Ephraim Deinard (1846-1930) was a Hebrew bibliographer – one of the greatest of the Modern Era – as well as an author, book collector, and bookseller. An accomplished historian and outspoken polemicist, he was widely regarded as a colorful, highly controversial figure. Deinard was born in Sassmacken (or Sasmaka; today Valdemārpils), Latvia. When still young, he began traveling throughout the world, and while doing so, studied many different Jewish communities, painstakingly collecting Hebrew books and manuscripts. In the 1880s, he managed a major bookstore in Odessa. Deinard immigrated to the United States in 1888, where he established a small printing house in which some of his own works were published.
His rich collections provided a foundation and model for Hebrew book sections in some of the major libraries in America, and catalogues of his book collections served as an important basis for the study of Hebrew literature and Jewish culture. Deinard himself authored dozens of books; a fair number of these publications were, in addition to being serious academic works, essentially platforms for arguing his rather distinctive worldview. Having established a reputation as a particularly provocative author, predictably, many of his books aroused harsh criticism.
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Lot #412