Levush Malchuth [Elucidations and novellea to the Shulchan Aruch.] Two parts (of four) in two volumes.

JAFFE, MORDECHAI.

Moses ben Bezalel Katz

Prague

1623-24

Titles within woodcut historiated architectural arch bearing the crowned Priestly hands printer’s mark flanked by two winged cherubs (Yaari, Printer’s Marks no. 53). Vol. I: Even Ha’ezer: Levush Butz Ve’argaman. ff. 108. * Vol. II: Choshen Mishpat: Levush Ir Shushan. ff. 192.

Vinograd, Prague 307 & 315.

Mordechai Jaffe (c. 1535-1612), a native of Prague, studied in his youth in Poland under the greatest scholars of the day, R. Solomon Luria (Maharsha”l) and R. Moses Isserles (Ram”a). In subsequent years, he would sojourn in Italy and once again in Poland before finally returning to his native Prague in 1592, at which time he succeeded the famed R. Judah Löw (Mahara”l) as Av Beth Din. In most of Europe, the “Levush,” was studied as a supplement to the Shulchan Aruch and Mappah. In Prague, however, it was studied as the most fundamental, authoritative text of the halacha and remains to this day one of the mainstays of the Halacha - especially the Aschkenazic tradition.