(ITALY).

AUCTION 33 |
Tuesday, June 20th,
2006 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Including Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, & Autograph Letters
Lot 200
(ITALY).
Chieri, Italy: End 18th-century
Est: $1,500 - $2,500
PRICE REALIZED $1,200
This companion for the Holidays commences with the Birkath Kohanim or Priestly Benediction, followed by the Meditation for Beating the Willows on Hoshanah Rabbah, the Prayer for Removing the Sepher Torah from the Ark on Shemini Atzereth, and finally, an Aschkenazic song for the Hakaphoth of the night of Simchath Torah. All these rituals are thoroughly suffused with the spirit of the Kabbalah, typical for Italy of the day.
These universal Jewish prayers are followed by two hymns unique to the community of Chieri in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. The background to these local hymns was the invasion of the ghetto in 1797 by a local mob at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. The hoodlums were subsequently subdued by the municipal authorities, sparing the lives of the ghetto’s Jewish inhabitants. Thereafter the day of deliverance, Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av, was observed as a local "Purim." Ranei Phaleit was subsequently published in Turin in 1797. See EJ, Vol. V, col. 422