went on to become best known as the chronicler of the Khmel’nyts’kyi uprising (gzeyres takh vetat), a peasant revolt in Ukraine in 1648-1649. The uprising was a catastrophe for Jews. Thousands were targeted and killed, and Jewish communities were destroyed, leading their inhabitants to flee Ukraine as refugees.

Among them was Hannover. He passed through Germany and Holland, and eventually settled in Italy, where, in 1660, he published Safah berurah, a Hebrew, German, Latin and Italian phrasebook believed to have been intended for use by refugees.

Given Hannover’s biography it is fitting that Sefer ta’ame sukah, his first printed work, was about Sukkot, a holiday dedicated to the Jewish collective memory of displacement and search for refuge. During the eight days of the Sukkot every fall, Jews recreate the huts erected by the Israelites during their flight from Egypt, and eat their meals in them for eight days.

Sefer ta’ame sukah was part of the private collection of Matisyahu Strashun (1817-1885), who amassed one of the most important Jewish libraries in Eastern Europe during the 19th century. His collection included 5,700 rare Hebrew and Yiddish imprints and manuscripts published throughout Europe and the Middle East from the 15th-19th centuries. It was plundered by the Nazis during World War II and its surviving books are now dispersed. As part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project, YIVO and the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania are cataloging and digitizing Strashun Library books from their respective collections.

YIVO wishes you a very happy Sukkot!

Special thanks to Ben Kaplan, YIVO’s Director of Education, for his research assistance.

Roberta Newman is YIVO’s Director of Digital Initiatives.