Moses Gaster

Moses Gaster , 1856-1939, Romanian Jewish scholar and writer, b. Bucharest. Expelled (1885) from Romania for championing the Jewish cause, he went to England and was lecturer at Oxford (1886-91), principal of Judith Montefiore College (1890-96), and chief rabbi of the Sephardic communities in England (1887-1919). He was active in the Zionist movement. Among his works on theological, historical, and literary subjects are History of Rumanian Popular Literature (1883) and a new edition of the Sephardic prayer book (5 vol., 1901-6). He was also a noted folklorist; a selection of his essays appeared in Studies and Texts in Folklore, Magic, Medieval Romance (3 vol., 1925-28), which covered many other subjects with which he was concerned. His son Theodore Herzl Gaster, 1906-, b. London, went to the United States and taught at Columbia Univ., among other educational institutions. His works concerning Judaism, comparative religion, and folklore include Passover: Its History and Traditions (1949), Purim and Hanukkah in Custom and Tradition (1950), Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East (1950), Holy and Profane: Evolution of Jewish Folkways (1955), and Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (1969).