Auction 88 - Part I - Books, Manuscripts, Rabbinical Letters, Ceremonial Art
Manuscript, leaves from a Pinkas of the Gemilat Chasadim Holy Society of Raducaneni (Răducăneni, Iași county, Romania), [1868].
First six leaves of a Pinkas, including decorated title page, followed by the society's regulations.
The regulations are written in rhyme and arranged alphabetically.
The village of Raducaneni was founded in the 1840s. The Jewish community, which was present since its inception, constituted the majority of the local population.
The contents of the present leaves were published in Sinai, 95, 1984, pp. 278-286.
[6] leaves. 40 cm. Good condition. Stains, including dampstains. Closed and open tears, repaired in part with tape. Tears from ink erosion to title page. Inscriptions. New binding.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Handwritten Yahrzeit book, listing the names of members of the Creglingen community, including the names of the first Jewish victims of the Nazis in Germany. Germany, [1930s?].
Small handwritten notebook, recording the names of the deceased of the Creglingen community, southern Germany, in order of their Hebrew date of death. The notebook lists 46 names, including the names of Hermann Stern and Arnold Rosenfeld, who were amongst the first Jewish victims of the Nazis after they rose to power in Germany.
The Jewish community of Creglingen, Baden-Württemberg, is mentioned as early as 1298. At its peak, the community numbered some 130 Jews; on the eve of the Nazi's rise to power, the local Jewish population totaled 73. At the end of March 1933, a pogrom erupted in Creglingen, which is considered the first pogrom to take place in Germany after the Nazis took over. The pogrom was executed by a gang of SA thugs and a rioting mob, who tortured 16 local Jews in the town hall. Hermann Stern (age 67), a horse dealer and real estate agent and Arnold Rosenfeld (age 52), died from their wounds a few days later. These two are considered the first victims of Nazi Germany. From the middle of 1937, there were no Jews left in Creglingen.
[3] leaves (12 written pages). 16.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and creases. Minor tears along folds and to some folds – including open tears, not affecting text.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
HaDerech – The Way, monthly published by the Kehilla of Toronto. 12 consecutive issues. Toronto, 1940-1941. Yiddish and English.
Issues nos. 1-12. Possibly no other issues were published.
The monthly was published "in the interest of Kashrut and traditional Judaism (as stated at the opening of the issues) by the Kehilla of Toronto, an organization founded in 1923 to oversee the kashrut of meet in the city. The editor was Jacob I. Wohlgelernter.
The monthly was established in attempt to resolve the chaos which prevailed in Toronto in the first half of the 20th century regarding the kashrut of meat.
One of the rabbis who stood behind the monthly was R. Yaakov Kamenetsky (1891-1986), later one of the Torah leaders of the United States, who served at that time as rabbi of Toronto (1938-1945). Notices in the present issues reveal that he was one of the two rabbis at the head of the Vaad Hakashrut of the Kehilla of Toronto, to whom one could turn to on any matters of kashrut and religion (the other was R. Yosef Weinreb, 1869-1943, first chief rabbi of Toronto, known as the "Galitzianer Rav"). The issues also include a letter and declaration by the two rabbis, as well as two essays composed by R. Yaakov Kamenetsky, one of them containing a sharp protest against the United Jewish Welfare (this essay appears twice, in English in issue 6 and in Yiddish in issue 8); the other essay contains notes in preparation for Passover – mostly on kashrut matters (Yiddish, issue 10).
Apart from essays and notices on kashrut matters, as well as many essays regarding education of the young generation, the issues contain interesting information regarding the efforts of Canadian Jewry on behalf of their brethren during the Holocaust, items about the war, advertisements for Jewish organizations such as the JNF, essays upon the passing of R. Dov Revel (Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel, first president of RIETS in New York), an essay on kashrut by R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch; and more. The issues also mention the names of many distinguished members of the Toronto community (surnames such as Korolnek, Tanenbaum, Shiff).
12 issues (dozens of leaves). Good-fair condition. Stains, including dampstains (mold stains in several places). Wear. Several tears.
The monthly does not appear in OCLC nor in Ontario Jewish Archives, and is presumably bibliographically unknown. This may be a complete set of issues.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Nechamat Tzion, the Consolation of Zion – An account of the mission of R. Chaim Tzvi Schneersohn in Australia. Melbourne: Abbot & Co., 1863. English (and other languages), only the title is in Hebrew.
Detailed account of the progress of the mission of R. Chaim Tzvi Schneersohn in Australia, for the purpose of raising funds towards the erection of houses of refuge in the Old City of Jerusalem (the housing complex, Batei Machseh, was built in the 1860s at the initiative of Kollel Hod – Holland and Deutschland, to provide free housing for poor families for a period of three years).
The booklet contains a letter from R. Chaim Tzvi Schneersohn (translated to English by R. Moshe Rintel, first rabbi of the Melbourne Jewish community), and a letter from the trustees of Kollel Hod portraying the poverty and dearth of housing in Jerusalem which impelled them to undertake this project. These are followed by letters of recommendation from the chief rabbis and European consuls in Jerusalem, and from public figures in Australia. The booklet concludes with detailed reports of meetings held in this regard across Australia.
R. Chaim Tzvi Schneersohn (Hyam Zevee Sneersohn;1834-1882), emissary and Chabad Chassid, fourth generation descendant of the Baal HaTanya and a forebearer of Zionism. He travelled throughout the world on fundraising missions on behalf of Kollel Chabad and later of the Old Yishuv.
Booklet: 28 pages. Approx. 21 cm Good-fair condition. Stains and wear (dark stains and defects to title page). Tears and creases. Several detached leaves. Inscriptions and stamps on title page and final leaf.
One of the first Jewish titles printed in Australia.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Samaritan manuscript, prayers for Sukkot. [Nablus, 19th century].
Hebrew (Samaritan script) and Arabic. Black and red ink on paper.
The manuscript contains several colophons of the copyists, in Arabic and in Hebrew, dated 1849-1870.
Owner's signatures.
[129] leaves. 20 cm. Good condition. Stains. Tears to several leaves. Several detached leaves. Original leather binding, damaged.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Pair of large, handsome silver candlesticks. Warsaw 1861.
Silver (marked, with assayer I. Biedgunowski’s mark, 84, town mark and maker’s mark and logo: Swinarski), repoussé and soldered.
Large candlesticks of baluster form, with reppousé vegetal and symmetrical decorative patterns. Square base. Matching removable bobeches.
Height: 29.5 cm. Good condition. Some bends.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Large ornate Torah shield, depicting lions, the Tablets of the Law and a Torah crown. Vienna, 1860s.
Silver (marked with town mark, and maker's mark: CS), repoussé; appliqué.
The Tablets of the Law at center, supported by two lions rampant regardant, langued; topped by a large Torah crown hung with three bells. An aperture at bottom, originally displaying interchangeable plaquettes announcing the appropriate holiday's name, now with a soldered plaque reading "Rosh Hashana"; the backside reads "Purim".
Height: 32 cm. Width: 30 cm. Good condition. Bends and fractures. Some damage. Displayed plaquette soldered onto shield.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Passover Seder plate. Germany, late 19th century. (Base engraved "1809").
Silver, engraved.
The lip of the plate is decorated with geometric motifs. The well of the plate is filled with passages from the Haggadah, written in circular form – Ma Nishtana, Avadim Hayinu and Kadesh URechatz.
According to the owner's testimony, the plate originates from the estate of Dr. Eliezer Lipman (Leo) HaKohen Kahn (1842-1936), one of the founding pillars of German Orthodox Jewry. He was the first to receive governmental permission to found an independent Orthodox community in Wiesbaden, where he served as rabbi for sixty-six years.
Diameter: 37 cm. Good condition. Some bends.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Gold-trimmed porcelain plate, inscribed "until one hundred years". Made by PRM Bavaria, Jaeger & Co, Bavaria, Germany, [third quarter of the 20th century].
Decorative plate, inscribed in gold "until one hundred years" (Hebrew), short for "May you live one hundred years".
Diameter: 29.5 cm. Loss to gilt elements. Chip to lip.
The common wish "[may you live] until one hundred and twenty years" is relatively new. Until the 19th century, a different version was more common, wishing "May you live until one hundred years". Rabbi Naphtali HaKohen Katz (1649-1718), in his will, prays that his wife "may live until the age of one hundred years and do good deeds…" (Will, Mukačevo, 1904, p. 24). In her memoir, Glikl of Hameln (1646-1727) uses the wish "may they live until one hundred years" (see Turniansky, Glikl: Memoirs 1691-1719, Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2019. Turniansky notes that this wish is rare in contemporary Yiddish texts but can be found in Hebrew ones). The Nancy community regulations of 1789 also include the expression "until one hundred years" (Schwartzfuchs, Kovetz Al Yad 27, p. 305). A famous anecdote relates that the Gaon of Vilna blessed a fellow Jew that he may live one hundred years (Landau, Hagaon Hechasid Mivilna, p. 255).
The common wish nowadays is "may you live until one hundred and twenty years". This expression has no equivalent in non-Jewish contexts, which leads to the conclusion it is a translated Yiddish greeting, originally "zolst lebn biz hundert un tsvantsig". Presumably, it draws upon the verse “his days shall be a hundred and twenty years” (Gen 6:3), which commentators explain limits the human life expectancy to one hundred and twenty years. The greeting has been adopted by Hebrew writers around the turn of the 20th century, and since can be found in rabbinical works and in Hebrew literature. Various Jewish communities used the expression in different versions, such as the Jewish-Afghani blessing to brides: "may the bride live until one hundred and twenty years, with one hundred and twenty aspects of beauty" (Pozailov, The Customs of the Jews of Afghanistan, in Vasertil (ed.), Yalkut Minhagim, p. 49).
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Hanukkah lamp gifted by Rebbetzin Yuta Avigdor to her husband, Rabbi Dr. Jacob Avigdor, chief rabbi of Mexico. Mexico, Hanukkah 1958.
Silver (marked), cast.
Handsome, unusually heavy lamp. Backplate depicting two lions supporting a shield, surmounted by a Star of David, which in turn is topped by the servant light. Oil fonts with removable covers. Yiddish dedicatory text engraved on shield: "To my dear husband / Rabbi Dr. Avigdor / a gift / Hanukkah 1958 / Rebbetzin Yuta Avigdor".
Rabbi Dr. Jacob Avigdor (1896-1967), Ph.D. in philosophy, Chief Rabbi of Drohobych and Boryslav, author and orator. His first wife and most of his children perished in the holocaust; he himself survived, becoming a prominent community and aid worker in DP camps. After immigrating to the US in 1946, he married Toybe Chava Shapiro, but divorced her several years later, whereupon he married Yuta. A member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, he accepted a pulpit in the Brooklyn Chovevei Torah synagogue, and several years later was appointed Chief Rabbi of Mexico, a position he held until his death.
Height: 20 cm. Width: 30.5 cm. Weight: 1118 gr. Good condition. Some bends.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Chanukah lamp. Algeria, [ca. 1920s].
Sheet brass, repoussé, engraved and punched; brass, cast.
Algerian Chanukah lamp; owner's name engraved on backplate: "Shlomo Boujo" (Hebrew). The backplate is decorated with a pair of hands raised for the priestly blessing, a Star of David (surrounding the servant lamp), foliate designs reminiscent of those found on Moroccan Chanukah lamps from Marrakesh, and a pair of pillars typical of Chanukah lamps from Tétouan. Oil basin and suspension loop attached with copper rivets. Suspension hook.
R. Shomo Boujo was a disciple of R. Yitzchak Deri, rabbi of Sétif, Algeria.
Height: 27 cm, width: 22.5 cm. Overall good condition. Row of (cast) oil fonts may be later.
Ceremonial Objects from the Collection of an Algerian Family
Algerian Jewry, one of the oldest and largest Jewish communities in Islamic countries, numbered at its peak some 130,000 Jews, most of whom left when Algeria gained its independence in 1962. The vast majority of Algerian Jews immigrated to France, while others moved to Israel.
Items 288-296 originate from the private collection of a rabbinic family in Western Algeria. Some of the items were found abandoned in Algerian synagogues following the mass exodus of its Jews, and were collected by the members of this family, whose descendants immigrated to France, and later to Israel.
Silver Hallmarks in French Algeria
Algeria, which was under French control from 1830 to 1962, became subject to French laws of silver crafting and silver hallmarks from 1838 (see: Tardy, pp. 29-30; 197-200).
Some of the silver items in the present collection bear French hallmarks, which for the most part appear to have been stamped by Algerian silversmiths or assayers in Algeria, already in the 19th century. Nonetheless, some items seem to have been produced in France, and stamped there before their import to Algeria.
The strong French connection along with the cultural diversity of Algerian Jewry (which comprises Jewish immigrants from Spain, Morocco, Italy and France), are well reflected in the present items, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint whether, for instance, an item was produced in the workshop of a Jewish silversmith from Algeria, from Spanish Morocco, from the community of Tétouan Jews living in Oran (Algeria), from Libya or from France. Likewise, in some cases it is difficult to discern conclusively whether a specific item was marked before it was brought from France to Algeria during the 19th or early 20th century, after it was brought into Algeria, or perhaps decades later, when it was brought back to France during the 1960s.
We are grateful to Chaya Benjamin and Prof. Shalom Sabar for their assistance in cataloguing these items.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.
Chanukah lamp. Algeria, [ca. 1920s-1930s].
Sheet brass, repoussé, engraved and chased.
Algerian Chanukah lamp decorated with kabbalistic acronyms and verses which traditionally serve as protection for the home and family.
Backplate engraved with a seven-branch menorah, topped with the first verse of Psalm 67 – LaMenatze'ach, one of the holy names of G-d and various acronyms. The edges of the backplate, base and side panels are decorated with foliate designs. Scalloped edges. Hole for hanging.
The fonts in this lamp are unusually set on two symmetric staircases. The set of fonts (which appears to be original) is mounted into a slot in the backplate, similarly to the way the (removable) side panels and servant lamp are affixed.
Although there are Chanukah lamps in which the oil fonts are not arranged in a straight line, rather in circular or crescent formation (such as in lamps from India, Iraq, Turkey, Eretz Israel, Egypt and even North Africa), we did not find other examples of lamps with fonts set on steps, apart from one large Algerian wall Chanukah lamp, documented in the Center for Jewish Art, item 37399 (Bill Gross collection).
Height: 25 cm, width: 22.5 cm. Good condition.
Literature: Lights in the Atlas Mountains, Chaya Benjamin, p. 34.
Ceremonial Objects from the Collection of an Algerian Family
Algerian Jewry, one of the oldest and largest Jewish communities in Islamic countries, numbered at its peak some 130,000 Jews, most of whom left when Algeria gained its independence in 1962. The vast majority of Algerian Jews immigrated to France, while others moved to Israel.
Items 288-296 originate from the private collection of a rabbinic family in Western Algeria. Some of the items were found abandoned in Algerian synagogues following the mass exodus of its Jews, and were collected by the members of this family, whose descendants immigrated to France, and later to Israel.
Silver Hallmarks in French Algeria
Algeria, which was under French control from 1830 to 1962, became subject to French laws of silver crafting and silver hallmarks from 1838 (see: Tardy, pp. 29-30; 197-200).
Some of the silver items in the present collection bear French hallmarks, which for the most part appear to have been stamped by Algerian silversmiths or assayers in Algeria, already in the 19th century. Nonetheless, some items seem to have been produced in France, and stamped there before their import to Algeria.
The strong French connection along with the cultural diversity of Algerian Jewry (which comprises Jewish immigrants from Spain, Morocco, Italy and France), are well reflected in the present items, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint whether, for instance, an item was produced in the workshop of a Jewish silversmith from Algeria, from Spanish Morocco, from the community of Tétouan Jews living in Oran (Algeria), from Libya or from France. Likewise, in some cases it is difficult to discern conclusively whether a specific item was marked before it was brought from France to Algeria during the 19th or early 20th century, after it was brought into Algeria, or perhaps decades later, when it was brought back to France during the 1960s.
We are grateful to Chaya Benjamin and Prof. Shalom Sabar for their assistance in cataloguing these items.
PLEASE NOTE: Item descriptions were shortened in translation. For further information, please refer to Hebrew text.