Bidspirit auction | (INDIA). FEINSTEIN, CHAIM JACOB HAKOHEN.

(INDIA). FEINSTEIN, CHAIM JACOB HAKOHEN.  Kuntress Imrei Shabbath [“clarifying the prohibition of riding the steam engine of the railways on Shabbat.”] FIRST EDITION. With a poem at end by the Maggid of Kozhnitz. ff. (1), 19, (2). Trace wormed. Original marbled boards, rubbed. 12mo. Yaari, Calcutta 29. Calcutta, Ezekiel Saliman for the Jewish Press, 1874. The treatise censures the practice of riding the “Railway” (i.e. trams, or trolley-cars) on the Sabbath; the locals clearly without obvious awareness of Halachic strictures against travel on the holy day. Written by an emissary from Safed, who “afforded the Calcutta Community a great spiritual benefit” during his three visits to India. See A. Yaari, Sheluchei Eretz Yisrael pp. 831-32; E.N. Musleah, On the Banks of the Ganga: The Sojourn of the Jews in Calcutta (1975) pp. 511-12. The final two pages might well be the first appearance of Chassidic writings to be printed in Asia.