LONDON, SOLOMON ZALMAN BEN MOSES RAPHAEL

LONDON, SOLOMON ZALMAN BEN MOSES RAPHAEL (1661–1748), author, translator, and bookseller. London was born in Nowogrudok (Lithuania). Between 1709 and 1735 he published and sold books in Amsterdam, London, and Frankfurt on the Main. He is best known for Kohelet Shelomo (1722), a devotional handbook which included occasional and domestic prayers and benedictions together with ritual laws and instructions both in Hebrew and Yiddish. It became popular in Western Europe and was reprinted many times, including later editions in which the Yiddish was replaced by German (cf. the Ger. ed. of 1919 (?) and that by A. Sulzbach, 1908). Kohelet Shelomo also contains a Passover Haggadah with Leone de Modena's commentary Ẓeli Esh. This Haggadah also appeared separately (1733) and was reprinted several times. Ḥinnukh Katan, a small Hebrew-Yiddish vocabulary, was added to some of the editions. London's Zokher ha-Berit (1714), which followed the same lines, detailed the ceremonies and laws of circumcision and redemption of the firstborn, with Yiddish translation. He also published a siddur, according to the German-Polish rite, under the title Tikkun Shelomo (1712, 17332 often reprinted), with Yiddish text added; it included the Tikkunei Shabbat of Isaac Luria. London prepared a number of ethical and halakhic compendia by various authors, providing a Yiddish translation. These included such works as Orḥot Ẓaddikim (author unknown, 1735); Jonah Gerondi's (13th century) Iggeret ha-Teshuvah (1742); and Isaac b. Eliezer's (15th century) Sefer ha-Gan (1747).