In this episode of Hebrew Voices #212, Mysteries of India’s Hebrew New Testament: Part 1, Nehemia is joined by scholar Mascha Van Dort to discuss her research on a historical mystery man who was born Jewish and later converted to Christianity, ultimately arriving in India in the 18th century and having a hand in translating the New Testament into Hebrew.

I look forward to reading your comments!

PODCAST VERSION:

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Mascha: Matthew 23.

Nehemia: What?

Mascha: Yeah, that’s the first name, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 23?

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Alright, I need to see that book.

So, you study behavioral science and why people do things.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Do you think he did it for the money, or because he found the classes so convincing that Christianity was true?

Mascha: Christianity and Judaism… he thought it was two neighbors. And they were friendly conversations, and it’s probably how he was brought up in a family, with having one Christian child that had been brought up Jewish in a Jewish family.

Nehemia: Shalom, and welcome to Hebrew Voices. I’m here today with Mascha van Dort. She has a Master’s of Applied Physics from the Technical University of Delft. She’s worked as a researcher for the last 25 years in behavioral sciences, and Prof. Meir Bar Ilan of Bar Ilan University recommended her research on the authorship of the Cochin Hebrew Gospels. He recommended that to me when I interviewed him. And she has a really important article that’s come out. And you could agree with it or disagree with it, but it’s in one of the top journals in the world on Jewish studies… and I’m sure I’m mispronouncing it; the Revue des Études Juives. It’s interesting; in Jewish sources they refer to this, in Hebrew, as the French Journal. And then the Jewish Quarterly Review, they refer to it as the English Journal. In the 19th century, there were two major journals in Jewish study… and then there was the German journal, ZWJ (Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judentums).

So, this is a major thing that goes back, this journal, over 150 years. And for her to have an article in that journal is really an historic thing. So, this is something, guys, you have to pay attention to even if you disagree with it. I’m showing it here on the screen. Her article is called Commissioner, Purpose, Translators, Copyists and Age of the Hebrew New Testament of Cochin, that’s in India, and The Quran of the Library of Congress. And I heard about this, and I’m like, “Okay, this is absolutely fascinating. We have to have this on the program. This is a Hebrew Voices story.”

So, we have this full, complete New Testament, in Hebrew, that was brought to Cambridge University by this Buchanan fellow. I’ve been to Cambridge. I’ve held this in my hands. And now we have a woman who’s discovered, according to her article in REJ, Revue des Études Juives, explaining where it comes from.

Before we get into it, you’re in applied physics and behavioral sciences. How did you get into studying a Hebrew New Testament from India?

Mascha: Well, yeah, okay. So, my name is Mascha van Dort, and I have the same last name as one of the translators of the Hebrew New Testament. And actually, what motivates me in my research is that I am really curious about what motivates people. And I do that for innovations, and there’s the relation to applied physics, what I’m doing today. But I’m also really curious about what drives people through time, and also through cultures. So, it was sort of a personal interest that I followed, but it’s just in line with what I do.

Nehemia: So, is he your ancestor, this van Dort who translated the Gospels of the New Testament?

Mascha: No, he’s not.

Nehemia: He’s not? Okay. Is it a coincidence?

Mascha: No, it’s not a coincidence. We share the same last name. So, what happened in the Netherlands, a lot of people have a surname starting with van, which means from, and then you have a city name. So, you could be named van Delft, and then you came from Delft, the city. And I’m from Dort, which refers to the city of Dordrecht.

Nehemia: So, like the painter, we say in English, van Gogh, but I think you say van Gogh. So, he was from a town called Gogh?

Mascha: Yeah, probably. Although Gogh is a city in Germany and not in Holland. But yeah, probably.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: So, his ancestors probably came from there.

Nehemia: So, as a behavioral scientist, why did he cut off his ear? You don’t have to answer that, it’s fine.

Mascha: Yeah, well, that’s a long story.

Nehemia: Let’s save that for a different discussion. Alright. So, van Dort… Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort, according to your hypothesis here, translated the New Testament, or parts of it, into Hebrew, and he happens to have the same name as you. But you had told me that somebody contacted you to find out if he was your relative. Is that what got you interested?

Mascha: Well, no. Actually, my father… he retired. And a lot of retired, retirees, or however you call it, they do ancestry research.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Mascha: And so basically, in the Netherlands, there are four to five families that have the surname van Dort, and I’m from one of them. And so, what I did is, I was in innovation management, technical. I made a nice, beautiful website for him, before 2000, let’s say. And what happened is that I got a phone call around 2000, actually, from Prof. Bar Ilan, and he asked me, do I know more about Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort? And back in that time, I didn’t know. But I searched in Bing and well, something came up.

So yeah, a couple of years ago there was a book coming out about him, and it sparked my interest again. And it was actually just before COVID. And I started going into it, and I contacted Prof. Meir Bar Ilan again, and also another professor from Copenhagen, that is… and so it got rolling again. I found 300 pages of information, and really a lot of new sources.

Nehemia: You also have a book coming out.

Mascha: Yeah, I have.

Nehemia: Alright, wonderful. So, we’re going to put up a link to that when it comes out, but right now we will have a link to the article.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay. And you told me that they’re going to make the article open access at some point, but right now it looks like you have to pay for it. But hopefully soon it’ll be open access and everyone can read it.

All right, so tell us about this. So, you looked into this Leopold… he has a long name. Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort. I’ll just call him Leopold, Leopold van Dort. And you found out he wasn’t your relative, but he has an interesting story. So, who is he? And how did he come to translate the New Testament, or parts of the New Testament, into Hebrew?

Mascha: Yeah. He was the grandson of the first Jewish person who came to Dordrecht. That’s a city in Holland, and his grandfather came from Poland. And there were just about six records of van Dort when I started out. We knew that he was Jewish, but that he had converted. So, it was really a puzzle to find out how he linked…

Nehemia: He converted to Christianity you mean?

Mascha: Yes, he did.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: And it was really a puzzle to find out where he came from and where he was born, but he was actually born in 1712 in The Hague. And he was a son of a melamed, and…

Nehemia: What?

Mascha: A melamed.

Nehemia: Oh, a melamed, okay. A teacher.

Mascha: Very good, yeah. Yeah, and so he trained as a chazzan, and first he worked in Dordrecht. So, in his ancestral city, The Hague, which was actually kind of a big place back then… It was the city of our court. So, the Prince of Orange, and also the court, because we had a sort of… I wouldn’t say it was a democracy, but it was more than a prince reigning court… We had like a republic, actually, at that time.

Nehemia: Hmm.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: By the way, it’s interesting, you said his grandfather came from Poland. And obviously van Dort is not a Polish name.

Mascha: No.

Nehemia: But Jews in Poland didn’t have names at the time… they didn’t have surnames. They didn’t take the family names until they were forced to by the Russian Empire. The reason they gave them surnames… like my name, Gordon, that was something only that came about like in maybe the 1800’s. And that was because they wanted to tax them. And if I said, “I’m Nehemia Ben Reuven…” “Well, there’s 12 of those. How do we know which one you are? So, to tax you, we need to give you a family name.”

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: It’s interesting. He’s called van Dort, but in Poland, he didn’t have a surname.

Mascha: He was Solomon Levi.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. So, Levi means he’s a Levite, so… that’s not really a surname, but it became one later.

Mascha: Levi is for a son of Judah, really.

Nehemia: Levi means he’s from the tribe of Levi.

Mascha: I wouldn’t say that. He’s a son of Judah.

Nehemia: No, Judah was maybe his father’s name.

Mascha: I wouldn’t be sure. Anyway, Leopold’s name was Joe Kepp Moses van Dort, and he was a son of Moses van Dort and Martha Cohen, so he was a son of a Cohen.

Nehemia: Well, Martha is who? Leopold’s mother?

Mascha: Yeah, it was his mother.

Nehemia: Okay, so his mother’s father was a Cohen, but anyway, it doesn’t matter. Let’s move on.

Mascha: Yeah, right. Okay, where were we?

Nehemia: So, Leopold converted to Christianity. How did that happen? His father was a teacher. How does he end up converting to Christianity?

Mascha: Well, he worked for six years as a chazzan in Dordrecht.

Nehemia: Oh, so chazzan is a cantor. So, he’s the cantor in the synagogue.

Mascha: Yeah, he was a cantor and probably was conducting most of the services, because the rabbi was a prestigious rabbi, he was already kind of old. By the way, he was also related to the rabbi. So, there were two important families in Dordrecht, and he was one of them and the rabbi was the other.

What happened in 1741… it was a really cold year. I mean, a really cold year. So, the average temperature in Celsius was below 12 degrees over the whole year, which is very cold for the Netherlands.

Nehemia: This is 1741, you’re saying?

Mascha: What? Yeah.

Nehemia: 1741?

Mascha: Yeah. And he was a chazzan, and he was probably also making a living by teaching.

Nehemia: You said it was minus 21?

Mascha: No, it was not minus 21.

Nehemia: What was the temperature? I didn’t hear… in Celcius.

Mascha: The average was below 12 degrees.

Nehemia: Oh, 12. Below 12 Celsius.

Mascha: Yeah, Celsius.

Nehemia: Oh, but not minus. Oh, so that’s not cold. It was…

Mascha: It was really… it was a disastrous year, and it was…

Nehemia: It was minus 12 or 12? Sorry.

Mascha: Yeah, the temperature didn’t come above 12 in the summer, and normally we have temperatures until 28. So yeah.

Nehemia: Oh, I see. And so, 12 Celsius is 53.6 Fahrenheit, and you’re saying normally it gets up to 82. Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: I’m from Chicago originally, so that doesn’t seem so horrible to me. But all right, anyway, go ahead.

Mascha: It was horrible. Well, for the Netherlands, it is kind of horrible.

Nehemia: It’s bad for the crops and all those tulips and all that, probably.

Mascha: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure about the tulips in that time, but it definitely was not good for the crops, and also a lot of floods were happening.

Nehemia: Ahhh!

Mascha: And because he probably depended on private teaching as well for his income, he was forced to leave. And then he taught for another four years in the east, more in Germany and east of the Netherlands. And he was married in 1734, and she probably went with him.

But in 1745… he had a younger brother, and that was a foster brother. And the interesting thing about this brother is that this foster brother was born as a Christian son. He was an illegitimate son of a noble family, and he grew up with him. And his younger brother, he was called Beer, or Benjamin, he turned 25, which is the age of adulthood, and he was entitled to an income by his illegitimate father.

Nehemia: So, his brother had a Christian father. Okay, got you.

Mascha: Yeah, and a Christian mother, both. Yeah.

Nehemia: Oh, and a Christian mother… Wait, so how is it his brother? I’m confused.

Mascha: It was a foster brother.

Nehemia: Oh, okay, alright, got you. So, Beer is his adopted brother, or foster brother, that grows up with Leopold.

Mascha: Yeah. And I know it sounds like an incredible fairytale story, but it’s actually the truth.

Nehemia: The world’s complicated, right?

Mascha: Yeah. Actually, it took me about four years to believe it myself, but yeah. So, he was a son of two nobles, of a count and a duchess, actually. And because of the difference in noble rank, they couldn’t marry.

Nehemia: Oh! So, they gave their son to be raised by a Jewish family?

Mascha: Yeah, they did.

Nehemia: Okay, wow. Alright.

Mascha: In the Hague. The sister of the count was living in the Hague. The baby went with his sister.

Nehemia: So, how does this lead Leopold to convert to Christianity, I suppose is now the question.

Mascha: Well, Beer was entitled to a yearly income. And to claim this income, and probably Leopold was the oldest of the younger siblings, he went with him. To be entitled, his father probably said, “You have to reconvert to Christianity.” So, they took classes in Aix-la-Chapelle, in Aachen, that’s on the border of the Netherlands and Germany. Beer returned to Christianity, and Leopold converted with him to Christianity.

Nehemia: Oh.

Mascha: Yes.

Nehemia: So, you study behavioral science and why people do things.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Do you think he did it for the money? Or because he found the classes so convincing that Christianity was true.

Mascha: Well, he wrote about it, about converting.

Nehemia: Oh, so we know why, alright.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: If we believe him. Go ahead, yeah.

Mascha: Yeah, well, those are conversion stories, and back then they always had a drama and a happy ending, much like these conversion stories, the ones, well, actually the movies we have now. So, there are a couple, and of course, it’s not always that there’s a happy ending after conversion. But, well, I think there were two drivers. First of all, after 1740, those four years, those were hard years for everyone. And he probably did a lot of private teaching, and private teaching depended on the salaries of the parents. There was a note going out from Amsterdam, from the rabbis, “Please parents, pay your teachers,” because teachers were notoriously underpaid. So, I think that’s one of the drivers.

And, well, I think it was also kind of a family duty to help the youngest son. So, I think those are the two main drivers. And what you see in his later writings is that he really stuck to Christianity. He also was married to a Christian, and he had a daughter, so reconverting would have made his daughter illegitimate, which he did not want.

Nehemia: We’re talking about… Leopold had a daughter?

Mascha: Yeah. He later had a Christian daughter.

Nehemia: So, he had a Christian daughter? Wait, how did… I don’t understand. His wife was Christian?

Mascha: You marry again, and then you marry a Christian, and then you have a…

Nehemia: Oh, so that’s his second wife. Okay.

Mascha: He had a second wife. My suspicion is… I couldn’t find it… that his first wife died.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. So, he wrote a book. What’s his book called?

Mascha: He actually wrote three books.

Nehemia: Three books? Okay.

Mascha: The first book is called… well, it’s An Explanation of Matthew 23, I think.

Nehemia: What?

Mascha: Yeah, that’s the first name, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 23?

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Alright. I need to see that book.

Mascha: It was of course in German. And he had to write that, because that was an obligatory thing to do for your conversion. You needed to write something.

Nehemia: Really? He had to write an essay in order to convert to Christianity.

Mascha: Yes, there was a whole cycle if you wanted to convert to the Roman Catholic Church.

Nehemia: So, he was Catholic. Okay.

Mascha: Yeah. The Protestant Church was a bit more loose in which you have to…

Nehemia: So, correct me if I’m wrong. I thought the Netherlands… it’s not a Protestant country? Are there also Catholics?

Mascha: Yeah, the Netherlands is Protestant, and Germany is half Protestant, half Catholic.

Nehemia: Oh, so this was in Germany that this duke or whatever was. Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, and also, it’s good context to know that half of Germany was Protestant, because people converted from Catholicism to Protestantism quite sometimes and different, so it was not something unusual, really. From Judaism to Christianity is of course something else, but it was not intriguing.

His second book, and this is really nice to know because that was his most important book, is called The Book of Dawn. And it was a reaction to another… well, it’s a quite well-known mission book to Jews and it was called Light in the Evening, so Light of Dusk. And he wrote a book called A Book of Dawn, and it describes a friendly conversation between two neighbors, one a rabbi and one a converted person. And that’s really what he thought about the two religions. So, about Christianity and Judaism, he thought it was two neighbors and there were friendly conversations. And it’s probably how he was brought up, in a family with one Christian child who was brought up Jewish in a Jewish family.

Nehemia: How interesting. So, my understanding is that he wasn’t hostile towards Judaism or Christianity. Would you say that’s…

Mascha: No.

Nehemia: Okay, that’s really interesting.

Mascha: He was brought up with both, I guess. And for him it wasn’t too far, and it wasn’t unnatural. I mean, if you’re brought up with it from a young… it’s… yeah. I think it’s more fluid.

Nehemia: It’s interesting. So, even today in the 21st century, most Christians know almost nothing about Judaism. And most Jews, frankly, know almost nothing about Christianity. I had some friends in Israel who were Christians, and they were very devout. I would say like evangelical Christians. And they rented an apartment in Israel, and they were speaking to the landlord, and they said, “Do you know what we believe in?” And they’re like, “Yeah, Katolim. You’re Catholics.” And they’re like, “No.” But in their mind, Catholics aren’t even Christians, because from where they come from, they’re American Evangelicals.

So, the average Jew knows almost nothing about Christianity, and the average Christian knows relatively little about Judaism. Even in our age today, it blows my mind. You’ll see these anti-Semitic rants online, where they’re saying, “The Talmud says X, Y, Z.” But most Jews have never read the Talmud, and the Talmud says all kinds of things. There are discussions and debates in it, so that’s somebody’s opinion you’re quoting. And most Jews have never heard that opinion, and if they heard it, they’d be horrified too! So, that’s very interesting. So, he had exposure to both because he had a Christian brother. That’s really interesting.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay. A Christian brother who’s being forced to reconvert back to his religion…

Mascha: He wasn’t forced. He wanted to.

Nehemia: Well, if he wanted the money, he had to do it. So, in a sense…

Mascha: Yeah. So, they both went on an endeavor. They wanted to establish a newspaper printing press. Newspapers in that time were very innovative, and so they had the example of the newspaper, the Gazette de Cologne from Cologne. This newspaper, this was a German newspaper, and it was actually read in The Hague; it had a really important political influence. They set up this endeavor to establish a newspaper, and they didn’t know where yet, because they wanted to establish it in the German town. They knew that there was a peace congress coming up in some German town in the area, and that was their endeavor. They got a privilege so that they could print anything, and they were exempt from censorship…

Nehemia: Wow!

Mascha: …from the emperor. And they got this privilege also through the father of Benjamin, or Beer. So, from his brother…

Nehemia: Okay, well that’s nice to be exempt from censorship.

Mascha: Yeah. It was really essential back then, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay. Alright. So, they set up a newspaper… and what town is this in?

Mascha: Well, basically 1746 in fall, because in 1747 this peace congress was coming up in Aix-la-Chapelle. So, the king of France, the king of England, the prince of Holland, but also Prussia, and the emperor of Austria, a Habsburg… actually the German Empire, they all sent their ambassadors to Aix-la-Chapelle…

Nehemia: “Isle of Chapelle” in English. Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, Aix-la-Chapelle. What do you call it in English?

Nehemia: I think we say Isle of Chapelle.

Mascha: Oh, Isle of Chapelle. That’s interesting, because it’s actually a French translation of Aachen… well, never mind.

Nehemia: Oh, is that Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle? Oh, okay, it’s the same city, alright.

Mascha: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: Alright.

Mascha: Yeah. So, that was their endeavor, and that’s what they were going to do.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: So, his first book he printed on his own printing press in the city center. Well, the newspaper was never a success, so in 1749, they sold the business.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Mascha: And Leopold, well, he was already married. He had a daughter, a Christian daughter, by then, so he started tutoring noble sons…

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: … teaching Hebrew. And he tutored Protestant children, because the Catholic children, they went to the Jesuit gymnasia, and Protestant children, they were schooled at home. And he had quite a good career going on, so he went from teaching lower noble sons to really the upper noble sons, and he did it for quite some years. What he really aspired, Leopold, was to… he would like to get a position at a university, so he did job interviews with several universities. We know that… Leipzig and Jena, but also in Göttingen.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: And, well, his resume says that he taught at some universities, but he for sure did not teach at Leipzig. He studied there; he studied philosophy. And actually, his education was in line with the Jesuit priests, so he really took the curriculum from the Jesuit priests. In some records, he also mentions the Jesuit priests. So, he was really inspired by Jesuit priests, who were the great teachers of that day. So, he really wanted to be a teacher.

Nehemia: Okay. So, he’s a Catholic and he’s inspired by Jesuits. I know some of my audience will say, “Oh, he’s not a Christian, he’s a Catholic,” but whatever, that’s…

Mascha: Oh, well, sure. You’re Christian if you’re Catholic. But never mind.

Nehemia: That’s an American concept; ignore it. Alright.

Mascha: Okay, alright.

Nehemia: So, he’s trying to get this university position. I don’t see how he gets into India though… well, I guess the Dutch East India Company has something to do with it.

Mascha: So, anyway, for his application to the University of Leipzig, he already converted to Protestantism.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Mascha: Yeah, I think it wasn’t too far, anyway, and it is in line with teaching Protestant children. He was actually teaching in the northern half of Germany, so that is Protestant.

Nehemia: So, he converts from Judaism to Catholicism, hangs out with the Jesuits, and now he’s a Protestant. Okay.

Mascha: He didn’t hang out with the Jesuits, by the way. He’s inspired by them.

Nehemia: Well, he is inspired by the Jesuits, okay.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: At least educationally. Which denomination, do we know, of Protestantism?

Mascha: Which denomination?

Nehemia: Was it Lutheran? Or…

Mascha: Yeah. He probably converted in Leipzig to Lutheranism, but there are no records there. I checked, but they didn’t record it, unfortunately.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, so, what I said was, he was teaching higher noble sons, and he actually taught the sons of, I think even a prince of Brunswick, and there he met… I need to check that, I’m sorry.

Nehemia: Well, people can read the article. He met some counts; we can move past that. Guys, go read the article. We’re just giving you a tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more information. This woman worked for… it sounds like decades to produce this information.

Mascha: Yeah. So, he met Count van Imhoff, who was working for the Dutch East India Company…

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: …and he was related to the prince of Brunswick. And he worked in Colombo, actually, in Ceylon.

Nehemia: Which today is Sri Lanka. The capital of Sri Lanka, I think.

Mascha: Yeah. They had multiple provinces, and he oversaw one of the provinces in Ceylon. And he knew that there was something called the Seminary of Colombo, and that they had a position open for a Hebrew professor at the seminary…

Nehemia: Okay, so he can’t get a job in Europe, so he goes to Sri Lanka.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: And help me out here; at the time, the Dutch East India Company ruled Ceylon?

Mascha: Yes, the Dutch ruled Ceylon. Except for an interior bit, yes.

Nehemia: Okay. This is before the British got there, I guess.

Mascha: Yes, of course, before the British got there, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, I’m not sure about Ceylon, but most of the Dutch colonies, except for Indonesia, were taken over by the English around 1795.

Nehemia: Well, I think Goa, wasn’t that… oh, no, wasn’t Goa Portuguese?

Mascha: No, Goa was not. Goa remained Portuguese, but the large part of the south…

Nehemia: So, Goa remained Portuguese until the 1960’s, when India invaded it. That’s crazy. Alright.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: So, we’re in the 1740’s at this point, and he’s going to Ceylon.

Mascha: Yeah, I think it was 1754. So, he got appointed by the Dutch East India Company, and he went to Ceylon, Colombo.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: And what the seminary did… it was not for a mission, just let me get that straight. They were part of how the Dutch governed Ceylon. They governed it through schools. And what the seminary did is it trained the local Tamils, also local Dutch Burghers and others, the Chetties. There were quite a few nationalities, or backgrounds, let me say, in Ceylon. They trained them to be schoolmasters, to be governors. And also, they prepared them to study theology in the Netherlands to become reverends.

So, the ones that were sent out to the Netherlands, and the Dutch East India paid for their study, those were children of all backgrounds. You didn’t have to be a Dutch Burgher to be sent out to the Netherlands. Actually, Tamil children were also sent to the Netherlands for study as reverends.

Nehemia: Really?

Mascha: Yes. The only catch was that they didn’t have enough money to support two students in Holland.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: So, to support the study of theology, they needed a Hebrew professor to train them in Hebrew.

Nehemia: Wow, that’s impressive that they’re studying Hebrew in Ceylon, in Sri Lanka, in the 1750’s. That blows my mind. Wow! Alright.

Mascha: And this will blow your mind a bit more; before the school reform that they did, they did it in Latin as well. So, imagine…

Nehemia: That I kind of expect because they’re Europeans, but that they’re studying Hebrew… But I guess it’s part of theology for them. Okay, it makes sense.

Mascha: Yeah, the Dutch did a school reform in 1758, and then the local language to study was Dutch. So, no more Latin. We got rid of the Latin.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: Anyway, that is not relevant here. What is relevant is that in the first year, he didn’t have a lot of pupils for Hebrew study, and his rector actually knows… So, the Dutch also had trade ports in southern India on the west coast, so that’s present-day Kerala. Back then it was called the Malabar. And they oversaw, or they had most of the pepper trade, and that was a highly profitable business. So, all the pepper trade through the Netherlands, through Europe, went through the Dutch East India Company.

The seminary had been to India for quite some time to fill in the position of the rector there and he knew that there was also a large Jewish population on the west coast of Kerala, especially in Cochin. The Dutch worked in Cochin with a long-standing relation. A lot of the trade went through the Jews. Through one Jew particularly, and that was Ezekiel Rahabi.

Nehemia: So, we’ve heard about him. Guys, go listen to the episode I did with Meir Bar Ilan, or two episodes, and we talked about this Rahabi gentleman. Alright, so he’s a Jewish merchant who is in Cochin. And there’s actually a number of Jewish communities, or there were a number of Jewish communities in India. There were Jews who came from Baghdad a few hundred years earlier. And remember, this is the 1700’s, so it’s already a couple hundred years earlier. There are Jews that, according to what we say at least, they’ve been there for 2,000 years. There’s also Jews who came from Yemen. That’s what I talked about with Meir Bar Ilan, that there are definitely connections with Yemen.

I held in my hand remnants of a Torah scroll from… it says the Malabar coast, right? But it’s Kerala, and it was brought by Reverend Buchanan. And it says on it there, it says, “Brought from the synagogue of the Black Jews.”

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: And what they mean by the Black Jews is that they’re Jews who are probably Yemenite, who have mixed with local Indian… maybe wives or something, and so they’re kind of darker skinned. And that was a Yemenite Torah scroll. I mean, it was written apparently in India, but if you showed me, or any expert, a Torah scroll from India, and that Torah scroll from India, and one from Yemen, you couldn’t tell them apart. So, there’s definitely trade connections. And it makes sense if you’re trading in the Indian Ocean, you need to have representatives in all these major ports, from Hudaydah in Yemen all the way to Kerala.

Mascha: Yeah.

Nehemia: And then even all the way to Kaifeng in China. It’s part of this international Jewish trade network, so to speak.

Mascha: Yeah, so what happened is, first of all, they didn’t have a fixed rabbi, at least the synagogue of Ezekiel Rahabi. They had visiting rabbis from Yemen. So, that was their first place, and most of the women they married also came from Yemen. There had been people coming and going, merchants coming and going from Cochin for all these centuries. Those ports, the people who stayed there, that was not a fixed population, Jewish population. There were people coming and going, merchants…

Nehemia: Oh, and I should mention here Maimonides. I did an episode on the Cairo Genizah, and Maimonides’ brother left from Egypt going to India and he died on a ship. And Maimonides tells the story of that was the saddest thing that ever happened. And remember, Maimonides was a refugee from Muslim fanatics in Spain who tried to force him to convert to Islam. And he ended up going through Morocco, eventually to Egypt. And the saddest thing in his life is that his brother died on the ship to India. And there’s this letter that his brother sent him that, he says he used to hold it and cry over it. It’s a really dramatic story.

So yeah, so you have Jews going back and forth from India, certainly since the 12th century, but probably for 2,000 years.

Mascha: From the 10th century onwards, and that is, well, that’s mostly…

Nehemia: Well, Meir Bar Ilan has done research and shown that. It talks about Solomon sent ships from Eilat to Ophir, and he says that’s a place in India, which… we knew was somewhere in the subcontinent. He says specifically in western India.

Mascha: Yeah. So, the first records which are really found in India are from the 10th century, the first written records.

Nehemia: Are those the copper plates?

Mascha: They’re actually from the 11th century.

Nehemia: Oh, the 11th century, okay. The copper plates, guys, is such an interesting story. We won’t go into that, but… alright. So, he doesn’t have a lot of work in Colombo, in Sri Lanka, and they end up sending him to Kerala, somewhere around there.

Mascha: Well, he says he’s going on a holiday to…

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: But to be sure, his rector had hosted Ezekiel Rahabi at the seminary, because they had a printing press at the seminary and Ezekiel Rahabi was looking for ways to print the liturgy. What do you call it?

Nehemia: The Siddur prayer book. The Jewish prayer book.

Mascha: Yes, the Siddur.

Nehemia: And let me give a quick background for my audience who may not know. Jews all over the world, traditionally, had a very set liturgy. Meaning, you go to a synagogue… And look, in Christianity they have what’s called high church and low church. There is no such thing as low church in Judaism. Every synagogue, whether it’s Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Karaite, all of them have a very set liturgy. And so, if everybody is reciting the same prayers every Sabbath, well, it’s really nice to have a book printed, because if you have to write it out by hand it’s quite painstaking and expensive. And then each community has slight variations, sometimes major, but usually slight variations of what the liturgy is, and so you’re saying he’s looking for a place to print the Indian-Yemenite slash probably tradition. In Yemen, they never had printing presses, even in the 20th century in the Jewish community.

Alright, so he’s looking for a printing press. How interesting. Did he get it printed in the end?

Mascha: Yes, he did. I already told you that Leopold Immanuel Jacob was a previous owner of a printing press.

Nehemia: Oh, that’s right! He had experience with printing!

Mascha: Yeah, that’s why he went to India, to Cochin. He arrived, I think, in January 1756, and the first thing they did was make sure that the prayer books were printed. And he did that because Leopold, he was from The Hague and knew the community leader there. He was actually living a couple of houses away from the community leader. They probably met a lot, and he contacted them. And the community leader was actually the banker, one of the bankers of the Prince of Orange, so he was like a court factor. And through this court factor, he’s called Tobias Boaz. He’s very known as well, but probably for this audience this is the first time… They managed to print the books in Amsterdam.

Nehemia: Oh, they printed it in Amsterdam! Wow, so they’re printing an Indian Jewish Siddur prayer book in Amsterdam. That’s amazing! Okay, that’s quite a story.

Mascha: So, they printed it in Amsterdam, and it was sent on the next boat, again to India. They did it quite fast because there’s a manuscript of the prayer books still remaining.

Nehemia: Where is that manuscript?

Mascha: It’s somewhere in Europe. I think it’s in… I have it in the library, but I didn’t write it down.

Nehemia: It’s fine, we’ll look it up. I’ll put up a link.

Mascha: In the UK. Yeah, one of the big ones. Yeah.

Nehemia: And who wrote that prayer book, or that manuscript? Was that Rahabi?

Mascha: It’s full of Yemenite verses, and it was probably written by a Yemenite. It was owned by someone. The book is from 1723 or something, it was quite old. So, they added an index to it to make it available for printing.

Nehemia: Wow. Very cool. Alright, that’s cool.

Mascha: They sent the manuscript to the Netherlands, and they received prayer books back.

Nehemia: Okay, so that’s amazing. So, you think stuff is going on in India in the 1700’s… They’re in this isolated community, which they kind of are, but not that isolated.

Mascha: No, not at all.

Nehemia: They’re having books printed in Amsterdam! It’s amazing.

Mascha: Yeah, they have books printed in Amsterdam because that was the obvious way. They probably didn’t have Hebrew characters for printing, because they had printing presses. By the way, not in the Dutch part of India, but they had it in Colombo. But instead of getting the characters, it’s much easier to just send it. They had two fleets; they had a spring fleet and an autumn fleet going back and forth.

Nehemia: Now there’s probably flights three times a day, but then there were two fleets a year. Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, it was a fleet of like four or five boats. Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: They went empty to the east and full back, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, wow.

Mascha: And they had a whole trade route as well. So, the main route was to Ceylon… well, actually South Africa, Ceylon, and then Indonesia. And they had a separate fleet going on from Sri Lanka all the way to the west coast of India and then all the way to Yemen.

Nehemia: Really? So, it’s interesting you say they left empty. They didn’t have any manufactured goods to sell in India or Indonesia?

Mascha: Probably they took…

Nehemia: Those wooden shoes or something?

Mascha: No, I don’t think so. Of course, you could find not wood, but iron and stuff like that.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: Yeah. So, there were some trade routes going towards the east.

Nehemia: Okay.

Mascha: Yeah, but most of it came…

Nehemia: They came probably with muskets and swords and stuff, probably.

Mascha: Yeah, yeah. That was a huge advantage if you had them.

Nehemia: Alright.

Mascha: But let me get back to that later. So, what he did, he was actually there to print books. But Ezekiel Rahabi already started in 1741, and that is 15 years earlier.

Nehemia: Wait… now we’re getting to the Hebrew New Testament. Alright guys, pay attention, this is the exciting part!

Mascha: And I want to finish off with a quote by Leopold van Dort. He actually wrote it and he’s a teacher. And he says, “To all who study, make all who are studious to learn, receive blessing, and praise from the Holy Word.”

Nehemia: Amen. Who could disagree with that? Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this. This has been a pleasure, and I’m really excited about learning more about this. This is absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

Mascha: Thank you.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!

Subscribe to "Nehemia Gordon" on your favorite podcast app!
Apple Podcasts | 
Amazon Music
 | TuneIn
Pocket Casts | Podcast Addict | CastBox | iHeartRadio | Podchaser
 | Pandora

If you have found Nehemia Gordon’s teachings to be of value, please consider supporting his efforts through his ministry Makor Hebrew Foundation.

Make a lasting impact through the year by making your donation recurring.

Or support Makor Hebrew Foundation by becoming a member of the Scholar Club.

VERSES MENTIONED
1 Kings 9:26-28; 2 Chronicles 8:17-18

BOOKS MENTIONED
Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort, a learned Jewish-Christian man from Dordrecht
by Mascha van Dort

RELATED EPISODES
Hebrew Voices Episodes
Hebrew Voices #210 – The Lost Book of Gad the Seer: Part 1
Support Team Study – The Cairo Genizah: Part 4

OTHER LINKS
Mascha’s article

Book presentation Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort a learned Jewish Christian man from The Hague

Cambridge Oo.1.32

Cambridge Oo.1.16

Cambridge 1.16.2

Manchester Gaster MS 1616

Cambridge Catalogue

Walton Polyglot

The post Hebrew Voices #212 – Mysteries of India’s Hebrew New Testament: Part 1 appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.