(Editor). She’eirith Yehudah [“Remnant of Judah”: Halachic comments and corrections pertaining to the Beith Joseph, mostly based upon the writings of the editor’s brothers].

TAITATSAK, JUDAH.

Mattathias Bath-Sheva (Bassevi)

Salonika

1599-1600

FIRST EDITION. Printer’s device on final leaf depicting a crowned lion and eagle with cherubs and mythological figures (Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks, no. 48). Marginalia. Extreme upper portion of title-page with signature of Moshe Medina.

Vinograd, Salonika 159.

She’eirith Yehudah contains responsa by the editor’s brothers Samuel and Joseph, the foremost Halachic scholars of Salonika. These appendices are entitled “Piskei Mar Shmuel” and “Piskei HaGaon Maharit,” respectively. In the afterword, the editor writes about his brother Samuel who died at a tender age: “Samuel studied and toiled in his thirty-nine years more than a seasoned scholar studies in a hundred years.” The older brother, R. Joseph Taitatsak (author Shailoth U’Teshuvoth Maharita’tz) was said to have not slept in a bed for forty years. This asceticism led to such spiritual ascendancy that he was visited by a Maggid, a heavenly teacher or astral guide, similar to that of his younger contemporary R. Yoseph Karo. Mehlman (Genuzoth, p. 74) states that the works published by the family of printers “MiGeza Bath Sheva” are most rare. The family originally hailed from the Ashkenazic community of Verona, Italy.