12:04:15


[Login]   
[Book List]  
 
Bidding Information
Lot #    20670
Auction End Date    5/6/2008 11:18:30 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Iggeret Teiman ha-Shenit
Title (Hebrew)    אגרת תימן השנית
Author    R. Jacob ben Nathan ha-Levi Shapir
City    Vilna
Publisher    Aryeh Leib Levinsohn
Publication Date    1873
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    Expanded first edition. 62, [2] pp. octavo 170:112 mm., light age staining. A good copy not bound.
          
Detailed
Description		    First edition of this expose of the false Yemenite Messiah Jacob ben Shalom (Shukr Ben Sālim Kuhayl) by R. Jacob ben Nathan ha-Levi Shapir. The second of two false messiah’s to bear this name, Kuhayl was a con man who presented himself as a transfiguration of the former. He is depicted as a conspirator, arrogant and greedy, strongly attracted by worldly, materialistic pleasures. He sent emissaries and letters throughout Yemen and even to Aden, Egypt , the Holy Land, and India , where he acquired many zealous followers. He compelled his local adherents to pay him a tithe of their revenues and established a wide network of fundraising to finance his profligate habits. His fame reached far beyond the boundaries of Yemen, particularly owing to the reports of R. Saphir in the Jewish journal Ha-Levanon published in Paris by his son in-law J. Brill. In 1873 Saphir published his Iggeret Teiman ha-Shenit, in which he attacked Kuḥayl, but this unintentionally contributed to enhancing his name and influence. Thus, for example, the Italian Hebrew poetess Rachel Morpurgo wrote a poem about the false messiah. But eventually he got into trouble over money and as a result of the complaint by the heads of the Jewish community of San'a to the Turkish governor he was arrested and sent to Izmir. After some years he returned to San'a where he died in solitude in 1878. It should be noted that, although both religious and temporal leaders of the Jewish community in San'a rejected the false claims of Shukr Kuhayl the first and the second, the treacherous political and economic situation in Yemen, from which the Jews suffered more than any other segment of the population, brought not a few of them to support him and to follow him. The title, Iggeret Teiman ha-Shenit, is consciously titled after Rambam's letter of centuries earlier.

R. Jacob ben Nathan ha-Levi Shapir (1822-1886) was a rabbi and traveler of Rumanian descent, born in Oshmyany, government of Vilna. While still a boy he went to Palestine with his parents, who settled at Safed, and at their death in 1836 he moved to Jerusalem. In 1848, he was commissioned by the Jewish community of the latter city to travel through the southern countries to collect alms for the poor of Jerusalem. In 1854 he undertook a second tour to collect funds for the construction of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter which led him to Yemen, British India, Egypt, and Australia. The result of this journey was his Eben Sappir (vol. i., Lyck, 1866; vol. ii., Mayence, 1874), in which work he gave the history, and a vivid though uncritical description of the condition, of the Jews in the above-mentioned countries.,), a work on the appearance in Yemen of the pseudo-Messiah Judah ben Shalom, and which was largely responsible for ending Judah ben Shalom's career. Saphir died in Jerusalem in 1886. R. Saphir was the first Jewish researcher to recognize the significance of the Cairo geniza, as well as the first to publicize the existence of the Midrash ha-Gadol, both later studied with great fanfare by Solomon Schechter.

          
Paragraph 2    (הובאה שנית לביה"ד)... מאת... מו"ה יעקב הלוי ספיר... יצא לאור על ידי ארי' ליב הלוי לעווינסאהן, סוכן... הלבנון בק"ק ווילנא... בשנת ה'ב'ר'כ'ו'ת'

התיבה "ווילנא" הובלטה בשער. עמ' [3]: המכתב ...אשר כתב... ר"י ספיר... מעיר עדן כח אד"ר [אדר ראשון] התרכ"ב (נדפס [תחילה] במכ"ע [מכתב עתי] "הלבנון", שנה ראשונה [תרכ"ג, גליון ו] בעה"ק ירושלם ת"ו [בשם "חדרי תימן" ובהוספות בספרו "אבן ספיר", ספר ב, מגנצא תרל"ד, עמ' קמט-קנב]). עמ' 38-5: מכתב א-יג. נדפסו תחילה ב"הלבנון", שנה ו, תרכ"ט, גל' כא- לח; שם, שנה ז, תר"ל, גל' ט, יד, יח-כ. ארבעה מהם נדפסו גם ב"אגרת תימן", (1870 Krakau). עיין: מזרחי, יחיא. עמ' 62-39: אגרת תימן השנית. זהה עם "אגרת לתימן" [Paris תרכ"ט], בתוספת מכתב קצר מאת רבני ירושלים, ר' אברהם אשכנזי, ראשון לציון, ור' מאיר אוירבאך, ראבד"ק אשכנזים, לר' יחיאל בריל, מוציא לאור "הלבנון" "להחיש הדפסת האגרת". עיין על הספר: א' יערי, שכר כחיל >שני משיחי שקר בתימן< - בתוך הקובץ "שבות תימן", תל-אביב תש"ה, עמ' 147-146.

          
Reference
Description		    EJ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Sapir; CD-EPI 0154732
        
Associated Images
2 Images (Click thumbnail to view full size image):
  Order   Image   Caption
  1   Click to view full size  
  
  2   Click to view full size  
  
  
Listing Classification
Period
20th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Russia-Poland:    Checked
  
Subject
History:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica