Louis: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
Object 1. Letter from Louis Loewe's mother, Gittel Ha-Levi
Zülz, undated, circa 1830
Description:
A manuscript letter in German written in Hebrew characters, spelled phonetically and unpunctuated, with occasional solecisms by way of incorrect inflection. The exhibited letter is the first in a collection of over twenty that are stored in an album format bound in a way consistent with other items from the library of Louis Loewe; at the foot of its spine one finds the initials "LL". The spine is labelled "Theueres Andeken von meiner seligen Mutter" (Treasured Memory of my Late Mother). Raphael Loewe writes that the album was given to him by Mr Michael May, who found it when clearing the library of the late Mr Josef Fraenkel, journalist and Zionist writer.
The exhibited letter was written by Louis' mother, Gittel, widow of Rabbi Mordechai Ha-Levi, addressed to "dearly beloved son Lazer, my own life". In the letter, Gittel Ha-Levi expresses her anxiety at Louis' first independent steps in Berlin as a student. She says: "you always intended to devote yourself to God's service ... and so, dear boy, God has helped you, as well as have those good friends who ... keep a loving watch over you."
Beneath, downloadable PDF files containing preliminary notes, transcript, transliteration, and tentative translation of the first letter in Raphael Loewe's album. Raphael undertook the task of translating the letters in early 1991, and sent out the first lot of translations to interested family members in November 1991.
Credits: Leopold Muller Memorial Library, Raphael Loewe Archive, shelfmark: ALouis 2, 13
