Divrei Rivoth

AUERBACH, BENJAMIN HIRSCH.

(Frankfurt a/Main)

1860

Autograph Hebrew Manuscript Signed. Aschkenazic cursive script.

Tzvi Benjamin (Benjamin Hirsch) Auerbach was given permission to copy these spurious responsa from the collection of Judah Leib Karlburg of Krefeld (see Lot 314). They concern matters of ritual slaughter, falsely attributed to R. Ephraim of Lunshits and R. Isaiah Halevi Horowitz, which R. Mordechai Halberstadt proved to be forgeries by the Bonn informer Krauss. (See Halberstadt, Ma'amar Mordechai (Brünn, 1790), no. 30). It is not clear what Auerbach's interest in these responsa was. Auerbach already knew of Halberstadt's work for he wrote in his Brith Avraham (Frankfurt a/Main, 1860) concerning the book Ma'amar Mordechai, "not even two copies have survived in the whole city of Frankfurt." Concerning the ill-fated She'eloth U'Teshuvoth Ma'amar Mordechai, see Kestenbaum Sale 13, Lot 252. B.H. Auerbach (1808-1872), who became in 1863 the Rabbi of Halberstadt, is suspected by some of having perpetrated a forged version of Sepher Ha'Eshkol by the twelfth-century Provencal halachic authority R. Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne. Auerbach published an edition of Sefer Ha'Eshkol complete with his commentary Nachal Eshkol (Halberstadt, 1868-69). When later in 1910, Shalom Albeck published the authentic version, it became apparent that Auerbach's version, which he claimed to have copied from a manuscript in the collection of Elyakim Carmoly of Frankfurt, was widely divergent. There ensued a controversy, with Albeck accusing Auerbach of outright forgery and several prominent scholars --including J. Schorr, H. Ehrentreu, D. Hoffman and A. Berliner--rising to Auerbach's defense. The alleged Carmoly manuscript has never been located. Prof. S.Z. Leiman has observed other irregularities in Auerbach's literary ouevre. See EJ, Vol. III, col. 843