ISRAEL BEN SAMUEL OF SHKLOV. Pe’ath ha-Shulchan (Agricultural Laws of Eretz Israel)

(ISRAEL, LAND OF).

Israel Bak

Safed

1836

FIRST EDITION. Printer’s device on title page

Vinograd, Safed 12; Vinograd, Vilna Gaon (Jerusalem, 2003), no. 1543; Yaari, Hebrew Printing in the East (1940), p. 22, no. 11; Halevy, The First Hebrew Books Published in Jerusalem, p. 20, n. 5

The Laws applicable to the Holy Land, based on Maimonides and in particular the rulings of the author’s mentor R. Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna. These are written in a style approximating that of Joseph Karo’s Code, Shulchan Aruch (Prepared Table), hence the name Pe’ath ha-Shulchan (Corner of the Table). Introduction describes the massacres by the Druze in the province of the Gallil. Rabbi Israel ben Samuel of Shklov(1770-1839) was the leader of the Kollel Perushim, the followers of the Vilna Gaon in Eretz Israel. See JE, Vol VI, p. 669; S. Levi, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, in: Sinai III (1939):30-37; L. Jung (ed.) Men of the Spirit (1964) pp. 63-81 One of six books Israel Bak printed in Safed between the years 1832-1836See Shoshanna Halevy, The First Hebrew Books Published in Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 15-21