Printed Shadar Document issued for the emissary Rabbi Seliman Menahem Mani of Hebron for the purposes of his mission to the Jews of India.

(INDIA).

circa

Hebron

1910

Two mimeographed leaves. Text in Hebrew and English in two columns. With four manuscript signatures of leaders of the Hebron community including Nissim Haim Cario and Chanoch Chason. The verso contains a handwritten listing of financial accounting.

Shelucha DeRachmana (“Shadar”) was the title given to rabbinical emissaries sent on missions from the Holy Land to visit the Jews of the Diaspora. These men were scholars of the highest repute whose task it was to deepen ties, as well as collect needed funds to support the often impoverished Jews of Eretz Israel. Rabbi Seliman Menahem Mani (1855-1924) was the son of R. Eliahu Mani, Chief Rabbi of Hebron (d. 1899). His mission to India was two-fold: Seeking funds to release the male Jewish residents of Jerusalem who were forcibly conscripted for military service on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. And the pressing necessity to financially assist in supporting a hospital to treat the sick of Jerusalem. “These circumstances prompt us to beseech… the great venerable Haham Rabbi Mani to undertake in his aged days, this long, troublesome voyage upon land and sea and introduce our deplorable situation… for the rescue and existence of our whole Jewish community.” See Otzar HaRabanim 18512; M. D. Gaon, Yehudei Hamizrach Be’Eretz Yisrael p. 444.