Hoda’ah al Odoth Hadphasath Shas Talmud Bavli, Yerushalmi Ve-Alfasi [Prospectus for the Vilna Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Talmud Yerushalmi and Alfasi]

Announcement by the publisher of the famed Vilna Shas, extolling the virtues of their enterprise. The Vilna edition of the Talmud, completed in 1886, “has been used to this day throughout the Jewish world as the authoritative, traditional edition of the Talmud and its commentaries.” See M. Stanislawski, “The ‘Vilna Shas’ and East European Jewry,” in: Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein (2005), p.97. What made this edition of the Talmud so extraordinary was the extensive number of commentaries included, whether on the page itself or as supplementary material. See ibid. p.284. Rabbinowicz notes that the Vilna edition of 1880-1886 was the final Romm edition, from whose matrices the publishing house produced all subsequent printings until the fateful year of 1939. See N.N. Rabbinowicz, Ma’amar al hadpasath ha-Talmud (1952), p. 157. For further announcements concerning the publication of this edition, see Kestenbaum & Company Auction 31, Lot 280 and Auction 33, Lot 130