1-5
Two further, rather esoteric sources deserve to be mentioned as well. Both are cited in an article by David Kaufmann,25 which was dismissed by Rosenthal.26 The first is an obscure letter written in rough Latin and sent on March 7, 1659 by Jean-George Hurter, a publisher in Schaffhausen, to Jean Buxdorf Jr., a professor in Basel and collector of rare Hebrew manuscripts, mentioning that a series of valuable tomes were for sale in Stühlingen by the widow of a learned Jew who had died recently.27 The widow was in dire straits and urgently needed money. Kaufmann inferred (falsely, as it turns out) that these were the books of the “Great Maharam Weil of Stühlingen” and were for sale by his widow.
The second document is a handwritten, Hebrew list of seventeen circumcisions performed for members of an extended family between 1701 and 1704 in the local Jewish communities in and around Stühlingen. Kaufmann’s article contains a transcript of that memo; the original, which appears to be lost, was apparently a single page stuck to the end of some sheet music celebrating the inauguration of a synagogue from the private library of Rabbi Abraham Merzbacher.28 The list indicates place, date, and first names of each child and father. Of the seventeen boys four came from Lengnau, four from Stühlingen, three from Endingen, one each from Tiengen, Wangen, and Donaueschingen. Of the final three, no community is stated. Only one father in the list (#15) exhibits the family name Weil (ווייל), but his place of residence is not reported.
25Kaufmann, “Zur Geschichte der Familie Dreyfuss,” 424.
26Rosenthal, Berthold Rosenthal Collection, reel 13, frames 689–90.
27Johannes Georgius Hurter to Johannes Buxdorf, March 7, 1659, MS G I 63, fol. 130, University Library Basel.
28Merzbacher and Rabbinovicz, “Ohel Avraham.”
