Mazkir Neshamoth [liturgical Yizkor service].

(POLAND / UKRAINE).

Early 18th-century

Manuscript in Hebrew and Yiddish, written in a most attractive calligraphic and ‘vaybertaytsch’ hand.

Features three separate ‘Kel Maleh Rachamim’ prayers - the text of which is primarily in Yiddish. One of these mentions the martyrs of Lesser Poland, Ukraine, Greater Poland, and Russia - no doubt a reference to the horrendous Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 and the further Cossack pogroms of the 1650’s. The text records the names of two victims of blood libels: Rabbi Pinchas and Rabbi Ephraim, along with three additional martyrs (entitled “Kadosh”): Rabbi Matisyahu, Rabbi Shlomo and Rabbi Alexander, each “murdered to sanctify God’s name.” Portions of the text is similar in language to that recorded in Hazkaroth Kedoshim MiPinkasei Medinath Polin Gadol published by Rabbi Yehuda Levin of Pinne in Kovetz al Yad, 10 (Berlin, 1903).