Only Edition, [1], 40; 31, [1] pp., octavo,  145:115 mm., light age staining, wide margins. A very good copy bound as issued.

Book of regulations for donor/members with benefits of membership in Hebrew and Yiddish in parallel columns. The Society is a Jewish free-loan fund which subscribes to both the positive Torah commandment of lending money and the Torah prohibition against charging interest on a loan to a fellow Jew. Unlike bank loans, gemach loans are interest-free, and are often set up with easy repayment terms.

Gemachs operate in most Jewish communities. The traditional gemach concept — that of a money-lending fund — extends loans on a short- or long-term basis for any need, including emergency loans, medical expenses, wedding expenses, etc. However, many people have expanded the concept of gemachs to include free loans of household items, clothing, books, equipment, services and advice. Gemachs may be operated both on a communal basis (such as by treasurers of community funds) and an internal basis (such as by businesses, organizations, schools and families). The ideal of contributing to or forming one's own gemach was popularized by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chofetz Chaim), who addressed many halachic questions about the practice and lauded its spiritual benefits in his landmark book, Ahavat Chesed ("Loving Kindness").

The orginazition was founded in 1870 by R. Joseph Chaim b. Abraham Solomon Sonnefeld (1849–1932), first rabbi of the separatist Orthodox community in Jerusalem. Born in Verbo (Slovakia), R. Sonnenfeld was orphaned at the age of four. As a child he studied both in a talmud torah and in a general school, but in his youth he decided to devote himself entirely to rabbinic study. After pursuing his studies in the yeshiva of his native town, in 1865 he went to Pressburg, where he lived in great poverty while studying in the yeshiva of R. Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer. In 1870 he received the title of honor Morenu from his teacher in a letter full of laudatory references to his great learning. The same year he went to Kobersdorf (Burgenland), where he became a pupil of A. Shag, who thought highly of him. In 1873 R. Sonnenfeld accompanied his teacher to Erez Israel and settled in the Old City of Jerusalem, and until the end of his life meticulously refrained from remaining outside the walls of the Old City for more than 30 days. He formed a close association with R. M. J. L. Diskin and was his right hand in his communal activities, such as the founding of the large orphanage and schools and the struggle against the secular schools. R. Sonnenfeld was one of the most active and influential personalities in the community centered in the Old City. He headed the Hungarian kolel Shomerei ha-Homot ("the guardians of the walls"), founded the Battei Ungarn quarter, and helped in the establishment of other quarters in Jerusalem. R. Sonnenfeld stood for complete separation between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox; he strongly opposed the bringing of the institutions of the old yishuv under the control of the Zionist bodies and the participation of the Orthodox in the official community, Keneset Yisrael, and fought for the statutory right of every individual to opt out of it. When the Jewish Battalions were founded in World War I he opposed enlistment of Orthodox Jews in the battalions. He was one of the founders of the Va'ad ha-Ir le-Kehillat ha-Ashkenazim ("City Council for the Ashkenazi Community"), as well as of its bet din, in opposition to the official Jerusalem rabbinate. He was also a founder of Agudat Israel in Erez Israel. As a result of his adherence to the doctrine of separation, R. Sonnenfeld was one of the chief opponents of R. A. I. Kook, and led the opposition to his appointment as rabbi of Jerusalem, and later as chief rabbi of Erez Israel, even though on the personal level their relationship was one of friendship and esteem. In 1920 R. Sonnenfeld was elected rabbi of a separate Orthodox community. In his struggle for the emergence of the separatist community he was especially aided by the Dutch publicist Jacob Israel de Haan, who took care that eminent non-Jewish visitors would meet R. Sonnenfeld, and they were duly impressed by his personality. He was a member of the separatist Orthodox delegation that appeared, on de Haan's initiative, before Hussein, king of the Hedjaz, when the latter visited Transjordan. He appeared before the U.S. King-Crane Commission; he also instructed his followers to meet Lord Northcliffe on his visit to Erez Israel. On all these occasions R. Sonnenfeld expressed a positive attitude to the Jewish resettlement of Erez Israel and the return to Zion, and in the census declared Hebrew as his language. He generally preached loyalty toward the government. He also inclined to moderation toward the Arabs of Erez Israel and strove to establish peace between them and the Jewish population. His published works include glosses to the Aguddah on Bava Kamma (Jerusalem, 1874) and on all of Nezikin (1899), a pamphlet, Seder ha-Purim ha-Meshullash (1898); Salmat Hayyim, responsa to Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah (1938-42).

EJ; Wikipedia