La Semaine Israelite.

£950 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

Créhange's adaptation of Tze'enah u-Re'enah into French by rendering the work as conversations between Joshua (Josué) Hadass and his family on Holy scriptures, their relations with their religion and Jewish morals. It is a work written with great charm and most attractively illustrated by numerous lithographs. Tze'enah u-Re'enah [Come and See], a title taken from the Song of Songs, 3:11, 'Go forth and see, O ye daughters of Zion', is an exegetical rendering in Yiddish of the Pentateuch, the haftarot and the Five Scrolls, composed at the end of the 16th century by Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi (1550–1625); it is sometimes called the 'Women's Bible'. The work consists of discourses on selected topics or passages from parashat hashavuah (the weekly chapter of the Pentateuch), the haftarot, and the Scrolls, combining the peshat (literal exegesis) and the derash (free interpretation), interwoven with legends from the Midrash and other sources, stories and topical comments on moral behaviour. Alexandre Créhange (1791-1872), a Jewish-French author, Hebralist and communal leader, was the most senior of the ten founders of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. 4to (26.5 x 16 cm); 5 parts in 2 vols; numerous tinted lithograph plates; foxed; contemporary quarter-calf boards, spines richly gilt, boards somewhat rubbed; text in French, Hebrew and Yiddish. 72, 180, 73-200 (non-sequential); 128, 146, [2], 152 pp.

• Binding: Hardcover

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