Obj. ID: 36432
Jewish printed books  Tzioni by Menachem ben Meir Tzioni, Korets (Korzec), 1785

This text was prepared by William Gross:

A kabbalistic commentary on the Torah by R' Menachem Tzioni b. Meir (15th C).
This commentary has been the subject of much polemic and debate for its suggestion (in the name of R' Yehuda ha -Chasid) that certain biblical verses are in fact later additions. These views which are included in the first edition of R' Yehuda ha-Chasid's commentary, but were removed, and a second editions issued. This debate continued in the 20th C, when the question of the authenticity of R' Yehuda's commentary, and that of Sefer Tzioni, was put before the great R' Moshe Feinstein. R' Feinstein expressed vehement opposition to the book, and argued that it was clearly a forgery, since Rabbi Yehuda he-Chasid could not have written such things.
At the end of his responsum, R' Feinstein concludes: "We do not have conclusive knowledge of who Rabbi Menachem Tzioni was, and it seems that he copied what he found in some book with Rabbi Yehuda he-Chasid's name on it, without paying attention. I would say that it is forbidden to sell or buy Sefer Tzioni, too, since it contains this heretical statement, and it would also be proper to write this to the leading authorities in the Land of Israel."
Rabbi Menashe Klein (the "Ungvarer Rov"), however, expresses surprise at this questioning of the credentials of Rabbi Menachem Tzioni, and uses the same tactic against Rav Feinstein's response:   "But the truth is I do not believe that this was said by Rabbi Feinstein; rather, it seems to me that some misguided student wrote it, and included it among his letters after his death. And the hands of strangers reigned over him and chose themselves a reputed scholar. For I do not believe that Rav Moshe Feinstein had never seen Sefer ha-Tzioni, which is well-known; he must surely have been familiar with it."
The community in Korzec, where this volume was printed, was one of the oldest in Poland. Jews were living there in the 13th century. During the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648/49 the community was almost annihilated, but recovered soon afterward to become the most influential in the council of four lands. A textile factory established by Joseph Czartoryski in Korzec at the end of the 18th century employed 120 Jewish workers.
Between 1766 and 1819 there were four Hebrew printing presses in Korzec, some of them associated with those in Shklov, Nowy Dwór, and Ostrog. They printed nearly 100 books, mostly works of kabbalah and chasidism, which contributed considerably to the spread of Hasidism in poland and adjoining countries. Works by Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye and Dov Baer of Mezhirech were first printed there. Korzec was a center of Hasidism. Dov Baer the maggid of Mezhirech and Phinehas Shapiro were active there.
The present volume was issued by the Christian printer Johann Anton Krüger, who ran a Hebrew printing press in Nowy Dwór, Neuhof (near Warsaw), from 1781 until 1814. His books from these years record either Nowy Dwór or Korzec on their title pages, often with his printer's mark. In this instance, his mark is a smallish monogram comprised of the letters JAK, enclosed in a simple foliate frame (Ya'ari 155).