Rabbi Hirsch Dänemark | The Renowned Mnemonist

Rabbi Hirsch Dänemark

Mnemonist kunst Borstellung. Stuttgart: np, 1842

Letterpress playbill (530 x 435 mm). Printed in German, nice wide margins; four old folds, creases. Matted, framed, and glazed in Plexiglas.

This handsome playbill, printed in Fraktur types, "lists the testimonials of the royalty and nobility of Europe: His Majesty the King of Saxony, His Highness the Archduke Franz Karl of Oettingen-Spielberg, and the Duke Metternich, who averred: 'The achievements of Rabbi Hirsch Dänemark are as peculiar as they are surprising and prove a rare ability...to solve unbelievable tasks, while the ability itself is inexplicable.' Perhaps Dänemark's most unexpected endorsement came form 'his Holiness the Pope'" (EE).

Ricky Jay wrote, "I am aware of a Hasidic tradition in which rabbis displayed skills closely aligned to their spiritual concerns to supplement their incomes. These might include the making of amulets, the conducting of séance-like exhibitions, or the demonstration of effects that resemble what we might now regard as mind reading. There were also exhibitions of scholarship. A nineteenth-century rabbi might, for instance, request that a pin be inserted into a book of talmudic readings. The rabbi would then correctly predict each letter by the pin on the subsequent ten or more pages" (EE).

REFERENCE:

EE, p. 110