The Rabbi and the Jesuit: On Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz and Father Franciscus Haselbauer Editing the Talmud

The heavily censored Prague edition of tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, published in Prague in 1728, was the product of collaboration between Franciscus Haselbauer, the Jesuit censor of Hebrew books in Bohemia, and Jonathan Eibeschütz, the prodigy of the Prague rabbinate. In contrast to most censored editions of Hebrew books in the early modern period, the Prague Talmud featured extensive rewriting, rather than only expurgating, of the text. Drawing on archival materials, this article analyzes the backdrop of the publication and the changes introduced by the editors, teasing out the theological assumptions underlying the publishing enterprise.