Auction 112 Rare Hebrew Books, from the Library of the late Dr. Michael D. Paul.
By Kestenbaum & Company
Jun 12, 2025
Brooklyn, NY, United States

Rare Hebrew Books,

Including Six Incunabula

From the Collection of the late 

Dr. Michael D. Paul of 

St. John’s, Newfoundland.

* With a Fine Isidor Kaufmann Portrait Painting.


Montreal born Dr. Michael David Paul (1954-2024) was a respected professor of medicine specializing in nephrology who devoted himself to the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador for more than forty years.


Alongside his teaching and medical practice, Dr. Paul served as the long-time President of the small Jewish community of St. John’s. His many interests included travel, philanthropy, but especially book-collecting - alongside related study and research.


Of all the many clients I have been privileged to know in my forty year book career, Dr. Paul was among the most learned and certainly the most interesting.


May his soul receive its eternal reward and may his memory forever be blessed.


DEK

Spring, 2025.


* Most of the books offered here from Dr. Paul’s library, contain his small embossed stamp, generally affixed to the title-page.






More details
The auction has ended

LOT 39:

(BIBLE).

Sold for: $1,800
Price including buyer’s premium and sales tax: $ 2,449.69
Start price:
$ 600
Estimate :
$1,200 - $1,800
Buyer's Premium: 25%
sales tax: 8.875% On the lot's price and buyer's premium
Auction took place on Jun 12, 2025 at Kestenbaum & Company
tags:

(BIBLE).


Sepher Arba’ah Ve’Esrim.

With commentary Minchath Shai by Yedidiah Solomon Norzi.



FIRST EDITION of commentary. Edited by Raphael Hayim Basila. Four parts bound in one volume. Each part preceded by magnificent engraved frontispiece displaying eight Biblical vignettes with printer’s device at top. Main and divisional titles in red and black. Marginalia.


ff. (4), 142 (i.e. 138); * (2), 88; * (2), 98; * (2), 54, 51, (1 of 2), 5. Lacks one leaf of index. Touch foxed in places. Modern calf. Folio.

Vinograd, Mantua 397; Darlow & Moule 5150.


Mantua, Raphael (Isaac) Chaim d’Italia the Physician, 1742.


First edition of this important and comprehensive commentary to the Masorah, with significance for almost every word throughout the Bible in which the possibility for error or variant reading exists.

 

Extraordinary frontispiece depicts the Deity as represented in the Prophet Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Chap. 37), among many other impressive Biblical scenes. The appearance of such an illustration is most anomalous in a Jewish book.

See C. Roth, Jewish Art (1961) cols. 25-6 (illustrated).