TREASURES FROM THE RABBI’S LIBRARY – SEASON 2, EPISODE 1

Over many years Rabbi Dunner has collected innumerable oddities and rarities spanning every era of Jewish history and literary activity. In his series “Treasures from the Rabbi’s Library”, Rabbi Dunner reveals some of the forgotten pieces of Jewish literary history that he has in his vast library, revealing the stories behind them, and the reasons for his interest in them.

In this episode, Rabbi Dunner shares the mysterious story of an obscure scion of the Soloveitchik dynasty, whose gushing ecumenical works found their way into missionary literature.

Rabbi Dunner also reveals the literary trail charting a scandalous polemic between Great Britain’s illustrious nineteenth-century Chief Rabbi, Solomon Hirschell, and his nemesis, Solomon (Yomtov) Bennett, a long-forgotten Hebrew scholar and artistic engraver. Remarkably, Bennett’s caustic description of Rav Hirschell’s rabbinic career has become the basis of the Chief Rabbi’s meager historical footprint.

THIS EPISODE IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MOSHE LEIB WEISER (1942 – 2020)