Judaica auctions in Israel are timed to take place around the period of the Jewish holidays, when the country is flooded with visitors from abroad.
“Judaic Jerusalem” which is headed by Avraham Israel Froilich, will hold a sale next Thursday (October 14) at the Jerusalem Plaza Sheraton Hotel. More than 500 lots of rare books, manuscripts, documents and Jewish art will be offered.
“Judaic Jerusalem has offered in its public sales more rare or even unknown books and publications of Jewish interest than any other auction house in the world! The upcoming auction is no exception. It will display for the first time in public the hidden books and manuscripts of the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus.
Who are the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus?
They claim descent from the Ten tribes. There are no Kohanim or Levites among them, because they explain, their ancestors in the Land of Israel lived in localities where there were no Priests or Levites and thus none of these were exiled with them. Frolich, head of “Judaic Jerusalem,” who recently visited the Mountain Jews several times relates that he attended their services and never saw a Kohen or Levi being called up to the Torah.
For more than 20 years after the Soviet regime was established in the Caucasus, the Mountain Jews were able to maintain their religious life and traditions. The situation changed in the 1940s. About 50 Hakhamim were murdered by the Stalin regime in one day. Harsh anti-religious laws were decreed. Children were not allowed to enter synagogues or receive instruction in Judaism. Circumcision and ritual slaughter were outlawed. Men were forced to work on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
“I was told that there were once in the district 12 houses of study, which were open day and night. They all were converted into factories. I saw the beautiful buildings whose walls are still covered with Hebrew inscriptions,” Froilich reports.
Despite the anti-religious laws, despite the lack of spiritual leaders and their inablility to teach Torah to their children, the Mountain Jews remained loyal to Judaism.
With the onset of the anti-religious persecutions, they hid their Sefarim, manuscripts and rabbinical archives. They concealed them in attics and entombed them in walls, even secreted them in places outside their living quarters. For decades they remained hidden. Only some time ago, following the great political changes in the former Soviet Union did the Mountain Jews dare to retrieve their literary treasures. Recently they were brought to Jerusalem.
About 200 lots of the more than 500 to be offered at next week’s Judaica auction are books, manuscripts and documents of the mountain Jews of the Caucasus!
From the manuscripts we learn that the Mountain Jews produced great Torah scholars who wrote homilies on the Torah and novella on the Talmud as well as Halahkic decisions, mystics who engaged in theoretical and practical Kabbalah; and poets who composed Piyutm and songs in Hebrew and in Judeo-Tat (the language of these Jews).
Among the printed books on sale are some rare and little known titles published in Istanbul, Italy, Russia, Poland and Jerusalem.
A Hebrew wall calendar for the year 5719 (1918-1919), marriage contracts, a Hazkara for about 100 Jews killed in pogroms in Kuba in 1919 (during the civil war), and a Hazkara for the Jews killed by the Germans and during the fighting in Caucasus in World War II are some of the many documents of the Mountain Jews to be offered at the forthcoming auction.
Space doesn’t permit us to discuss the more than 300 other lots — including leaves from two incunabula (Sefer Yossifon, Mantua before 1480) Mahzor Minhag Roma, Casalmaggiore, 1486) to be auctioned. We will mention only one other item: A miniature Haggadah printed in Warsaw around the year 1900. According to the auction catalog, it is apparently, “the smallest Haggadah every printed. It does not appear in the bibliographies of the Haggadath and is totally unknown.”
The catalog doesn’t tell us the exact size. It just states 58 mm which is probably, it length. I should like to note that this Haggadah is not the smalleset ever published! In 1960 the Lipshitz Press of Jerusalem printed a miniature Haggadah which was smaller.
The Jewish Press,Friday, October 8, 1993 p. 32