Babylonian Talmud, Shanghai: Torah Ohr-Mir, 1942-1945

18 volumes (10 1/4 x 7 1/4 in.; 260 x 185 mm). Volume I: Berakhot, Zeraim; vol. II: Shabbat; vol. III: Pesahim; vol. IV: Beitzah, Haggigah, Megilla, Ta'anit, Mo'ed Katan; vol. V: Gittin; vol. VI: Kiddushin, Sotah, Nazir; vol. VII: Bava Kamma; vol. VIII: Bava Batra; vol. IX: Sanhedrin, Shevuot, Makkot; vol. X: Avodah Zarah, Horayot, Eduyot, Avot, Massekhtot Ketanot; vol. XI: Zevahim, Menahot; vol. XII: Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukka; vol. XIII: Hullin; vol. XIV: Niddah; vol. XV: Eruvin; vol. XVI: Nedarim; XVII: Bekhorot, Arakhin, Temurah, Keritot, Meilah, Tamid, Midot; vol. XVIII: Bava Metzia. Pages of some volumes browned and brittle. Several volumes with ownership notes. Variously bound.

Almost 20,000 Jews found refuge in Shanghai during the tragic years of World War II. Many were refugees from Lithuania where they had received transit visas from the compassionate Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara. Often traveling by train across Siberia and by boat to Kobe, Japan, the refugees eventually arrived in Shanghai, China. Among the Jews who found refuge in Shanghai were students of the Mir and Slobodka yeshivot, who printed a number of rabbinic texts to perpetuate their study including this partial edition of the Babylonian Talmud.

The present lot represents all but one volume of the Talmud edition printed in Shanghai during the Second World War.

Literature: Habermann's addition to Rabinowitz, Ma'amar al Hadpasat ha-Talmud (1952) p.191; Z. Harkavy, "Defusei Shanghai" in: ha- Sefer, Vol. IX; Mintz, Goldstein eds., Printing the Talmud (2005) no.63.