Auerbach published an edition of the "Sefer HaEshkol" in 1863 together with his commentary on it; the "Nahal Eshkol". He published three volumes of the work in his lifetime and claimed to be in possession of a fourth volume that he did not complete before his death. In 1909 the scholar
Shalom Albeck raised doubts as to the authenticity of Auerbach's manuscript and declared it a forgery. Following Albeck's challenge, four prominent German rabbis (
David Zvi Hoffmann,
Abraham Berliner,
Jacob Schor and
Hanokh Ehrentreu) wrote a booklet published in Berlin in 1910 containing a defense of Auerbach named
Tzidkat HaTzaddik – (literally "the righteousness of the saint"). Albeck did not leave this response unanswered and published a further booklet named
Kofer HaEshkol – (literally "the denial of the Eshkol") (Warsaw, 1911), in which he explained his reasons for declaring the work a forgery. A further defense of Auerbach was written as late as 1974 by
Bernard Bergman in an essay in the Joshua Finkel Festschrift (New York, 1974). Neither Auerbach or his heirs ever produced the original manuscript from which he worked to transcribe his "Eshkol" and no reasonable explanations have ever been given for the discrepancies in the work. ==References==