Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (1784-1885) was a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community, a philanthropist and an activist for Jewish communities both in England and around the world. In 1812 he married Judith Cohen. Following his retirement from business, Montefiore held prominent positions in English public life and received a knighthood from Queen Victoria. In addition to his visits to help Jewish communities in various countries, Montefiore visited the Holy Land seven times and actively promoted its development. The Moses Montefiore collection was donated to the National Library of Israel in 1996 by Mrs. Myrtle Franklin Ellenbogen of London. The collection comprises manuscripts, letters, printed books, maps, ceremonial objects and photographs. A not insubstantial part of the collection donated by Mrs. Franklin Ellenbogen consists of professional reproductions that were made in preparation for use in her book Sir Moses Montefiore, 1784-1885, (London 1984) which was co-authored by Michael Bor (see series 7). Mrs. Franklin Ellenbogen was the great-great-granddaughter of Moses Montefiore's sister Sarah, granddaughter of Arthur Sebag-Montefiore and, on her mother's side, James Henry Jacob Solomon, and daughter of John Sebag-Montefiore. The items in the collection reflect this lineage as they come not only from the estates of Moses and Judith Montefiore, but also from the estates of these other family members on both sides. The National Library of Israel's Moses Montefiore collection has been divided into seven series and arranged as follows: Series 1 contains original letters and manuscripts written by Moses and Judith Montefiore and other family members, including two of Judith Montefiore's travel diaries. Series 2 comprises an impressive range of publications documenting Moses Montefiore's life, from first-hand accounts taken from different travel diaries to complete biographies in more than one language. Also in the series are publications related to academic conferences and exhibitions about Moses Montefiore. Series 3 contains material relating to religious worship, such as prayer books and orders of service composed for different occasions, material relating to the two synagogues that Moses Montefiore was actively involved in – the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in London known as Bevis Marks and the synagogue that he and his wife founded in Ramsgate – and the Rabbinical College in Ramsgate named after Lady Judith Montefiore. Some of the books in this series belonged to Sir Moses and Lady Judith. Series 4 contains books written by and about later prominent members of the Montefiore family, focusing on Claude Goldsmith Montefiore and Leonard A. Montefiore. The archive is a source of information about nineteenth and twentieth century Anglo-Jewish history, in which members of the Montefiore family played a prominent role. Series 5 contains material about various members of the Adler family, books about Zionism, the history of the Sephardi Jews of England and the prominent oriental Anglo-Jewish family, the Sassoons. Series 6 contains many of the original artifacts in the collection that used to belong to Moses Montefiore himself, such as maps that he used on his travels, a prayer book and his travelling tefillin (phylacteries). Series 7 contains the professional reproductions made for Mrs. Franklin Ellenbogen's book in various formats including negatives, positives and transparencies. The series also contains a collection of glass slides. Some of the reproductions that were donated were not used in the book. This collection is one of a number of sources of Montefioriana held in the National Library of Israel, including the tens of documents in the Moses Montefiore file in the Schwadron autograph collection (Schwad 01 13 88) and a similar number of letters in the Louis Loewe collection that were written to Moses Montefiore and his secretary Louis Loewe/Eliezer Halevi by Rabbis of Jewish communities in Europe, mainly during Montefiore's visit to Russia in 1846 (V 2717). Other important sources of material related to Moses Montefiore can be found in England. Before his death, it is possible that Moses Montefiore gave instructions to his heir, Sir Joseph Sebag Montefiore, to burn his personal papers. Many of the papers were rescued by his secretary and first principal of the Judith Lady Montefiore College in Ramsgate, Dr. Louis Loewe. These are now part of the Montefiore Endowment, which is located in London, England. Some of the documents were rescued by Rev. Herman Shandel, the chazan, minister, reader and shochet of Ramsgate Synagogue for 48 years. Shandel built up one of the main collections of Montefioriana, known as the Shandel/Lipson collection, which is now situated in the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies' library. The 1992 catalogue of this collection is in series 2 of the National Library of Israel's Montefiore collection. Members of the Sebag-Montefiore family also hold some of the papers.
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שפה נוכחית
