The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Jastrow, Marcus M.

JASTROW, Marcus M., American rabbi and lexicographer: b. Rogasen, Posen, 1829; d. Germantown, Pa., 13 Oct. 1903. After the usual rabbinic and academic studies he was graduated from the University of Halle in 1854, became a barber in Berlin and then rabbi at Warsaw. After five years he was obliged to leave by reason of his political opinions, after being subjected to arrest. He was rabbi in Baden 1859-63, at Worms 1863-66, whence he was called to the Congregation Rodef Sholen, Philadelphia, with which he was connected until his death, within recent years (1892-1903) as rabbi emeritus. Besides some monographs and contributions to the press, he is best known for his ‘Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature’ (16 parts, 1904), a monument of untiring erudition and broad scholarship. He edited the Talmudic department of the ‘Jewish Encyclopædia.’