Auction 63 - Rare and Important Items
Book of Memoires by Mendel Beilis – Copy with a Dedication in his Handwriting – New York, 1931
Opening: $1,000
Estimate: $2,000 - $4,000
Sold for: $1,250
Including buyer's premium
Di geshikhte fun mayne layden [The Story of My Sufferings] by Mendel Beilis. Published by the author, New York, 1931. Yiddish and English. Second edition.
Book of memoires by Mendel Beilis, in which he tells the story of his life, the years of trial and imprisonment, immigration to Palestine and immigration to the United States.
On the page following the title page, under his portrait, appears a dedication handwritten by Mendel Beilis.
Menachem Mendel Beilis (1874-1934) was accused of murdering a Ukrainian Christian child named Andrei Yushichinsky in April 1911, to use his blood for preparing Passover Matzot. Beilis was imprisoned by false testimony and his trial began officially in September 1913. On the background of the "murder" and the trial, an incitement campaign was organized against the Jews. After two and a half years of imprisonment, in October 1913, Beilis was acquitted. After the 1917 revolution, a committee of inquiry was established to investigate the case. Its findings proved that the government knew the true circumstances and staged the trial for anti-Semitic reasons. Beilis immigrated to Palestine in 1914, but was not integrated financially or professionally and in 1920 immigrated with his family to New York. A number of years later he published his book of memoires in Yiddish and English.
This edition of the book opens with a letter from Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook, from 1930, addressed to American Jews, in which he writes that "Beilis went through bad experiences, in the spirit of truth and justice…" (Hebrew). Further on Rabbi Kook calls Jews in the United States to buy the book by Beilis "who is in a bad financial state, he is old and sick and 'no one pities him". The letter is printed in Hebrew with a Yiddish translation, and does not appear in other editions of this book.
319, [1] pp, 22 cm. Fair-good condition. Creases at corners. Some ink smears to dedication. Cloth-strips are pasted among the endpapers, at the attachment of the binding to the body of the book. Original binding, with restored spine. Open tears, unraveling and wear at margins of binding.
Book of memoires by Mendel Beilis, in which he tells the story of his life, the years of trial and imprisonment, immigration to Palestine and immigration to the United States.
On the page following the title page, under his portrait, appears a dedication handwritten by Mendel Beilis.
Menachem Mendel Beilis (1874-1934) was accused of murdering a Ukrainian Christian child named Andrei Yushichinsky in April 1911, to use his blood for preparing Passover Matzot. Beilis was imprisoned by false testimony and his trial began officially in September 1913. On the background of the "murder" and the trial, an incitement campaign was organized against the Jews. After two and a half years of imprisonment, in October 1913, Beilis was acquitted. After the 1917 revolution, a committee of inquiry was established to investigate the case. Its findings proved that the government knew the true circumstances and staged the trial for anti-Semitic reasons. Beilis immigrated to Palestine in 1914, but was not integrated financially or professionally and in 1920 immigrated with his family to New York. A number of years later he published his book of memoires in Yiddish and English.
This edition of the book opens with a letter from Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook, from 1930, addressed to American Jews, in which he writes that "Beilis went through bad experiences, in the spirit of truth and justice…" (Hebrew). Further on Rabbi Kook calls Jews in the United States to buy the book by Beilis "who is in a bad financial state, he is old and sick and 'no one pities him". The letter is printed in Hebrew with a Yiddish translation, and does not appear in other editions of this book.
319, [1] pp, 22 cm. Fair-good condition. Creases at corners. Some ink smears to dedication. Cloth-strips are pasted among the endpapers, at the attachment of the binding to the body of the book. Original binding, with restored spine. Open tears, unraveling and wear at margins of binding.
Zionism, The Holocaust and She'erit Hapletah, Palestine and the State of Israel
Zionism, The Holocaust and She'erit Hapletah, Palestine and the State of Israel