Photo Credit: Israel Mizrahi

Appended to the front and end of an 1884 edition of Samlah Chadasha and Tevuot Shor, classic works on the laws related to Jewish slaughter, I found recently two pages at each end of a manuscript of notes and commentary on the book. These manuscript pages were written by Rabbi Tuvia Yehuda Ben Alexander Tzvi Guttentag, Av Bet Din of Sochocin, and per his testimony, written in rather unusual circumstances.

Rav Guttentag (later, he Hebraisized his name to Tavyumi), born in 1882, was a prolific author, who served as rav in Sochochin from 1910. In 1935 he made aliyah, settling in Tel Aviv. He lived in Tel Aviv until his passing away in 1953. Some of the books he authored include Tal Leyisrael, Ateret Tuviah, Eretz Tova among other sefarim. He also published a hesped on the Ger Rebbe, titled Evel Kaved.

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At end of his writings in this volume, R. Guttentag writes in Hebrew “These comments were written in the city of Kolshek, in 1903, in my stay there for a few days while in hiding from the ambushing Russians who were searching for me to conscript me to the Army.”

R. Guttentag signed several times on free-ends of this volume and there are several stamps of his in the book as well. Several marginal notes in his handwriting appear in the book as well. The handwritten pages contain his own commentary on the book Samlah Chadasha and Tevuot Shor.

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Israel Mizrahi is the owner of Mizrahi Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY, and JudaicaUsed.com. He can be reached at [email protected].