Ephraim Deinard

Deinard's antiquarian activities, which involved constant travel throughout Europe, the Orient, and America, gave him an acquaintance with scholars, private collectors, fellow booksellers, and libraries.

His books were printed in eleven towns in Europe, Ottoman Palestine, and America, including Odessa, Pressburg, Warsaw, Vienna, New York City, Newark, Kearny, Jerusalem, Jaffa, St. Louis and Arlington.

A third rarity, on colored papers, bears the imprint "Tsevu'im" ("the painted capital of hypocrites"), "at the press of the Raziel the angel".

He attacked Hasidism and Christianity in equal measure, with plenty of bile left over for Communism, Reform Judaism, Kabbalah, Jewish apostates, and Karaism.

Deinard reissued several early anti-Hasidic works, including two tracts of diverse authorship entitled Zemir 'Aritsim, as well as his own Hebrew translation of Israel Ubel's German diatribe.

He later reissued Hasdai Crescas' 14th-century refutation of Christian beliefs, though his accompanying edition of an 18th-century anti-Christian polemic by David Nassy of Surinam was destroyed by fire.

Several of his books contain essays directed against Jewish converts to Christianity, among them the ill-fated antiquarian Moses Wilhelm Shapira, who attempted to sell ancient Biblical fragments of questionable authenticity to the British Museum.

Deinard's particular literary gifts are displayed in his Kundes ("Prankster") and Ployderzak ("Chatterbox"), written in the tradition and style of earlier maskilic or anti-Hasidic parodies.

He devoted a number of books to the Holy Land, Zionism and related subjects, especially the Jewish national movements in Russia, Europe, and America.

His narratives of trips to Ottoman Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and every corner of Europe, focus on contemporary Jewish communities and their political affairs.

Some of his last books include an account of Ottoman rule in Palestine, a critique of British policy, and a critical biography of the Anglo-Jewish Maecenas and proto-Zionist Sir Moses Montefiore.

While living in Palestine before the end of Ottoman rule, Deinard published texts and documents from manuscripts and old printed books, among them an account of anti-Jewish riots in Ancona, Italy, in the late 18th century.