Hebrew prayer book from medieval Bavaria sets auction record

The sale of a rare, illustrated medieval Jewish prayer book for the high holidays known as a mahzor fetched a record $8.3 million (€7.1 million) at auction Tuesday night in New York.

Written in distinctive, elegant Hebrew script and elaborately illustrated, the Luzzatto mahzor is named for the 19th century collector and scholar who once owned the volume, though it originated in what is now Bavaria in the late 13th century or the early 14th century.

The book contains prayers for the Jewish high holidays, Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, known as the Day of Atonement.

Several potential buyers had expressed interest before the sale, which went to an American who remains anonymous.

Controversy around the sale

The auction itself drew criticism from scholars concerned that the unique work would end up in a private collection or might disappear into a safe if acquired by a private collector. It remains to be seen whether those concerns will come to fruition.

Sefy Hendler, a well-known Israeli art historian, told Haaretz the Luzzatto mahzor is the "Jewish Mona Lisa" of priceless worth. He called on the state of Israel to acquire it for the National Library's collection.

The Alliance Israelite Universelle, a Paris-based Jewish cultural organization, however justified the sale on account of steep debts. For a century, the Luzzatto mahzor had been available to the public in exhibitions and scholars engaged in research.

Origins of the Luzzatto mahzor

The volume is named for Samuel David Luzzatto, a distinguished Italian Jewish scholar, poet and theologian who was also a renowned antiquarian book collector. He was born to a distinguished family in Trieste in 1800 and educated in the Talmud in addition to being home schooled.

Luzzatto's interests included the Hebrew language, poetry and Biblical studies. He dedicated most of his career to these fields.

In 1829, he was named a professor at the Instituto Convitto Rabbinico, later known as the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano in Padua, which was an important rabbinical seminary in its day. He spent his life there, teaching the Bible, philology, philosophy and Jewish history.

Upon his death, many of the manuscripts and rare books he had accumulated were acquired by major European cultural institutions. In 1870, the Alliance Israelite Universelle, which permitted the Sotheby's auction, acquired the Luzzatto mahzor.

Why is the Luzzatto mahzor unique?

The mahzor was written by an artist and Hebrew calligrapher known as Abraham in the late13th or early 14th century in what is now modern Germany. This information is based on paleographic comparisons with similar medieval Ashkenazi works, though Sotheby's notes the "identity of the specific community whose custom it reproduces remains elusive."

Another particularly noteworthy aspect of the Luzzatto mazhor's depictions of the human form "is its tendency to avoid the depiction of frontal human portraits," Sotheby's notes.

While this is a feature common to the era and scholarly interpretations vary, the most widely accepted theory is that rabbinic law of the time prohibited the creation of images of the human form.

Another unique aspect of the Luzzatto mahzor pertains to censorship. In the early modern period, Jewish people who resided in territories under the control of the pope were barred from having books that could be seen as offensive to Christianity at the risk of fines or imprisonment.

To evade such penalties, Jewish people either submitted manuscripts and printed material to Christian censors whom they paid for the revisions, or they took this task upon themselves.

In the Luzzatto mahzor, several passages are blotted out, such as those that call on God to destroy enemies of the Jewish people or avenge the deaths of those considered martyrs by the community. Two leaves containing particularly virulent prayers to this effect recited as part of the morning services from Yom Kippur are also absent.

According to Sotheby's, the missing and blacked out passages from the text "suggest that it was an Italian Jewish owner" who performed this work.

ar/sri (dpa, KNA)