The Bookseller’s Assistant: Alfred Wiener, Isaac Benjamin Yahuda, and the Oriental Book Trade in Cairo, 1907–1914

Alfred Wiener (1885–1964) is best known as the founding director of the Wiener Holocaust Library in London. Less well known is that he studied with the renowned Orientalist Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877–1951) during the latter’s tenure at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. Entirely unknown until now is that from October 1907 until May 1909, Wiener worked for close to two years in Cairo as an assistant to Abraham Shalom’s brother, the book dealer Isaac Benjamin Yahuda (1863–1941). It was largely thanks to Wiener’s efforts that Isaac Benjamin began advertising his services among potential clients more systematically, a practice the book dealer himself detested. This hitherto unexplored chapter of Wiener’s early career can be reconstructed from his correspondence with Abraham Shalom Yahuda, who was himself instrumental in promoting his brother’s book trade. Beyond shedding light on Wiener’s role in the Yahuda firm, the correspondence also illuminates how Abraham Shalom and Isaac Benjamin divided responsibilities, and how sharply they disagreed about the way the business should be run.