Menachem Mendel

As was noted at My Obiter Dicta, Mrs. Erica Jesselson ע”ה passed away this week. Erica Jesselson and her late husband Ludwig were pillars of Jewish philanthropy for decades. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to speak of their incredible influence on American, if not world Judaism, through their support of numerous Jewish charities and institutions. On a personal note, it is through their generosity, and that of others, that the wonderful school exists in which my children learn. Yesterday my son described to me how the principal spoke to the students, telling them a little bit about Mrs. Jesselson. Soon after the hearse passed by the school, the doors were opened, and Psalms were recited. I recommend reading this obituary about her and this one about her husband to get some idea of how much they did in their lives. May her memory be both a blessing and an inspiration for others.

One of the institutions which the Jesselson family has supported is the Yeshiva University Museum. A number of years ago the museum has a wonderful exhibit, “The Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein.” The highlight of the exhibit was a complete copy of the Bomberg Talmud, the first complete printed edition of the Talmud, which had recently been purchased by the Ludwig Jesselson Foundation. Recently a web site of the exhibition came on-line. The web site includes not only images and descriptions of the items that were exhibited, but also the essays included in the exhibition catalogue (warning: Firefox on a Mac cannot view PDF files, use Safari instead).

Posted on March 13th, 2008 under In Memoriam, Talmud • RSS 2.0 feed • You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed