My First Bomberg Talmud

I just had the honor of selling a Bomberg Talmud, Menahot, printed in Venice, 1520. Breathtakingly gorgeous!

It is amazing to me that the structure of our standard Talmud Page is all based on this edition, done by a gentile. If he would have decided to put the Alfas and Rosh on the sides of the page, chances are it would have stayed there to this day.

An Extraordinary Family Reunion!

POSTCARD SENT FROM LVOV-KANSAS, USA, ON THE LETTERHEAD OF THE ADMOR OF SASSOV, YOSEF DOVID MEIR OF SASSOV

 

I listed on my site this week, a postcard sent by R. Yosef David Meir of Sassov to Kansas. I get a call this morning from a woman, who tells me that the postcard was sent to her great-grandmother, Fanie Garfinkel! I have no clue how she found the item being offered for sale but was more than happy to get the postcard back to the original family, 100 years late.

New York pay phones became tiny libraries

John Locke, a Columbia architecture grad, has set up a little conceptual experiment which he is calling the Department of Urban Betterment whose chief duty is to covert old pay phone boxes into tiny libraries.

Apparently he's set up two booths so far and had limited success.  Apparently the first booth had all its books lifted, and then the shelves stolen within a few days.  The second booth fared a bit better with pedestrians both taking and leaving books for while, but eventually it suffered the same fate as the first.  Locke plans to continue his experiments but in future booths he wants to add some simple instructions to help show pedestrians the intended use.

Celebrity Endorsement for Jewish Books

After finding out that Gwyneth Paltrow's great-great-grandfather, whose surname was "Paltrowicz," was a rabbi in Nowogród, Poland, I hasted to add it to the description of the books of his I had for sale. Sure enough, they sold within a few days
Her great-great-grandfather R. Simhah Paltrowitch was a direct descendant of R. Rabbi David ben Samuel Ha-Levi, the renowned 17th-century authority on Jewish law, served as rabbi in Buffalo, New York from l890 to 1914. His other works include Simhah Hegyon (1903), Keter Zevi (1906), and Simhah Avot (1927).

Simchat Higayon by R. Simhah Paltrowitch

There are other great celebrity endorsed books as well. Leonard Cohen's grandthfather, Rabbi Solomon Klinitsky-Klein authored several books. Rabbi Solomon Klinitsky-Klein, was known as Sar haDikdook, the prince of grammarians. He wrote a thesaurus of talmudic interpretations and a dictionary of synonyms and homonyms. He was a disciple of Yitzhak Elchanan. In fact, he closed his teacher's eyes when he died. He was the principal of a yeshiva in Kovno. He also had a very strong secular side to him. He was a confrontational teacher, especially when he got to New York. He became part of The Forward and that group of Yiddish writers.
Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline wrote a book called Otzar Taamei Hazal (New York 1939) which was a compilation of the various interpretations to biblical verses found in Talmudic literature, arranged according to the order of the Torah, with his own notes. The English title page says it "Contains all the interpretations of the Pentateuch as given in the Talmudim, Tosefta, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifre, Pesiktot, Midrash Rabba, Tanhuma and other Midrashim."

Interestingly, not only is the book dedicated to Leonard Cohen's father Nathan (and two others, one of whom is the author's son) but at the end of the introduction is a mention of Leonard himself, then just a few weeks shy of 5 years old (as well as his mother Masha, and the other members of the family):


And then you have Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie received religious training for his bar mitzvah from Rabbi Meir Kahane, who would go on to form the Jewish Defense League. "Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible."


There is more. Rena Sofer for one. Sofer is a descendant of Baal Shem Tov and of the Chasam Sofer through her father. That's some Yichus you got there, wait till the matchmakers find out about this one.

Not to mention Jackie Mason, who himself was/is an ordained Rabbi, as his three brothers, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been. His father Rabbi Eliyahu Mordechai Maza, authored many books as well.

Sifte Reem by Jackie Mason's Father Rabbi Eliyahu Mordechai Maza

How a Jew buys at auction

Words of wisdom from a fellow book dealer: When a gentile raises his hand at an auction, he is buying. When a Jew raises his hand at an auction, he is selling.

Promoting Judaism in the Middle East

I just received an order for 2 Encyclopedia Judaicas from a customer in Kuwait. One going there I can barely understand, but 2? Maybe they will have some study groups studying Enyclopedia Judaica there soon.

An unlikely buyer

A customer was paying for some books in the store recently when I noticed one of the books he picked out had an author with the same name as the customer. Wondering if there was a connection, the buyer tells me he is the author himself! Turns out, he really likes his book and gives them away as gifts often, but he has run out of copies. I am now on the lookout for him for more copies of the book for the author himself.

A few days later I sold the Great Jewish Enjoy-A-Trivia Book for Kids by Linda Holland Rathkopf to Linda Holland Rathkopf! I guess it's a good sign when the author runs out of copies.

Another Sefer Torah with legs

An “expensive” Sefer Torah was stolen from the Erlau Beis Medrash in Yerushalayim’s Katamon neighborhood on the night between the first and second days of Rosh Hashanah. The Sefer Torah was on the street level of the bet medrash, where a minyan was being held on yomtov for the youth, towards alleviating some of the overcrowded conditions in the main bet medrash. The gabbaim have filed a report with police and have decided to publicize the theft in the hope of alerting people should the thief try to sell it

Thief walks off with silver Judaica in Queens

People have to start to learn how to protect there synagogues. Synagogues are no longer the safe place we once thought them to be, as the rash of recent burglaries show.

Police arrested a Kew Gardens man Tuesday who allegedly stole two silver Torah crowns from Young Israel of Queens Valley in Kew Gardens Hills on Aug. 16 and other Judaica from two additional synagogues earlier this year.
Roman Iskhavov, 26, of 125th Street, was expected to be charged Wednesday with burglary, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. He faces up to seven years in prison.It is alleged that Iskhakov made statements to the police admitting he took several of the items from two of the burglaries and sold them at pawn shops.
According to police, the first burglary took place on June 18 at Congregation Ahavath Sholom at 75-02 113 St. in Forest Hills, stealing Torah breast plates, a silver pointer, a wine cup and a silver-coated plate.
Then, on Aug. 14 he allegedly broke into Beth Gavriel Center for Bukharian Jews at 66-35 108 St., also in Forest Hills, and stole a silver plate, a silver pointer and a charity box containing $200.
Members of the Young Israel synagogue at 141-55 77 Ave. only realized last week that the two pieces that cover the Torah were missing. It had been believed that a volunteer had taken them home to polish prior to Rosh Hashanah, which is on Sept. 17. But Young Israel’s security cameras caught the thief entering the building and walking off with the silver.
The video shows a man wearing a black yarmulka on his head enter the building and pick up a prayer book. But he did not enter the sanctuary.
Instead, he went to the basement and took the Torah crowns while the people upstairs were participating in evening services. The crowns are worth $1,300.
The video also shows the man leaving the synagogue with the items in a plastic bag.
In February, a similar crime occurred only blocks away at Congregation Rachel Degel Israel on 68th Drive. Silver Torah items worth $15,000 were stolen. A man who lives nearby was arrested shortly afterward when police were tipped off by a pawnshop owner where the thief had tried to sell the items

Some thoughts of Hungarian Ketuvot and Gittin

I recently acquired a large collection of 19th century Hungarian Jewish Letters, Manuscripts, Ephemera etc and between them about 20 Ketuvot and a dozen or so Gittin from the mid 19th century from throughout Hungary. I tried fruitlessly to try to find a match, the marriage and divorce document of the same couple, but haven't had luck yet. I'll keep on looking though.