Twelve volumes

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN).

Johann Kelner

Frankfurt a/Main

1720-21

Letters of title-pages richly historiated. Illustration of the outlay of theTemple in Jerusalem at the end of Masecheth Midoth engraved by the noted astronomical scholar, R. Yonathan of Roznoi, author of Yeshuah Be-Yisrael. With various owners signatures and stamps in Hebrew and French including a scholarly, wealthy woman(!) ”Ha- Katzinah Yeidel Hagenau presently residing in Strassburg, dated 1823” plus other signatures from the Alsace area

Vinograd, Frankfurt a/Main 370-390, 396-412

A MAGNIFICENT SET OF THIS IMPORTANT EDITION. According to the foremost scholar on the printing of the Talmud, Raphael Nathan Nata Rabinowitz “ this edition, with its many additions and careful editing was the finest and most valuable editon since the original pubication of the Talmud and serves as the prototype for all future editions to this very day.” (Maamar Al Hadfasath HaTalmud pp. 109-111). The scholarly editor/publisher, R. Yehudah Aryeh Leib, the son of the eminent Gaon R. Joseph Samuel, the Rabbi of Frankfurt a/Main served as Dayan of Frankfurt. In the introduction to this Talmud he states that he based this edition on the important handwritten notes and corrections of his father’s Shas plus additional notes by his father-in-law R. Samuel Schotten Katz, the author of Kos Hayeshu’oth / Chidushei Maharshasha”ch. He lists thirty two different types of improvements included in this edition. The editor originally commenced the publication of this Talmud edition in Amsterdam 1717, however due to the jealous machinations of other Amsterdam printers he was legally bound to cease publication. R. Yehudah Aryeh returned to his native Frankfurt and proceeded to complete the publishing venture there. However, upon encountering problems importing his Amsteram printed volumes, R. Yehudah Aryeh Leib decided to re-isue the entire set from the beginning. In order to finance this huge undertaking, he obtained financial assistance from the financier and communal leader R. Samson Wertheim of Vienna whom he duly thanks on the title-page. He also thanks the banker R. Yissachar Berman of Halberstadt for giving permission to publish the new Talmud, despite Berman posessing a copyright from the German Rabbinate preventing the printing of a new edition. It is suggested Berman saw all the unique additions and the utility of R. Yehudah Aryeh Leib’s edition and munificently agreed to forego the prohibition. Another reason was the fact that fires broke out in Frankfurt and Altona burning hundreds of sets of Talmud. The fascinating, dramatic story of R. Yehudah Aryeh Leib’s life and singular mission to publish this Shas was fictionalized into a delightful historical novel by Selig Schachnowitz, Fire in the Sky (1984)