Bidspirit | автомобильный аукцион Doresh Tov LeAmo – Newspaper | 25/5/2021 Kedem

Doresh Tov LeAmo – Newspaper in Judeo-Arabic – Lithographed – Eleven Volumes of Issues – Copies of the Researcher and Collector David Solomon Sassoon – Bombay, 1855-1866 – First Newspaper Printed in Hebrew Characters in India – First Judeo-Arabic Newspaper - Doresh Tov LeAmo – Jewish newspaper in Judeo-Arabic. Bombay (Mumbai), 1855-1866. Lithographed. Eleven volumes of issues from all the years of the newspaper's publication. The English subtitle ”The Hebrew Gazette” was added with the eleventh issue. The newspaper serves as a rich and unique source of information on the history of Iraqi Jews who immigrated to India. The first page of the issues features announcements of births, Brit Milah, weddings and deaths in the community. The newspaper offers reports of local communal events, general and commercial news items, with some news items about the Jewish world beyond India, and historical articles. In the first two years of its circulation, the newspaper usually appeared biweekly, yet later, beginning in 1858, it began appearing weekly. Some issues cover the events of the Great Indian Mutiny. The newspaper was handwritten mostly in Judeo-Arabic, with some Hebrew, in cursive Baghdadi script, and reproduced in lithograph. The first two issues in 1855 were handwritten by Sassoon son of David Sassoon (see below). The rest of the issues were written by David Chaim David (his signature appears at the end of each issue). The issues were generally 4 pages long, but occasionally, 8-page issues were published, and for special occasions a several-page-long supplement was added (the supplement to issue 26 of year 4 featured a long proclamation issued by the rabbis and notables of Baghdad, containing regulations against extravagance, with over 60 clauses, announced in the synagogues in Tevet 1859 – see full translation in: Avraham ben Yaakov, Minhagei Yehudei Bavel BeDorot HaAcharonim, vol. II, Jerusalem 1993, pp. 180-193). The front pages have a set layout. Details about the weekly portion and haftarah, and readings from Neviim and Ketuvim, appear below the newspaper title. On most front pages, illustrations of ships sailing, with the inscriptions: ”London” and ”to China”, alongside information on ship departures to these places (a few issues note departures to other cities, such as Liverpool, Marseilles, Basra and others). Several issues offer further handwritten details (such as dates, references to Torah portions and Haftarot, and more). These volumes of issues were in the possession of the wealthy collector David Solomon Sassoon (his bookplates appear in some volumes). On 4th July 1908, David Solomon Sassoon published an article in The Jewish Chronicle entitled ”A Unique Jewish Newspaper”, containing a review of Doresh Tov LeAmo. At the time of writing the article, Sassoon only possessed two volumes of the newspaper, and he writes of his efforts to obtain more issues. Sassoon also mentions that the newspaper only had some twenty-five subscribers, who paid a monthly subscription of two rupee, and he quotes a testimony according to which subscribers would generally destroy the last issue as soon as the next appeared ”so that they should not become food for insects!” (a newspaper clipping with this article was pasted on the endpaper of volume III; a galley proof of the article is also enclosed). Eleven volumes: • Year 1. Bombay, 1855-1856. Issues 1-27. • Year 2. Bombay, 1856-1857. Issues 4-11, 13-26. Parts of issues 1-3, 12. • Year 3. Bombay, 1857-1858. Issues 1-50. • Year 4. Bombay, 1858-1859. Issues 1-51. • Year 5. Bombay, 1859-1860. Issues 1-48 (issues 5, 11, 15 may be lacking end). • Year 6. Bombay, 1860-1861. Issues 2-3, 18, 42, 44-48. • Year 7. Bombay, 1861-1862. Issues 1, 10, 12, 16, 20-24, 30, 34, 36, 44-45, 48. • Year 8. Bombay, 1862-1863. Issues 2-6, 9-10, 14-21, 23-27, 29, 35, 38-39, 45. Part of issue 46. • Year 9. Bombay, 1863-1864. Issues 1, 9, 15, 18-21, 24-28, 30-31, 33-35, 37-39, 46-48, 51. Parts of issues 11, 16, 17, 23, 36 (several other unidentified leaves enclosed). • Year 10. Bombay, 1864-1865. Issues 4-7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22-26, 29-31, 33-36, 38, 42. • Year 11. Bombay, 1865-1866. Issues 10,12, 15-20. 11 volumes. Approx. 32-34 cm. Some issues printed on blue paper. Condition varies. Most issues in good condition – stains, tears and wear. Several issues in fair condition and several issues in poor condition – open tears and significant worming, with extensive damage to text, repaired in part with paper and tape. Original bindings from the Sassoon collection, vol. I with a fine, gilt decorated leather binding. Bookplates of David Solomon Sassoon in several volumes. Leaves with handwritten notes and newspaper clippings enclosed (some handwritten by David Sassoon). A particularly rare newspaper (as mentioned, according to Sassoon, it was printed in several dozen copies only). The NLI catalog only records four volumes: 1, 2, 4 and 5. Recorded in Yaari (HaDfus HaIvri BeArtzot HaMizrach,