Yisroel Meir Shain. Aliyath Eliahu [eulogy for R. Eliyahu Guttmacher]

(GUTTMACHER, ELIJAH).

Y.D. Frumkin

Jerusalem

1875

FIRST EDITION . Presentation copy with full-page poetic dedication in gold and blue signed by the author in Hebrew and German inserted after the title. Illustrations of Jerusalem, Kever Rachel and R. Meir Baal Haness. Author’s stamp on title-page.

According to Shoshana Halevi (no. 254) only 130 copies of this work were published. R. Elijah Guttmacher of Greidetz (Graetz) (1795-1874), a disciple of R. Akiva Eiger, was known as a kabbalist and wonder-worker. Together with the proto-Zionist Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer (another student of R. Akiva Eiger), R. Guttmacher was active on behalf of the welfare of Eretz Israel. Although not aligned with the Chassidic movement he had all the trappings of a Chassidic Rebbe and was venerated as the Wonder Rabbi of Western Europe. The author studied in R. Guttmacher’s Yeshiva Shnoth Eliyahu in Jerusalem. According to Halevi the poem on p. 13-15 was written by R. Chaim Hirschensohn whose father was the Rosh Yeshiva. The final leaf contains an announcement of a manuscript for sale written by Abraham Azulai and signed by his grandson the Chid’a.