bukim_, which was published with the former's
annotations, _Gibe'at ha-Moreh_ (Prague, 1611). Deservedly or not,
Eliezer Mann was called "the Hebrew Socrates"; and many a Maskil in his
study of mathematics turned for guidance to Manoah Handel of
Brzeszticzka, Volhynia, author and translator of several scientific
works, who rendered seven Euclidean propositions into Hebrew.[32]

Polyglots they were compelled to be by force of circumstances. When the
exotic Judeo-German finally asserted itself as the vernacular, the
language in which they wrote and prayed was still the ancient Hebrew,
with which every one was familiar, and commercial intercourse with their
Gentile neighbors was hardly feasible without at least a smattering of
the local Slavonic dialect. "Look at our brethren in Poland," exclaims
Wessely many years later in his address to his countrymen. "They
converse with their neighbors in good Polish.... What excuse have we for
our brogue and jargon?" He might have had still better cause for
complaint, had he been aware that the Yiddish of the Russo-Polish Jews,
despite its considerable Slavonic admixture, was purer German than that
of his contemporaries in Germany, even as the English of our New England
colonies was superior to the Grub Street style prevalent in Dr.
Johnson's England, and the Spanish of our Mexican annexations to the
Castilian spoken at the time of Coronado. But we are here concerned with
their knowledge of foreign languages. We shall refer only to the
Hebrew-German-Italian-Latin-French dictionary _Safah Berurah_ (Prague,
1660; Amsterdam, 1701) by the eminent Talmudist Nathan Hannover.[33]

In medicine Jews were pre-eminent in the Slavonic countries, as they
were everywhere else. They were in great demand as court physicians,
though several had to pay with their lives "for having failed to effect
cures." Doctor Leo, who was at the court of Moscow in 1490, was
mentioned above. Jacob Isaac, the "nobleman of Jerusalem" (Yerosalimska
shlyakhta), was attached to the court of Sigismund, where he was held in
high esteem. Prince Radziwill's physician was Itshe Nisanovich, and
among those in attendance on John Sobieski were Jonas Casal and Abraham
Troki, the latter the author of several works on medicine and natural
philosophy.[34]

Medieval Jewish physicians were prone to travel, and those of
Russo-Poland were no exception. We find them in almost every part of the
civilized world, and their number increases