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Only edition of this collection of epigrams, poems and literary essays by Yizhak Isaac Benjacob. , Mikhtamim ve-Shirim Shonim (1842). There are Latin and facing Hebrew title pages, a two page versified dedicatory page to the reader, a forward, table of contents lsiting 186 entries and additional verse, and then the text, set in a single column in, depending on the contens vocalized verse or unvocalized text. Mikhtamim ve-Shirim Shonim is of particular interest because it shows a lesser known side of Benjacob, who was one of the great Hebrew bibliographers, doing pioneer work still highly valued to this day.
Yizhak Isaac Benjacob, (1801–1863) was first modern Hebrew bibliographer. He was born near Vilna and spent most of his life in that city. After publishing original works and republishing several medieval writers, including Hovot ha-Levavot by Bahya ibn Paquda (with a commentary of his own), Benjacob published, with Abraham Dov Lebensohn (Adam ha-Kohen), a 17-volume edition of the Hebrew Bible (1848–53). It included Rashi's commentary, Mendelssohn's German translation (in Hebrew script), a new commentary by Lebensohn, as well as Benjacob's own Mikra'ei Kodesh, an abridged version of Tikkun Soferim ("the scribes' emendations to the biblical text"). This edition helped spread Haskalah among Russian Jewry, and was utilized not only for the study of Scriptures, but also for learning German. Benjacob then began his magnum opus of 20 years' duration, Ozar ha-Sefarim (Vilna, 1880; repr. New York, 1965), one of the greatest bibliographic achievements in Hebrew literature. The work lists approximately 8,480 manuscripts and approximately 6,500 books published up to 1863, with a description of their contents. His son JACOB (1858–1926) was a merchant, banker, and Zionist. After first publishing his father's work Ozar ha-Sefarim with the assistance of M. Steinschneider (1877–80), he began recruiting and expanding it, using new bibliographical methods but retaining its original chronological limit (1863). His son-in-law Moses Schorr reported that the new edition contained 60,000 entries and comprised 12 volumes. Both Benjacob and Schorr tried unsuccessfully to have it published. The manuscript was lost during the Holocaust in Poland. |
