Lot : 29
Controversy of Corfu Mamzerim: The Landmark Handwritten Kuntres by Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon, Chief Rabbi of Egypt – With Unpublished Sections – 1900
Controversy of Corfu Mamzerim: The Landmark Handwritten Kuntres by Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon, Chief Rabbi of Egypt – With Unpublished Sections – 1900
Mishmeres HaTaharah – a lengthy 44-page kuntres in the elegant handwriting and with the signature of Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon, Chief Rabbi of Egypt, author of Nahar Mitzrayim and one of the well-known Sephardic sages of the nineteenth century.
The kuntres contains a major halachic campaign against the rabbanim of Jerusalem who had ruled that a family from the island of Corfu, long regarded as bearing the status of mamzerim, could marry into the Jewish community. At the beginning of the work, Rabbi Raphael Aharon copied various documents relating to the controversy, including the letter he sent to the Rishon LeTzion Rabbi Yitzchak Shaul Elyashar (the Yisa Bracha), the letter that sparked the debate.
This is one of the central and most influential teshuvos in the controversy, through which the opponents of the ruling – led by Rabbi Raphael Aharon – succeeded in persuading the rabbanim of Jerusalem to retract their original decision.
Rabbi Raphael Aharon sent the kuntres to his colleague Rabbi Eliyahu Chazan, Chief Rabbi of Alexandria and author of Ta’alumos Lev, who had joined him in the struggle, so that it could be printed in the third volume of Ta’alumos Lev (Alexandria, 1903). Rabbi Raphael Aharon later reprinted it in his own sefer, U’Matzor Devash (Jerusalem, 1912).
On leaf 3a there is a passage that apparently was never printed, followed by two additional sections omitted from Ta’alumos Lev and later printed in substantially revised form in U’Matzor Devash. Together they comprise approximately a full page of previously unpublished text. See below.
The Corfu Mamzerim
A family residing on the island of Corfu had long been regarded as bearing the status of mamzerim, and the Jewish community refrained from marrying them. In 1899, members of the family approached rabbanim seeking to determine whether any remedy existed or whether the basis for their disqualification could be challenged.
The Sephardic rabbanim of Jerusalem, headed by the Rishon LeTzion Rabbi Yitzchak Shaul Elyashar, investigated the matter and concluded that the family was permitted to marry within the Jewish community. The documentation, evidence, and halachic rulings supporting this conclusion were printed by the Yisa Bracha that same year in Jerusalem at the end of his sefer Olas Ish.
When the two leading rabbanim of Egypt, Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon, Chief Rabbi of Egypt, and Rabbi Eliyahu Chazan, Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, learned of the ruling, they undertook a determined effort to restore the original prohibition. Since many residents of Corfu were immigrants to Egypt, the rabbanim feared for the lineage of their communities should marriages take place with members of that family.
For an entire year, from Teves 1900 until Teves 1901, the two Egyptian rabbanim together with additional rabbanim from Italy waged what Rabbi Raphael Aharon described as “a fierce battle with the holy and venerable rabbanim of the Land of Israel.” Rabbi Raphael Aharon, a remarkably quick writer, composed hundreds of letters concerning the affair, as he later relates in U’Matzor Devash.
Ultimately, after Rabbi Raphael Aharon presented his arguments at length and with great clarity, the rabbanim of Jerusalem withdrew their original ruling and sent a letter to Corfu announcing their retraction. In Rabbi Raphael Aharon’s words: “Then we declared, fortunate is the generation in which the great heed the words of the lesser.”
An important manuscript of historical significance for a halachic controversy that today has almost entirely been forgotten.
Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon (1847–1929) was born in Jerusalem to the distinguished Rabbi Dovid Ben-Shimon, known as the Tzuf Dvash and author of Sha’ar HaChatzer. In 1888 he traveled twice as an emissary on behalf of the North African community of Jerusalem. In 1891 he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Egypt, where he devoted himself tirelessly to the community and waged a determined battle against the new influences spreading throughout the country. In 1921 he returned to his native Jerusalem, where he passed away. Among his well-known works are Nahar Mitzrayim and Tuv Mitzrayim.
His descendants included prominent rabbanim, among them the brothers Rabbi Masoud Ben-Shimon and Rabbi Nissim Ben-Shimon. Their late sister was the wife of Rabbi Shalom Cohen, Rosh Yeshivas Porat Yosef.
Egypt, 1900-1901
Page Count: 22 leaves, written on both sides. Total of [44] pages in the handwriting and with the signature of Rabbi Raphael Aharon. Height: 22.3 cm.
Condition: Good. Hole running through the leaves. A few stains. Old paper wrappers with light tears.
On the first page there is a title added to the manuscript: “These are the words spoken in holiness by the great rav… Rabbi Aharon Ben-Shimon…” This is possibly in the handwriting of the recipient, Rabbi Eliyahu Chazan.
On the final page there is an instruction to the printer, written in a different handwriting: “The names which have a line drawn under them should be set in square type, and should have a space left beneath them.” The typographical arrangement was indeed printed in accordance with this instruction.
Several leaves bear black fingerprints, likely left by the printing-house workers who prepared the text for publication directly from this manuscript.
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In many instances when rabbanim were required to send lengthy teshuvos, they would have scribes or talmidim write the text on their behalf, and they would only add their signatures at the end and occasionally write a few lines in their own handwriting.
Rabbi Raphael Aharon was exceptional in this regard. A skilled scribe, he personally wrote all of his teshuvos. In his sefer U’Matzor Devash, he describes his writing in this controversy:
“Most of the burden and responsibility of this campaign fell on me, for I have been a scribe since my youth… Day and night my hand grasped the pen, writing letters and documents… in order to refute the ruling of permissibility.”
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Unpublished and Published Sections Which Were Revised
As noted above, the present kuntres was first printed as Siman 6 in Rabbi Eliyahu Bechor Chazan’s sefer Ta’alumos Lev in 1903.
Rabbi Raphael Aharon later reprinted it in his sefer U’Matzor Devash (1912), prefacing it with an introduction containing interesting details about the present kuntres. He records that it was written in Adar II of 1900, approximately three months after the controversy began. At the beginning of the winter of 1901, he sent it to Rabbi Eliyahu Chazan for inclusion in Ta’alumos Lev. Some time later he added a new section on the last page entitled Acharis Tovah, also in his own handwriting, announcing that the rabbanim of Jerusalem had accepted the arguments of those who opposed the ruling.
The version printed in U’Matzor Devash was copied from the printed text in Ta’alumos Lev, since Rabbi Raphael Aharon no longer possessed any handwritten copy of the kuntres, as he explicitly states there.
In the original manuscript offered here, there are three additional sharply worded passages omitted from Ta’alumos Lev, likely because of Rabbi Raphael Aharon’s request at the end of the third section: “Let these words remain in my keeping for a time when they may be needed.” These passages appear on leaves 3b–4a and comprise approximately one full page.
The first passage was never printed. There, Rabbi Raphael Aharon argues that any family marrying one of the alleged mamzerim becomes disqualified under the laws governing a family into which a mamzer has become assimilated. (It begins with the words “And from another perspective as well.”)
The following two passages concern, among other matters, the honor of several rabbanim involved in the affair. They were printed in substantially altered form in U’Matzor Devash (beginning with the words “Furthermore regarding this matter” and “Therefore it is incumbent”). The original text preserved here has never been printed.
As noted earlier, Rabbi Raphael Aharon himself writes that he relied upon the printed text of Ta’alumos Lev because no handwritten copy remained in his possession. It is therefore remarkable that he restored these two passages, which do not appear in Ta’alumos Lev. It is possible that he reconstructed them from memory.
Further on, on leaf 4a, there is another brief passage that was never printed, containing a personal remark regarding the scribe of Ta’alumos Lev. Additionally, on leaf 6b there is the phrase “for truth has been cast to the ground, ” which was omitted from both printed editions.
Beginning of the Kuntres Mishmeret HaTaharah, Printed in Ta’alumos Lev,
Rabbi Raphael Aharon Ben-Shimon’s Introduction to the Second Printing
