A complete set of the Babylonian Talmud, “published by the Vaad Rabanim in the American zone in Germany with the help of the U.S. army and the Joint in Germany” – Munich-Heidelberg, 1948. At the end of the Second World War, when the survivors were concentrated in the DP camps, there was a lack of books of Talmud and other holy books. From 1946 onward the Agudat Harabbanim in Germany, with the help of the U.S. army and the Joint, began to print the Talmud for the survivors. At first, individual tractates were printed in different formats, until this edition was printed in 1948. This edition is first complete Talmud, each volume has two title pages. The first title page is in yellow with writing in red ink. The writing is especially poignant – to mark the event of printing the Talmud in the war-torn country of Germany, at the top is an illustration of a Jewish village, and the words “from slavery to redemption, from darkness to great light.” At the bottom of the title page is an illustration of barbed wire and a labor camp, and above it are the words “I was almost wiped out from the land and I did not abandon your commandments.” The second title page is written partially in red ink. 19 volumes. 39 cm. With the original bindings, most of them with a leather spine that was glued on at a later date. Conditions vary, good overall condition. Detached leaves and various pastings in several volumes. On the first leaf of each volume is an ownership stamp: “Eliyahu Sternbuch, dayan of the Machzikei Hadat community in Antwerp, Belgium” – the copy of Rabbi Eliyahu Sternbuch, av beit din of Antwerp, son-in-law and disciple of the rebbe Rabbi Baruch Hager of Seret Vizhnitz (see below). It seems that he received this set of the Talmud from his father-in-law the rebbe the Makor Baruch upon his marriage, as is traditional. Several volumes are replete with glosses by him and by his son, it is clear that he studied Torah from these volumes and recorded his glosses in the margins. Some of the glosses are long and scholarly, and many of them are source references that attest to his great fluency in both the books traditionally studied in yeshivot and in books of halacha. At the beginning of the volume of Baba Batra, a handwritten addition to the prayer of Rabbi Nechunia ben Hakane. Rabbi Eliyahu Sternbuch (1932-2017). A scion of the Vilna Gaon, born in London to his father Rabbi Asher. An alumnus of the Gateshead yeshiva, and the Chevron yeshiva in Jerusalem. In 1956 he married the daughter of the rebbe Rabbi Baruch Hager of Seret Vizhinitz, author of Makor Baruch, and ever since he cleaved to him and became his disciple. Served as a rabbi in the Seret Vizhnitz Yachel Yisrael yeshiva in Haifa until 1963 when he was appointed as a dayan on the beit din of Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth in the Machzikei Hadat community of Antwerp. He taught Torah and adjudicated halacha in the country until his death – for almost fifty years. After the death of Rabbi Kreiswirth in 2002 he succeeded him as the av beit din (known as Ra’avad Machzikei Hadat). He died in Jerusalem and is buried in the Bnei Brak cemetery alongside his brothers-in-law in the tomb of the rebbes of Vizhnitz. The item was put up for auction by his family for charitable purposes, l’ilui nishmato.
