b'141 (JAPAN). Kotsuji, Abram Setsuzau. The Origin and Evolution of the Semitic AlphabetsFIRST EDITION.English text interspersed with Hebrew and other exotic alphabets. Numerous illustrated charts.INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR IN HEBREW.pp. xiv, 229. Browned. Original boards. Lg. 4to. Tokyo, Kyo Bun Kwan, 1937. $600 - $900 Descended from a long line of Shinto priests, the author Setsuzau Kotsuji (1899-1973) was a Japanese Hebraist and ardent philo-Semite who founded the Institute of Biblical Research at the University of Tokyo.During the Holocaust years Kotsuji greatly assisted the hundreds of rabbis and yeshiva students from Eastern Europe (including the entire Mir Yeshiva) who escaped to Kobe, Japan and later to Japanese-occupied Shanghai.In 1959 Kotsuji formally converted to Judaism in Jerusalem. See his memoir, From Tokyo to Jerusalem: Autobiography of a Japanese Convert (1964).142 JOSEPH BEN GORION. Yosiphon [historical narrative of the Second Temple period]. Title letters historiated. Title-page with stamp of the Nazi Partys Institute for Jewish Research, the Reichsinstitut fr Geschichte des Neuen Deutschlands. ff. 155. Damp-soiled, opening and closing leaves remargined, taped repairs with some loss, slight worming on a few leaves, censors signature on nal leaf. Modern gilt -ruled salmon morocco. Sm. 4to. [Vinograd, Venice 220.] Venice, Giovanni di Farri, 1544. $600 - $900 Once thought to be an actual eyewitness report of events during the Second Temple era, the extensive research of the late Prof. David Flusser has proved that Yosiphon, composed by Joseph ben Gorion (an apocryphal gure, not be confused with the authentic Josephus Flavius), was written in Southern Italy in the year 953. See EJ, Vol. X, cols. 296-98.143 KAYARA, SHIMON (Attributed to). Halachoth Gedoloth [Gaonic Rabbinic Code].FIRST EDITION.Title within wreathed ornamental arch. ff. (4), 144. Stained in places. Modern blind-tooled red morocco. Folio. [Vinograd, Venice 333.] Venice, Cornelio Adelkind for Marco Antonio Giustiniani, 1548. $500 - $700 In the introduction, there is an enumeration of the negative and positive commandments. Whereas Maimonides Sepher HaMitzvoth veered away from such a reckoning, Nachmanides in his glosses to the work of Maimonides, upheld the viewpoint of the Halachoth Gedoloth. The authorship and date of the Halachoth Gedoloth have been the subject of much study and have given rise to conicting views. Generally speaking, medieval Aschkenazic authorities tended to the view that the author of the work was R. Yehudai Gaon, while their Sephardic counterparts believed the author was R. Shimon Kayara. Modern scholarship inveighs the latter view. See EJ, Vol. VII, cols. 1167-70 (illustrated).70'