20:05:19


[Login]   
[Book List]  
 
Bidding Information
Lot #    5951
Auction End Date    10/28/2003 12:42:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Hibbur me-haYeshu'ah
Title (Hebrew)    חיבור יפה מהישועה
Author    Rabbenu Nissim Gaon
City    Amsterdam
Publisher    Hirtz Levi Rofe & Kasman
Publication Date    1746
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    Second edition. 40 ff., 8 vo., 164:110 mm., wide margins, old hand and stamp on title. A very good copy bound in modern full leather boards.
          
Detailed
Description		    Collection of Hebrew stories and folktales taken from early sources. It is designed to strengthen belief, faith, and morality among the people and to raise their spirit. This work, possibly the first prose storybook in medieval Hebrew literature, paved the way for Hebrew belletristic literature as a literary genre. Tradition has it that R. Nissim dedicated the book to his father-in-law, Dunash, who is otherwise unknown, to console him in his mourning. The first printed edition was published from an early Hebrew translation. The Hebrew version has been frequently republished, not always according to the same translation. The work circulated widely even before its first printing, and had a great influence on similar story collections. Ma'asiyyot she-ba-Talmud (Constantinople, 1519) was based upon it, and the Hibbur ha-Ma'asiyyot (ibid., 1519) is an anthology of its stories.

Rabbenu Nissim b. Jacob of Kairouan (c. 990–1062), outstanding leader and talmudist of North Africa. His father headed a bet ha-midrash in Kairouan and was the representative of the academies of Sura and Pumbedita for the whole of North Africa. Little is known of R. Nissim's personal history. It is known that he, too, was head of an academy in Kairouan and maintained close ties with the academy of Pumbedita. After the death or R. Hananel, he was appointed by the Babylonian academies Rosh bei-Rabbanan ("Head of the College") in his stead.

          
Reference
Description		    Festschrift... A. Harkavy (1908), 211–8 (Heb. sect.); Mann, Texts, index; J. Obermann (ed.), The Arabic Original of Ibn Shahin's Book of Comfort (1933); A. Aptowitzer, in: Sinai, 12 (1943), 118f.; EJ; CD-EPI 0152489
        
Associated Images
1 Image (Click thumbnail to view full size image):
  Order   Image   Caption
  1   Click to view full size  
  
  
Listing Classification
Period
  
18th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Holland:    Checked
  
Subject
History:    Checked
Other:    Literature
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica