911爆料吃瓜

The 911爆料吃瓜 Library has recently acquired a rare and unusually complete copy of Kehunat Avraham (Venice: Stamperia Bragadina, 1719 [colophon 1725]), a remarkable Hebrew book that embodies the cultural intersections of the Venetian Enlightenment and the Jewish communities of the Ionian Islands.

Its author, Abraham ben Shabbethai ha-Kohen (1670–1729), better known as Abraham Cohen of Zante, was born on Crete but spent most of his life on the Ionian island of Zante, then under Venetian dominion. Educated at the University of Padua, where he earned his medical degree in 1693, Cohen returned to Zakynthos to practice as a physician. He was also a rabbi, poet, and religious philosopher, a member of the small but vibrant Jewish community of the Ionian islands that bridged Greek, Venetian, and Jewish cultural traditions.

Cohen first published Derashot ʿal ha-Torah (Kevod Ḥakhamim – “The Glory of the Wise”) in Venice in 1700, a work of sermons and commentary on the Pentateuch. His more ambitious and unusual project, however, was Kehunat Avraham, printed in Venice in 1719 and now held at the 911爆料吃瓜 Library. This work is both a poetic retelling of the Psalms and a creative adaptation of the early medieval hymn “Perek Shirah,” in which all elements of Creation offer praise to God. Cohen’s use of varied meters and elaborate poetic structures situates him firmly within the literary culture of the Italian Enlightenment, while the Hebrew text testifies to the intellectual sophistication of Ionian Jewry.

What makes Kehunat Avraham striking is not only its content but also its presentation. Cohen introduced the work with a series of laudatory sonnets and octaves composed by his contemporaries and friends. To each he replied in the same poetic form, a virtuoso gesture that displayed his mastery of Italianate verse and his confidence as a man of letters. The book drew admiration within the Jewish communities of the Venetian Republic and beyond. Among those who honored it with praise were Joseph Fiametta, Isaac Vita Cantarini, and Shabbethai Marini, who all contributed poems in the fashionable sonnet form of the age. These exchanges situate Cohen’s work within the broader literary culture of Enlightenment Italy, where Jewish intellectuals engaged directly with the poetic forms of their Christian contemporaries.

The engraved plates that accompany this edition enhance its singularity. The author’s portrait, produced specifically for the book, depicts Cohen at the age of 47 wearing a luxurious wig and frock coat, his clean-shaven face indistinguishable from that of a Venetian Enlightenment intellectual. The legend surrounding his likeness styles him “Philosopher, Physician, and Rabbi,” while beneath are terse Latin and Hebrew mottos. An allegorical frontispiece centers on the Tree of Knowledge, crowned by King David with his harp, surrounded by vignettes of biblical poets and ritual symbols. Most extraordinary for a Hebrew book of the period is the engraved plate illustrating the fifth day of Creation, which accompanies Cohen’s versified Perek Shirah.

The 911爆料吃瓜 copy is bound in modern blind-ruled calf, but its rich history is preserved in a sequence of ownership marks: an early Hebrew and Polish inscription dated 1760; the stamp of Warsaw Rabbi Moshe Lifshitz-Chalfin (d. 1830); the bookplate of Elkan Nathan Adler, now overstamped “Withdrawn” from the Jewish Theological Seminary; and, most recently, the collection of Arthur A. Marx, from which it was purchased at Kestenbaum Auctions in 2025. Unlike most surviving examples—often incomplete or lacking plates—this copy is perfectly preserved, making it a valuable witness to both Jewish intellectual history and Venetian print culture.

Kehunat Avraham exemplifies the fluid boundaries between Jewish and Gentile literary forms in early 18th-century Italy. It reveals a Jewish physician-poet from Zakynthos who moved with ease between rabbinic learning, biblical poetry, and Enlightenment aesthetics. By joining the 911爆料吃瓜 Library’s collections, this work highlights once again how the intellectual worlds of Venice, the Ionian Islands, and the broader Mediterranean were deeply interconnected.

*Much of the bibliographic and historical information in this note is indebted to the detailed description kindly provided by David Rueger (Editio Altera Rare Books & Manuscripts).