Louis Frumkin and Co., the wine merchant, was an East End of London institution, at 162 Commercial Road. It was founded by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Frumkin, and I have written previously about a much earlier book of his, about the history of the Rabbis of Jerusalem, which was published in 1874. He was, incidentally, the great-grandfather of the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
Aryeh Leib Frumkin (1845–1916) was a rabbinical scholar and writer and a pioneer of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel (Palestine). He was educated at the Slobodka Yeshiva. He first visited Israel in 1867. After getting Semicha (his rabbinical diploma) he became a rabbi in Ilukste, Latvia. He then bought land in Petach Tikvah, built the first house there, and stayed for ten years.
In 1893 or 1894 he went to London and was active in Jewish life in the East End. He established a wine business, using the income to return to the Land of lsrael in 1911, where he lived first in Jerusalem and then returned to Petach Tikvah, where he died on 9th June, 1916.
Once the wine business had been set up, Arye Leib turned largely to writing books. His family ran the business, including his son, Elias (grandfather of Rabbi Sacks), and his daughter Rachel, who married Rabbi Zechariah Dimson (Rabbi of Stroud, Gloucestershire, and then a synagogue in Artillery Lane, London. He died at a young age in Palestine.)
The book itself includes Rabbi Frumkin’s own commentary on the traditional Haggadah, which he called “Gei Hizzayon”, which means Valley of Vision. This name was copied from a much earlier, book, Gei Hizzayon, which was the autobiography of Rabbi Abraham Yagel, who lived in Italy in the sixteenth century.
The commentary is also about a concept called Akabah Demishicha, which means the traces of the Messiah, and refers to the period of the end of the era before the coming of the Messiah.
The book was printed in Jerusalem in 1913, and as stated near the end was available for sale in Bialistock, Lodz, Kovno, Chicago and in London at 162 Commercial Road.
Jewish Miscellanies 