האם זייף יצחק לאסט שני עמודים במהדורתו לביאור יוסף אבן כספי לספר משלי? על חייו, פועלו ויושרתו של חוקר נשכח

In a paper recently published in Alei Sefer [23 (5773/2013), 165-178; English abstract, p. XII), Ms Arlette Lipszyc-Attali argued that two pages of text in Isaac Last’s edition of Joseph Ibn Kaspi’s Commentary on Proverbs (1903) have no Vorlage in the (single) manuscript from which the edition was made (Paris, BNF, MS héb. 184): “the edition gives on pp. 46 to 48 a text which does not exist in the manuscript.” Her conclusion she formulated as a rhetorical question: “Did Isaac Last forge these pages?”

In the first, short part of this paper we answer the rhetorical question with an emphatic: No. The purportedly “missing” pages are in the manuscript, although they are somewhat out of place.

More importantly, in the second, principal part of the paper we offer a first biographical account of Isaac Last (1847-1913). Last was born in Stanislawow (Galicia) and had a business. In 1900 he lost his money and decided to earn his living as a copyist of Hebrew manuscripts. He had some connections with scholars (e.g. Hayim Brody) and they entrusted him with jobs, for which he went to Oxford. (Today some 50 manuscripts copied by Last can be identified.) Last was very happy with his new profession and made it into a vocation: side-by-side with copying manuscripts on demand, he also copied Hebrew texts of his own choice and had them published. He became particularly fond of Joseph Ibn Kaspi, the fourteenth-century scholar, many of whose works Last published for the first time. Good chance allowed him to publish also the editio princeps of Ha-Meiri’s Magen Avot. He traveled much from library to library to check different copies of the works he was publishing (making the accusation of forgery particularly unjust). Last published his various editions privately, putting a heavy burden on his limited economic means.

Last’s education was that of a talmid haḵam, schooled only in a yeshivah and without any university education. His editions did not match the exacting criteria of modern scholarship and he was often criticized for that. Last was aware of the deficiencies of his work and willingly and gratefully accepted all criticism.

As his reputation increased, Last gradually got support from various Jewish institutions of learning. Beginning in 1908, he was resident at the Lady Judith Montefiore College in Ramsgate. He died in Ramsgate on 3 November 1913. (Photos of his tomb accompany the article.)