(ANGLO-AMERICAN JUDAICA)

The great British Jewish financier and philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, was born in Leghorn, Italy on October 28th, 1784 and died at Ramsgate, England, July 25, 1885 just three months shy of his 101st birthday. This group of pamphlets is evidence of the esteem felt by Jews of far flung communities who celebrated with him on the centenary of his birth and who mourned his death just a few months later. “The infant of 1784 was greeted by the echo of the Shot at Lexington which just had come back from its round through the earth. One year before, the young republic of the West had been admitted to legitimacy in the family of organized states. Who knows but that over the cradle at Leghorn floated wondrous sounds, telling of the thirteen starred-spangled banner, that had conquered the freedom of her children? Who knows, but even in Italy the heavens were filled with the prophecy of that banner’s glorious mission?” “Since the days of our release from Egyptian bondage to the present hour, there never arose a prophet in Israel like unto Moses of old, and for the last one hundred years, nine months and eight days by the Jewish calculation, and the same number of years, months but instead of eight days, four days by the common year, Sir Moses Montefiore has been the illustrious and faithful Hebrew of the Hebrews in defence of God’s chosen people.”