Tur, Yoreh Deah

JACOB BEN ASHER OF TOLEDO.

Solomon ben Moses HaLevi ben Alkabetz

Guadalajara

(Ca. 1479 -1480)

Third edition. First Spanish edition

Goff 57; Goldstein 80 (listing only one copy in the British Isles - the present, Wineman copy); Offenberg 71;Tishby (Israel) 26; not in Steinschneider; Wineman Cat. 50. HUC (48 leaves); JTS (17 leaves); Both The National Library of Canada (Ottowa) and JNUL (Mehlman Collection) posess a fragment of a single leaf only

An Early Spanish Fragment of Extreme Rarity. No complete copy extant. The largest copy, in Madrid's Escorial Library, lacks the first leaf. Only four other fragments are known (see above). Obtaining even a fragment of this Tur elicited the following frisson of excitement from the esteemed Librarian of HUC: “The rarest books, understandably, were those from Spain and Portugal printed...before the expulsions. The acquisition of any Hebrew incunabulum is ...noteworthy, and the library is proud to report the acquisition of an edition of the Tur Yoreh Deah... albeit a fragment...Textual and further typographical study remains to be done...In any case, we share the thrill of acquiring an important fifteenth century book.” See H.C. Zafren, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore Vol. XII (1979) p. 45