Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839

The purpose of this fact-finding mission to Jewish communities of Western Europe, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, was to report as to how best proceed with the conversion to Christianity of the Jews in each respective community. Thus, we find the committee reporting that inroads into the Jewish community of Jerusalem would best be made by medical missionaries: "A herem or ban of excommunication was pronounced in the synagogues against the Missionaries, and all who should have dealings with them. But when Dr. Gerstmann, the medical man, came in December, the Jews immediately began to break through it. Another herem was pronounced, but in vain. No one regarded it, and Rabbi Israel [of Shklov] refused to pronounce it, saying that he would not be the cause of hindering his poor and sick brethren from going to be healed. This interesting fact shows the immense value of medical missionaries" (pp.171-2). The book is chock-full of interesting facts: In Constantinople, the deputation visited the Karaite community, from whom they purchased several Karaite works (p. 363). In Bukovina, approaching the city of Tchernowitz, they visited the Chassidic town of Seret, where they were told "of a remarkable rabbi, Haim, at Chosow, eight miles distant, to whom many thousands of Jews go in pilgrimage at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles" (p.429). (The reference is to R. Chaim [ben Menachem Mendel] Hager of Kosov, progenitor of the Vizhnitz Chassidic dynasty.) An appendix provides the curriculum for the Jewish educational system of Leghorn (Livorno), Italy (pp.521-2)