Sepher Zikaron [Joseph Karo’s Code, abridged, versified in rhyme and arranged mnemotechnically]

SHAPIRA, ISAAC BEN NOAH COHEN

(The Katz Press?)

(Prague? Cracow?)

circa 1632-33

FIRST EDITION. Four parts in one. Title within typographic borders, with further ornaments and woodcut tail-pieces

Vinograd, Prague 339; Mehlman 877

The author, Rabbi of Mezhirech, was titled Ha’gaon, an honorific sparingly used at the time. He was mentor to Joel Sirkes (The Ba”CH), one of Poland’s most outstanding Talmudists. This work is variously assigned to Cracow and Prague, but the watermarks (according to Felix de Marez Oyens) strongly point to the latter. For another (incomplete) copy of this work offered at auction, see Christie’s, Hebrew Printed Books, Duplicates from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 22nd May 1986, Lot 66. Although Y. Yudlov in Ginzei Yisrael conjectures the date to be circa 1640 (following Zedner and Roest), the present cataloger has determined an earlier date, based upon the following two considerations: 1. The first approbation is by R. Nathan Shapiro, author of Megaleh Amukoth, Rabbi of Cracow who passed away in the summer of 1633; (See Kestenbaum Auction XXV, Lot 48; and the comprehensive monograph by Eliezer Katzman, Toldoth Ha-Megaleh Amukoth (2003), republished with additions and revisions in Yeshurun, Vol. 13, pp. 617-700; and Vol. 14, pp. 935-964). 2. Yudlov himself cites M. Nadav (former chief librarian of JNUL), who states that the tenure of the Rabbi of Pinsk R. Joseph, was from1628-1631; thus his approbation was written in that time period. The printer states that the approbation is by the Rabbi who had been in Pinsk (in the past tense). This would seem to indicate that the book was published right after he left Pinsk in 1631 and before the death of R. Nathan Shapiro on Shabbat Va-ethchanan in 1633