Sermoës que pregaraõ os doctors ingenios do K.K. de Talmud Torah, desta Cidade de Amsterdam (Sermons preached by doctors of Congregation Talmud Torah of the City of Amsterdam)

(SEPHARDICA).

David de Castro Tartaz

Amsterdam

1675

At beginning of book, 4 pp. of exquisite engravings of architecture and layout, exterior and interior of the synagogue (8 illustrations on 4 leaves). One of these illustrations appears in Mozes Heiman Ganz, Memorbook, p. 104. Landwehr attributes the etching to Romeyn de Hooghe. John Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe as Book Illustrator (Amsterdam, 1970), p. 103 (no. 43). Portuguese text

Kayserling, p. 100. See also Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, pp. 44-45 (no. 19)

Seven sermons preached at the dedication service of the newly built Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam, 1675.The synagogue, still standing today, has remained the revered shrine of the Portuguese Jews. Mozes Heiman Ganz describes the festivities: “The opening ceremony was held on the eve of Shabbat Nachamu (the Sabbath following the Fast of the Ninth of Av)…The celebrations enlivened by a choir and an orchestra, continued for eight days, as long as the reconsecration of the Temple in the days of the Maccabees.” Memorbook (Baarn, 1977), p. 101. “The Sermoës comprised a collection of the sermons delivered during the week of celebration…All the orations were in Portuguese…in 1685, Chacham d’Oliveira called Spanish ‘the language into which we usually translate in our schools’ and Portuguese ‘the language we usually speak.’” Ibid. p. 104. Sermons by Rabbis Isaac Aboab, Solomon Oliveira, Isaac Nieto, Isaac Orobio de Castro, et al. A seminal landmark in the Sephardic treasury