Shefa‘ tal (Abundance of dew; also means priestly hand blessing), by Shabetai Sheftel ben Akiva Horowitz, Bilzorka, 1807. This kabbalistic work was issued by one of the many small presses that emerged in the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth…

Sefer Arbaah ve-esrim [Four and Twenty] by Rabbi Jedidiah Solomon Raphael ben Abraham Nortzi. Mantua, First edition.

One-volume Five Books of Moses, Megillot, Prophets, Bible contains four parts of the Chamisha Chumshei Torah, Megillot, Nevi’im…

Page from Sefer Elim by Joseph Solomon Delmedigo. Amsterdam, 1628.

Born in Crete to a distinguished Sephardic family, Delmedigo was the son of Rabbi Elija Delmedigo. After receiving a traditional Jewish education, he was admitted at age 15 to the…

Itim le-vinah by Joseph ben Moses Aaron Ginzberg, Warsaw, 1886.

Itim are appointed times (seasons, months, times of the day) in the Jewish calendar and vinah or binah means wisdom. This book is a fine example of a sefer evronot, a genre that uses…

Label in a book in the YIVO Library:
From the Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection at YIVO

This book is from the YIVO Library in Vilna. During the years of the destruction, friends of YIVO hid it from the Germans, and after the war A. Sutzkever and…

Sha'are Teshuvah (The Gates of Repentance), by Yonah ben Abraham Gerondi, (Rabbenu Yonah, d. 1264) is a guide for those who wish to repent and return to a life of Torah. This edition was published in Krakow in 1581. The book was owned by several…

Shaarei Teshuvah (The Gates of Repentance), by Yonah ben Abraham Gerondi, (Rabbenu Yonah, d. 1264) is a guide for those who wish to repent and return to a life of Torah. This edition was published in Krakow in 1581. The book was owned by several…

Sefer Kol Bo Book [All is Within] by an unknown 13th or 14th-century author is a commentary of Jewish customs and rituals.

This edition was printed in Rimini ca. 1526 by Gershom Soncino. The illustration of the tower on the frontispiece is…

Sefer Isur ve-heter (What is forbidden and permitted) is a treatise on Jewish dietary laws written by Yonah Ashkenazi, thought to be the son of Rabbi Israel of Regensburg, a student of Rabbi Israel Isserline. (This work is sometimes erroneously…

The stated purpose of Netiv lashon ‘ivrit (Path of the Hebrew language) was to teach Jewish children Hebrew. The anonymous author imagined the book being put to use in Jewish schools. There is no year of publication noted but it is believed that this…