HAYARCHI, ABRAHAM BEN NATHAN. Peirush Masecheth Kalah Rabathi. Edited by Baruch Toledano

(ISRAEL, LAND OF)

n.p.

Tiberias

1906

FIRST EDITION

Friedberg, P-234

FIRST HEBREW BOOK PUBLISHED IN “TIBERIAS” The history of this book is rather exotic. “Kalah,” which deals with matrimonial laws and sexual mores, is not one of the mainstream tractates of the Talmud but rather a later addition, a “masecheth chitzonith.” It is interesting that a medieval authority of the stature of R. Abraham ben Nathan of Lunel (“Yarchi” is the Hebrew equivalent of “Lunel”), Provence, author of the halachic compendium Ha-Manhig, should have written a commentary on this tractate. This edition of the commentary was based on a manuscript that Rabbi Baruch Toledano found in his native Meknes, Morocco. See JQR, Vol. XXIV, pp. 331-348. Although the title states the book is printed in Tiberias, this is suspect. No printer’s name is given. Friedberg gives Jerusalem in brackets as the place of publication. It is likely that Toledano, a resident of Tiberias, had the actual printing done in Jerusalem