Sepher Divrei Emeth [on death procedure and mourning]. According to the custom of Prague.

(PRAGUE).

The Widow Alswanger

Prague

1805

First edition. Text in Hebrew and Yiddish. With three pages of dense manuscript notes.

Vinograd, Prague 1075.

This book was prepared by Rabbi Lipmann Basch, the shamash of the Prague burial society, as a guide to death and mourning based upon the 17th century Italian work Ma’avar Yabok. The scarcity of that work is noted on the title page here, and “lacking a reliable guide, people make errors when their loved one is dying” hence the appearance of this work. The manuscript of the work was shown to Rabbi Yechezkel Landau who provided here a glowing approbation. He heralds the inclusion of Yiddish instructions and a section of laws and customs, since “most of the masses do not well understand the Holy Tongue.” Three pages of dense notes are written on the front matter and consist of various sources and short quotations from throughout rabbinic literature on death and mourning. These notes are not signed, but a dateline is given: 5634 (1874), Bonyhád. On the back cover is an ownership mark of ‘Avraham Ka”tz Kohn of Bonyhád.’ Ownership marks of a father and son (‘this is [from] my portion of inheritance’) are written on the title page.