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282 The Jewish Quarterly Review.
NOTES AND DISCUSSION.
Jewish. Lulab and Portal Coins. — The recent Anglo- Jewish Exhi-
bition has yielded good fruit. It has given the impulse to various publi-
cations of great interest for Jewish History. Literature, and Archaeology.
One of these publications contains a valuable contribution to the study
of Jewish Numismatics, written in German by Prof. Graetz, Bedeutung
der jiidischen Miinzen mit dem Feststrauas und dem Portale ; and ren-
dered into English by Mr. H. Montagu, F.L.A. (On the Jewish
" Lulab " and " Portal » Coins.)
It is a strange phenomenon that among the many antiquities un-
earthed in Palestine, and especially in Jerusalem, no Jewish coin is to be
found of the period anterior to the Babylonian exile. "We have no
direct evidence that coins existed at that period, and the terms shekel,
beJta, gerah, agurah, hesitah, etc., indicate, perhaps, weights rather than
current coins ; even the phrase " current with the merchant " (Gen. xxiii.
16) may have reference to the correctness of the shekel as a weight, and
not to the currency of money. The proper Hebrew word for coin,
matbea 1 , so frequently met with in Postbiblical literature, does not occur
even once in the Bible, neither does the word taba in the sense of "im-
pressing,'' "stamping," although the noun, tubbaath, "ring," may derive
its origin from the same root. "We should, however, go too far if we
were to infer from the absence of direct evidence that coins did not
exist at that period. Selling and buying wa9 as necessary in olden times
as in later periods, and the ancient Israelites probably employed some
kind of money in their business transactions.
The impression on Jewish coins was much restricted by the prohibi-
tion : " Thou shalt not make unto thee an image or any likeness of that
which is in heaven above or which is in the earth beneath, or which is in
the waters underneath the earth" (Ex. xx. 20). Whatever may have
been the interpretation that this law practically received, it seems certain
from the specimens of coins still extant that the impression of figures
of living beings was strictly avoided, as these were frequently the object
of divine veneration among the surrounding idolatrous nations. Plants,
fruits, vessels, parts of buildings, are found represented on Jewish coins.
The Hebrew inscriptions were made in ancient Hebrew characters.
Although the coins extant belong to the time of the Second Temple and
the Second Exile, a period in which the square characters introduced by
Ezra were in use among the Jews, the ancient characters were retained
for the inscriptions on coins. Why this was done we cannot say for
certain. It may be that the intention of Ezra, when transcribing the
Law in Babylonian characters, and leaving the ancient characters for
ordinary purposes, was lehabhdil ben kodesh lechol, " to distinguish
between that which is holy and that which is common.'' It is, however,
possible that even at the time of the Maccabees the ancient characters
were better known in the country, especially to the Israelites in the
North, who had not been carried away into exile.
In some cases the inscriptions inform us of the value of the coin, that
it is a shekel Israel, or half a shekel, or a quarter, but in many cases no
value is mentioned, the value being probably known by the size of the
coin. The date is indicated in many of them, but not according to a
fixed era. The first, second, or fourth year of the Liberation of Israel,
Notes and Discussion. 283
or Jerusalem, the name of the ruler is likewise mentioned ; but as there
were several chiefs of the same name a little confusion and doubt as to
the date of the particular coin is inevitable. Thus, the name Simon on
certain coins is interpreted by some as referring to Simon L, the son of
Gamaliel, the Prince {Nasi) ; others refer it to Simon II. ; again others
to Simon bar Gioras, the leader of the Zealots, before the destruction of
the Temple, or to Bar-Kochba, whose first name is said to have been
Simon. The same is the case with the name Elazar, found on some
coins. The name may refer to one of the chiefs of the Zealots in the
first Jewish war against the Romans, or to a Rabbi Elazar bar Modai,
who lived during the second Jewish war against the Romans, in the
reign of Hadrian.
There is also a group of coins called " the Lulab coins," which have
become a subject of controversy, and are examined in the above-named
pamphlet of Prof. Graetz. On the one side of these coins a vessel contain-
ing three plants is represented, with a fruit on the left side of the basket.
The fruit and these three plants have been identified as those named
in Lev. xxiii. 40 : the fruit of the goodly tree, branches of palm trees,
boughs of a thick-leaved tree, and willows of the brook, generally called
the arba minim (the four kinds) or cthrog (citron), lulab (branches of
the palm-tree), hadassim (myrtles), and arabhah (willows). This inter-
pretation is now generally adopted. On the other side of these pieces
the type is that of a portal or colonnade ; four columns with an archi-
trave, and other ornamentations above. It looks like a portal, and it has
been believed to be the entrance to the Temple (though the Temple had
no ornamentation of columns at the entrance), or the representation of
the Mausoleum, which Simon Maccabeus caused to be erected in memory
of the Asmonean family in Modim, or of the Ark of the Covenant. Prof.
Graetz rejects all these views. His own interpretation of the type is
certainly ingenious and most plausible. The plants on the one side
remind us of the Feast of Tabernacles ; is it not likely that the other
side might also represent some characteristic of the same feast, namely,
the Sukkah (tabernacle) ? Equally ingenious and plausible is the learned
Professor's explanation of the semicircle and lines in the midst of the
portal. He identifies them with the ornaments of the Sukkah as
described in the Talmud, consisting of ears of corn, dates, nuts, and
other kinds of fruit. The types on both sides complement each other
in representing the characteristics of the Festival of Tabernacles.
These forms may have been chosen for two reasons ; either the coins
were struck after a victory gained just before this Festival, or an alle-
gorical representation of God's protection (Sukkah, Lev. xxiii. 43), and
Israel's rejoicings (Lulab, ib. 40). Prof. Graetz thinks that the im-
pression on these coins was to commemorate a victory gained by the
Jews during the first war with the Romans, on the 17th Ellul. (See Me-
gilloth Taanith.) In consequence of this victory the Jews were enabled
to go up to Jerusalem in large numbers for the celebration of the Feast
of Tabernacles. It would, however, seem very strange that coins struck
for the purpose of commemorating this event, in which the visit to the
Temple and the worship therein was of the greatest importance, should
contain no reference to the Temple. This omission would rather lead us
to assume that these coins were struck after the destruction of the
Temple, during the war of Bar-cochba. Prof. Graetz attempts to prove
that this was impossible, in a way more ingenious than probable. Accord-
ing to the Mishnah (Sukkah, iii. 8) the rich in Jerusalem bound their
lulab (i.e., together with the myrtle and willow branches) with gimonioth
of gold. These ffimoniofh, he argues, are the very basketshaped orna-
284 The Jewish Quarterly Review.
ments in which the plants are placed on the coins. The argument is
not convincing. For even if this interpretation of the term gimonioth
were correct, there is no reason why the rich of Jerusalem should not
have continued their practice, after the destruction of the Temple, out-
side Jerusalem. But it is not at all likely that gimonioth denotes,
" baskets," as the term " binding " (ogediri) does not well apply to baskets.
Besides, it would have been very awkward to carry lulabim about in
baskets. The rich of Jerusalem more probably ornamented their plants
with gold thread or binding. The baskets on the coins are probably the
receptacles of the luldb when not wanted, and were in use everywhere
and at all times. The question, therefore, as to the date of these coins is,
in spite of the highly interesting pamphlet of the Jewish Historian not
yet decided. Perhaps it is better to leave it an open question, as it may
be the cause of further essays, as interesting and learned as the present
one, from the pen of Prof. G-raetz. M. Feiedlandee.
Isaac Jeshurun-Alvares, of London (died in Vienna 1735). In
the old cemetery of the Jewish Congregation of Vienna very many
lie buried who were lowered into their graves for the second time
when Ludwig August Frankl busied himself with publishing the
epitaphs of the graveyard in his Inschriften. Thanks, however, to the
intelligent piety of the Viennese authorities, the Archives of the Con-
gregation have preserved the MS. in which S. G. Stern entered the
account of the inscriptions which he deciphered. To my no little sur-
prise, I there discovered for the first time the cemetery of those epitaphs
that Frankl had overlooked. For in the hasty endeavour to arrange
chronologically for the press the epitaphs which Stern had deciphered
without regard to sequence, many were omitted ; it was as when a
wanton hand, commissioned with the duty of emptying a vessel full of
precious liquid, carelessly jerks out the contents, reckless how much is
spilt in the process. In this hitherto unknown cemetery, which I pain-
fully enough was able to restore by means of comparison, I also found
the name of the man who deserves a record among the members of the
London Sephardic Congregation of the first quarter of the last century.
The epitaph, numbered by Stern 91, and provided with the super-
scription :
bnnB»a nDnvD nnsK>D pji 1 ? "vyn ymr> onsabs apy> "i rmo
runs as follows : —
paita DntoijK piB>» pmr nn p apr maDn
yah .tw'ona njHDD nx' na»x 3py* by ,nyp ixb> d*mipqi dhbid
pxn bt& nayn iwnb . n»i» mp 1 ? wirb rut* '^xm , sr'iia ypncnbi
rmbwib , nj-n -pm inn mow lmipa , run: ipn 1 ? inctwi , ruinnn
IBM , na» *d my iin "»nra -iioj/?i , rwswn vto nun 1 ? , roip 1 ? rm>np3
P'sb mm "i"K rvc k dv3 napji K>np nacra
rra'X'yn
Here lies
the Sephardi Jacob ben Isaac Jeshurun-Alvares, 1 of London.
Ye mourners and wailers, raise an elegy for Jacob, who went forth from
1 Concerning the martyr Simon Alvares in Coimbra, see Kayserling's
Hittory of the Jews in Portugal, pp. 239 seq, ; for the martyr Isabel Nunes
Alvares, see Sephardim, p. 203.
