Prayer recited in the Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue in London on Shabbat, 1 Adar, 1859. Hebrew and English. London, 1859
Prayer service with historic importance especially composed and recited before Sir Moshe Montefiore set out for Rome to rescue the Jewish child Edgardo Mortara from the jaws of the Christian church in an affair that shocked the Jewish world.
English title: Prayer offered up in the synagogues of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews …on Adar 1, 5619… in consequence of the approaching departure of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore on their mission to Rome.
The affair of Edgardo Mortara’s kidnapping:
Edgardo Mortara was born in 1851 to a Jewish merchant from Bologna – at the time in the Papal State in Italy. When he was two years old and very ill, he was secretly baptized (to become Catholic) by a Christian servant who worked for his family, in her belief this would save the child.
When Edgardo was about six years old, the servant told the authorities about the baptism. Law forbade raising a Catholic child by non-Catholics. The police came to the family’s home in 1858 and took the child from his parents to be educated by the Church. His parents’ outcry reverberated across the entire Jewish world. Both Jews and non-Jews believed that in the era of enlightenment and emancipation, kidnapping and religious coercion of this type were no longer relevant, and they were called upon to take action.
Before embarking on his trip, Sir Moshe Montefiore co-ordinated his actions with Gershom Kursheedt, representative of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the first Jewish civil and political rights organization in the United States. Kursheedt traveled from America to accompany Sir Moses on his mission to Rome. Montefiore traveled for weeks to meet the pope, but all was for naught.
Edgardo stayed in the Vatican. Sadly, he became a priest under the Pope’s personal guidance and supervision. He eventually reached a relatively senior position in the Church and led missionary activity in Europe and America. This affair, which shocked the Jewish world, was the catalyst for the establishment of Chevrat Kol Yisrael Chaveirim which became known for defending the rights of Jews all over the world.
The importance of Mortara’s kidnapping and its impact went beyond his life and the lives of his family. The affair became known around the world and caused groups that support religious freedom and liberal values to protest all over Europe and the United States. Protests against these actions by the Church were even officially submitted by several European governments, including Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and Napoleon III, Emperor of France, and later also the President of the United States, Ulysses S Grant.
Rare publication.
[4] pp. Hebrew and English. 21.5 cm.
Very fine condition.
