Mishneh Torah. Book Five, Complete: Sepher Kedushah. THE COPY oF R. YICHYE BEN SOLOMON KAFACH. Opening blank and f. 2r. inscription of: "HaTza'ir Yichye ben Sli[man] Al-Kafach".

THE COPY OF R. YICHYE BEN SOLOMON KAFACH (1850-1932). Besides his proficiency in Halacha and philosophy, R. Yichye Kafach, Chief Rabbi of San'a, Yemen, was an avid bibliophile and is to be singularly credited with preserving many ancient Yemenite manuscripts. R. Yichyeh's grandson, R. Joseph Kafach of Jerusalem (1917-2000) is considered one of the most important 20th-century interpreters of Maimonides. Kafach's edition of Maimonides' Commentary to the Mishnah, based on Maimonides' autograph manuscript, and accompanied by Kafach's own Hebrew translation from the Arabic and scholarly footnotes, has become the standard edition of the work. R. Joseph Kafach made extensive use of his grandfather's Maimonides manuscripts as he believed that the Yemenite readings of Maimonides were more accurate than those that stemmed from Europe. The close connection of the Yemenite community to Maimonides may be traced back to Maimonides' Igereth Teiman (Epistle to Yemen) a response to the pseudo-messianic movement in Yemen. Unique among Jewish communities, Yemenite Jews adopted wholesale Maimonides' halachic rulings. Such was Yemenite Jewry's fondness for Maimonides, they inserted into the Kaddish prayer the formula, "may the Messiah come speedily in our lifetime and in the lifetime of our teacher Rabbi Moses ben Maimon. " See EJ, Vol. X, cols. 670-72.