Introduction letter for an Algerian rabbi and emissary.
מכתב אודות שד"ר מארג'יל.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Meldola, Raphael, 1754-1828, correspondent, scribe.

Contributor:

Elis & Ruth Douer Endowed Fund.

Jona, Solomon Michel, -1811, addressee.

יונה, ישעיה חזקיה שלמה מיכאל בן שמעון.

Language:

Hebrew

Subjects (All):

Ibn Nayim, Yaʻaḳov, -1803.

Ibn Nayim, Yaʻaḳov.

Rabbis--Italy--Livorno--18th century--Correspondence.

Rabbis.

Rabbis--Italy--Turin--18th century--Correspondence.

Rabbis--18th century--Travel--Algeria--Algiers.

Genre:

letters of introduction

Manuscripts, European.

Manuscripts, Hebrew -- 18th century.

letters of introduction.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Winner's Auctions (Jerusalem), Auction 140 (22 February 2023) item 242.

Physical Description:

1 leaf : paper ; 23 x 21 cm

Production:

Livorno, 1775 July

ליוורנו, בסדר מה טבו אהליך יעקב שנת א"ת המי"ם לי"ם [תמוז תקל"ה].

Language Note:

In Hebrew.

Biography/History:

Sephardic-Italian rabbi from Livorno (ordinated by Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, 1796); hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britian and rabbi of the Bevis Marks Synagogue, London, after 1805; works include Ḳorban minḥah and Ḥupat ḥatanim.

Summary:

Letter, dated Parashat Balaḳ 5535 [July 1775], sent to Solomon Michel Jona, rabbi of Turin, to introduce and refer for assistance the emissary Yaʻaḳov [Ḥayim] ibn Naʼim from Algiers (-1803; he was a author of a number of piyutim, including a prominent one read on Purim in some North African communities); the style of the letter is in the rabbinic expressive style known as melitsah (מליצה). Letter written in 11 lines, with three lines of greeting at top and one more in recognition of the rabbinical seat of Turin ("בראשית מאמר הנה באתי בתשלומי כפל...", above letter text) and one line of date and chronogram; autograph below, with two flourishes; a ב-ה flourish at upper right margin; address in Hebrew on verse (former document dorse), with טורינו in an Italian semicursive script. Written in a Sephardic-calligraphic semicursive script in the hand of Raphael Meldola.

Notes:

Item creased and with a stain at left margin.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Elis & Ruth Douer Endowed Fund.

Cited as:

Introduction letter for an Algerian emissary. (UPenn CAJS Rar Ms 692). Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

OCLC:

1420793441