Sign in
Tucked away among the Library’s treasures are quite a few gems, but they can only be revealed to us with the help of experts. Such a precious gem or actually three precious gems, are the three autograph signatures of the famous Rabbi Yosef Karo, found in three separate manuscripts. Rabbi Yosef Karo, author of one of the most important books of halakhah, Shulhan Arukh, is considered one of the greatest rabbis and halakhic deciders of all time.
The first autograph signature of Rabbi Yosef Karo is found in the first (of four) volumes of responsa by the great Sages. Karo’s signature is found at the end of book of respona Avkat Rochel, written in clear middle Sephardi script.
The second signature of Karo’s is found in a collection of ten pages in Hebrew in a file that contains various autographs. Similar to the first, this second signature concludes the collection of responsa Avkat Rochel. However, as opposed to the first, here the answers are written by an anonymous scribe, while the signature is by the hand of Karo himself.
Responsa Avkat Rochel | The Abraham Schwadron Autograph and Portrait Collection, The National Library of israel, Jerusalem, Israel, 1508; Schwad 01 19 298
The third and last autograph signature found in the National Library appears in the book Minḥat Yehuda for Rabbi Yehuda Yaakov Ḥayyat, and in the front we find the distinctive signature of Rabbi Yosef Karo, in the following words: “le-Yosef Karo” (“[belongs] to Yosef Karo”). It seems that this signature, unlike the prior ones, indicates that the owner of the manuscript was Rabbi Yosef Karo himself. It was passed down over the years to the Jewish community of Trieste, Italy, and with the founding of the State of Israel, it made its way to the National Library.
Researched and written by Dr. Idan Perez