| Item Description: | Dyhernfurth is Brzeg Dolny, a town in current day south-western Poland.
Michael Laird, bookseller, description: In Hebrew, with annotations throughout, and a handwritten three page index attached to the book. Contemporary boards, very worn, perhaps "home-made." Cropped, affecting some headlines. Ink stamps throughout: "Solomon Meunster (?) Shevo'ach (?)" effaced, as is one name on final blank; illegible blind stamp on title-page; unidentified ink stamps "SAM" throughout. Poor condition: many gatherings looks, paper stained and browned (but strong). First edition with the "Drishat Zeevs" ("D'rishat Haze'ev") glosses. This well worn volume attests to a large community of Jews in Poland that now longer exists. The book was printed in a small and extremely remote town in Southwest Poland (Lower Silesia), its German name, Lissa, being replaced by Brzeg Dolny (see below). The book "Zevach Shmuel," concerning laws of ritual slaughter, was written by Rabbi Shmuel MiLisa (i.e. Leszno, Poland), a famous "schochet, bodek umenaker" (ritual slaughterer, examiner, and "extractor of sinews"). Contains "D'rishat Haze'ev" glosses by the grandson of the author, Rabbi Shmuel Ze'ev who was a shochet, bodek and head of the minakrim in Leszno. On leaf 18 there is a large illustration of a lung. On the final leaves: the process of Nikur and the laws of slaughtering fowl in Judeo-German. This copy features many handwritten glosses , and with approbations of R. Akiva Eiger, and of R. Yaakov of Lezno; on final leaf inscriptions of "Saalmann, Warschau" (Poland) and "Son Jacob Rosenthal, Calbe" (Central Germany). The printing press at Brzeg Dolny: "From the beginning of the 19th century, the situation at the printing house was gradually deteriorating, due to the competitive activity of printing houses in Frankfurt an der Oder, Warsaw and Galicia. In 1812 Brzeg Dolny magistrate granted local Jews permission to engage in trade in order to provide additional means of support for them. In 1834 the printing house published its last book, and was formally closed in 1840. In the second half of the 19th century the number of members of the Jewish community decreased substantially. Whereas 266 Jews resided in Brzeg Dolny in 1819, in 1885 there were only 35 left. Eventually the Jewish community of Brzeg Dolny lost its autonomy in 1918 and became branch of the Jewish Religious Council in Wrocław. In 1927 the synagogue was transformed into a fire station. In 1936 the last burial was performed at the Jewish cemetery. Two years later, in November 1938, the cemetery was demolished." (SOURCE: Virtual Shtetl, Brzeg Dolny, online). |
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