Bidspirit auction | An unpublished pearl of the

An unpublished pearl of the Wissenshaft das Judentum circle: F. Lebrecht's heavily annotated copy of ”The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela”, Translated and Edited by A. Asher. - F. Lebrecht's heavily annotated copy of ”The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela”, Translated and Edited by A. Asher. Two volumes. First volume: Text in Hebrew and English. Second volume: Notes and Essays. Includes geographic and bibliographic notations, as well as essays by Zunz, Rapoport and Lebrecht. pp. xii, 165, 121, (2). * xix, (1), 448. London & Berlin: A. Asher 1840-41 This copy belonged to Fuerchtegott Lebrecht, author of a major contribution in part 2, and he added hundreds of scholarly notes, corrections and addendum to both volumes, adding up to a yet unexploited treasure of great importance. The later owner writes in 1900: ”Benjamin de Tudela, edited [with the cooperation of Joseph Zedner] by the Bookseller A. Ascher of Berlin with contributions by Dr Zunz, J. Zedner and Lebrecht. This copy I purchased it from Lebrecht, and it was his ”Hand-Exemplar” it contains numerous notes & corrections in his own handwriting which have never been published. A. Levy March 1900”. The famous 12th-century Jewish travelogue ”The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, ” documenting the extensive journeys of Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1165-1173) across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, detailing Jewish communities, cultures, politics, and trade, translated and edited by Adolf Asher, is a key scholarly version featuring Hebrew text and Zunz's essay. Asher's critical 1840-1841 edition includes a carefully vowel-pointed Hebrew original text, a parallel English translation, Leopold Zunz's important essay on Jewish geographical literature, making it highly influential and considered a fundamental scholarly version of this classic text. As well as a crucial resource for understanding medieval Jewish life and geography. The second volume includes an important contribution by Fuerchtegott Schemaja Lebrecht, an essay on the Caliphate of Baghdad. Fuerchtegott Schemaja Lebrecht was born at Memmelsdorf, Bavaria, Nov. 16, 1800 and died at Berlin, Sept. 1, 1876. He studied at the famous Yeshive of Fürth, and later at Pressburg under the renowned R. Moshe Sofer, the Chatam Sofer. In 1827 he went to Halle, where he received a thorough grammatical training under Gesenius, whom in turn he aided in Neo-Hebraic literature. He then moved to Berlin, where he devoted himself to literary work, while holding a position as teacher at the Lehrer-Seminar, founded by Zunz in 1840. In 1856 he became head teacher at the Veitel Heine Ephraim'sche Lehranstalt (Bet ha-Midrash), a position he retained until his death, serving also as librarian. Lebrecht was a constant contributor to Jewish periodicals, such as Geiger's ”Jüd. Zeit., ” Fürst's ”Der Orient, ” the ”Historische Jahrbücher für Kritik, ” the ”Allg. Zeit. des Jud.”; also to the ”Vossische Zeitung” and the ”Spenersche Zeitung.” In 1862 he published his ”Handschriften und Erste Ausgaben des Babylonischen Talmud”, listing and analyzing all extant manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud, and two years later his ”Verbesserter Kritische Lesarten und Erklärungen zum Talmud, ” Berlin, 1864. In 1874 his ”Adelheid Zunz” was reprinted from the ”Vossische Zeitung.” His last work (posthumously published) was his ”Bethar, die Fragliche Stadt im Hadrianisch-Jüdischen Kriege: Ein 1700 Jähriges Missverstädniss; Beitrag zur Gesch. und Geographie des Alten Palästina, ” Berlin, 1877, an enlarged reprint of his article in Berliner's ”Magazin, ” 1876, pp. 27-40, 77-93, the principal addition being a historical appendix. Together with Johann B. Biesenthal he edited R. David Ḳimḥi's ”Sefer Shorashim” (Berlin, 1847), and to A. Asher's edition of Benjamin of Tudela (vol. ii. London, 1841) he contributed an essay on the state of the califate of Bagdad during the latter half of the 12th century. Several of his essays—”Juden als Arabische Dichter, ” ”Die Oppenheimer'sche Bibliothek, ” ”Jehuda ben Koreisch, der Erste Lexicograph der Bibel”—were published in the ”Orient, Lit.” 1841-44. His pamphlet, ”Zum 150. Geburtstage Moses Mendelssohn's, ” was edited by Dr. A. Berliner (Berlin, 1878). Source: The Jewish Encyclopedia. His name [ר' שמעיה לעברעכט מבערלין] appears in the list of subscribors to a traditional commentary to Tehilim [ערוגת הבשם ובאר מים], published in Konigsberg 1860. Amongst the disciples of the Chatam Sofer listed in Sofrey haMelekh (Rakov, part 1), was Isaac Nordheimer, born in Memmelsdorf in 1809, who went on to become one of the first Hebrew scholars in America who also studied Syriac and other Near East languages. Sofrey haMelekh writes that he was supported in his Pressburg years by his kinsman Lebrecht, probably Fuerchtegott who was from the same town and had also studied in Pressburg.