X OBITUARY NOTICES. 



MORRIS JASTROW, JR. 



{Read, December 2, 192 1.) 



The life of Professor Morris Jastrow was that of a highly distin- 

 guished Semitic scholar, who was successfully a teacher, investigator, 

 decipherer, writer, editor, and publicist. His life was peculiarly con- 

 secrated to a search for knowledge and the promulgation of the 

 truths that he had ascertained. 



In the preparation for the work of his life he had in his youth the 

 advantage of a favorable environment. His father, Rabbi Marcus 

 Jastrow, was in charge of a German congregation in Warsaw, when 

 on August 13, 1 86 1, Morris first saw the light of day. A few years 

 later, after having been subjected to arrest because of his political 

 opinions bearing upon the liberties of the people, his father was 

 obliged to leave the country, and came to Philadelphia, where in 1866 

 he was called to the Congregation Rodef Shalom, which he served 

 for many years and of which he was rabbi emeritus at the time of 

 his death, in 1903. He was a distinguished preacher, a godly man, 

 ■and a profound scholar. The great literary heritage that he left is 

 this Talmudic Dictionary, a monument of untiring industry and wide 

 scholarship. 



After Morris Jastrow had graduated from the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, in 1881, he studied at Breslau under Frankel, Graetz, and 

 Rosin ; at Leipzig under Fleischer and Franz and Frederick Delitzsch ; 

 at Strassburg under Noeldeke; and in Paris under Renan, Oppert, 

 Derenbourgs, and Halevy. In 1884 he received his Ph.D. at Leipzig, 

 writing his dissertation on the unpublished grammatical works of a 

 Jewish Arabic Grammarian. In 1914 his alma mater honored him 

 by conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. 



Jastrow had studied for the ministry, and for a short time had 

 been his father's assistant; but preferring scholastic work to being 

 an exponent of the Jewish faith, he became Lecturer in Semitics at 

 the University of Pennsylvania in 1887; and in 1891 he became 

 Professor of Semitic Languages and Literature. In 1888 he became 

 Assistant Librarian of the University, and a decade later Librarian, 

 which office he held until 1919, making in all thirty-one years of 



