Wednesday 18 January 2017

SHIYE-YOYSEF (JOSHUA JOSEPH) KOLBE

SHIYE-YOYSEF (JOSHUA JOSEPH) KOLBE (1807-June 26, 1920)[1]
            He was born in Warsaw, Poland (according to another source, it was Brisk or Brest, Lithuania), the son of Rabbi Yankev-Menakhem Kolbe.  He was from his youth taken with Jewish history and for that reason visited Israel and Rome.  In 1882 he made a carved model of the Temple and portions of Jerusalem, and it was displayed publicly in Warsaw and elsewhere under the name of the “first archeological exhibition” (the model is now in the British Museum in London).  He was the author of Dos beys-hamigdesh, matsev yerusholaim (The Temple, [its] position in Jerusalem), part one (Warsaw, 1884), 33 pp., in which “is accurately described and explained the holy city of Jerusalem, and all the sacred ideas of our fatherland, as well as all the vessels in the Temple, and all the weighty gold and silver and precious stones and the works of art which are produced in each vessel, and the secret doors which Jerusalem had underground”; part two, entitled Binyen ariel (Building of Ariel), with drawings of the vessels from the Temple (Warsaw, 1883), 94 pp., describes “the Temple that King Solomon, may he rest in peace, built and that was renovated by Herod the Ashkelonite, King of Israel.”  These short works were published in new editions (Warsaw, 1920, 1930, and 1936), as well as in Hebrew in 1883 and in German (Vienna, 1883).  He died in Jerusalem.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2.
Khayim Leyb Fuks




[1] These are the dates given in our text.  If Kolbe lived a full 113 years, that would seem worth of being noted, which it is not. (JAF)

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