(Liturgy). Monteil, Abraham, (Ed.) Seder Ha’Ashmaroth MeRosh Chodesh Elul Ve’Asereth Yemei Teshuvah [early morning prayers from the New Moon of Elul through the Ten Days of Repentance]

(FRENCH JUDAICA).

Hertz Levi Rofe & son-in-law

Amsterdam

1763

According to the rite of the Community of Avignon. FIRST EDITION. Binding gilt-tooled: “David Hain del Puget.” Tipped in before title-page, leaf of approbations pertaining to an earlier Carpentras-rite liturgy.

Vinograd, Amsterdam 1822.

Abraham Monteil, editor of this prayer book, was a native of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, smallest of “the four holy communities” of Comtat Venaissin, the papal territory in Southern France that historically provided a safe haven for Jews fleeing the provinces of Languedoc and Provence, from whence they were expelled by the French monarchs. (The other three communities were: Avignon, Carpentras, and Cavaillon.) The Jews of the Comtat had their own synagogue rite, which Cecil Roth notes to be “of very considerable historical and literary interest.” See C. Roth, “The Liturgy of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin,” Journal of Jewish Bibliography I (1939) p. 99-105.