Sefer Mectav Galui  and Milchemet Mitzvah.

Sighet: Menachem Mendel Wieder, 1888. Only Edition.

Includes booklets published during the course of the polemic: Ein Mishpat, Yashuv Mishpat and Emek HaMishpat. 


The Split in the Sighet Community:

In 1883-1890, a stormy controversy broke out in Sighet between the members of the community who joined the Central Bureau of the Autonomous Orthodox Jewish Communities [ which was led by the “Ashkenazi” Beit Midrash of the Chatam Sofer], and a group of community members who refused to be subordinate to the bureau, and established an independent, Status Quo "Sefardic" community. The Orthodox community was headed by the Yitav Lev and the Kedushat Yom Tov of Sighet, while the seceding camp was led by the powerful Kahana family, and some Vizhnitz Chassidim.

The two communities agreed to undergo mediation and a psak from a beit din led by Rebbi Baruch of Gorlitz (who was then rabbi of Rodnik), the son of the Divrei Haim of Sanz, who published a psak in which he tended to favor the Kahal Orthodoxim. Rabbi Feivel HaLevi, Av Beit Din of Brodshin, published against him a letter in which he justifies the Adat Sefardim. The two sides released Seforim and pamphlets to convince and justify their opinions. 

Letters supporting the "Sepharad Congregation" were printed in the Sefer Ohev Mishpat—(Lemberg 1888, see previous lot) from Rebbi Baruch Hager of Vishnitz, Rabbi Y. A. Ittinga of Lvov, the Netziv of Volozhin, and others. In retaliation, the orthodox community published this Sefer "Michtav Galui– Milchemet Mitzva”.

With time, the split in the Sighet community affected many other Hungarian communities, with most the Hungarian rabbis, as well as many rabbis from Galicia and Poland, taking sides in the polemic.


Lacking the title page, [1], 2-157, [2] leaves (some leaves are not numbered – the three booklets which were distributed independently before the printing of the book was completed). 24.5 cm. 


Signature: Yitzchak Eizik Lefkowitz, Margaretin (Marghita).


Reb Yitzchak Eizik was born in 1878 to his father Reb Yakov Yosef Lefkowitz. He was a disciple of the Kedushat Yom Tov of Sighet & the Son-In-Law of Reb Wolf Fleishman. He passed away in 1944.


Signature of his son Reb Zev (Wolf) Lefkowitz (1919-2011). Margaretin, 1933.


Signature: Menchem Lefkowitz, Chaim Lefkowitz.


Lacking the title page otherwise in Good Condition, light tears & stains, original binding.


See also previous Lot.


Regarding the dispute in the community of Sighet, refer to the sources mentioned by Naftali Ben-Menachem in his book \"MiSiferot Yisrael BeHungarya, \" Jerusalem 1958, page 114.

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Lot #430

Sighet Polemic: Milchemet Mitzvah, Sighet 1888- Signatures of the Lefkowitz family of Margaretin.

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