[2], 3, 77, 14, 23 [5] pp., 178:105 mm., age and damp staining, wide margins, tears with some foxing, bound in contemporary boards, rubbed.

The Haham Moses Gaster Copy  (inscribed in pencil on title) - Haham Moses Gaster (1856–1939) chief rabbi, scholar. He was born in Bucharest and studied at the University of Breslau and the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he was ordained in 1881. He taught Romanian language and literature in the University of Bucharest, 1881–85, published a popular history of Romanian literature, Literatura Popularǎ Românǎ (1883), and began his great chrestomathy of Romanian literature Chrestomatie Românǎ (2 vols., 1891). In 1885, because of his protests against the treatment of the Jews, he was expelled from Romania. He settled in England where he was appointed to teach Slavonic literature at Oxford University in 1886. In 1887 he was appointed haham of the English Sephardi community. Gaster's abilities as a scholar and an orator gave him an outstanding position both in the Anglo-Jewish community and in those areas of intellectual life in which he became a recognized authority, e.g., folklore and Samaritan literature. However, Gaster had a stubborn and combative personality, and this led to an unwillingness to retreat from a position once taken, which did not enhance his reputation. When he was principal of Judith Montefiore College, Ramsgate (1891–96), he endeavored to make it an institution for training rabbis, but the attempt failed. In 1918, after disagreements with his congregation, Gaster retired from the office of haham.

 

Piyyutim and Pizmonim (songs and hymns) for the huppah, havdalah, and milah, according to the custom of the Cochin Jews. This edition has explanation of terms and annotations from Naphtali Eliahu Rahabi. The volume begins with an introduction explaining the customs of betrothal and huppah and concluding with an explanation of the terms in the ketubbah. At the end of the volume are the benedictions for the marriage ceremony in English, concluding with the verses, If I forget thee, O Jerusalem . . .” (Psalms 137:5). The text of Hupat Hatanim is printed in a large, clear, attractive, vocalized Hebrew, the glosses in a smaller square font.

In addition to editing this work, Naphtali Eliahu Rahabi (Raby), (1863–1951), “white” Jewish scholar of Cochin, was the author of Divrei Yemei ha-Yehudim be-Cochin (History of the Jews of Cochin; Sasson Ms. 268), and of Toledot Beit Rahabi be-Cochin (History of the Rahabi Family), both unpublished. Like many Cochin leaders, Rahabi had strong Zionist sympathies.

Hebrew printing began in Bombay with the arrival of Yemenite Jews in the middle of the 19th century. They took an interest in the religious welfare of the Bene Israel, for whom - as well as for themselves - they printed various liturgies from 1841 onward, some with translations into Marathi, the vernacular of the Bene Israel. Apart from a short lived attempt to print with movable type, all this printing was by lithography. In 1882, the Press of the Bombay Educational Society was established (followed in 1884 by the Anglo-Jewish and Vernacular Press, in 1887 by the Hebrew and English Press, and in 1900 by the Lebanon Printing Press), which sponsored the publication of over 100 Judeo-Arabic books to meet their liturgical and literary needs, and also printed books for the Bene Israel.

 

Hebrew Description

References

EJ; Yaari, Ha-Defus ha-Ivri be-Artzot ha-Mizrach II p. 70 no. 85; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000310414