This six-volume Hebrew bible, 1771, was the top lot in the sale at $35,400.

An Eighteenth Century Old Testament in Hebrew was the top lot at the printed books and manuscripts sale that took place at Kestenbaum & Co. on June 20. “While the auction featured an eclectic array of Hebrew books and manuscripts consigned from various owners, the top lot of the sale was a beautifully bound Hebrew Pentateuch printed in 1726, which belonged to Rev Moses Mendes Seixas of Newport, R.I.,” said Daniel Kestenbaum, the founder and director of the Judaica auction house. “It sold for $35,400, proving that American Judaica remains a strong category within the Judaica market.”

Other big sellers included The New York Pocket Almanack, 1718, with a frontispiece map of the city, which went for $10,620. The map was notable for its rare depiction of the local synagogue.

A prayer book published in Amsterdam in 1786 also attracted a lot of attention, because of its hand colored vellum binding, decorated with floral and architectural motifs. After vigorous bidding, the book was knocked down at $14,160.

A collection of books and manuscripts from an early American Jewish family was one highlight of the sale. The Gratz family settled in Philadelphia in the mid-Eighteenth Century, where its members established themselves as cultural leaders and philanthropists. Many of these works had been in the family for more than two centuries.

A gilt tooled and hand colored vellum binding from the Eighteenth Century brought $14,160.

A Hebrew Bible that was printed in Paris in 1556 sold for $5,900. The book was in the library of Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), who was an important figure in American letters. A group lot, comprising Familiar Letters on Various Subjects of Business and Amusement, 1755, and The Opal, 1846, were knocked down at $590. Both books were also once owned by Rebecca Gratz.

Other Gratz items included John Joseph Stockdale’s History of the Inquisitions, 1810, which sold for $708. A group lot of 23 books on Jewish culture and history, all printed in America during the Nineteenth Century, went for $1,298.

A group lot of 12 letters relating to Jewish life in Metz during the reign of Napoleon I realized $1,283. An autograph poem by the English writer Grace Aguilar (1816-1847), which sold for $1,888, was another notable manuscript.

There was strong demand for children’s books. A book of poems, 1922, by Martha Seidmann Freud, the niece of Sigmund Freud, went for $885, which was more than twice the high estimate. Another strong seller was the Hebrew grammar that was published in 1718; the final bid was $649. An early Twentieth Century picture book with colored illustrations of daily Jewish life sold for $177.

The cover lot was a colored print of the Hebrew alphabet with illustrations corresponding to each letter. It was printed in Warsaw in 1902; the top bid was $1,180.

Other examples of graphic design included the two Yiddish broadsides advocating hygiene; they fetched $2,006.

There was strong demand for children’s literature; a 1922 book of children’s poems by Martha Seidmann-Freud went for $885.

One of the most unusual pieces in the sale was the Eighteenth Century peep-show of the “Temple des Juifs” in Amsterdam. It is made of six hand colored copper engravings that, when arranged in sequence, show a vista of worshippers in a baroque synagogue. This rare object was made by the German printmaker Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756). After energetic bidding, it sold for $4,130.

The offerings of cartography included a Dutch map of Surinam, 1718, that lists several Jewish plantations and the synagogue; it sold for $3,540.

Among the travel literature was the Narrative of a Journey to Morocco, 1866, by Thomas Hodgkin, a Quaker medical man and traveling companion to the philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore. The book describes Jewish life in North Africa during the mid-Nineteenth Century; it sold for $1,534.

Japan and the Lost Tribes of Israel, 1879, by N. McLeod, propounds the theory that the Samurai were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel; $1,062 was the top bid for this original work.

There were also many works related to Jewish art. Catalogs that were published on the occasion of two Judaica exhibitions in Germany in 1932 sold for $472. A Catalogue of the Permanent and Loan Collections of the Jewish Museum, London, 1974, was knocked down at $413. Also on the block was a catalog of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, which took place in England in 1887; $1,082. Das Graphische Werk von Hermann Struck, 1911, which had an autographed inscription by the artist, went for $649.

Among the illustrated books were some that were based on the Song of Solomon. The Song of Songs, 1902, with illustrations by pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) sold for $236, and The Song of Solomon, 1897, with illustrations by Art Nouveau artist Herbert Granville (1872-1951), realized $354.

The cover lot was this colorful pedagogic aide for learning Hebrew, 1902, sold for $1,180.

Two issues of Shtrom, an avant-garde Yiddish periodical that was published in Moscow after the Revolution of 1917, went out at $826. The cover illustration for one issue was by Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Shtetl, a portfolio of 30 lithographs by Issacher Ryback (1897-1935), which depict the pogrom that destroyed the artist’s village, sold for $5,310.

World War II was evoked by a broadsheet for a Jerusalem newspaper announcing the German surrender to the Allies; it was knocked down at $649. The Extermination of Polish Jews: Album of Pictures, 1945, an early pictorial work documenting the Holocaust, sold for $295. Our Destruction in Pictures, 1946, by the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the British Zone went for $944.

Publishing history was represented by the Catalogue of Hebrew Books Printed in America from 1735–1925, 1926, by Ephraim Deinard, which sold for $590.

A liturgy of household rituals was among the works related to women’s history. The Hebrew and Italian manuscript dates from the Nineteenth Century; the final bid was $5,015.

A marriage contract with a gouache floral border went for $11,800. The French vellum manuscript dates from 1718, and was exhibited at the Yeshiva University Museum.

All prices reported include the buyer’s premium of 18 percent. For information, 212-366-1197 or www.kestenbaum.net.