Readers who are also subscribers to Ami Magazine (and Ami Magazine readers who learned about us from Yossi Krausz’s awesome profile) know that we have mapped out Responsa Binyan Zion, by Rav Yaakov Ettlinger (1798-1871). R. Ettlinger gained prominence as rabbi of Altona, Germany, part of the famed triple community of AHU, along with Hamburg and Wandsbeck. This map gives us a look at a different region, a bit earlier in the 19th century.
For now, we want you to enjoy playing around with the map to see what you make of it. In a few days, Elli will post something about what we might be able to learn by plotting Binyan Tziyon geographically and by date, and I will analyze the similarity and dissimilarity of Binyan Zion to other poskim of the age. (For starters, look at Galicia on the maps below, and ponder what it means.) We’re mostly done with both Hatam Sofer and Maharam Schick, and we hope to post them both soon, once we’ve removed a few inaccuracies and filled in a couple of gaps.
The first map here is a heat map of Binyan Zion. You can enable Maharsham layers to compare if you want. I recommend viewing it in a separate tab, and viewing it on a computer will give you the best experience. Mouse over / click on cities for more info.
And to get ready for Elli’s post, here’s an animated view of the Binyan Zion (again, I recommend opening a separate tab). Note the bars at the bottom, which gives the number of responsa per year. Is that what you would expect a rabbinic career to look like? Either way, the date tools enable us to do some pretty cool things.
One final point: off to the right of the page there’s a box where you can enter your email address and automatically get an email when we post to the blog.
