Louis Ginzberg
Encyclopedia
Rabbi
Louis Ginzberg was a Talmud
ist and leading figure in the Conservative Movement
of Judaism
of the twentieth century. He was born on November 28, 1873, in Kovno, Lithuania
; he died on November 11, 1953, in New York City
.
. In his own mind, Ginzberg emulated the Vilna Gaon’s intermingling of ‘academic knowledge’ in Torah studies under the label ‘historical Judaism’. In his book Students, Scholars and Saints, Ginzberg quotes the Vilna Gaon instructing, “Do not regard the views of the Shulchan Aruch
as binding if you think that they are not in agreement with those of the Talmud.”
He writes in his memoirs that he felt saddened that he had grieved his father. Ginzberg recognized that his pious father was disappointed that his son had chosen a more liberal path with regards to Jewish law apposed to following the path of his forefathers. Ginzberg first arrived in America in 1899, unsure where he belonged or what he should pursue. Almost immediately, he accepted a position at Hebrew Union College
and subsequently wrote articles for the Jewish Encyclopedia
. Still, he had not found his niche.
(JTS) in New York City, where he taught until his death. Throughout his life, all of his works were infused with the belief that Judaism and Jewish history could not be understood properly without a firm grasp of Halakhah. Instead of just studying Halakha, Louis Ginzberg wrote responsa
, formal responses to questions of Jewish law.
Many of Ginzberg's Orthodox Jewish peers had deep reservations about his choice to work at JTS. The seminary explicitly encouraged its faculty and students to study rabbinical literature within its social and historical context; this was sometimes known as Wissenschaft, or the "scientific study of Judaism." As a result of this, most Orthodox Jews viewed his works as unacceptable, and virtually none refer to them, much less rely on them, today.
On account of his impressive scholarship in Jewish studies, Ginzberg was one of sixty scholars honored with a doctorate by Harvard University
in celebration of its tercentenary. Ginzberg’s knowledge warranted him the expert to defend Judaism both in national and international affairs. In 1906, he defended the Jewish community against anti-Semitic accusations that Jews ritually slaughtered gentiles. In 1913, Louis Marshall requested that Ginzberg refute a blood libel charge in Kiev based on Jewish sources.
rabbis. During his era, Ginzberg influences almost every rabbi of the Conservative Movement in a personal way. For some, Louis Ginzberg serves as a role model even today. Today’s leading Conservative posek
in Israel, Rabbi David Golinkin
, has written profusely on Louis Ginzberg. Golinkin has recently published a collection of responsa containing 93 questions answered by Ginzberg.
In the opening address, Ginzberg spoke of the need to keep Conservative Jewry under the rubric
of Halakhah. The conception that in religious matters anyone, however ignorant, can judge for himself, is the direct denial of the old Jewish maxim
, ‘The ignorant cannot be pious’ (Avot
2:5)… The majority vote of a Board of Directors of a synagogue is, after all, a negligible quantity when it is in opposition to the vote of historical Judaism with its myriad of Saints and thousands of Sages…The sorting, distributing, selecting, harmonizing and completing can only be done by experienced hands. Ginzberg’s initiative to base halakhic decisions on law committees and not laymen is the method the Conservative movement describes as its present one till this today.
In 1918, at the Sixth Annual Convention, Ginzberg, as the acting president, declared that United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
stood for ‘historical Judaism’ and thus elaborates:
“Now let us understand the exact meaning of the expression historical Judaism…Looking at Judaism from a historical point of view, we become convinced that there is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the content of such a complex phenomenon as Judaism…Accordingly, Torah-less Judaism… would be an entirely new thing and not the continuation of something given…
concerns the use of wine in the Jewish community during the Prohibition era
. The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
, ratified
on January 16, 1920, declared that "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors
within... the United States... for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited." The subsequent Volstead Act
defined "intoxicating liquors" and provided for several exceptions, one of which as for sacramental
use. The Christian Church
was able to successfully regulate the use of ceremonial wine. The clergy could easily monitor the nominal amount of sacramental wine
that each worshipper drank, especially because it was usually drunk only in Church and only on Sundays (for the communion or Eucharist
ceremony).
This was not the case for the Jews. Jews needed a greater quantity of wine per person. Furthermore, the wine was drunk in the privacy of the home on Shabbat
, Jewish holiday
s, weddings
and brit milah
(circumcision ceremonies). This alone would have made the regulation of ceremonial wine complicated. It was not difficult for crooks to rig illegal "wine synagogues" to trick the government to receive their wine which would then be bootlegged.
Orthodox Jewish authorities had little difficulty with the issue, because based on Talmudic sources virtually all agreed that grape juice was an acceptable substitute, http://www.koltorah.org/ravj/15-25_May_We_Use_Grape_Juice_for_the_Arba_Kosot_1.htm, though some questioned whether it was acceptable for the Passover seder
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Judaism/Article.aspx?id=171797. Nonetheless, Reform movement
in 1920 also proclaimed that grape juice
be used instead of wine further to eliminate future complaints. Shortly afterwards, on January 24, 1922, the Conservative movement
publicized the 71-page responsa written by Ginzberg tackling the halakhic aspects of drinking grape juice instead of wine in light of the historical circumstances. Besides Ginzberg’s well-grounded decision to permit grape juice, he includes meta-halakhic reasoning:
"…The decision of the author of Magen Abraham
that the commandment is honored best by the use of old wine is rejected. Even this authority would admit that it is better to pronounce the Kiddush
over new wine than to desecrate the Name
and to disgrace the Jewish people, and we well know the damage caused the Jewish people by the trafficking in sacramental wine."
) and his six-volume (plus a one-volume index) The Legends of the Jews, (1909) which combined hundreds of legends and parable
s from a lifetime of midrash
research.
Legends of the Jews is an original synthesis of a vast amount of aggadah
from all of classical rabbinic literature
, as well as apocryphal, pseudopigraphical and even early Christian literature, with legends ranging from the creation of the world and the fall of Adam, through a huge collection of legends on Moses, and ending with the story of Esther and the Jews in Persia. Ginzberg had an encyclopedic knowledge of all rabbinic literature, and his masterwork included a massive array of aggadot. However he did not create an anthology which showed these aggadot distinctly. Rather, he paraphrased them and rewrote them into one continuous narrative that covered four volumes, followed by two volumes of footnotes that give specific sources. See Jewish folklore and Aggadah
.
Apart from Legends of the Jews, perhaps his best known scholarly work was his Geonica (1909), an account of the Babylonian Geonim
containing lengthy extracts from their responsa, as discovered in the form of fragments in the Cairo Geniza
h. This work was continued by him in the similar collection entitled Ginze Schechter (1929).
Professor Ginzberg wrote 406 articles and several monograph
-length entries for the Jewish Encyclopedia
(Levy 2002), some later collected in his Legend and Lore. He was an important halakhic
authority of the Conservative movement
in North America; for a period of ten years (1917–1927), he was virtually The halakhic authority of this movement. He was also founder and president of the American Academy of Jewish Research.
Many of his halakhic responsa are collected in The Responsa
of Professor Louis Ginzberg, ed. David Golinkin
, NY: JTS, 1996.
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Louis Ginzberg was a Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
ist and leading figure in the Conservative Movement
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
of the twentieth century. He was born on November 28, 1873, in Kovno, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
; he died on November 11, 1953, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Biographical background
Ginzberg was born into a religious family whose piety and erudition was well known. The family traced its lineage back to the legendary Gaon of VilnaVilna Gaon
Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna and simply by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, , was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries...
. In his own mind, Ginzberg emulated the Vilna Gaon’s intermingling of ‘academic knowledge’ in Torah studies under the label ‘historical Judaism’. In his book Students, Scholars and Saints, Ginzberg quotes the Vilna Gaon instructing, “Do not regard the views of the Shulchan Aruch
Shulchan Aruch
The Shulchan Aruch also known as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most authoritative legal code of Judaism. It was authored in Safed, Israel, by Yosef Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later...
as binding if you think that they are not in agreement with those of the Talmud.”
He writes in his memoirs that he felt saddened that he had grieved his father. Ginzberg recognized that his pious father was disappointed that his son had chosen a more liberal path with regards to Jewish law apposed to following the path of his forefathers. Ginzberg first arrived in America in 1899, unsure where he belonged or what he should pursue. Almost immediately, he accepted a position at Hebrew Union College
Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...
and subsequently wrote articles for the Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
. Still, he had not found his niche.
Judaism studied in a historical context
In 1903, he began teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary of AmericaJewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...
(JTS) in New York City, where he taught until his death. Throughout his life, all of his works were infused with the belief that Judaism and Jewish history could not be understood properly without a firm grasp of Halakhah. Instead of just studying Halakha, Louis Ginzberg wrote responsa
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...
, formal responses to questions of Jewish law.
Many of Ginzberg's Orthodox Jewish peers had deep reservations about his choice to work at JTS. The seminary explicitly encouraged its faculty and students to study rabbinical literature within its social and historical context; this was sometimes known as Wissenschaft, or the "scientific study of Judaism." As a result of this, most Orthodox Jews viewed his works as unacceptable, and virtually none refer to them, much less rely on them, today.
On account of his impressive scholarship in Jewish studies, Ginzberg was one of sixty scholars honored with a doctorate by Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in celebration of its tercentenary. Ginzberg’s knowledge warranted him the expert to defend Judaism both in national and international affairs. In 1906, he defended the Jewish community against anti-Semitic accusations that Jews ritually slaughtered gentiles. In 1913, Louis Marshall requested that Ginzberg refute a blood libel charge in Kiev based on Jewish sources.
Legacy at JTS
Ginzberg began teaching Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary from its reorganization in 1902 until his death in 1953. For fifty years he trained two generations of future ConservativeConservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
rabbis. During his era, Ginzberg influences almost every rabbi of the Conservative Movement in a personal way. For some, Louis Ginzberg serves as a role model even today. Today’s leading Conservative posek
Posek
Posek is the term in Jewish law for "decider"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive or in those situations where no halakhic precedent exists....
in Israel, Rabbi David Golinkin
David Golinkin
David Golinkin is a rabbi, author and President and Rector of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel. He is a major halachic authority in the Masorti movement in Israel....
, has written profusely on Louis Ginzberg. Golinkin has recently published a collection of responsa containing 93 questions answered by Ginzberg.
In the opening address, Ginzberg spoke of the need to keep Conservative Jewry under the rubric
Rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text which is traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier...
of Halakhah. The conception that in religious matters anyone, however ignorant, can judge for himself, is the direct denial of the old Jewish maxim
Maxim (philosophy)
A maxim is a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals.- Deontological ethics :...
, ‘The ignorant cannot be pious’ (Avot
Avot
Avot may refer to:* Pirkei Avot, a tractate of the Mishna composed of ethical maxims of the Rabbis of the Mishnaic period* The Patriarchs : Abraham, Isaac and Jacob* Avot, Côte-d'Or, a commune in France...
2:5)… The majority vote of a Board of Directors of a synagogue is, after all, a negligible quantity when it is in opposition to the vote of historical Judaism with its myriad of Saints and thousands of Sages…The sorting, distributing, selecting, harmonizing and completing can only be done by experienced hands. Ginzberg’s initiative to base halakhic decisions on law committees and not laymen is the method the Conservative movement describes as its present one till this today.
In 1918, at the Sixth Annual Convention, Ginzberg, as the acting president, declared that United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is the primary organization of synagogues practicing Conservative Judaism in North America...
stood for ‘historical Judaism’ and thus elaborates:
“Now let us understand the exact meaning of the expression historical Judaism…Looking at Judaism from a historical point of view, we become convinced that there is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the content of such a complex phenomenon as Judaism…Accordingly, Torah-less Judaism… would be an entirely new thing and not the continuation of something given…
Responsa on wine during Prohibition
One of his responsaResponsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...
concerns the use of wine in the Jewish community during the Prohibition era
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
. The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established Prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition...
, ratified
Ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent where the agent lacked authority to legally bind the principal. The term applies to private contract law, international treaties, and constitutionals in federations such as the United States and Canada.- Private law :In contract law, the...
on January 16, 1920, declared that "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
within... the United States... for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited." The subsequent Volstead Act
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...
defined "intoxicating liquors" and provided for several exceptions, one of which as for sacramental
Sacramental
Sacramental may refer to:* Sacramental, as an adjective means of or pertaining to sacraments* Sacramentals, in Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, objects whose supernatural effects, unlike those of a sacrament, depend on the belief of the recipient...
use. The Christian Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
was able to successfully regulate the use of ceremonial wine. The clergy could easily monitor the nominal amount of sacramental wine
Sacramental wine
Sacramental wine, Communion wine or altar wine is wine obtained from grapes and intended for use in celebration of the Eucharist...
that each worshipper drank, especially because it was usually drunk only in Church and only on Sundays (for the communion or Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
ceremony).
This was not the case for the Jews. Jews needed a greater quantity of wine per person. Furthermore, the wine was drunk in the privacy of the home on Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
, Jewish holiday
Jewish holiday
Jewish holidays are days observed by Jews as holy or secular commemorations of important events in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov or chag or ta'anit...
s, weddings
Jewish wedding
A Jewish wedding is a wedding ceremony that follows Jewish law and traditions.While wedding ceremonies vary, common features of a Jewish wedding include a ketuba signed by two witnesses, a wedding canopy , a ring owned by the groom that is given to the bride under the canopy, and the breaking of a...
and brit milah
Brit milah
The brit milah is a Jewish religious circumcision ceremony performed on 8-day old male infants by a mohel. The brit milah is followed by a celebratory meal .-Biblical references:...
(circumcision ceremonies). This alone would have made the regulation of ceremonial wine complicated. It was not difficult for crooks to rig illegal "wine synagogues" to trick the government to receive their wine which would then be bootlegged.
Orthodox Jewish authorities had little difficulty with the issue, because based on Talmudic sources virtually all agreed that grape juice was an acceptable substitute, http://www.koltorah.org/ravj/15-25_May_We_Use_Grape_Juice_for_the_Arba_Kosot_1.htm, though some questioned whether it was acceptable for the Passover seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Judaism/Article.aspx?id=171797. Nonetheless, Reform movement
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
in 1920 also proclaimed that grape juice
Grape juice
Grape juice is obtained from crushing and blending grapes into a liquid. The juice is often sold in stores or fermented and made into wine, brandy, or vinegar. In the wine industry, grape juice that contains 7-23 percent of pulp, skins, stems and seeds is often referred to as "must"...
be used instead of wine further to eliminate future complaints. Shortly afterwards, on January 24, 1922, the Conservative movement
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
publicized the 71-page responsa written by Ginzberg tackling the halakhic aspects of drinking grape juice instead of wine in light of the historical circumstances. Besides Ginzberg’s well-grounded decision to permit grape juice, he includes meta-halakhic reasoning:
"…The decision of the author of Magen Abraham
Avraham Gombiner
Abraham Abele Gombiner , known as the Magen Avraham, born in Gąbin , Poland, was a rabbi, Talmudist and a leading religious authority in the Jewish community of Kalish, Poland during the seventeenth century. His full name is Avraham Avli ben Chaim HaLevi from the town of Gombin...
that the commandment is honored best by the use of old wine is rejected. Even this authority would admit that it is better to pronounce the Kiddush
Kiddush
Kiddush , literally, "sanctification," is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays.-Significance:...
over new wine than to desecrate the Name
Chillul Hashem
Desecration of the Name meaning desecration of the names of God in Judaism, is a term used in Judaism particularly for any act or behavior that casts shame or brings disrepute to belief in God, any aspect of the Torah's teachings, Jewish law, or the Jewish community.-Hebrew Bible:The source for...
and to disgrace the Jewish people, and we well know the damage caused the Jewish people by the trafficking in sacramental wine."
Works
Ginzberg was the author of a number of scholarly Jewish works, including a commentary on Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem TalmudJerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...
) and his six-volume (plus a one-volume index) The Legends of the Jews, (1909) which combined hundreds of legends and parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
s from a lifetime of midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
research.
Legends of the Jews is an original synthesis of a vast amount of aggadah
Aggadah
Aggadah refers to the homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash...
from all of classical rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
, as well as apocryphal, pseudopigraphical and even early Christian literature, with legends ranging from the creation of the world and the fall of Adam, through a huge collection of legends on Moses, and ending with the story of Esther and the Jews in Persia. Ginzberg had an encyclopedic knowledge of all rabbinic literature, and his masterwork included a massive array of aggadot. However he did not create an anthology which showed these aggadot distinctly. Rather, he paraphrased them and rewrote them into one continuous narrative that covered four volumes, followed by two volumes of footnotes that give specific sources. See Jewish folklore and Aggadah
Aggadah
Aggadah refers to the homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash...
.
Apart from Legends of the Jews, perhaps his best known scholarly work was his Geonica (1909), an account of the Babylonian Geonim
Geonim
Geonim were the presidents of the two great Babylonian, Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority...
containing lengthy extracts from their responsa, as discovered in the form of fragments in the Cairo Geniza
Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza is a collection of almost 280,000 Jewish manuscript fragments found in the Genizah or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, presently Old Cairo, Egypt. Some additional fragments were found in the Basatin cemetery east of Old Cairo, and the collection includes a number of...
h. This work was continued by him in the similar collection entitled Ginze Schechter (1929).
Professor Ginzberg wrote 406 articles and several monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
-length entries for the Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
(Levy 2002), some later collected in his Legend and Lore. He was an important halakhic
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
authority of the Conservative movement
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
in North America; for a period of ten years (1917–1927), he was virtually The halakhic authority of this movement. He was also founder and president of the American Academy of Jewish Research.
Many of his halakhic responsa are collected in The Responsa
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...
of Professor Louis Ginzberg, ed. David Golinkin
David Golinkin
David Golinkin is a rabbi, author and President and Rector of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel. He is a major halachic authority in the Masorti movement in Israel....
, NY: JTS, 1996.