[2], 3, 77, 14, 23 [5] pp., octavo, 185:105 mm., light age staining, wide margins. A very good copy bound in contemporary boards.

 

Piyyutim and Pizmonim (songs and hymns) for the huppah, havdalah, and milah, according to the custom of the Cochin Jews. This edition has explanation of terms and annotations from Naphtali Eliahu Rahabi. The volume begins with an introduction explaining the customs of betrothal and huppah and concluding with an explanation of the terms in the ketubbah. At the end of the volume are the benedictions for the marriage ceremony in English, concluding with the verses, If I forget thee, O Jerusalem . . .” (Psalms 137:5). The text of Hupat Hatanim is printed in a large, clear, attractive, vocalized Hebrew, the glosses in a smaller square font.

In addition to editing this work, Naphtali Eliahu Rahabi (Raby), (1863–1951), “white” Jewish scholar of Cochin, was the author of Divrei Yemei ha-Yehudim be-Cochin (History of the Jews of Cochin; Sasson Ms. 268), and of Toledot Beit Rahabi be-Cochin (History of the Rahabi Family), both unpublished. Like many Cochin leaders, Rahabi had strong Zionist sympathies.

Hebrew printing began in Bombay with the arrival of Yemenite Jews in the middle of the 19th century. They took an interest in the religious welfare of the Bene Israel, for whom - as well as for themselves - they printed various liturgies from 1841 onward, some with translations into Marathi, the vernacular of the Bene Israel. Apart from a short lived attempt to print with movable type, all this printing was by lithography. In 1882, the Press of the Bombay Educational Society was established (followed in 1884 by the Anglo-Jewish and Vernacular Press, in 1887 by the Hebrew and English Press, and in 1900 by the Lebanon Printing Press), which sponsored the publication of over 100 Judeo-Arabic books to meet their liturgical and literary needs, and also printed books for the Bene Israel.

 

Hebrew Description

References

EJ; Yaari, Ha-Defus ha-Ivri be-Artzot ha-Mizrach II p. 70 no. 85