"מזרח" / תפלת רבי ישמעאל כהן גדול – ירושלים, 1866

Mizrach / A Solemn Prayer of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest. Single broadsheet, "from the new press of Rabbi R. Abraham Roytenburg," Jerusalem, [c. 1866]. In the four corners are printed illustrations: the Western Wall, the Tomb of Rachel, the Tomb of Zechariah, and the Cave of Machpelah. At the head of the sheet, in the center: "Mizrach — from this direction flows the spirit of life"; below is printed the heading "A Solemn Prayer of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest," and beneath it a panel bearing the inscription "Sha'ar Orah." The text itself is printed in three columns: in the right and left columns is printed the text of the prayer of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest, which "whoever recites daily in the synagogue or at home is saved from all evil occurrences and from the Other Side in the world…"; in the middle column are printed two psalms (34, 72), to be read before reciting the prayer. At the foot of the sheet: "Printed in the Holy City Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt and restored; this holy prayer was brought in the book Amtachat Binyamin [by Rabbi Binyamin Binish ben Yehuda Leib HaKohen, Wilhelmsdorf, 1716], and upon seeing this matter I said it would be well to disseminate it among Israel and to reprint it on a single sheet, so that every person may have it in hand, to purchase it and hang it on the walls of his home and to recite it, and may the Lord be with him, and in all that he undertakes may he prosper, and may the blessing mentioned above come upon him — words of the publisher of this precious thing, Moshe, son of the Rabbi R. Abraham Binyamin, of blessed memory, Rivlin." The printing house of Rabbi Abraham Rotenburg operated in Jerusalem in the years 1866–1868 and in the years 1877–1878; the dating of the sheet is based on the inscription in its lower margin, "from the new press of Rabbi R. Abraham Roytenburg." 33.5×44 cm. Fair-to-good condition. Tears, mainly in the upper margins and along the fold lines, professionally restored. Creasing and staining. Housed in a frame of 52.5×72.5 cm (not examined outside the frame). Rare. Bibliographically unrecorded, does not appear in "The First Books of Jerusalem" by Shoshana HaLevi, and differs from the Mizrach listed in the Bibliography Project CD-ROM, record 0313739, and from other Mizrachim printed in Jerusalem during the same period.