Auction 83 - Part I - Rare and Important Items
Five Books of the Torah (Codex) – Samaritan Manuscript – From the Collection of Chacham Yitzchak Binyamin Yehuda
Opening: $2,500
Estimate: $5,000 - $8,000
Sold for: $23,750
Including buyer's premium
Samaritan manuscript, Five Books of the Torah (codex). Nablus, [19th century].
Particularly beautiful manuscript, on high-quality paper, with wide-margins. Copied by the priest Shlomo son of Amram son of Shlomo son of Toviah HaLevi ("from the Kehat family"). Colophon at the end of each Book.
This volume is from the collection of Chacham Yitzchak Binyamin Yechezkel Yehudah (1863-1941), educator, translator, bookseller and Orientalist who studied the history of the Jewish people and Arabic culture. In the early 20th century Chacham Yehudah lived in Darmstadt, Germany, where he traded in books and manuscripts in Hebrew and Oriental languages. In 1906, he immigrated to Cairo, where he opened a bookshop for classical and religious Arabic texts near the al-Azhar mosque. He was renowned as the premier expert on Arabic literature in the region, and he often assisted Muslim scholars as well as Orientalists residing in Cairo. He published a number of books including "The Western Wall"(Jerusalem, 1929), "Fables of the East" (3 volumes, Jerusalem, 1932-1990), and others. In addition to Hebrew and Arabic, Chacham Yehuda was fluent in Ladino, Persian, Yiddish, German, Turkish, English and French. His son-in-law, Prof. Yosef Yoel Rivlin attested that he was "amazingly proficient in Oriental studies and literature, and one of the greatest Jewish researchers".
This volume is stamped with the stamp of Chacham Yehuda's bookshop in Cairo, and bears his signature (from Jerusalem). At the end of the volume, Chacham Yehudah bound a leaf in his own handwriting, quoting several verses introduced by an interesting, unique comment about the custom of Sephardi Jews (and later the Rashash) of reciting these verses whenever three Torah scrolls are removed from the ark for the Shabbat Torah reading: "The ancient custom of Saragossa was to recite these verses whenever three Torah scrolls were removed from the ark on Shabbat or Yom Tov, and the Rashash followed this custom". Five (printed) prayer leaves from siddurim are bound before this leaf. Several handwritten glosses (in pencil) by Chacham Yehuda in the margins of the first chapter of the Book of Bereshit.
[428] pages. 15.5 cm. Good condition. Creases and stains, primarily to first and final leaves, and to endpapers. Some marginal stains. Original, contemporary dark red leather binding, with embossed decorations and leather closure. Some marginal defects to binding; tears to spine.
Rare.
Provenance: Collection of Yitzchak Binyamin Yehudah.
Particularly beautiful manuscript, on high-quality paper, with wide-margins. Copied by the priest Shlomo son of Amram son of Shlomo son of Toviah HaLevi ("from the Kehat family"). Colophon at the end of each Book.
This volume is from the collection of Chacham Yitzchak Binyamin Yechezkel Yehudah (1863-1941), educator, translator, bookseller and Orientalist who studied the history of the Jewish people and Arabic culture. In the early 20th century Chacham Yehudah lived in Darmstadt, Germany, where he traded in books and manuscripts in Hebrew and Oriental languages. In 1906, he immigrated to Cairo, where he opened a bookshop for classical and religious Arabic texts near the al-Azhar mosque. He was renowned as the premier expert on Arabic literature in the region, and he often assisted Muslim scholars as well as Orientalists residing in Cairo. He published a number of books including "The Western Wall"(Jerusalem, 1929), "Fables of the East" (3 volumes, Jerusalem, 1932-1990), and others. In addition to Hebrew and Arabic, Chacham Yehuda was fluent in Ladino, Persian, Yiddish, German, Turkish, English and French. His son-in-law, Prof. Yosef Yoel Rivlin attested that he was "amazingly proficient in Oriental studies and literature, and one of the greatest Jewish researchers".
This volume is stamped with the stamp of Chacham Yehuda's bookshop in Cairo, and bears his signature (from Jerusalem). At the end of the volume, Chacham Yehudah bound a leaf in his own handwriting, quoting several verses introduced by an interesting, unique comment about the custom of Sephardi Jews (and later the Rashash) of reciting these verses whenever three Torah scrolls are removed from the ark for the Shabbat Torah reading: "The ancient custom of Saragossa was to recite these verses whenever three Torah scrolls were removed from the ark on Shabbat or Yom Tov, and the Rashash followed this custom". Five (printed) prayer leaves from siddurim are bound before this leaf. Several handwritten glosses (in pencil) by Chacham Yehuda in the margins of the first chapter of the Book of Bereshit.
[428] pages. 15.5 cm. Good condition. Creases and stains, primarily to first and final leaves, and to endpapers. Some marginal stains. Original, contemporary dark red leather binding, with embossed decorations and leather closure. Some marginal defects to binding; tears to spine.
Rare.
Provenance: Collection of Yitzchak Binyamin Yehudah.
Manuscripts, Letters and Documents – Music, Research, Religion and Science
Manuscripts, Letters and Documents – Music, Research, Religion and Science