On laws applying in Erez Israel, which had been omitted from the Shulhan Arukh. Includes first edition commentaries of the Vilna Gaon. R. Israel b. Samuel of Shklov (d. 1839), talmudic scholar of Lithuania and, later, in Erez Israel, where he was leader of the "Kolel ha-Perushim," the local community of the disciples of R. Elijah b. Solomon Zalman, the Vilna Gaon. R. Israel was born and brought up in Shklov. Although he studied under the Vilna Gaon for only six months before the latter's death, he was nevertheless entrusted with the preparation of the Gaon's commentaries for publication. In 1809 he joined the third group of the Gaon's pupils, led by R. Hayyim b. Tobiah, that immigrated to Erez Israel and settled in Safed, where there were already 40 families from the two previous groups. Within less than a year of his arrival he was sent by the Kolel ha-Perushim to Lithuania to organize permanent assistance for the immigrants. During the course of this mission, which proved extremely successful, he published the notes of the Vilna Gaon on the tractate Shekalim of the Jerusalem Talmud together with a commentary of his own under the title of Taklin Hadtin (Minsk, 1812). Though caught up in the Napoleonic wars which had meanwhile reached Russia, he succeeded in returning to Safed at the beginning of 1813. In the summer of that year, seeking to escape a plague which broke out in Safed, Israel and his family set out for Jerusalem. His wife died on the journey, his two sons, two of his daughters, and his son-in-law died in Jerusalem, and his father and mother at Safed and only he and his youngest daughter survived. In 1816, after having returned to Safed, R. Israel was chosen to succeed R. Menahem Mendel of Shklov, the leader of the Kolel ha-Perushim there, when the latter moved to Jerusalem. R. Israel served as head of the community, which now numbered 600, first in Safed and later in Jerusalem. He organized assistance from abroad, maintained amicable relations with the hasidic and Sephardi communities, represented his community before the authorities, and established good relations with the Arabs. Reports having reached Safed in 1830 of the existence of Jewish tribes in Yemen, he sent a special envoy there to search for remnants of the Ten Tribes. When Israel Bak opened a Hebrew printing house in Safed in 1832, he entrusted him with the printing of his Pe'at ha-Shulhan. The work did not appear until 1836, its printing having been interrupted by an attack by the Arabs of Upper Galilee on the Jews of Safed. R. Israel organized help for those who had suffered from the attack, which lasted for 33 days and in the course of which much Jewish property was looted. On the first day of 1837 an earthquake killed more than 2,000 Jews in Safed. R. Israel was then in Jerusalem, and upon hearing of the disaster he immediately sent help to Safed and letters to Jews abroad soliciting their aid for the stricken. Safed having been reduced to rubble, R. Israel for the last two years of his life lived, like most of the refugees from the earthquake, in Jerusalem. Louis Loewe, who met him there, related that on the Sabbath R. Israel spoke only Hebrew. His health failing, R. Israel went in 1839 to Tiberius where he died. His grave and tombstone were discovered in Tiberius in 1964. R. Israel's diary has been partially preserved, as have numerous letters which he wrote to people abroad. They constitute important sources for the history of the Jewish settlement in Erez Israel during the first half of the 19th century. Upon the prerogatives of the Holy Land and upon the sufferings of Jerusalem and of Safed in this century. The work is full of interesting details concerning Palestine. R. Abiezer Judah b. Isaac of Tiktin came to Jerusalem around 1840. He resided in Jerusalem and wrote several scholarly works: Mishmeret ha-Berit (The Charge of the Covenant), a defense of Judaism against the irreligious, (Jerusalem, 1846); Mekor ha-Berakah (The Source of Blessing), being the first part of a work in three volumes, called Berakah Meshuleshet (The Threefold Benediction), upon the Talmudical treatise Berakot (Lemberg, 1851).
Israel b. Abraham Bak (1797–1874) was born in Berdichev, Ukraine, into a family of printers. Later he owned a Jewish press in Berdichev, printing about 30 books between 1815 and 1821 when the press closed down. In 1831, after various unsuccessful efforts to reopen the works, he emigrated to Palestine and settled in Safed. There he renewed the tradition of printing Hebrew works, which had come to an end in the last third of the 17th century. During the peasant revolt against Muhammad Ali in 1834 his printing press was destroyed and he was wounded. Later he reopened his press, and also began to work the land on Mount Yarmak (Meron), overlooking Safed. His was the first Jewish farm in Erez Israel in modern times. After the Safed earthquake in 1837 and the Druze revolt in 1838, during which his farm and printing press were destroyed, he moved to Jerusalem. In 1841 he established the first - and for 22 years, the only - Jewish printing press in Jerusalem. One hundred and thirty books were printed on it, making it an important cultural factor in Jerusalem. Bak also published and edited the second Hebrew newspaper in Erez Israel, Havazzelet (1863). After a short time its publication stopped and was renewed only in 1870 by his son-in-law I. D. Frumkin and others. Israel Bak was a leader of the hasidic community; as a result of his efforts and those of his son Nisan, a central synagogue for the Hasidim, called Tiferet Israel (after R. Israel of Ruzhin), came into being. In Jerusalem it was also known as "Nisan Bak's synagogue." It was destroyed in 1948 during the War of Independence.