Obj. ID: 38916
Jewish printed books  Sheelot u-Teshuvot by Levi Ben Ya'akov Ibn Chaviv, Venice, 1565

This text was prepared by William Gross:

Venice is one of four cities in which this woodcut title page frame was used (the other three are Cremona, Padua and Cracow). It is a fine example of the traveling of wood blocks for printing from one city to another. This example also carries a censor's signature on the last page of the book. The beautiful arch image is topped by a picture of the Akedah. For other examples in the GFC, see B.1174 (Cremona, 1557), and B.1568 (Padua, 1567).
R. Levi b. Jacob ibn Habib (Zamora, Castile c. 1480 – Jerusalem, Southern Syria, c. 1545), whose responsa are compiled in this volume, was Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem from 1525 until his death twenty years later.
Born in Zamora, Spain, R. Levi was taken to Portugal by his father at the time of the expulsion, only to be caught in the order of King Manuel I mandating the forcible baptizing of Jewish children in 1497. The Habib family escaped a year later, finding refuge in Salonika, where Levi received his Jewish education and succeeded his father as instructor at Gerush Sefarad, the Spanish-Jewish congregation. By 1513/1514 he was in Jerusalem, returning briefly to Salonika, and from 1522/1523, excepting an interlude in Damascus and Safed, resided permanently in Jerusalem, where he was the dayyan ha-Memunah, responsible for the organization of the city's intellectual and religious life. There he met Jacob Berab, with whom he often came into conflict on questions of rabbinical law. A serious quarrel broke out between these two rabbis when Berab, becoming chief rabbi of Safed, reintroduced the ancient practice of the ordination of rabbis. A bitter controversy ensued for some time, in the course of which Berab referred to Ibn Habib's earlier adoption of Christianity. The latter frankly admitted the fact, but pointed out that at the time he was a mere youth, that his involuntary profession of Christianity lasted hardly a year, and that he took the first opportunity to escape and rejoin the religion of his fathers. This controversy was chiefly responsible for the fact that the practice of ordination ceased again soon after Berab's death.
The current compilation of 147 responsa is supplemented by two other works by R. ibn Habib: Kontres ha-Semikah, a treatise on ordination; and Perush Kiddush HaChodesh, a commentary on Kiddush HaChodesh (rules governing the construction of the Hebrew calendar in Maimonides' code of law).
The book exists in two forms; it was printed twice, first with annotations made by the proofreader, and the second time with the annotations removed. This affected about a third of the book. The two versions are distinguishable by the numbering of the leaves: in the first instance the number is on the right, the letter on the left, in the second they are reversed. The current volume is from the first edition..