Pinkas Shadar of R. Benzion Alkalay, Emissary from the Sephardic Community of Tiberias to Morocco and Gibraltar.

(MOROCCO)

Morocco

Late 19th-century

On front wrapper and f.59v., stamps of "R. Bension Alkalei, Tiberias." His signatures on ff. 3r., 4v. Hebrew Manuscript in Moroccan cursive.

R. Benzion Alkalay (1858-1913) was born in Rabat, Morocco. In 1873, he settled with his father in Tiberias. In 1886, at the tender age of twenty-eight, he was dispatched by the Tiberias community to the cities of Morocco to raise funds for the indigent of Eretz Israel. See Ya'ari, Shluchei Eretz Israel, pp. 649, 659, 866; S.N. Gottlieb, Ohalei Shem (1912), p. 537. The first portion of this notebook is taken up by Torah novellae, many with the heading "Derush le-hesped" (Sermon for a eulogy). On f.18r. there is a sermon in praise of the community of Tiberias, based on the Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 31b and writings of R. Chaim Abulafia (Izmir, Turkey), who in 1740 rebuilt the Tiberias community, which had lain desolate. (See EJ, Vol. II, cols. 187-188.) On ff. 52-67, we have lists of contributors from the various Moroccan communities--Arcila, Debdou, Fez, Meknes, Melilla, Ouejda, Ouezan, Sefrou, Tetouan, etc--as well as neighboring Gibraltar, Spain.