Category Archives: Weisz Western Sephardi Collection

Launch of The Weisz Western Sephardi Collection

Thanks to the generosity of the Joir and Kato Weisz Foundation, which acquired the collection from the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of London and donated it to the Centre, the Leopold Muller Memorial Library has been privileged to receive the Weisz Western Sephardi Collection.

The collection was assembled mainly by the late Dr Richard Barnett, the Honorary Archivist of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation. It comprises over 500 items, including books, manuscripts, sermons, rabbinic responsa and commentaries, as well as letters by Sephardi Jews, some of them rabbis or members of the Congregation or of the mother congregation in Amsterdam; there are also works by Christian Hebraists which witness to the continued exchange of opinions and knowledge between the members of Jewish communities and their host nations. There are many examples of printed ephemera, including notably prayers for special occasions and calendars, and also printed and other material for the internal use of the communities, such as community and philanthropic societies’ byelaws, ordinances and lists of members. Notable is the only known copy of the first edition of the Prayer Book for Sephardi usage printed in England, in 1721.

There is a rich trove of works in Spanish and Portuguese, including both translations from the Hebrew and original works, all aimed at making it possible for newly arrived Crypto-Jews, also known as marranos, to acquire a functioning knowledge of Judaism. The works encompass Bible, prayer books, apologetic treatises and practical manuals of kashrut and purity; in short, manuals for people who had all but forgotten everything about Judaism but who knew that their families had once been Jewish.

Most of the printed material comes from Amsterdam and some is from London. There are also works printed in Alexandria, Algiers, Altona-Hamburg, Barbados, Basel, Bordeaux, Corfu, Curaçao, Florence, Gibraltar, The Hague, Livorno, Madrid, Naples, Oporto, Paris, Nice, Utrecht, Verona and Venice – a true atlas of the Sephardi Diaspora.

 

The Centre is grateful to the Weisz Foundation for the donation, to Mr Edgar Samuel for initiating the transfer of the collection and to Dr Jeremy Schonfield for facilitating the process.

WEISZ WESTERN SEPHARDI COLLECTION LECTURE

Tuesday 15th November 2016, 6pm
at the Clarendon Institute

Professor David Abulafia
(Cambridge)
The first Sephardim in the Atlantic Islands

Refreshments will follow

Sefer Tehilim = Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523) (shelfmark PB449)

One of the smallest books in our newly acquired Weisz Sephardi Collection is a Book of Psalms in Hebrew. Together with its binding, it is 11cm by 8cm in size. This tiny volume was published by Johann Froben in Basel in 1523.

Psalterium Hebraicum (Basle: Johann Froben, 1523)

Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)

Portrait of Johann Froben by Hans Holbein the Younger, Hampton Court

Portrait of Johann Froben by Hans Holbein the Younger, Hampton Court

 

The colophon at the end of the volume says:
BASILEAE IN AEDIBVS IOANNIS FROBENII, MENSE MARTIO. AN. M.D.XXIII.
“Basel, in the house of Johann Froben, March, 1523”

Colophon, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basle: Johann Froben, 1523)

Colophon, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)

Johann Froben (ca. 1460 Hammelburg – 1527 Basel), one of the most prominent printers of sixteenth-century Basel. He established a printing house in Basel together with the already successful printer, Johannes Auerbach (1443-1513). Froben collaborated with leading scholars of the age, such as Erasmus and Konrad Pellikan. Many of his publications were illustrated by woodcuts designed by two renowned artists, Hans Holbein the Younger and Urs Graf. The woodcut decorating the title page of this Hebrew book of Psalters, contains in its centre Froben’s printer’s device: the staff of Mercury surrounded by two crowned snakes and a dove. The device was designed by Hans Holbein the Younger. Holbein also painted two portraits of Froben, one of which is on display in Hampton Court.

 

Title page, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basle: Johann Froben, 1523)

Title page, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)

Johann Froben's printer's device

Title page, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)

Printer’s waste, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)

A closer look reveals that even the binding of the volume can offer something to the curious-minded: it has Latin manuscript waste in its binding — a widespread way of recycling discarded parchment or paper leaves.

Printer's waste, Psalterium Hebraicum (Basel: Johann Froben, 1523)