(CARIGAL, HAIM ISAAC). Letter of Recommendation for Haham Isaac Carigal, Emissary of Hebron Jewish Community

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

Amsterdam

1758

Printed letter with manuscript signatures. Italian text interspersed with Hebrew. Initial decorated. Signed by the Deputies of the Span ish-Portuguese Community of Amsterdam: Rephael da Vega, David Semag Aboab, Semuel Bueno da Mesquita

Ya’ari, Sheluchei Eretz Israel is unfamiliar with this document

Atypical for the Amsterdam Community, which usually conducted its affairs in Spanish or Portuguese, this letter of recommendation for an Emissary of the community of Hebron is composed in Italian for the benefit of co-religionists in Italy. The document begins with the lachrymose tale concerning the deplorable condition of the Jews of Hebron narrated by Haham Haim Rahamim Bajayo, of Hebron. It then goes on to extol the virtues of the Yeshiva in that town, for whose benefit “His Excellency Signor Haham Isaac Carigal of the said city of Hebron" is to fundraise in the communities of Italy. Carigal (1732-77) later became a prominent figure in Colonial American history. On a later voyage, to America in 1773, he visited the affluent community of Newport, Rhode Island, where he was befriended by the future first President of Yale University, the Hebraist Ezra Stiles. The sermon Carigal delivered in the synagogue of Congregation “Jeshuath Israel” on Shavu’oth of 1773, was subsequently translated into English and published in Newport that same year. After spending several months in Newport, Carigal embarked for the West Indies. He died in Curacao in 1777. Haham Haim Rahamim Bajayo had been one of Carigal’s teachers in Hebron. See Abraham Ya’ari, Shluchei Eretz Israel, pp. 580-583; EJ, Vol. V, cols. 179-80.