For decades, Mizrahi has been a familiar name to those who know and appreciate rare seforim. It began the way many great seforim businesses do: with a small storefront in Brooklyn, shelves stacked to the ceiling, and a genuine love for the books themselves.

Over the years, millions of seforim have passed through Mizrahi’s hands — first editions, out-of-print classics, manuscripts, rabbinic letters, and treasured works that carry generations of Jewish history. Now, that experience is entering a new chapter.

Mizrahi Judaica Auctions has officially launched, bringing decades of expertise in rare seforim to the world of Judaica auctions. Its inaugural sale, Auction 1: Rare Hebrew Books, Manuscripts & Rabbinic Letters, features 155 lots spanning centuries of Torah scholarship and Jewish history.

Among the highlights is an extraordinary 67-page handwritten manuscript by Rav Shlomo Ganzfried, author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. The manuscript contains his Torah novellae on Maseches Sukkah, including material that was never printed, offering a remarkable window into the Torah thought of one of the most influential halachic authors of the nineteenth century.

Another exceptional lot is a page handwritten by Rav Chaim Vital from his private book of remedies, segulos, and practical Kabbalah. Dating to the early seventeenth century, the page comes from the work now known as Sefer HaPe’ulot and contains remedies, practical traditions, and configurations of sacred names recorded in Rav Chaim Vital’s own hand.

Among the most historically significant printed works in the sale is a first edition of the Beit Yosef, Orach Chaim, printed in Venice in 1550–1551 during the lifetime of Rav Yosef Karo and under his supervision. This was the first portion of Rav Yosef Karo’s monumental Beit Yosef to appear in print — the work that would ultimately form the intellectual foundation for the Shulchan Aruch. The copy also preserves numerous scholarly marginal annotations and textual corrections from a later Italian hand.

The auction also offers an extraordinary collection of early Hebrew printing, including eight incunabula — Hebrew books printed before 1501 — representing some of the earliest surviving examples of Hebrew printing. Together with these treasures, the sale includes 17 volumes from Daniel Bomberg’s landmark first printed edition of the Talmud, produced in Venice in the 1520s. Bomberg’s edition was the first complete printing of the Babylonian Talmud and became the foundation for virtually all subsequent printed editions. The auction also features three volumes from the first edition of the Talmud Yerushalmi, printed by Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1523–1524. The volumes — Seder Moed, Seder Nashim, and Seder Nezikin — come from the landmark edition upon which subsequent printed editions of the Yerushalmi were based. Printed more than five centuries ago, Bomberg’s edition marked the first time the Talmud Yerushalmi moved from manuscript into print.

Another remarkable offering is a group of twelve handwritten pages from the Steipler Gaon, Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, preserved from one of his original working notebooks. Filled with corrections, additions, and revisions, these pages allow collectors to see the Steipler’s Torah being developed on paper before reaching its final form.

Additional highlights include a handwritten drush manuscript by the Ben Ish Chai, an extensively revised halachic manuscript by Rav Shlomo Eiger documenting his exchange with his father, Rav Akiva Eiger, and a seven-leaf handwritten teshuvah by Rav Moshe Feinstein that later became part of Igros Moshe.

For Mizrahi, however, the auction represents more than a collection of valuable manuscripts and rare seforim. The same understanding that guided the business for decades now guides the auction house.

Mizrahi understands what a first-edition sefer can mean to a collector, what a handwritten page of Torah from a gadol represents, and why provenance, accurate descriptions, and transparency matter when dealing with pieces of Jewish history. Every lot is approached with that perspective.

Mizrahi Judaica Auctions brings together exceptional Judaica, decades of experience, careful presentation, and a commitment to transparency for buyers and sellers alike.

The inaugural auction is now open for viewing and bidding.

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