Next Thursday, November 5, the Israel Society of Judaica collectors will hold an auction of rare books, manuscripts, documents and works of art at the Jerusalem Plaza-Sheraton Hotel.
The Society is a very young organization, but during the short years of its existence it has become the leader in the Judaica market.
Abraham Israel Froehlich, the director of the Society, and his friends and assistants have succeeded in recent years to unearth archives and books treasures which have been considered lost. They have also discovered important private collections, whose existence was known only to few.
At each of its public auctions in recent years, the Society has offered books, booklets or other printed matter, which had been completely unknown even to experts in their respective fields. No wonder, therefore that the Society’s catalogs are being awaited eagerly by Jewish bibliophiles. A fortnight or a week before each public sale you can see people inquiring about the catalog at Shlomie Biegeleisen’s Hebrew bookstore in Boro Park.
At the forthcoming sale more than 500 lots will come under the hammer. They include letters and documents from the recently discovered Amsterdam archives of the Pedkidim and Amarkalim for the Holy Land, books in all fields of Jewish knowledge, rare publications by Jewish communities and societies, liturgical literature, maps of the Land of Israel, periodicals, posters and public announcements.
Following are descriptions of some of the items on sale.
A notice, printed in Jerusalem in 1901, announcing the death of Baron Rothschild of Frankfurt.
The catalog notes:
The notice announces that eulogies for the deceased will be delivered by Sefardi and Ashkenazi rabbonim — Rabbi Yakov Shaul Elyashar, Rabbi Shemuel Salant and others – in the synagogues of both communities.
“Baron Wilhelm Karl (Shimon Wolf) Rothschild (1828-1901) was the head of the German branch of the Rothschilds in Frankfurt. He was known for his generosity. He contributed much to the old Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, and among others, built the Rothschild House in the Battei Mahaseh quarter in the old City of Jerusalem.
“His son-in-law was Baron Edmond James Rothschild of Paris, who was known as the Nadiv HaYadu’a”
This statement is correct, but it doesn’t tell us enough about the personality of Baron Wilhelm Karl Rothschild, who in the Jerusalem death notice is called a Tzaddik and a Hasid!
The Baron was indeed a Tzaddik and a Hasid! In his time he was known as the “frume Rothschild.” His generosity for Torah was phenomenal and his frumkeit proverbial!
Born in Naples in a home estranged from traditional Judaism, the young Baron studied for many years — after coming to Frankfurt with great Talmudic scholars, until he himself became a Talmid Hakham.
“It is very difficult to imagine the punctiliousness with which he fulfilled the commandments and the dedication and fervor with which he prayed.” Reb Jacob Rosenheim writes about the Baron in his memoirs.
The Baron is mentioned in many books by Torah scholars, who express to him their gratitude for having helped them publish their works.
Rosenheim relates that the Baron served as Consul General of Austria-Hungary in Frankfurt. When Kaiser Franz Joseph visited Frankfurt, the Baron received him in his palace. During the entire reception there was not a moment when the Baron was seen without his head being covered.
The Baron had a Sefer Torah written for him each year by a well known Torah scribe of Vilna.
Before Passover, when the servants were cleaning his bookshelves – under the Baron’s personal supervision – they were given white gloves before they could touch the Sefarim.
Rosenheim also relates that once, before Pesach, the Baron ordered his grandfather, who was a bookseller, to get him — at any price- a copy of all editions of the Haggadah on which he could lay his hands.
Speaking of Haggadath we might mention that among those to be offered in the forthcoming sale is one which is not recorded in any Haggadah bibliography.
It was published in Berlin in 1920 and features a German translation by Uriel Birnbaum and illustrations in color by Menachem Birnbaum. Uriel and Menachem were sons of Dr. Nathan Birnbaum.
Other rare books on sale include:
A Hebrew book of Psalms printed in Goteborg, Sweden in 1802.
The Order of Kabbalat Shabbat, printed in Livorno, 1828, at the request of the HaTzi-Yom (Half-Day) Society of Ferrara. The members of this society received Shabbat very early on Friday. The “Kabbalat Shabbat” includes additional Psalms, the Bar Yochai hymns and more.
A Prayer and address by Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (“Nodeh BiYehuda”) of Prague on the occasion of the illness of the Austrian Emperor (German, circa 1790). The last pages include a list of the charitable acts of the wealthy members of the community on account of the Emperor’s illness.
The Jewish Press, Friday Oct. 30, 1992 p. 18b