Call Number:

ARC MS 31

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Extent:

8.5 linear feet (7 containers)

Language:

Multiple languages

Date:

1913-1959 (inclusive)

Creator:

Reider, Joseph

Form:

Writings (documents) and Lecture notes

Abstract:

Joseph Reider was born in the province of Volhynia, Russia, in 1886. In his correspondence with Dropsie College president Abraham Neuman, Dr. Reider expressed some uncertainty about his exact date of birth, and referred to his Polish passport for confirmation of the year.

To quote from the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1943), Reider "studied at the University of Gottingen, Germany before coming to the United States in 1904. Here he received his A. B. degree from the College of the City of New York in 1910, and his Ph.D. degree from Dropsie College in 1913. Immediately after being awarded his degree by Dropsie College, Reider was made professor of Biblical philology at the college and was also appointed librarian." He retained both these posts until his retirement in 1959.

He lectured on a variety of topics at Dropsie College. For example, in the 1945-1946 academic year he offered courses in Hebrew Grammar, the Book of Job, and the Aramaic papyri of Assuan and Elephantine. This collection includes some of his notes for each of these courses and others, including Hebrew Bibliography.

Dr. Reider contributed numerous reviews and articles to both Hebrew- and English-language periodicals and encyclopedias, and also served on the publication committee of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS). His monographs include his Ph.D. thesis, Prolegomena to a Greek-Hebrew and Hebrew-Greek Index to Aquila, published by Dropsie College in 1916, and a translation with commentary of The Book of Wisdom, published in 1957 by Harper & Brothers for Dropsie College, as part of its Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Series. According to one biographical statement, he also published a translation and commentary on the Sibylline Oracles.

He extensively edited Deuteronomy with Commentary, originally submitted to the Jewish Publication Society by Dr. H. Hirschfeld, published by the JPS in 1937 under Dr. Reider's name. He also wrote a book on the life and influence of Samuel David Luzzatto. He proposed this work to the JPS in 1942 and submitted the manuscript for review in 1945, but it was never published.

He was a member of the American Oriental Society, the American Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Library Association. He also served on the Publication Committee of the Jewish Publication Society of America.

Dr. Reider married Anna Farstej. They had two children, Raphael Benjamin and Emanuel T. Reider. At the time of his death on November 29, 1960, Dr. Reider was also survived by grandchildren.

Bulk dates

The majority of the collection is undated, but appears to have been created during Dr. Reider's tenure on the faculty of Dropsie College (1913-1959). There is much material concerning his doctoral thesis on Aquila, accepted in 1913. Those notes written in German may relate to his studies at Gottingen University, prior to his emigration to the United States in 1904.

Contents

The bulk of this material consists of Dr. Reider's lecture notes for the courses which he taught at Dropsie College, and notes for various publications which he either wrote or planned to write.

The materials relating to his work on Aquila are the perhaps most voluminous group on a single subject, followed by his notes on Hebrew grammar. The great majority of these notes were written on 3 x 5" index cards, or paper slips of similar dimensions. Most of the notes were written in ink, but many were written in pencil. Virtually all of it is written in a small hand, suited to the dimensions of the paper, which may limit its legibility.

Other materials include typescripts of articles by Reider and other authors, some unidentified, as well as a small amount of correspondence, printed ephemera, and a few facsimiles (probably incomplete). In addition, numerous ephemeral publications authored by Dr. Reider were transferred to this collection from the Dropsie College Pamphlet Collection. Many of these were taken directly from copies of The Jewish Quarterly Review, published by the College. The only offprint originally found among his papers is the title "Etymological Studies in Biblical Hebrew."

Condition

Much of this material is in poor condition, having been created using acidic papers and improperly stored for many years. The index cards and paper slips, particularly the latter, are brittle and often discolored with their own acidity. Also, many items have been damaged by the residue of decomposed rubber bands and rusted metal clips. In removing these harmful materials, some brittle items were unavoidably torn. There is evidence of some mold on those cards which touched the original metal drawer dividers.

Arrangement

The notes were carefully shifted from metal drawers to acid-free boxes in 1992. It became clear at that time that some of this material was no longer in the original order. The current arrangement of the collection reflects the preliminary-level processing which was done in 1996. The goals of this processing were to remove harmful materials (such as rusted clips), organize the material into series, restore some of the lost order to the English-language materials, and produce a preliminary finding aid.

In Boxes 3-6, blank 3 x 5" guide cards were used to separate the numerous sets of notes which had formerly been bundled together by rubber bands or paper clips. Most of these notes are in the order in which they were found, but some sets of notes have been reorganized to restore them to their presumed original context (for example, two bundles of notes concerning Zacuto were reunited.) Most, but not all, of these sets of notes are prefaced by a "title page"; that is, the group begins with a card or slip bearing only the title of the work.

Titles of note-sets in English are listed in the finding aid just as they appear on the card. Descriptive titles and additional notations which have been given by the processor appear in brackets. The most commonly assigned description is: ["Miscellaneous notes"]. This indicates the presence of additional material without titles or written in languages other than English. A high percentage of the latter material may prove to be out of order. Items found among the note sets which are larger than the 3 x 5" format were removed and placed in folders.

The folders in Box 1 are arranged alphabetically by topic. Those in Box 2 comprise a combination of items removed from the note-sets due to their larger format, and legal-size materials. The folders in Box 7 are arranged alphabetically by title.

Processor's Note

Professor George Foot Moore once remarked: "It requires more scholarship to make a good index than to write a book that is indexed." This quotation is one of the many collected by Dr. Reider, perhaps for use in his own writings and lectures. It underscores the preliminary nature of the present finding aid, which is intended to serve only as a temporary guide to the collection until it can be more completely inventoried.