(SEPHARDICA).

AUCTION 36 |
Thursday, March 22nd,
2007 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books & Manuscripts
Lot 180
(SEPHARDICA).
Amsterdam: Gerhard Johan Janson and Israel Mondovy 1771
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
The present funeral sermon preached by Samuel Mendes de Solla in Curaçao at the Portuguese Jewish congregation of Mikveh Israel in 1751, was published by his son Isaac, in Amsterdam in 1771.
Samuel Mendes de Solla (b. Lisbon 1699, d. Curaçao 1761) a brilliant student of the Portuguese Jewish seminary of Ets Haim, became a gifted scholar and a talented writer in both the Hebrew and Portuguese languages. Together with Abraham Mendez Chumacero he adapted two Spanish works by Moses Almosnino, Regimiento de la vida (1729) and Transformaciones de Morpheo (1734).
In 1749 Mendes de Sola was appointed Haham of the Portuguese Jewish congregation of Mikve Israel at Curaçao. Soon after his arrival, he became involved in a conflict which split the Portuguese Jewish community, it was only with the intervention of the Dutch Prince William IV of Orange that the dispute was settled which indebted the Rabbi to the Prince, as delineated in the present eulogy.
See I and S. Emmanuel, History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles. Vol. I (1970) pp.181-212, esp. pp. 206-210.