Nova Grammatica Portugueza / Neue Portugiesische Grammatik

MELDOLA, ABRAHAM.

M.C. Bock

Hamburg

1785

FIRST EDITION. Bilingual edition, Portuguese and German in facing columns

Kayserling, p. 67 (Leipzig rather than Hamburg)

Much of this grammatical work consists of dialogues between Teacher and Pupil: Mestre/Discipulo, or Lehrer/Schüler . The bilingual character of the book reflects the fact that it was intended for Portuguese-speaking Jews residing in the small, though significant Sephardic Community of Hamburg, Germany, and seemingly living between two languages. See M. Studemund-Halevy (ed.), Die Sefarden in Hamburg (1994). Abraham Meldola (1754-1826), a native of Amsterdam, studied in the Talmud Torah there and at the University of Leiden. In 1772 he settled in Altona and served as Hazan of the local Portuguese congregation as well as a translator of Dutch, Hebrew and Portuguese. In 1791, Meldola relocated to Hamburg. He returned to his native city of Amsterdam in 1822, dying there four years later