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What is the connection between the Maharal and SHerlock Holmes?

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closed as not a real question by msh210♦ Sep 14 '11 at 4:34

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Basically someone in Europe ripped off the stories and used them as Kosher equivalents for People in Europe to counteract the enlightened books what the Maskilim Where putting out!

More info from Professor Shnayer Leiman

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The original: www.horrormasters.com/Text/a1973.pdf was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories; but this story doesn't contain Holmes. Like the Holmes stories, it did appear in The Strand magazine, which was immediately translated into Russian; Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg, the Maharal-story author, could read Russian (job requirement for being a "crown rabbi"). Rabbi Rosenberg later described the story as "folk literature", never intended as true history! This and more from Leiman's article/lecture. – Shalom Aug 19 '10 at 12:50
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Another link: leimanlibrary.com/texts_of_publications/… – YDK Aug 23 '10 at 3:34
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Thanks for thanks for the Amazing source. – SimchasTorah Aug 23 '10 at 5:25
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Well not a connection, but a sharp distinction: Maharal very much valued knowledge of science; his student worked in the lab of astronomer Tyco Brahe and wrote "Nechmad v'Naim", synthesizing Torah with astronomy; rumor also has it that Maharal himself sat in on Brahe's lectures when the latter visited Prague from his native Copenhagen.

On the other hand, here's Holmes, from A Study in Scarlet:

... he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. ... "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained, "...It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

"But the Solar System!" I protested. "What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.

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Maharal banned Azariah deRossi's book Me'or Einayim just as much as Sherlock Holmes did.

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Shalom he is a fictional character – Y.Stahl Aug 20 '10 at 1:08
Exactly. And any claim that Maharal banned Meor Einayim is likewise fiction. – Shalom Aug 20 '10 at 1:19
From the way he talks about it in B'er Hagolah it is not hard to imagine him banning it. – Yahu Aug 20 '10 at 6:54
IN Be’er Shishi of Be’er HaGolah he writes concerning the book Me’or Einayim: “Cursed is the day on which these things were exposed and revealed. A person who does not know how to understand the words of the Sages, even one thing from their minor statements…how did he not fear to speak of the Sages, and he speaks of them as though they are people in his generation, his friends… And furthermore these words were putinto print… they are worthy of being burned like the books of heretics, and they are even worse than them, and they were printed as though they are holy books…" – Yahu Aug 20 '10 at 7:09
He very strongly attacks Meor Einayim's approach, no doubt about it! But did he actually ever declare a ban? – Shalom Aug 20 '10 at 8:34
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