Yefeh Mareh [on the Aggadic portions of the Jerusalem Talmud]

JAFFE, SAMUEL BEN ISAAC ASCHKENAZI

Asher Parenzo for Giovanni di Gara

Venice

1590

Second edition. Printer’s devices on title and verso (Yaari, Printer’s Marks nos. 18 and 35). Scholarly marginalia on ff. 2v-3r. Censors' signatures on final page, including the apostate “Camillo Jaghel, 1613.”

Vinograd, Venice 742; Habermann, di Gara 115; Adams T-112

R. Samuel Jaffe (d. late 16th century), was spiritual leader of the Aschkenazi community of Constantinople. Jaffe is famous for his commentaries to the Midrash Rabbah: Yefeh To'ar and Yefeh Eynayim. According to the introduction to Yefeh Mar'eh, the author composed the commentary to the aggadoth in the Jerusalem Talmud because they oftimes overlap the aggadoth in Midrash Rabbah. In doing so, Jaffe trod vigin soil. As he points out in his introduction, the only previous attempt to unpack these treasures of the Jerusalem Talmud was the feeble effort by the author of Eyn Yaakov, R. Jacob ibn Habib. See EJ, Vol. IX, col. 1266