Strange to Relate
Encyclopedia
Strange to Relate was the name of a weekly syndicated newspaper column written by Rabbi Philip R. Alstat
, that appeared in the Jewish press for almost 40 years, from 1938 through 1976, the year of Alstat's death. It first appeared in The Jewish Youth Journal and The American Examiner.
The column was sometimes referred to as a mixture of journalism, Jewish education and "Ripley's Believe It or Not!
"
Examples of the titles of his columns further reveal the wide-range of his topics:
as a subject in the high schools and colleges of New York City, one would never suspect that there was a time when the sacred tongue was readily accorded a place of honor in American higher education. This early American reverence for Hebraic scholarship was imported by the Puritan
s on the Mayflower
from its European sources, the general cultural renaissance and the Protestant Reformation
. Here in America it was then intensified by the extreme Puritan piety which regarded the Hebrew Scriptures as the direct revelation of God's will.
Consequently, when Harvard
, the oldest of America's colleges, was founded in 1636 for the training of ministers, it was inevitable that Hebrew should play a significant role as a required course of study for the B.A. degree, in the daily scriptural lessons, and in oratorical and declamation contests (For 38 years, 1722–1760, it was taught by Judah Monis
, a baptized Jewish hardware merchant of Cambridge, Mass.) Moreover, at the Commencement Exercises in 1685, both the President of Harvard, Increase Mather
, and his son, Nathanael, delivered their orations in Hebrew.
However, the task of mastering this difficult semitic language
proved so unpopular with the students that in 1825 the faculty was constrained to make the study of Hebrew optional (which innovation was incidentally the beginning of the elective system at Harvard).
In recent years, two Jewish philanthropists, Jacob H. Schiff and Lucius N. Littauer, attempted to revive interest in Hebraism at Harvard by endowing respectively, a Semitic Museum and a chair in Jewish literature and philosophy.
Through the colonial period (1634–1776) the Jews of Maryland were legally (de jure
) not only without any civil rights, but even subject to the penalty of death for merely professing Judaism. Actually (de facto
), however, they were tacitly granted undisturbed domicile and gradually allowed certain undefined rights.
With the adoption of a state constitution in 1776, the official association of the government and the Christian church was ended. The new law abolished the death penalty for professing Judaism and even granted to Jews the right to vote, but virtually denied them the right to hold office. For in the minds of the people, citizenship and church membership were still so closely identified that those elected or appointed to political office were required by law to take an oath ending with the doctrinal affirmation "of belief in the Christian religion."
Beginning with 1797, the Jews of Maryland were naturally persistent in their efforts for the removal of all their civil disabilities
; but the House of Delegates was equally consistent in rejecting their petitions and defeating the bills designed to bring them relief. Thus the struggle continued, with the aid of influential Christians the pre press of the country, till February 26, 1825, when the House of Delegates, by a vote of 26 to 25, finally passed a bill which provided that Jewish citizens taking the oath of office shall substitute for the affirmation of "belief in the Christian religion," another declaration of belief in a future world of rewards and punishments. When this law became effective in 1826, the Jewish emancipation in Maryland was complete. Subsequently, constitutional conventions abolished the religious test altogether.
, was included in the 1995 collection, A Treasury of Jewish Anecdotes:
Philip R. Alstat
Philip Reis Alstat was a well-known American Conservative rabbi, teacher, chaplain, speaker and writer. Born in Kaunas , Lithuania, he came to the United States in 1898, studying at City College of New York , Columbia University , and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , where he received...
, that appeared in the Jewish press for almost 40 years, from 1938 through 1976, the year of Alstat's death. It first appeared in The Jewish Youth Journal and The American Examiner.
The column was sometimes referred to as a mixture of journalism, Jewish education and "Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise, founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims...
"
The column
In the approximately 1500 weekly columns that Alstat wrote, Strange to Relate revealed fascinating and little-known information about Judaism, its history, its people, and their intersection with American and World events. The columns appeared in both English and Yiddish papers, including The American Examiner, and The New York Jewish Week. Quoting poetry, literature, and the latest news stories, ranging from scientific discoveries to international events, he wrote articles about the often surprising and usually unanticipated "Jewish connections" in the news.Content and Titles
The subjects of the column were wide-ranging, dealing with facts about the Bible and its stories, the American and world Jewish communities, and historic events in the secular and Jewish calendars. Some examples include:- the Jewish festival of HanukkahHanukkahHanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...
is recorded in the Catholic Bible's Book of Maccabees1 MaccabeesThe First book of Maccabees is a book written in Hebrew by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, about the latter part of the 2nd century BC. The original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint...
, but not in the Hebrew BibleHebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
; - the ancient Jewish prayer for the New MoonKiddush LevanaKiddush levana is a Jewish ritual in which observant Jews recite a series of prayers shortly after Rosh Chodesh, though it may be done until the moon is full. The ritual is done at night when the moon is shining. The ritual may be performed from three days after the molad; others wait a full seven...
had to be changed after the first lunar moon landing—taking out the phrase, "but we have never touched you"; - after WWII, German money helped print a 17-volume edition of the TalmudTalmudThe 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....
-- when the Survivors' TalmudSurvivors' TalmudThe Survivors' Talmud was an edition of the Talmud published in the U.S. Zone of Allied-occupied Germany on behalf of Holocaust survivors housed in displaced persons camps. It was the first and only known edition of the Talmud to be published by a government body...
(also known as the U.S. Army Talmud, because it was dedicated to the U.S. Army) was published, based on the realization that many Jews in the displaced persons campDisplaced persons campA displaced persons camp or DP camp is a temporary facility for displaced persons coerced into forced migration. The term is mainly used for camps established after World War II in West Germany and in Austria, as well as in the United Kingdom, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the...
s were as hungry for Jewish books as they were for food; - there were scientific theories offered by a Russian about the way an unusual alignment of the planets caused the splitting of the Red Sea;
- Talmudic rabbis, not Benjamin Franklin, invented the lightning rod
- one of the first proposals for the Great Seal of the United StatesGreat Seal of the United StatesThe Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States federal government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself , and more generally for the design impressed upon it...
was the image of the Israelites crossing through the divided waters of the Red Sea, with MosesMosesMoses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
standing at the other end, with his hands raised to the sky.
Examples of the titles of his columns further reveal the wide-range of his topics:
- Jewish Aspects of Moon Exploration
- Jewish Aspects of Benjamin Franklin
- President Lyndon Johnson, Through Jewish Eyes
- Golda Meir Recalls Her Rosh Hashanah in Moscow
- Religious Beginnings of Communism
- Yom Kippur before Rosh Hashanah?
- Columbus's Debt to Jews
- Jewish Kingdoms Outside Palestine
- Hitler's Gift to Jewry
- From the Priesthood to the Rabbinate
- British are Descendants of Ten Tribes, Nazis Say
- Watergate in Israel
- Mark Twain's Dirge: What would Yankee humorist write about the new Zion that has been rebuilt?
Hebrew and Harvard
In view of the difficulties encountered in introducing HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
as a subject in the high schools and colleges of New York City, one would never suspect that there was a time when the sacred tongue was readily accorded a place of honor in American higher education. This early American reverence for Hebraic scholarship was imported by the Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
s on the Mayflower
Mayflower
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...
from its European sources, the general cultural renaissance and the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
. Here in America it was then intensified by the extreme Puritan piety which regarded the Hebrew Scriptures as the direct revelation of God's will.
Consequently, when Harvard
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...
, the oldest of America's colleges, was founded in 1636 for the training of ministers, it was inevitable that Hebrew should play a significant role as a required course of study for the B.A. degree, in the daily scriptural lessons, and in oratorical and declamation contests (For 38 years, 1722–1760, it was taught by Judah Monis
Judah Monis
Judah Monis was North America's first college instructor of the Hebrew language, teaching at Harvard College from 1722 to 1760, and authored the first Hebrew textbook published in North America. Monis was also the first Jew to receive a college degree in the American colonies...
, a baptized Jewish hardware merchant of Cambridge, Mass.) Moreover, at the Commencement Exercises in 1685, both the President of Harvard, Increase Mather
Increase Mather
Increase Mather was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay . He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials...
, and his son, Nathanael, delivered their orations in Hebrew.
However, the task of mastering this difficult semitic language
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
proved so unpopular with the students that in 1825 the faculty was constrained to make the study of Hebrew optional (which innovation was incidentally the beginning of the elective system at Harvard).
In recent years, two Jewish philanthropists, Jacob H. Schiff and Lucius N. Littauer, attempted to revive interest in Hebraism at Harvard by endowing respectively, a Semitic Museum and a chair in Jewish literature and philosophy.
Maryland Once Denied Its Jews Right to Hold Office
Very few people, either Jewish or gentile, know that there was once a state in the Union where Jews were denied complete equality until 1826. That place was the State of Maryland. Though it was one of the thirteen original colonies that raised the flag of revolution against British tyranny, though its representatives were among the signatories to the Declaration of Independence which in 1776 declared that "all men were created equal," yet intolerance and religious bigotry persisted for half a century longer.Through the colonial period (1634–1776) the Jews of Maryland were legally (de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....
) not only without any civil rights, but even subject to the penalty of death for merely professing Judaism. Actually (de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
), however, they were tacitly granted undisturbed domicile and gradually allowed certain undefined rights.
With the adoption of a state constitution in 1776, the official association of the government and the Christian church was ended. The new law abolished the death penalty for professing Judaism and even granted to Jews the right to vote, but virtually denied them the right to hold office. For in the minds of the people, citizenship and church membership were still so closely identified that those elected or appointed to political office were required by law to take an oath ending with the doctrinal affirmation "of belief in the Christian religion."
Beginning with 1797, the Jews of Maryland were naturally persistent in their efforts for the removal of all their civil disabilities
Disabilities (Jewish)
Disabilities were legal restrictions and limitations placed on Jews in the Middle Ages. They included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, restricting Jews to certain cities and towns or in certain parts of towns , and...
; but the House of Delegates was equally consistent in rejecting their petitions and defeating the bills designed to bring them relief. Thus the struggle continued, with the aid of influential Christians the pre press of the country, till February 26, 1825, when the House of Delegates, by a vote of 26 to 25, finally passed a bill which provided that Jewish citizens taking the oath of office shall substitute for the affirmation of "belief in the Christian religion," another declaration of belief in a future world of rewards and punishments. When this law became effective in 1826, the Jewish emancipation in Maryland was complete. Subsequently, constitutional conventions abolished the religious test altogether.
Reprints and citations
His columns were frequently quoted by rabbis throughout the country in sermons and columns. Additionally, in letters to the editor and personal correspondence, readers would write about "their indebtedness to him for their revived interest in Torah and the people of Israel.". The columns were frequently reprinted in the works of others during his lifetime, and long after his death. For example, this story of the 13th century Jewish philosopher, Abraham AbulafiaAbraham Abulafia
Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia , the founder of the school of "Prophetic Kabbalah", was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1240, and died sometime after 1291, in Comino, Maltese archipelago.-Early life and travels:...
, was included in the 1995 collection, A Treasury of Jewish Anecdotes:
In the summer of 1280, Abraham Abulafia went to Rome to convert the Pope to Judaism. He wanted to meet Pope Nicklaus IIIPope Nicholas IIIPope Nicholas III , born Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, Pope from November 25, 1277 to his death in 1280, was a Roman nobleman who had served under eight Popes, been made cardinal-deacon of St...
on the eve of the Jewish New YearRosh HashanahRosh Hashanah , , is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im which occur in the autumn...
and persuade the leader of the world's Roman Catholics to become a Jew. The Pope, then at a summer house, heard of the plan, and ordered that Abulafia be burned at the stake. Abulafia arrived at the gate of the papal residence, but he was not arrested. The Pope had died as a result of an apoplectic stroke during the preceding night. Abulafia was jailed for 28 days and then released.