Zohar Harakiah [commentary to the poetic Azharoth of Solomon ibn Gabirol].

DURAN, SHIMON BEN TZEMACH.

Joseph ben Ayad Kabesi for Samuel ben David ibn Nahmias

Constantinople

1515

FIRST EDITION. The Salman Schocken copy. Fine condition.

Vinograd, Const. 53; Yaari, Const. 39; Mehlman 607; not in Adams.

A FINE, CRISP COPY OF AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE WORK. One of the foremost halachic decisors of North African Jewry, R. Shimon ben Zemach Duran (the Rashba’tz, 1361-1444), a native of the isle of Majorca, was one of three prominent rabbinic leaders who fled to Algeria in the year 1391 in order to escape anti-Jewish riots in their native Spain - the other two being R. Isaac ben Shesheth Perfet (Riva”sh) and R. Ephraim b. Israel Elankawa (buried in Tlemcen). See EJ, Vol. IX, col. 32; JE, Vol. I, p. 437. The rarity of this first edition and the importance of the work prompted Yosef Shaul Nathanson to add his own scholarly notes to the second edition which did not appear until 1858.