(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Moses Lilienthal

Jerusalem

1895

JAFFE, SHALOM ELCHANAN. Sho’el Kinyan. With glosses Ma’ayan Eliezer by Eliezer Zalman Grayevski. * Bound with: Meir Mann. Me’irei Halacha. Jerusalem, 1896. FIRST EDITION. Title printed in red and black. On f.3v. woodcut of Western Wall; on f. 102r. woodcut of the tomb of the Kings of the Davidic dynasty. On f. 74r. there is a responsum addressed to R. Tzvi Hirsch Maiselman of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and on f. 79v. a question from the Shochet of Levenworth, Kansas.

Friedberg, Shin 503

A protracted halachic polemic between Zechariah Rosenfeld and Shalom Jaffe concerning the halachic validity of a Mikvah constructed by Jaffe in St. Louis. While defending the mikvah he constructed, Jaffe went on the offensive invalidating an eruv of his adversary which, among other leniencies, utilized telegraph poles. In the Milu’im (Adendum), Jaffe published a ruling co-signed by Rabbis Shneur Zalman of Lublin and Samuel Salant, forbidding an eruv that incorporates telegraph poles. The book bears the encomia of the great rabbis of Eretz Israel including R. Saul Chaim (formerly of Dubrovna) of Jerusalem, and Rabbi Naphtali Hertz Halevi of Jaffa. Rabbi Samuel Salant writes: “My soul delights to know and see that in America too there are now found rabbis great in Torah. Would that they increase in all the cities of America.” The present copy contains an addendum of four leaves published in America, with additional approbations from R. Yoseph Zecharia Stern of Shavel and from three disciples of R. Yehoshua Leib Diskin. They state on behalf of their teacher that if the situation is indeed as described by the author, utilization of the Eruv is indeed prohibited in St.Louis, “our teacher advises you not to further provoke these desecraters of the Sabbath.”