Samaritan manuscript, five books of the Torah (codex). Nablus, [19th century].
Exceptionally handsome handwriting, on wide-margined high-quality paper, written by the priest Shlomo ben Amram ben Shlomo ben Toviah Halevi ("from the Kehat family"). Colophon at the end of every book.
This volume is from the collection of Chacham R. Yitzchak Binyamin Yechezkel Yehudah (1863-1941), educator, translator, bookseller and Orientalist who focused on the history of the Jewish people and Arabic culture. Chacham Yehudah lived in Darmstadt, Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, where he traded in books and manuscripts in Hebrew and Eastern languages. In 1906 he immigrated to Cairo, where he opened a book shop for classical and religious Arabic texts near the al-Azhar mosque. He was renowned as the premier expert on Arabic literature in the region, and he often assisted Moslem scholars as well as Orientalists residing in Cairo. He published a number of books including "The Western Wall", (Jerusalem, 1929), "Fables of the East", (3 volumes, Jerusalem, 1932-1990), and others. In addition to Hebrew and Arabic, Chacham Yehuda was fluent in Ladino, Persian, Yiddish, German, Turkish, English and French. His son-in-law, Professor Yosef Yoel Rivlin attested that he was "amazingly proficient in Oriental studies and literature, and one of the greatest Jewish researchers."
This volume includes a stamp from his bookshop in Cairo, and his signature (from Jerusalem). At the end of the volume, Chacham Yehudah bound five pages from prayerbooks, as well as a page in his own handwriting, in which writes several verses and discusses the custom of Sephardic Jews, (and later the Rashash), to recite these verses whenever three Torah Scrolls are removed from the ark on Shabbat. "The ancient custom of Saragossa was to recite these verses whenever three Torah scrolls were removed from the ark, and the Rashash followed this custom." Several glosses in the handwriting of Chahcam Yehudah (pencil writing) appear in the margins of the first chapter of Sefer Bereshit.
[428] pages, 15.5 cm. Good condition. Creases and stains, primarily to the first pages, last pages and endpapers. Several stains in the margins. Original dark red leather binding, typical of the time period, with embossed decorations and leather clasp, damaged. Tears to the spine.
Rare.
Provenance: Collection of Yitzchak Binyamin Yehudah.