Pachad Yitzchak [Aggadic lore concerning the fall of Jerusalem]

CHAYUT, ISAAC

Eliezer b. Isaac & Son

Lublin

1573

FIRST EDITION. Title within ornamental cartouche. Fold-out pictographic poem and diagram of the Land of Israel at the midpoint of the Earth

Vinograd, Lublin 27; Mehlman 914; not in Adams. The British Library copy similarly imperfect, lacking the title-page (Zedner 363)

Isaac Chayut was a scion of a branch of the Chassidei Provence who later settled in Bohemia. He was appointed Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva in Prague in 1584. His contemporary, David Gans, commendes him as one of the most praise-worthy rabbis of the generation. With ownership signature of R. Mordechai (of Tiktin), son-in-law of Tzvi Hirsch Berlin on verso of final blank, who writes “Belonging to my father-in-law and uncle who has been accepted as Rabbi of Dubno, Poland [and] who is now Rabbi of London...” The significance of which proves Tzvi Hirsch Berlin was already in London before receiving the offer to succeed his brother in Dobno. Duschinsky is uncertain whether Berlin had already received the call to London at this time. See C. Duschinsky, The Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue (1921) p. 6. T. Y. Michaelson in Tzvi La’tzadic (1904) p. 149, states Berlin was called to Dubno in 1755