Rabbinical tales
This is a large, complicated manuscript written in different hands, on different types of paper between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was probably put together in Iran as edifying reading, or as sermon illustrations for preachers. It contains short tales about the Rabbis in Hebrew, Judeo-Persian and Aramaic, many derived from classic Rabbinic texts, but others of unknown origin.
The manuscript shows how Gaster’s collecting served his scholarship. He used this manuscript as the basis for his collection of Jewish folktales, The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924). He worked on the manuscript at a time when his eyesight was deteriorating, and this probably accounts for numerous miscopyings in the printed text.
Collection of rabbinical tales
Gaster’s stamps with his signature in the margins.
