Auction 64- Jewish and Israeli History and Culture
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"We remember with sorrow… Ephraim Zalman Margalit who fell in the line of duty… the Government of Israel, IDF and the Jewish nation will always remember with pride and love Ephraim Zalman who loyally fulfilled his duty to protect the homeland".
14X17 cm. Good condition. Some stains.
Items include:
• Eight handwritten letters, some written on stationery of the "Avraham Group" from Kfar Etzion, sent by Avraham to his wife Ruhama in the course of the war. The letters were sent to the Ratisbonne Monastery (to which women and children from the village were evacuated), and mention, among other issues: lack of supplies, observance of kashrut in wartime, false news items on English radio broadcasts, the birth of Avraham's daughter Ziona during the war, work on the Sabbath during the war, a letter as a "sign of life" after a heavy battle and other subjects.
• "The Fallen of Gush Etzion, May G-d Avenge Their Blood", leaf printed with the names of the fallen in the defense of Gush Etzion, according to dates of the battles. The last date appearing on the leaf is May 4, 1948, about ten days prior to the end of hostilities and the surrender of Gush Etzion. Possibly, the leaf was printed during the war.
• Handwritten document on parchment with the signature of David Ben-Gurion – letter of condolences to the family: "We hereby notify you with deep sorrow that Avraham Fishgrund, O.B.M., fell while on duty on 4 Iyar 1948…".
• Certificate, printed and handwritten on thick paper, attesting that Avraham's name has been "written in the Torah scroll commemorating the fallen in the War of Independence". Appearing at the bottom of the document, in handwriting, is the verse in which Avraham's name was commemorated: "And G-d said to Abraham, 'As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations'" [Genesis 17:9], with decorations above the letters of the name "Abraham". Issued on Memorial Day, 1954.
• Official documents, permits, a photocopied passport and other items.
Enclosed are two envelopes.
Avraham Fishgrund (1920-1948) was a member of the national-religious settlement group called the "Avraham Group", a fighter in the Palmah paramilitary force and commander of Kfar Eztion during the War of Independence. During the war his wife, Ruhama, was evacuated to Ratisbonne Monastery where she gave birth to their daughter, Ziona. After many months of battles and fatalities, on May 13, 1948, a decision was taken to surrender, with Avraham taking upon himself the task of leading the negotiations. As he approached the enemy, the latter opened fire and Avraham was killed instantly.
Size and condition vary. Good-fair overall condition. Stains, creases and folding marks. Small holes to margins of two items. Open tear to one of the letters.
Withdrawn.
Approximately 400 letters, documents and paper items, belonging to Isser Pen, financial advisor to Chief of Staff and head of Supply Wing in the Ministry of Defense. Haifa, Tel-Aviv, Paris, London and other locations. Late 1940s to mid 1960s (a number of items from later years). Hebrew, some French and English.
The collection includes:
• Dozens of letters from leaders and military figures, among them: a letter signed by David Ben-Gurion, typewritten on official stationery of "State of Israel, Defense Minister Office", dated 29.2.1953; notice of appointment of Ya'akov Dori, first IDF Chief of Staff; Two notices of appointment and three letters signed by hand by Yigael Yadin, second IDF Chief of Staff; five letters hand-signed by Mordechai Maklef, third IDF Chief of Staff; two notices hand-signed by Moshe Dayan, fourth IDF Chief of Staff; as well as letters from deputy Chief of Staff Yosef Avidor, Head of Medical Corps Avraham Atzmon, Chief Communications officer Yitzchak Almog, Commander of Intelligence Binyamin Gibli, David Ben-Gurion's military adjutant Nehemia Argov, and others.
• About 20 letters and paper items from the Independence War period: two notices of appointment dated 16.4.1948, assigning Pen the task of "managing all wireless communication in the Haifa region"; two certificates of exemption from duty (different from each other), awarded to Penn in May-June, 1948. One ink-stamped with the "Haganah Haifa Headquarters" stamp and the other ink-stamped with the "Va'adat HaMatzav" stamp; "Urgent" letter, dated 24.11.1948, sent to Penn on behalf of Moshe Carmel, commander of north front. Appointment as investigation committee member to "investigate the horrible actions executed during Operation Hiram", and more.
• Dozens of letters and documents documenting Penn's role in acquisition operations in the 1950s, among them eight letters from Shimon Peres (then Director General of Ministry of Defense).
• Other items.
Size and condition vary. Good-fair overall condition.
Withdrawn.
Approximately 260 letters hand-signed by Israeli politicians, military and public figures, sent to the diplomat and ambassador Shimshon Arad. Ca. 1960s to 1990s (most are from the 1960s). Hebrew (a number of letters in English).
The collection contains, among other things letters from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion; Prime Minister Moshe Sharett; Chiefs of Staff Moshe Dayan, Yigael Yadin and Haim Bar Lev; politicians and ministers Abba Eban, Pinchas Sapir, Shimon Peres, Teddy Kollek, David Hacohen, Beba Idelson, Yosef (Tommy) Lapid and others; Uzi Narkiss, head of the Central Command during the Six Day War; Mordechai Hod, commander of the Israeli Air Force during the Six Day War; Meir Amit, head of the Mossad; Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar; Gavriel Tsifroni, CEO of Habima Theatre; Moshe Zak and Shalom Rosenfeld, editors-in-chief of Maariv; author and translator Aharon Amir; and others.
The letters, which are handwritten or typewritten (many of them on official stationery), deal with a variety of personal and public subjects: the question of the territories; David Ben-Gurion's resignation from the Mapai party; the changing of generations in the Labor movement; the religious splinter groups joining Likud; the form of government in Israel; the presidential elections in the United States; Jewish communities throughout the world; the relations between Israel and other countries worldwide; and more.
Shimshon Arad (1923-2015) joined the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1948. He held high-ranking positions in embassies in the United States and was later named Israel's ambassador to Mexico City and The Hague. He retired from public service in 1973.
Enclosed: Camp David – The Unfinished Business by Abba Eban, United States, 1978. Printout from the periodical Foreign Affairs, hand-signed by Abba Eban.
Size and condition vary. Good overall condition.
Caricature by Ze'ev for his section "Al Kol Panim" (in the Friday supplement of "HaAretz" daily newspaper), reflecting the atmosphere and balance of powers in Israel and the world in the days following the Yom Kippur war.
Prime Minister Golda Meir as a basketball coach appears in the center, dressed in sports shoes with a Star of David and a sweat suit with the State of Israel emblem. Sitting on the bench are the team members: Abba Eban, Yigal Alon, Pinchas Sapir, Israel Galili, Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, Gad Ya'akobi, Haim Yosef Zadok, Yitzchak Rabin, Haim Bar-Lev and two more members. To the side – Dr. Yosef Burg, Moshe Kol and Menachem Begin.
On the other side are the opponents: Leonid Brezhnev, Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan and Henry Kissinger – representing the USSR, Egypt, Jordan and the USA. President of Syria Hafez-el-Assad is missing, and only his shoes and undershirt are there; on a further bench appear PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Japan, France and England. The Referee is Kurt Waldheim, UN Secretary General during the Yom Kippur War.
The caricature is signed by all the Israeli personalities who appear in it. It is also signed by Henry Kissinger. Printed on the bottom left corner is a note by Mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek, certifying that all the signatures are original and that every member of the "Israeli Team" personally signed on the illustration. The note was signed in February 1976.
"Ze'ev" (Ya'akov Farkash, 1923-2002) was one of the greatest Israeli illustrators and caricaturists and a recipient of the Israel Prize. Well known for his minimalistic illustrations, based on symbols or prominent characteristics of the figures he drew. His illustrations transmitted with excellence the nature and spirit of the figures he drew. Ze'ev was born in Budapest and started painting at a young age, even though he was color-blind. During World War II he was sent to the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps. He tried to immigrate to Palestine after the war but was deported to a detention camp in Cyprus. He finally arrived in Palestine in 1947 and participated in the War of Independence battle in Latroun. In 1952, with the assistance of Ephraim Kishon, Ze'ev started to work as a caricaturist for the "Ma'ariv" daily newspaper; over the years he also drew caricatures for "Devar HaShavu'a" and "HaAretz" newspapers. Ze'ev worked also for foreign newspapers and illustrated dozens of books.
69X47 cm, framed: 85X64 cm. Good condition. Some signatures are faded. Slight dampstains on the right side. Minor blemishes and stains.
"6,000,000 Accusers", Gideon Hausner's opening speech at the Eichmann trial, translated and edited by Shabtai Rosenne. This copy belonged to Hausner and it bears his signature, in English, on the half-title page: "Gideon Hausner / Jerusalem, March 8, 1965". Pasted to the book's endpapers are newspaper clippings, including a caricature on the subject of the Eichmann trial and an essay titled "Eichmann Hanged"; both were published in the Jerusalem Post newspaper (1961-1962).
Adolf Eichmann, a senior member of the SS and one of the key figures of the "Final Solution" plan intended to exterminate the Jews of Europe, was tried in Israel in 1961. Jurist Gideon Hausner (1915-1990), then Attorney General, was appointed main prosecutor in the trial and became the figure most identified with the Israeli prosecution. The trial, conducted in the presence of hundreds of reporters and broadcast in part on Kol Israel, resonated throughout Israel and worldwide. It presented for the first time the testimonies of hundreds of victims, and is considered a landmark event shaping the memory of the Holocaust.
Hausner's long opening speech was particularly memorable. In it he presented the entire process of the extermination of Europe's Jews, citing endless documents and testimonies, numerical data, names of German officers and officials, destroyed communities and even poems written by victims.
316 pp + [12] photographic plates, 21 cm. Good overall condition. Former library copy (library stamps, paper stickers on front endpapers and binding). Some stains and blemishes. Minor blemishes to binding.
Withdrawn.
Collection of paper items, handwritten and printed, from the estate of the Israeli diplomat Abba Eban. Late 1940s-1990s. English and some Hebrew.
• Dozens of printed and handwritten drafts, for speeches, lectures and essays composed by Eban. Among them: declaration delivered to the UN security council on May 28, 1948 (a fortnight after the establishment of the State of Israel), concerning a proposal for cease fire in the Independence War; another declaration delivered to the UN security council dated July 14, 1948, regarding the battles of the ten days and the call to cease fire; draft of a speech, composed, most probably, shortly after the Yom Kippur War, calling to use the "Historic Opportunity" and start negotiations with the Arabs; as well as essays about the peace process, Gaza and the West Bank, strategies of negotiations and bargaining, the borders of Israel, the peace process, Jewish history and other subjects.
Some of the drafts encompass dozens of pages, and in many of them appear comments, additions and deletions by hand.
• Manuscript, printed and spiral-bound, of a book titled "Reflections on the New Diplomacy" by Eban (apparently the book was eventually published under the title "Diplomacy for the Next Century" by Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998).
• Fifteen books, most of them with signatures and dedications to and from Eban and a minority with handwritten comments (on notes attached to leaves). Among the books: A New Spirit, A New Commitment, A New America, by US President Jimmy Carter. A copy inscribed by the author; "The Temple Mount is in our Hands!" by Chief of Staff Mota Gur. A copy inscribed by the author; Jacques Lipchitz, His Sculpture, monograph of the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, with a dedication in his handwriting; and more.
• Other paper items, including five booklets with Eban's speeches, a postal envelope in honor of "The peace treaty Israel-Egypt, March 26, 1979"; a typewritten draft – a complete English translation by Eban of the play "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles; and more.
Enclosed: a vinyl record, painted in gold, with a plaque with Israel's emblem, the UN emblem and the inscription "A Recording of the Vote on Israel Admission to the United Nations".
Approx. 100 items. Size and condition vary. Good overall condition.
A composition by James Ashley about crimes which were allegedly committed by the Polish Jew Henri Simons and the legal steps taken against him. With a frontispiece portrait of Simons, titled "Henri Simons the Polish Jew".
The Polish-Jewish merchant Henri Simons arrived in London in 1751, and while in the city he was robbed by James Ashley. His attempt to sue the robber was unsuccessful, and following it Simons himself was charged with assault and robbery as well as giving false testimony. After a complicated legal procedure Simons was acquitted and released.
This booklet includes a frontispiece engraving of Simons by the English painter and engraver Thomas Worlidge (1700-1766). While the booklet presents Ashley's claims against Simons, the engraved portrait of Simons is quite sympathetic.
According to Alfred Rubens this is the first engraving portraying a Polish Jew ever printed in England. See: Portrait of Anglo-Jewry 1656-1836, in: Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England), Vol. 19 (1955-59), pp. 16-17.
[1] engraving, VI, [2], 47 pp, 19.5 cm. No wrappers or binding (a few pieces from the binding are pasted to the spine). Good-fair condition. Loose gatherings. Stains and some tears. Large dark stains on the engraving.
A printed document – the law of naturalization legislated in England in 1753 permitting Jews born out of England to be naturalized without taking a Christian oath.
In spite of the fact that this law was approved by the Parliament it aroused opposition among the English public, right after the legislation, and many considered it an insult to Christianity. In view of the extreme controversy, the law was revoked one year later. The Christian oath as a condition for naturalization was finally cancelled only in 1826.
[6] pp (numbered: [406]-410), 33 cm. Good condition. Small tears at margins of leaves.
A book about religious liberty and the status of Jews, Catholics and other minority groups in England. The editing of this book is attributed to Benjamin Vaughan (1751-1835), a British politician and one of the authors of the Treaty of Paris.
The book contains an essay titled "Facts and Observation respecting the Situation of the Jews in England", essays concerning the legal status of English Catholics and laws regarding religious liberty legislated in France and the United States, and more.
Printed in the book is "A Parable against Persecution" by Benjamin Franklin – a parable written in the style of the King James translation of the Bible, telling the story of an encounter between Abraham and a person of a different religion. It is said that Benjamin Franklin used to pretend he was reading this parable from the book of Genesis, presenting it as proof of the importance of religious tolerance.
[3] leaves, 119, XX pp, 23 cm. Good condition. Stains (mostly to first and last leaves) and creases. Slight tears and blemishes at margins of leaves. Uneven page trimming. Pen inscription on the leaf preceding the title page. New binding, with leather spine. New endpapers.
Not in NLI.
In 1786, the English minister Joseph Priestley published a series of letters calling upon the Jews to abandon their faith and convert to Christianity. In response, David Levi (1742-1801), an unknown hatter and scholar from London, published a long letter seeking to refute Priestley's claims. The letter gave rise to an extensive debate in which several prominent thinkers from England and the United States participated. Following this, Levi decided to publish a methodical treatise, in three volumes, on scripture and prophecy. Offered here are first-edition copies of both works.
1. Letters to Dr. Priestly, in Answer to Those He Addressed to The Jews, printed by the author, London, 1787.
[3], 99, [1] pp. Approx. 19 cm. Good condition. Some stains and blemishes (mostly to first and last leaves). Ink stamps on title page. New binding and endpapers. Slightly worn binding.
2. Dissertations on the Prophecies of The Old Testament. Three volumes (no other volumes were printed), printed by David Levi, London, [1793?]-1800.
The first and third volumes are not in NLI.
Vol. I: XLV, [3], 310 pp; vol. II: IV [2], 332, 2 pp; Vol. III: IV, [2], 266 pp. Approx. 20.5 cm. Fair condition. Stains, creases and damage. Some tears at margins of first and last leaves. A number of leaves are detached or partly detached. Open tears (one large) to title page of Vol. II and an open tear to one leaf of Vol. III. Notes on the title page of of Vol. II. Two of the spines are missing. All three books lack front bindings. The rear bindings are detached.
Prayers in honor of the English Royal family, inauguration of synagogues, eulogies, appointment of rabbis, various wars, including the Crimean war, the Boer War, World War I and World War II and other events. Some of the prayers were composed for private occasions. Among the booklets: a prayer on the occasion of laying the corner stone for the West London Synagogue, 1848; "Order of service … on the occasion of making collections for the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund" (1847); "A Prayer For Her Majesty's Force In The Soudan" (1885); "A Prayer 'For The Time When Thou Mayest Be Found'" (composed when World War I broke out, 1914); "Thanksgiving and Prayer… On The Signing Of The Treaty Of Peace between Nations…" (1919); "Prayer for convention of great nations in London, for peace and for limiting the construction of war ships" (1930); "Prayer and Intercession On Behalf of Our Brethern In Germany" (1933); "Praise And Thanksgiving For The Victories Of The Allied Nation in the World War" (1945); "Order of prayer for the consecration of the Temporary Synagogue on the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue Duke's Place, London" (a prayer composed for the inauguration of the temporary synagogue replacing the mentioned synagogue following its destruction in World War II); "Rejoicing and Thanksgiving on the occasion of the celebration of Israel's Independence day"; and more.
A number of booklets were issued by the Manchester Jewish Community.
A number of booklets appear in several copies.
Size and condition vary. Goof-fair overall condition. Creases, tears and stains. Folding marks to a number of booklets. Covers of a few booklets are damaged, detached or partly detached. Filing holes.