Made in Austria 1860, Lid is engraved with floral and foliage cartouche motifs surrounding the monogram. The letters in center are "Shin, Yud, Reish " which stand for the name of the owner Shalom Yehuda Rappaport. At Bottom is an engraved picture of a Cohen's spread out and split hands as he is reciting the priestly blessing or in Yiddish, 'Duchening'. Beautiful Checkered design on top and bottom backdrops.

Solomon Judah Löb HaKohen Rapoport (Hebrew: שלמה יהודה כהן רפ×פורט; June 1, 1786 – October 15, 1867) was a Galician and Czech rabbi and Jewish scholar. Rapoport was known by an acronym "Shir", שי"ר  formed by the initial letters of his Hebrew name "Sh"elomo "Y"ehuda "R"apoport. Shir literally means "song" in Hebrew.

He was born into a rabbinical family in Lwów. He received a traditional Jewish education and in 1810 married the daughter of Aryeh Leib ha-Kohen Heller, a famous Galician rabbinic scholar and author of Ketsot ha-ḥoshen

Rabbi Rapoport assisted his father-in-law in publishing another work, Avne milu’im (1815), adding his own marginal notes and indexes. Shortly after marrying, Rapoport became interested in secular and Haskalah literature and taught himself several languages. While continuing his Torah studies, he joined a young, pioneering circle of maskilim that was forming in Lwów. In 1814, he published Tekhunat ‘ir Pariz veha-i Elba (Description of Paris and the Island of Elba) anonymously and established a connection with the maskil thinker Naḥman Krochmal of Å»óÅ‚kiew. In 1816, Lwów’s rabbi, Ya‘akov Orenstein, placed a ban on Rapoport and a number of the latter’s colleagues due to their support of the Haskalah. At the same time, Rapoport was forced to begin earning his livelihood, which consisted of leasing the government kosher meat tax in Lwów.

In the 1820s, Rapoport began to publish his own poetry, as well as translations of poems and plays, in the periodical Bikure ha-‘itim. His most striking effort was She’erit Yehudah (1827), a Hebrew adaptation of Racine’s play Esther. In 1829, he established his reputation as a serious scholar by publishing, also in Bikure ha-‘itim, a series of critical biographies of leading Gaonic and rabbinic figures, including Sa‘adyah Ga’on, Hai Ga’on, Ḥanan’el ben Ḥushi’el, Natan ben Yeḥi’el, El‘azar ha-Kalir, and others (these articles were subsequently published separately under the title Yeri‘ot Shelomoh [1902]). The biographies reflected Rapoport’s comprehensive knowledge of rabbinic literature and his critical skills. Jewish scholars in Western and Central Europe showered his groundbreaking studies with both exuberant praise and stinging criticism.

For many years, Rapoport tried to find a position that would permit him to devote more time to research. In the mid-1820s, Yosef Perl tried to appoint him to a teaching position in the rabbinical seminary that he was attempting to establish, without success, in Tarnopol. In the early 1830s, Rapoport was forced to relinquish his position as leaseholder of the kosher meat tax in Lwów and looked for rabbinic posts in Italy, Hungary, and Bohemia. In 1837, Perl persuaded him to submit his candidacy for the rabbinate of Tarnopol. Rapoport received the appointment and assumed the position in the beginning of 1838.Hallmarked at inner compartment.

Great condition.

7.5cm L., x 4.8cm W.,

2.13 Oz.