Chidushei Ramba"n to Tractate Kethuboth [Chaps. I-III]. * Accompanied by single page (central tear) containing autograph signed testimonials by R. Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld and R. Shlomo Zalman Bahara"n (1904)

MOSES BEN NACHMAN (NACHMANIDES).

Yemen

19th-Century

Temanic cursive Hebrew script

The printing history of the Chidushei Ramba"n, the novellae of Nachmanides to Tractate Kethuboth is as follows: When first published in Metz in 1765, the work was misattributed to R. Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (Rashb"a). R. David Luria noted that the novellae were "Attributed to the Rashb"a, and whoever is conversant with the language of the Ramba"n and of the Rashb"a, will understand that they [=the novellae] are by the Ramba"n. (See Saul Lieberman in M.M. Kasher and J.B. Mandelbaum, Sarei ha-Alef [1959], p. 176, no. 10). Interestingly enough, in the autograph endorsement supplied here, R. Chaim Sonnenfeld writes he found that the manuscript matches the writings in the Ramban's name found in the Shitah Mekubetzeth (though the manuscript requires some linguistic emendations). Rabbi Sonnenfeld considered it a great mitzvah to ready the manuscript for publication in an annotated edition. Additional novellae of Ramba"n to Kethuboth were published by R. Aaron Jeruchem in Ohel Rachel (New York 1942). R. Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld (1849-1932), a native of Verbo, Slovakia, was in his youth a disciple of R. Abraham Samuel Benjamin Schreiber of Pressburg (Kethav Sofer), and after his arrival in Jerusalem in 1873 became a most distinguished disciple and associate of R. Joshua Leib Diskin (Mahari"l Diskin), known as the Brisker Rav. In 1920 he was appointed by the independent anti-Zionist Eidah Chareidis of Jerusalem as the "Rabbi of Jerusalem." There ensued an ongoing controversy between R. Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld and R. Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, who had earlier been appointed by the majority of Jerusalem Jewry as "Rabbi of Jerusalem." R. Sonnenfeld was the author of responsa Salmath Chaim. See EJ, Vol. XV, cols. 155-157; N.Z. Friedmann, Otzar ha-Rabbanim 8795 R. Shlomo Zalman Bahara"n was the son of R. Nachum of Shadik (d. 1865), one of the most illustrious tzaddikim of Jerusalem, reputed to have encountered the Prophet Elijah ("giluy Eliyahu"). The son, R. Shlomo Zalman, a founder of the Me'ah She'arim and Nachalath Shiv'ah neighborhoods, was a leading Jerusalem sage. See Friedmann, Otzar ha-Rabbanim 18767