Posts by Evan Millner
61 posts
The Lost Finials of Bevis Marks' GatesThe pines (pine-apples), which symbolise hospitality, were originally part of the gates at Bevis Marks. According to the inscription at No 19 Petherton Road, they were removed from Bevis Marks in 1894. There was a satellite community in Canonbury at around this time.In 1865, Solomon Haim Andrade asked for permission from the Mahamad to open a synagogue, which ...
A special (free of charge) breakfast is served after the service on Hosha'na Rabba at Bevis Marks - please contact the synagogue manager via the BM website if you plan on coming along to breakfast. This is one of the highlight services of the year. http://www.bevismarks.org.uk/
The 'Weekday' Succah at Bevis Marks where we have breakfast after shaharith. We have another more elegant Succah for Shabbat and Yom Tob.
This is from Mills "The British Jews" - it may be describing the service at the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue. I have not seen the minhag of the willow bundle he describes here in either Sephardi or Ashkenazi congregations.
Willow at Hoshangna Rabbah: In a recent conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Cohen we discussed whether the use of the willow on Hoshangna Rabbah was an original S and P custom or a Moroccan import. I have a copy of Levi's Spanish and Portuguese Book of Service for the day, where he notes " On this day every person has a branch of willow". He refers to this elsewhere as "The Mitzvah of the Willow of H...
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWgvAQAAMAAJ see page 65 (chapter vii) for a charming description of Shabbat at Mikve Israel in Philadelphia the 1800's....he notes people using a greeting "Bon Sabba".
What is the Abudarham's Perush ha Berachoth v Tefilloth (1400's) like as a source for the original minhag of Sepharad? I have not studied it, but assume the text he is commenting on in his perush is a Spanish one? Has anyone tried to reconstruct the siddur he used from the evidence in his perush?
If you are in London near Bevis Marks feel free to join us tonight for service at 7.30pm followed by dinner. No need to pay...if you want to donate however please drop me a note.
Dr Lee on the Ngain of North Africa - see Aron Sterk 's comment on Stoddard's Glossology for context.
Stoddard's Glossology has some detailed descriptions of the ng sound, in particular differences in its rendering in France and England - it makes for interesting reading. He quotes a certain Doctor Lee who opines that the S and P nasal articulation of ng is not a later development....
These transliterations are from Montanus' Latin interlinear translation from 1572 - and it is my opinion that Montanus here faithfully records the pronunciation of Hebrew from his area of Spain when writing his transliterations of names and certain other Hebrew phrases. Ngain is here consistently rendered with the letter H - though I have no idea what this means in terms of actual pronunciation. H...
I know pronunciation is a fraught topic - and involved the beating of a dead horse - but I am always interested in documentary evidence of pronunciation. In London, I had carefully listened to the way ngain was pronounced by the older members, back in the 1990s and this was from time to time a topic of discussion around the Shabbat table of the former Shamash, Mr Valier - we were aware of a slight...
Proposal for Society of Heshaim - to commission high quality digital scans of all the historical siddurim and machzorim and other prayer books issued by the Kaal over the centuries, and make them available online for free on archive.org and the society's website. For example, I am trying to find a *high quality* scan of weekday selihot, and can't seem to locate one.
I have quite enjoyed listening to Rabbi Dr. Faur teaching Guemara this evening - click the link for 'Lectures and Articles'. I like the way he presents a sugya. http://moreshetsepharad.org/
Has anyone here attended the S and P congregation in Yerushalayim recently? What is it like? Are there any other S and P micro-minyanim in Israel? There are certainly a number of S and P bangalei tefillah in various places....and lots of bomb shelters that can be used as a cheap synagogues......And to ask another question,(again) is anyone in NY or elsewhere planning to start satellite S and P m...
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F_ZcZosCDeYCLauncelot Addison's description of the 'Jews of Barbary' is dated 1676. See page 31 of this interesting tract, where Jews pretending to be Christians so as to do business in Spain,or study in Spain, are described in some detail. The introduction also paints a picture of the status of the Jews in Muslim North Africa - one of oppression and misery. His ...
Nidhe Israel in Barbados - 1641, rebuilt after 1831, using most of the original fittings. It now houses a Reform-Conservative Ashkenazic congregation that uses it for half the year, and a newer synagogue with aircon in the summer. I read shaharith and minha here alone every day when doing the restoration work on the cemetery - but one memorable day had a minyan for minha. ( The hechal and brasswo...
For those who read Dutch:
Anyone interested in the history of the Great Schism of the Sephardim Synagogue of London, the pamphlet I came across today (cryptically cataloged by Google as "Torah Shebengal Peh" ) contains a fascinating selection of correspondence, various tracts, etc much of it circling around the first English translation of the Mishnah, which had been produced to argue against the Reformers.
So far I have found 3 downloadable siddurim that follow the Spanish minhag: Here they are: Portuguese Prayer Book 1825 edition, Livorno (downloadable - Italian and Hebrew) http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tPg3pVvJIhYC Seder Tephillah Mi-kal Ha-shanah, Rabbi David Pardo 1844 (There is a download link available) http://bvpb.mcu.es/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=469577 Siddur Beth Hillel (Printed in...
The list of subscriber's for Bolaffey's Hebrew Grammar (1820) besides including a list of the Great and Good of the Establishment, also seems to include a substantial percentage of the congregation of Bevis Marks - the Jewish subscribers are almost all Sephardeem - and his pronunciation scheme also seems to be that of Bevis Marks, by and large.
Who is going to order one of these in especially for the Fast of the Month of Ab?
Interesting question: In what year did the last dedicated Spanish and Portuguese Beth Medrash close down? By that I mean, cease the daily structured teaching of Guemara and Halacha to bachureem in a full-time programme? Amsterdam had one, London had one, even Barbados had one......
On the subject of pronunciation of S and P Hebrew, I have come across a student textbook, published in London, with very extensive pronunciation schemes for Spanish and Portuguese pronunciation - the most extensive in any textbook I have come across to date. This is the "Hebrew and English Spelling Book" written by I.L Lyons 1837.
The original text the extract below was taken from is here: S and P orthography is used throughout: