Oct
2014
New items in the collection: Last Will and Testament: Novohardak, Belarus, 1844
Manuscript in Hebrew and Yiddish. In this will Avraham Shklifer, evidently a wealthy merchant without children, leaves instructions for the distribution of his estate including bequests to talmudic academies, book publishers, hospitals, and other Jewish communal institutions. The document mentions several important leaders of the community of Novogrudok, Belarus and Vilna.
This quite lengthy will is mostly in Hebrew and not in Yiddish, the spoken language of the Jewish population of the region. It has a red wax seal at the conclusion. The graphic illustrations on the first two pages are also unusual. The two angels on the second page seem to have an Italian influence. The document is in its original binding. The stamp of one of the previous owners, Hayyim bar Reuven Lieberman, appears on several of the pages.
Since we mostly know more about the poor Jews who lived in Eastern Europe, it is quite a novelty to learn about the holdings, property, and way of life of a very wealthy one.