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Novellae to the festival of Shavu’ot by R. Saul Brach of Nitra. The title page has a decorative frame and describes R. Brach as av bet din in קאשוי and prior to that av bet din in Magendorf. It also lists several of the other books that he wrote. The verso of the title page begins a detailed index of the contents, followed by R. Brach’s introduction. The text is organized by weekly parshiot, followed by novellae on all the books of the Bible and on Midrashim. In the introduction R. Blach writes that while this work is based on matan Torah, he has added additional material so that it will include discourses on all the weekly parshiot and all of books in the bible. The introduction is in a single column, the text in two columns in rabbinic type, excepting headers and initial words. The title page has a sticker with the name of Joseph Zevi Freidman, son-in-law of the author.
R. Saul Brach (1865–1940) was rabbi in Slovakia. He served as rabbi in the Hungarian communities of Nagykaroly and Dunaszerdahely, and, finally, in Kosice, Czechoslovakia. His Avot al Banim (1926) is prefaced by a violent attack on the Zionist movement (the Mizrachi and Agudat Israel included). Here he states that believers in the law of Moses “should keep their distance from Zionists and Mizrachist homes and avoid eating and drinking with them as they would with gentiles. Further, they ought to be excluded from the community” (p. 27). Although he fully appreciated the Hebrew language, he opposed its secular use (p. 23). In his opinion the Balfour Declaration was “in the interest of the gentile world, its purpose being to rid the nations of the world of the Jews.” In addition to Bi-Heyot ha-Boker R. Brach was the author of many works, among them: Mishmeret Elazar 1897 and subsequent parts, on the festivals and "the excellence of the Holy Land"; Libba Ba’ei (1911), novellae on talmudic themes; Sha'ol Sha’al (1911), on Yoreh De'ah; and Le-Olam ha-Ba (1938), on Avot; and a series of works on the festivals and the month of Elul.
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