Estate / Collection: The Margolis Collection
[JUDAICA--JERUSALEM]
ABRAHAM ISHMAEL HAYYEEM. An account of his journey to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Iggarot Jerusalem. [Italy, probably Modena, mid-18th century]. 20th century brown cloth for David Solomon Sassoon, with his ms. number on the spine in gilt, and pasted label lettered in Hebrew. 7 1/2 x 10 inches (25 x 19 cm); manuscript on paper In Hebrew and Italian, 20 leaves, up to 30 lines to the page in dark brown ink. Some minor foxing. Bookplate of David Solomon Sassoon on the front (i.e. rear) paste-down. .
The present manuscript is an epistolary (Iggaroth) account of a significant journey to the Holy Land, written by Abraham Ishmael in the form of letters to his father, Solomon Hayyeem Sanguinetti, in Modena. In the first letter he describes the voyage in 1741 from Livorno, via Messina and past Vesuvius, through Alexandria, Jaffa, Acre, Safed and ultimately to Jerusalem. He describes general as well as peculiar Jewish conditions which he saw on the journey and through the Holy Land itself. In the second and third letters he gives his impressions of Erez Israel. He ends with three sermons in Italian, with quotations in Hebrew from the Talmud, Midrash and the Zohar.
This is a first-hand account of one of the great idealistic journeys of Jewish history. The Moroccan kabbalist Hayyim ben Moses ibn Attar (1696-1743) was a prominent figure in Hassidic Judaism, who conceived a vision for leading the Jews back to Erez Israel. He arrived in Italy from Morocco in 1739 and preached from city to city, including Modena, urging Jews to follow him and to emigrate with him to the Holy Land. In 1741 he set sail from Livorno, with 30 disciples and others, including Abraham Ishmael Hayyeem, author of the present manuscript. The group of pilgrims reached Acre in the late summer of that year, and eventually moved on to Tiberias and Jerusalem, where they established the Midrash Keneset Israel Yeshivah, but Attar himself died a year later. This manuscript is thus a first-hand account of the one of the first attempts at an organized return to the Promised Land, a movement culminating with the foundation of the state of Israel over 200 years later.
See D.S. Sassoon, Ohel Dawid Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, 1932, II, pp. 995-6.
Provenance:
Sotheby's "A Collection of Rare Hebraica", 21 June 1927, lot 67, to Maggs.
David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942), his MS. 979 (number tooled on spine);
Sotheby's sale LN4369 "Seventy-six Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts from the library of the late David Solomon Sassoon". London 1994;
sold to David Margolis.
Sold for $5,938
Estimated at $800 - $1,200
Includes Buyer's Premium
Estate / Collection: The Margolis Collection
[JUDAICA--JERUSALEM]
ABRAHAM ISHMAEL HAYYEEM. An account of his journey to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Iggarot Jerusalem. [Italy, probably Modena, mid-18th century]. 20th century brown cloth for David Solomon Sassoon, with his ms. number on the spine in gilt, and pasted label lettered in Hebrew. 7 1/2 x 10 inches (25 x 19 cm); manuscript on paper In Hebrew and Italian, 20 leaves, up to 30 lines to the page in dark brown ink. Some minor foxing. Bookplate of David Solomon Sassoon on the front (i.e. rear) paste-down. .
The present manuscript is an epistolary (Iggaroth) account of a significant journey to the Holy Land, written by Abraham Ishmael in the form of letters to his father, Solomon Hayyeem Sanguinetti, in Modena. In the first letter he describes the voyage in 1741 from Livorno, via Messina and past Vesuvius, through Alexandria, Jaffa, Acre, Safed and ultimately to Jerusalem. He describes general as well as peculiar Jewish conditions which he saw on the journey and through the Holy Land itself. In the second and third letters he gives his impressions of Erez Israel. He ends with three sermons in Italian, with quotations in Hebrew from the Talmud, Midrash and the Zohar.
This is a first-hand account of one of the great idealistic journeys of Jewish history. The Moroccan kabbalist Hayyim ben Moses ibn Attar (1696-1743) was a prominent figure in Hassidic Judaism, who conceived a vision for leading the Jews back to Erez Israel. He arrived in Italy from Morocco in 1739 and preached from city to city, including Modena, urging Jews to follow him and to emigrate with him to the Holy Land. In 1741 he set sail from Livorno, with 30 disciples and others, including Abraham Ishmael Hayyeem, author of the present manuscript. The group of pilgrims reached Acre in the late summer of that year, and eventually moved on to Tiberias and Jerusalem, where they established the Midrash Keneset Israel Yeshivah, but Attar himself died a year later. This manuscript is thus a first-hand account of the one of the first attempts at an organized return to the Promised Land, a movement culminating with the foundation of the state of Israel over 200 years later.
See D.S. Sassoon, Ohel Dawid Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, 1932, II, pp. 995-6.
Provenance:
Sotheby's "A Collection of Rare Hebraica", 21 June 1927, lot 67, to Maggs.
David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942), his MS. 979 (number tooled on spine);
Sotheby's sale LN4369 "Seventy-six Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts from the library of the late David Solomon Sassoon". London 1994;
sold to David Margolis.
Auction: Rare Books, Autographs & Maps, May 11, 2023