Legacy Judaica is holding an auction on Monday, September 23^rd, and a few items of note.  The Viennese Schmidt press produced two books with rather striking portraits.  One of R. Shmuel Eidels, Maharsha, and other of R. Yitzkah Alfasi, Rif, which is at lot 54.  Rif is depicted wearing robes and a turban with a long white beard.  Of course, there are no contemporaneous portraits of Rif, and this is a 19^th century creation.  (For more on rabbinic portraits see Cohen, Jewish Icons, 114-153).

The first edition of R. Yitzhak Hutner’s, Torat ha-Nazir, contains three approbations from R. Chaim Ozer, R. Avraham Shapiro (Dvar Avraham), and R. Kook.  The next edition omits all three, presumably to avoid including R. Kook’s.  Although later reprints include just R. Chaim Ozer’s, leaving out the page that contains the Dvar Avraham’s and R. Kook’s letters (for example, the copy on Hebrewbooks). (See Marc Shapiro, Changing the Immutable, 157-160, and Eitam Henkin, “Historical Revisionism by the families of R. Kook’s Disciples:  Three Case Studies,” in Hakirah.)’

The polemical offerings include the Berlin 1905 book, Hayyei Olam, (lot 74) that opposes cremation of Jewish bodies.  At the turn of the twentieth century the issue of cremation was debated among Jews, with the rabbis of Hamburg and Altona having opposing views.  Hayei Olam, written by R. Lerner, the rabbi of Altona was against the practice and collects numerous other letters from sympathetic rabbis.  On the other side, R. Arentreu, in Or ha-Emet, and R. Shimon Tzvi Deutsch, in Heker Halakha, defended the practice.  (For more on the issue, see the entries for these works in Shmuel Glick’s Kuntres ha-Teshuvot ha-Hadash and Michael Heiger’s article in Halakhot ve-Aggadadot).

For a more recent controversial book, lot 80 is Making of a Godol, of the recently passed R. Nosson Kamenetsky.  We have discussed this book and its editions and the book, Anatomy of a Ban, which documents the controversy here

For those interested in bibliomancy, the edition of Tanakh recommended for the goral ha-Gra is at lot 123.  Of note is that this edition has two title pages in Hebrew and Latin, and likely not intended for a Jewish audience.

For one of the more bizarre travelogues, it is hard to surpass Sefer ha-Brit ha-Hadasha im ha-Nehar Sambatyyon be-Medinat China (lot 141).  After receiving permission from President McKinley, Uziel Haga accompanied US military forces in China for purposes of surveying the customs and life of Chinese Jews. Another lot of American Judaica, lot 138, is a collection of 10 works from R. Yekusiel Yehuda Greenwald.  R. Greenwald was a prolific author who wrote on many diverse topics. He is perhaps most well known for his book on the laws of mourning, Kol Bo Aveilut, but also wrote books on R. Yonathan Eiybschitz, the reform movement, and the Palestinian Talmud, and was a rabbi in Columbus, Ohio after emigrating from Hungary.

There is a well-known if an inaccurate story that on Yom Kippur, during a cholera epidemic, R. Yisrael Salanter wanted to ensure that those who needed to would eat.  So he got up on the bimah in the Great Synagogue of Vilna and made Kiddush and ate cake.  Although the veracity of the story has been questioned, with an eyewitness reporting that R. Yisrael announced from the bimah that those who needed to eat could do so without first asking their doctor but he ate nothing.  (See Yaakov Mark, Be-Mihitzatam shel Gedolim 68).  Lot 197 is a document from R. Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, author of Kitav veha-Kabbalah, instructing women to remain at home and not attend synagogue for fear of spreading communicable diseases. For more on cholera, Yom Kippur, and R. Yisrael Salanter, see Eliezer Marmalstein, “Eating on Yom Kippur during Epidemics — Cholera — R. Yisrael Salanter’s Permissive Stance and those who Opposed Him,” Kovets Ets Hayyim, (Bobov), vol. 7, 273-294 (Hebrew).