Personal life edit

He was born as the son of Rabbi Juda in Fulda. In 1625 he married Breunge^[1] or Faierchen^[2] (* before 1610; † August 8, 1688), daughter of Michel and Güttle, who lived in the house "Zur hinter Sichel" in Judengasse in Worms. Juspa and his wife had five children:^[3]

• Elieser Liebermann († after 1696)
• Jacob († 1667)
• Israel Moses Sanwil († 1699)
• Tamar († 1666)
• Mindele († 1723)

Juspa Schammes died in 1678, and was buried at Heiliger Sand, a Jewish Cemetery in Worms.^[4] His gravestone has not been preserved and was probably destroyed in the Second World War.^[5]

Training and work edit

In 1620 he studied in the yeshiva in Fulda with Rabbi Pinchas Levi Hurwitz from Prague.^[6] In 1623 he came to Worms following Elia ben Mosche Loanz, called Baal Shem, to continue his studies with the well-known Kabbalist at the yeshiva there.^[7]

He performed numerous tasks in the Jewish community of Worms. He was schammes^[b] (caretaker) of Worms Synagogue and scribe. In the latter function, he issued official documents, such as divorce letters, and was an official witness in business transactions. He made transcriptions for Rabbi Moses Simson Bacharach (1607-1670), who had been a rabbi in Worms since 1650. In addition, Juspa was probably also active as a Torah scribe and could, if necessary, slaughter animals and perform circumcisions.^[8]

He became known for his writing, that, however, didn't appear in print during his life. He collected customs, habits, music, and stories about the Jewish community of Worms. These records are today a highly valuable primary source on Judaism in Worms during the early modern period.^[9]

• Murals from the Cold Synagogue, Mogilev inspired by Juspa's tales from Maase Nissim, c. 1740s
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His main works are:

• The Sefer Ma'aseh Nisim, a collection of local sagas and legends published by his son Elieser Liebermann after the death of his father when he lived in exile in Amsterdam after the destruction of Worms in the Nine Years' War in 1689.^[10] The book appeared in numerous editions in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[11] The original manuscript is not preserved, so it is unclear whether Juspa wrote the text in Hebrew or Yiddish.^[12] The printed version contains 25 stories, two of which are encores by Elieser Liebermann.
• Minhagbuch, a collection of customs of the Jewish community of Worms. It contains the local liturgical prescriptions, the customs of the annually repeated feasts and the rites of passage in the course of human life. In addition, Juspa recorded current events.^[13] Three different manuscripts are known of the Minhagbuch:

1. David Oppenheimer originally owned a copy. It is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Codex Oxford 909).^[14] This is reproduced as a facsimile at Eidelberg.^[15]
2. Another copy was in the possession of the Amsterdam family Lehren and was sold to A. Epstein after an auction^[16] in 1899.^[17] It was owned by a family in Jerusalem^[18] and is said to have reached the Bodleian in Oxford in the meantime^[19] in the 1980s.^[20]
3. A third copy is owned by the Mainz Jewish Community and is on loan from the Raschi-Haus Museum in Worms.^[21] It was saved because the last rabbi of Worms, Helmut Frank (Jakob bar Israel), was able to take it with him when he emigrated to the USA in 1938.^[22] In 1972 he returned it to the Mainz Jewish Community, the legal successor to the Worms Jewish Community.^[23]

• The Likkutei Yosef, a commentary on Prayer, Grace after Meals, the Passover Haggadah, and Ethics. Only one manuscript exists, today part of the Braginsky Collection in Zurich, Switzerland.^[24] The section pertaining to the Passover Haggadah was printed in 2023 by Achsanya Shel Torah.^[25]
• The Pinkas HaKehila, a directory of notarized business contracts. Authorship of Juspa Schammes is disputed.^[26] Eidelberg stated that entries from the years 1656 to 1659 are authored by Juspa.^[27]

The article was translated from German wiki, see original at de:Juspa Schammes.

Sources edit

• Shlomo Eidelberg: Das Minhagbuch von Juspa Schammes. In: Der Wormsgau. 14 (1982/86), pp. 20–30.
• Eidelberg, Shlomo (1991). R. Juspa, Shammash of Warmaisa (Worms). Jewish Life in 17th Century Worms. Magnes Press. ISBN 9652237620.
• Lucia Raspe: Yuzpa Shammes and the Narrative Tradition of Medieval Worms. In: Karl E. Grözinger (Hrsg.): Jüdische Kultur in den SchUM-Städten: Literatur, Musik, Theater. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 99–118.
• Fritz Reuter: Warmaisa: 1000 Jahre Juden in Worms. 3. Auflage. Eigenverlag, Worms 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-0201-5.
• Fritz Reuter, Ulrike Schäfer: Wundergeschichten aus Warmeisa. Juspa Schammes, seine Ma'asseh nissim und das jüdische Worms im 17. Jahrhundert. Warmaisa, Worms 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-017077-5.
• Nathanael Riemer: Juden und Christen in Juspa Schammes „Mayse Nissim“ und das Selbstverständnis der Wormser jüdischen Gemeinde als aschkenasisches „Jerusalem“ in einer diesseitigen, fragilen Heimat. In: Karl E. Grözinger (Hrsg.): Jüdische Kultur in den SchUM-Städten: Literatur, Musik, Theater. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 119–136.

• Edwards, Kathryn A. (2002). Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Europe. Truman State University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-1931112093.

Maase Nissim digitized:

• Ausgabe Fulda 1766/67 (Yiddish)
• Ausgabe Offenbach 1776/1777 (Yiddish)
• Sämtliche Erzählungen und Sagen des „Maaseh-Nissim“-Buches, in: Samson Rothschild: Aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Israelitischen Gemeinde Worms, 5. Auflage, J. Kaufmann, Frankfurt am Main 1913, p. 31–60 (German)