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Masekhet Bikkurim min Talmud Yerushalmi (Tractate Bikkurim from the Jerusalem Talmud) Chicago: Rosenberg Bros., 1887
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- paper, ink
52 leaves (13 x9 in.; 331 x 229 mm). foliation: [2], 48, [2]= 52 leaves. Decorated architectural title- page inlaid. Initial two leaves stained, introduction page with two minor losses affecting only a few letters, owner's stamp on title page and fol. 48r, corners rounded and minor marginal chip through fol. 12. Modern quarter cloth over marbled boards.
Catalogue Note
first edition of the first talmudic tractate printed in america
Tractate Bikkurim of the Jerusalem Talmud, the first talmudic tractate printed in the United States, was published by Abraham Eliezer Alperstein (1853-1917) and includes his three-part commentary. Alperstein was born in Kobrin, in what is today Belarus, in 1853 and studied in the yeshivot of Vilna and Kovno, where his prodigious scholarship in both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds was widely recognized. In 1881, he immigrated to the United States to assume a rabbinic post, first in New York and then in Chicago, where in 1887, he published this tractate. Three years later, Alperstein published a second edition, enlarged by a second title page, rabbinic approbations, and a new introduction. The most notable digression between the two editions however is in the way Alperstein refers to his Chicago congregants; in this first edition of Bikkurim, he heaps florid praise upon them, while in the second edition he disdainfully chastises them as “wild boars.” In his later years, Alperstein went on to become the first instructor at the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva University).
LITERATURE:
Goldman 568; Vinograd and Rosenfeld (4th electronic ed.) 65410; Singerman 3502
Tractate Bikkurim of the Jerusalem Talmud, the first talmudic tractate printed in the United States, was published by Abraham Eliezer Alperstein (1853-1917) and includes his three-part commentary. Alperstein was born in Kobrin, in what is today Belarus, in 1853 and studied in the yeshivot of Vilna and Kovno, where his prodigious scholarship in both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds was widely recognized. In 1881, he immigrated to the United States to assume a rabbinic post, first in New York and then in Chicago, where in 1887, he published this tractate. Three years later, Alperstein published a second edition, enlarged by a second title page, rabbinic approbations, and a new introduction. The most notable digression between the two editions however is in the way Alperstein refers to his Chicago congregants; in this first edition of Bikkurim, he heaps florid praise upon them, while in the second edition he disdainfully chastises them as “wild boars.” In his later years, Alperstein went on to become the first instructor at the Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva University).
LITERATURE:
Goldman 568; Vinograd and Rosenfeld (4th electronic ed.) 65410; Singerman 3502