Machzor Le’nusach Barcelona Minhag Catalonia [Festival prayers for the New Year and Day of Atonement]. According to the Custom of Barcelona and Catalonia]

(LITURGY)

Moses ben Solomon Soncino

Salonika

1526

Printed in square Hebrew Spanish type. Unpaginated

Vinograd, Salonika 37; Mehlman 339; Atikoth Yehudah pp.26-7; not in Adams.

RARE AND MOST Important Prayer-Book According to the Custom of Catalonia. Highly uncommon. No copy in the British Library, JNUL Copy Incomplete. Spain, the home of Hebrew poetry, produced so many composers of Piyutim that almost every Spanish city had its own ritual. Following the Spanish Exile however, a uniform ritual was adopted by all (Spanish) Sephardim with the exception of the Catalonian and Aragonian congregations of Salonika, who preserved their unique liturgical rituals for centuries. See S.R. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer (1993) pp.201-2. Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. no.2446 never saw a copy of this Catalonian liturgy and confused the contents with an Aschkenazi prayer-book. Similarly Aron Freimann in his Bibliography of the Soncino Press in Salonika and Constantinople, 1526-47 (in: ZfHB, vol. IX p. 22 no. 1) presents an erroneous collation also not having seen a complete copy. For a detailed collation see,Ohel Dawid. Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew And Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library (1932), Vol. II no. 822, pp. 841-4 For the last copy sold at auction see Sotheby’s, Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts (and Printed Books) from the Collection formed by the Late David Solomon Sassoon, New York, 12th May, 1981 Lot 52