Beschreibung:

The tradition among Iraqi Jewry of translating the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic goes back at least a thousand years to the times of Rabbi Saadiah Gaon (Rasag; 882-942), and even before. Many of these translations were transmitted either in manuscript or orally well into the nineteenth or even twentieth century, when they were printed for the first time. While perhaps the earliest surviving manuscript containing a new (non-Rasag) Iraqi Judeo-Arabic translation of the Song of Songs is Sassoon 203, from about the seventeenth century, many more were produced in the years since. These generally rendered the biblical text midrashically-allegorically, following the model of the traditional Aramaic version of this book.
The present lot is a decorated, pocket-sized copy of the Song of Songs, with each Hebrew verse followed first by its Aramaic Targum in square script and then by the Judeo-Arabic translation of the Aramaic written in Baghdadi semi-cursive. The title page notes the common practice among many Jewish communities to read the Song of Songs on Passover; presumably, this copy was meant to be used for that purpose as well. The final text page of the manuscript (p. 112) contains the first three stanzas of Rabbi Judah Halevi’s (ca. 1075-1141) Mi kamokha poem for Purim translated into Judeo-Arabic. The volume was presented by Lady Rachel Ezra to her brother David Solomon Sassoon as a gift on December 4, 1917.
ProvenanceElijah ben Abdullah ben Rahamim, 1842 (p. 5, 118)Saleh ben Nissim ben David ben Benjamin (p. 5)Ezekiel ben Shalom ben Elijah ben Ezekiel… Joseph Kasif (p. 1)Meir ben Shalom ben Elijah ben Ezekiel Baher (pp. 1, 114)Isaac ben Shalom (p. 3)
Physical Description118 pages (5 7/8 x 4 1/8 in.; 149 x 104 mm) (collation: i2, ii-iv12, v11 [v12 canceled, with stub present], vi7 [vi1 canceled, with stub present], vii3 [vii4 canceled]) on paper (pp. 4, 6, 113, 115-117 blank); modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower margins at center; written in Baghdadi square (Hebrew and Aramaic text, of different sizes) and semi-cursive (Judeo-Arabic text and catchwords) scripts in black ink; single-column text of a variable number of lines per page; justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters and insertion of space fillers; horizontal catchwords in lower margins of rectos and versos; Tetragrammaton abbreviated to two yodin with a dot above, followed by a wavy line; later chapter numeration in purple ink in Hebrew characters on pp. 40, 50, 78, 87, 98; midpoint of book noted on p. 64. Each page set within a double border, usually decorated with a floral or geometric design and sometimes colored (pp. 5, 7-9, 18-19, 22-33); initial words (in Hebrew and Aramaic) set within decorative panels (p. 7); enlarged incipits; occasional insertion of decorative elements (pp. 98-99, 111). Slight scattered staining; ink biting; thumbing; pp. 5-8, 25-30, 51-52, 113-114 loose; damage to borders of pp. 5-8; short team in our edge of pp. 35-36; damage to colophon on p. 111. Nineteenth-century blind-tooled brown morocco with folding flap, somewhat worn and discolored; text block completely separate from binding; paper ticket with title affixed to top of spine; paper ticket with shelf mark affixed to base of spine; nineteenth-century paper pastedowns separating from binding.
LiteratureYitzhak Avishur, “Temurot ba-aravit-ha-yehudit ha-hadashah shel yehudei iraq: ha-lashon be-heksherah ha-tarbuti,” Massorot 2 (1986): 1-17, at pp. 6-10.
Yitzhak Avishur, Tirgumei ha-tanakh ba-aravit yehudit ba-mizrah: sekirot ve-iyyunim (Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2001).
Meir Benayahu, Sefarim she-nithabberu be-bavel u-sefarim she-ne‘etku bah (Jerusalem: Yad Harav Nissim; Merkaz Moreshet Yahadut Bavel, 1993), 172-173 (no. 169).
Abraham Ben-Yaacob, Yehudei bavel mi-sof tekufat ha-ge’onim ad yameinu 4798-5720 (1038-1960) (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute; Kiryat Sefer, 1965), 140 n. 125.
David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 1 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 29-30 (no. 482).