Ali Erginsoy

Are there any members of the group who have access to the Bevis Marks collection in the London Archives (LMA as was) and could take photos of a few pages in a specific manuscript for me? Please DM me.

New from A Nação Hebraica: Volume 2 of the *Livro dos Pleitos* (‘Book of Disputes’) of Bevis Marks Synagogue, covering the years 1772 through 1784. [https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.eu/document/3343789](https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.eu/document/3343789)This book follows Vol. 1 (1721-1771), which was previously published by A Nação Hebraica (https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.eu/document/321...

Can Hebrew linguists help me with a translation of the attached passage from Sefer Mekor Yisra'el by Rabbi Yisra'el Yaakov Burla, an eighteenth century rabbi from Jerusalem? According to Gemini AI its says: "I, being on a mission for the Holy City of Jerusalem (may it be built and established speedily in our days, Amen), the Lord guided me here to the glorious city of The Hague (may it be built an...

New from A Nação Hebraica: The Births Index of the Jewish Community of Livorno (1668-1810).We are pleased to announce the publication of a complete transcription of the "Repertorio di Nascita 1668-1810" of the Comunità Ebraica di Livorno. Also available are .pdf and .csv versions for ease of reference. Special thanks go to our native Portuguese language editor, Oscar.The Index appears to have been...

A Nação Hebraica is pleased to announce the publication of the transcription of the 1777 census of the Jewish inhabitants of Gibraltar. Part of a wider census prepared by the Colonial Office, the lists give names, ages, countries of origin, occupations, and years in the garrison. The majority of Gibraltar Jews at the time of the census appear to have been born either in North Africa or Gibraltar, ...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-historian-defies-experts-discovers-unknown-kindertransport-records-deep-in-yad-vashem/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2025-08-03&utm_medium=email

I am delighted to announce the publication by UCL Press of my first paper in a scholarly journal. “Keeping the Faithful: Sephardi Poverty, Welfare and Cohesion in Georgian London” appears in the latest issue of *Jewish Historical Studies: A Journal of English Speaking Jewry* (formerly the venerable Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England).The article can be accessed here: [[https...

Is there a scholarly source (not a website) confirming the tradition in the communities of the western Sephardic diaspora to name the first male child after the paternal grandfather, the second after the maternal grandfather, the first female child after the paternal grandmother and the second after the maternal grandmother, etc.? (I know that subsequent children could be named after great-grandpa...

Do we have any UK-qualified accounting professionals in the group? A Nação Hebraica (SCIO) is looking for an independent examiner to look at our 2024 accounts. For those who are unfamiliar with our charity, please look at our website: https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.euThis in not a full audit. The independent examiner only has to report that they are content with the accounting records and acco...

Apropos of a question at Carla Vieira's talk last night from, I think, Bernard Miller, I've found a mention of an interaction between Bevis Marks and the Kahal of Rhode Island in the Minutes of the Elders. On folio 102, the Minutes for 5 Ab 5514 (27 July 1754) record receipt of a letter from the Jews of "New Port Road Island" requesting help to build a synagogue "on that island" (sic). Later, the ...

The *A Nação Hebraica* Project team are delighted to announce that the transcription of the second volume of the Minute Books of the Elders of Bevis Marks, covering the years 1764-1783, are now online: https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.eu/document/1523906 Together with the first volume (1732-1763), fifty years of significant decisions of the Congregation's leadership are available to scholars a...

A Nação Hebraica has published the transcription of the first Minute Book of the Elders of Bevis Marks! The book covers the years 1732-1763 (5493-5524) and includes a wealth of information of use to historians and genealogists. It can be found at https://anacaohebraica.transkribus.eu/document/1523907.The first Elders Minutes adds to the transcriptions of four complete Account Books between 1676 an...

A short film by our very good family friend Güler Orgun.

A question for the group: In the Annual Accounts of Bevis Marks for the years 1795-1800, the lists for the distribution of maçot during Pesah are helpfully broken down into Ad. (Adultos = Adults) and Cr. (Criaturas = Children). "Adults" received 8 lbs. for the period and "children" half that amount, i.e. 4lbs. For example in 5555 (1795) we have 1123 adults and 108 children in a total of 355 house...

Colloquium of the TraPring project, which has been developing a handwriting recognition model in Transkribus for transcription of Portuguese Inquisition records (1536-1821)

In the Annual Accounts of Bevis Marks for 5537 and 5538 (1776-1778) there are entries for three individuals in the so-called "Strugglers" lists: Judah Eliezer de Susan and Haim Israel Zeeby in Tishry 5538 and Sebatya Samarian (?) in Tamuz 5538. None of the three appear anywhere else in the Bevis Marks records or accounts, and the amounts they received are relatively high, much higher than the usua...

Article by Portuguese lawyer Afonso Leitao, strongly critical of changes to the law affecting citizenship for descendants of Sephardic Jews.

Can anyone help decipher the last word in these lines? They are from the Bevis Marks Accounts for 5436 and relate to payments for Promessas recorded on 10 Hesvan in every case for three separate individuals. Is it Tehivan, Sehivan, Yehivan? Or something else entirely, and what does it mean?

Does anyone know if it is possible to do bulk downloads on the Torre do Tombe website of entire Inquisition files? I can see that it is possible to download individual pages, but can't see how multiple pages or entire files can be downloaded in one go.

Would anyone with Hebrew/Aramaic be able to help? These are extracts from the mid 18th century ketuboth of Aaron, Isaac and Esther Gomez da Costa respectively. Is there any information in any of the texts that would indicate whether their father Abraham is alive or has passed away? For example, "Abraham Gomes da Costa of blessed memory" or "the late" etc. Thank you!

Someone on the Zoom presentation of my talk on the Gomes da Costa family last Sunday was asking about Phillip (aka Abigador) Gomes da Costa (1817-1879). Some trees have him as the child of Isaac GDC and Esther Buzaglo, who featured in my talk. My research suggests that Isaac and Esther had no children and certinly none are mentioned in Isaac's will. I am 99.99% certain that Phillip (and his sister...

In her excellent talk last Sunday for Patreons only, Carla Vieira flagged up some very interesting sources for research. [Note: if you missed the talk because you are not yet a Patreon, do sign up, there is some really great content available!] One of her slides was of a list of persons arrested by the Inquisition on 10 June 1727 while preparing to escape to England on a ship from Lisbon harbour. ...

AMSTERDAM DESPACHOS 1759-1814In 1999, Dutch researcher Vibeke Sealtiel Olsen compiled an alphabetical list of Amsterdam Sephardim who between 1759-1814 received Sedaca to leave the city for at least 15 years. I've converted the list to three Excel sheets, sorted by Family Name, Destination and Date.

On 31 March Inês Pires Nogueiro posted a paper by Jorge Martins entitled “Virtual Memorial to the Victims of the Inquisition.” This contained a pdf table of all those executed or who died in prison. I have take the liberty of converting the table to an Excel spreadsheet and have attempted to translate most of the descriptions (some of the occupations defeated me!) I have also separated the given n...

The other day, David Mendoza posted a page from the Bevis Marks Accounts Book for 5492 (1731/1732), showing the sums paid to ships’ captains to ferry refugee Marranos from Portugal and Spain to England. I have expanded this to cover the years 5488-5492 (roughly the third quarter of 1727 - 1732) and created an Excel spreadsheet that is fairly self-explanatory. Some background: The five year period...