Sholom: Last week I visited a collection of books from Rabbi Abraham Simon, He graduated Jewish Theological Seminary in 1932. His ordination certificate was on the wall with signatures of all the faculty members including Cyrus Adler, Mordecai Kaplan, Israel Davidson, Boaz Cohen, and Louis Ginzberg. I was curious, but I did not take the document.
Simon's daughter gave me some of the books that she wanted to get rid of. Most of the books were pretty ordinary, but some had interesting dedications. Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of both the Young Israel movement and Reconstructionist movement wrote Judaism as a Civilizationin 1934. This was the basis for all his later philosophical works. Kaplan wrote a dedication in a first edition of this book to the rabbi. The rabbi had been one of his students. Other books with Kaplan's dedication are listed by dealers with prices ranging from $250-695. The collection also includes a copy of Esther and Harbonah, by H. Pereira Mendes (1852-1937) Mendes was the rabbi of Shearith Israel as well being active at Jewish Theological Seminary and the OU. The book has a whole page inscription written to Jacob Schiff (1847-1920). Schiff was a wealthy financier and philanthropist. His firm Kuhn, Loeb was one of the two most powerful banking houses in the United States. He gave generous support to Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University, Barnard College, Jewish Publication Society and many others. He competed with his brother-in-law who endowed the Loeb Classics at Harvard University. Schiff supported the Jewish Publication Society's Jewish Classics series. If you are interested in these items or know someone who might be, please contact me. My list of books for sale has been updated to include these and about 800 others. Find them at:http://home.earthlink.net/~byls-press/BYLS_Book_sale1.htm. Most of the books are also listed on Amazon.com. The list includes subject headings and all the author names are listed as they appear in library catalogs. Daniel Stuhlman Chicago, IL ddstuhlman at earthlink.net Blog: http://kol-safran.blogspot.com/ --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
