First masechet printed after the Shoah: Masechet Kidushin, Va’ad Hatzalah, Munich 1946. Pretty copy in the original ...

First masechet printed after the Shoah: Masechet Kidushin, Va’ad Hatzalah, Munich 1946. Pretty copy in the original binding

“From slavery to the geulah, from darkness to the great light, masechet Kiddushin of the Talmud Bavli…published by the Rabbinical Va’ad in the American sector of Ashkenaz. With the support of the Va’ad Hatzalah, by the Rabbinical Assembly of the USA and Canada, Munich—s”t Atilien.” The first masechet printed immediately after the Shoah on German soil. At the bottom of the title page is an illustration of a concentration camp with the inscription:

“The work hut in which we sat, we studied and prayed secretly”, under which is the inscription “I was almost annihilated in the land and I did not leave your command”. On the back of the title page, the publisher wrote an emotional introduction: “After our spirit returned a little of to us ... the people of the book immediately felt the lack of such books because of the wicked, who destroyed and burned the Jews of Europe, tried not to leave any Hebrew book and that the burned Jew was bound in the Torah ... we found only Masechet Kiddushin and Nedarim in one volume, almost new, and these masechtot we decided to photocopy and print divide them among the DPs in the Ashkenazi exile…” [1], 96, 16, 14 leaves. [1], 103, 16, leaves. Original binding with an inscription of a Star of David. A few bits of tape. A few moisture stains, overall good condition.

This edition is different from the complete set of the Talmud Bavli which was printed later, in 1949.