The Halpern Judaica Collection: Tradition and Treasure | Part II
The Halpern Judaica Collection: Tradition and Treasure | Part II
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December 20, 06:19 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 4,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Teshuvot (Responsa), Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet, Constantinople: Eliezer [ben Gershom] Soncino, 1546-1547
Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (Rivash; 1326-1408) served as rabbi of the Jewish community in Saragossa from 1371 until 1391, when he moved to Valencia. The year 1391 saw widespread anti-Jewish riots, which struck hard in that city. In the face of the violence, Rivash fled Spain and settled in North Africa, where he became rabbi of Algiers.
Rivash’s responsa have wielded great influence on subsequent halakhic discourse and are an important source for the social history of Jews in fourteenth-century Spain and North Africa. In order to defray the costs of publication, this edition of the responsa was printed by the quire and disseminated every Sabbath to subscribers, who later paid for the sections they had acquired. It is interesting to note that in the present copy the table of contents, comprising eleven leaves normally bound at the front of the volume, has been shifted to the end, right before the folios containing a subject index and set of errata.
Provenance
Bar-Ilan University Central Library (ff. [1r, 2r, 108v, 204v, 303v])
Shalom Lev ben… (f. [36r])
Physical Description
303 folios (11 1/2 x 8 3/8 in.; 292 x 212 mm) (collation: i-xlvii6, i6, ii5, iii6, iv4) on paper. Title within woodcut border; underlining in pencil on ff. [60v, 73r]; modern pencil marginalia on ff. [111r, 252r, 264r]; booklist in Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish on f. [283r]. Slight scattered staining and dampstaining; some foxing; some gutters strengthened; worming throughout, usually marginal or affecting only individual letters, more serious on ff. [145r-150v]; some worming repaired with tape, as in gutter at foot of ff. [109v-110r, 112v-113r, 115v-116r, 118r, 119r, 128v-129r, 132v, 133v-134r]; restoration and occasional remargining of ff. [1, 253-303]; f. [6] mostly loose; f. [42] loose at foot; tape repair in outer edge of f. [181]. Modern brown leather over board, slightly scuffed; title lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
Literature
Joseph Hacker, “Defusei kushta ba-me’ah ha-shesh-esreh,” Areshet 5 (1972): 457-493, at p. 483 (no. 145).
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 322-323.
Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 81 (no. 269).
Vinograd, Constantinople 193
Avraham Yaari, Ha-defus ha-ivri be-kushta: toledot ha-defus ha-ivri be-kushta me-reshito ad perots milhemet-ha-olam ha-sheniyyah u-reshimat ha-sefarim she-nidpesu bah (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1967), 103 (no. 145).