(AZORES ISLANDS)

A MOST ATTRACTIVE AND LEARNED MANUSCRIPT STEMMING FROM THE ISLANDS OF THE AZORES. The Azores is a Portuguese possession, an archipelago in North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 950 miles from Lisbon. It is possible that Marranos settled there in earlier centuries, however the first recorded settlement of Jews in the islands began in 1818 with the arrival of merchants from Morocco, by 1848 the community numbered 250 (see EJ, Vol. III col. 1012). The composer of this manuscript, Mimon Abohbot (1800-1875) moved from Mogador and settled in Angra do Heroismo, the main city on the island of Terceira in 1825. Thereafter, he founded in his own home, the first synagogue in the Azores, under the name Etz Haim. A successful merchant trading in fabric imported from England, Abohbot became the community's de facto Hazan, Mohel, Moreh Tzedek and overall religious leader. This handsomely written manuscript contains a host of useful services but is of particular interest for the personal information contained therein: An autobiographical memoir entitled Sepher HaZikaron in which Abohbot writes of his experiences in London (his wife's home) and Manchester, his native land of Morocco and of local Jewish life in the Azores. He describes his teachers and mentors in Mogador, as wll his relationship with the religious establishment in England who authorized him to be the exclusive religious factotum in the islands. Included are sermons Abohbot composed and halachic correspondence with the English Bet-Din. Overall a most strikingmanuscript: Handsomely written, of quite fascinating content, and essentially, a most surprisingly literate Hebrew text stemming from such an exotic and far-flung port of the Jewish world. See Inacio Steinhardt, www.steinhardts.com/library/Judaism/azores.html and the Portuguese Wikipedia: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimon_Abohbot.