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Bidding Information
Lot #    6195
Auction End Date    12/16/2003 11:46:00 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Ein Yisrael (Ein Ya’akov)
Title (Hebrew)    òéï éùøàì (òéï éò÷á)
Author    [Ms.] R. Jacob ibn Habib
City    Yemen
Publication Date    19th cent.
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    144, [1] ff., 324:215 mm., age stained, corners rounded, ink on fine heavy paper, beautiful Yemenite block letters, double columns with approximately 60 lines per column, bound in later full cloth boards, rubbed. Rare - not a text usually copied by Yeminite scribes.
          
Detailed
Description		    Volume one of two contains tractates Berakhot through Hagiga. Withe no printing press, Yemenite Jews wrote all their religous books. This manuscript was copied from the Salonica printed edition of the Ein Ya’akov printed under the title Ein Yisrael. Ein Ya’akov is the classic collection of aggadah in the Talmud compiled by R. Jacob ben Solomon ibn Habib (c. 1445-c.1515). Ein Ya’akov was among the titles proscribed and burned together with the Talmud after the pope’s bull of August, 1553, and subsequently placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum. The Council of Trent, which permitted the publication of the Talmud in 1564, and certain other works as well, did so by imposing onerous conditions, primarily concerning the expurgation of passages inimical to Christianity, and the substitution of acceptable terms for objectionable ones. Among the other conditions imposed was the prohibition of Hebrew books under their original names. The Talmud, for example, could not be reprinted as such, but could be reissued only if that name were omitted, it now being called shas, and Ein Ya’akov only as Ein Yisrael.

Indeed, the scribe, in reference to the above, transcribes on the title in bold letters the Biblical verse (Genesis 32:29) "Thy name shall be called no more Ya'acov, but Yisrael." This work reflects the history of the Yemenite Jewish communities which followed their traditional ways of secular and religious life, not being influenced by external trends and currents.

          
Reference
Description		    Graetz, IV p. 589; Heller, 16th Century Book; Slatkine, Shemot ha Sefarim, p. 265.
        
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Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Other:    Yemen
  
Subject
Other:    Talmud
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
Other:    Book
  
Kind of Judaica