Lost in Translation, Found in Transliteration: Books, Censorship, and the Evolution of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of London as a Linguistic Community, 1663–1810

295 Pages·2018·5.991 MB·English

by  Alex Kerner

Lost in Translation, Found in Transliteration
Studies in Jewish History
and Culture
Edited by
Giuseppe Veltri
Editorial Board
Gad Freudenthal
Alessandro Guetta
Hanna Liss
Ronit Meroz
Reimund Leicht
Judith Olszowy- Schlanger
David Ruderman
Diana Matut
Volume 53
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ sjhc
Lost in Translation, Found
in Transliteration
Books, Censorship, and the Evolution of the
Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of
London as a Linguistic Community, 1663– 1810
By
Alex Kerner
Cover illustration: “A little poem” from an eighteenth century manuscript with poems in Spanish written
in Hebrew letters. Author not established (kept at the London Metropolitan Archives, LMA/ 4521/ C/ 01/
03/ 002). Reproduced by permission of the Honorary Archivist and the Wardens of the S&P Sephardi
Community of London.
The Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available online at http:// catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http:// lccn.loc.gov/2018023148
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill.” See and download: brill.com/b rill- typeface.
ISSN 1568- 5004
ISBN 978-90-04-36703-6 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-36705-0 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Illustrations x
Introduction 1
Part 1
Books and Censorship in Theory: Disciplining a New- Born
Community
1 The 1664 Censorship Article: Background and Sources 21
2 Other Imposed and Self- Imposed Censorships: The Quakers 41
3 The Evolution of the Censorship Article of the Ascamot 47
Part 2
Variations on Censorship: The Language- Control Policy
of the Congregation
Introduction 59
4 Ritual 69
5 Administration 86
6 Print and Publications 92
7 “King and Country” 97
vi Contents
Part 3
Books and Censorship in Practice: The “Kosher Imprimatur”
in London’s Sha’ar Hashamayim Congregation
Introduction 107
8 1664– 1677: Privately Owned, Imported Prayer Books 119
9 1677– 1693: The Beginning of the Congregation’s Library 126
10 1677– 1693: Potential Dangerous Readings: Pamphlets and
Conversionist Trends 135
11 1693– 1733: The Era of David Nieto 153
1 Introduction 153
2 Isaac Abendana and David Nieto’s Calendrical Works 154
3 Nieto’s Liturgical and Ethical Works 158
4 Nieto’s Political Works 166
5 Nieto’s Theological Writings 184
6 David Nieto’s Leadership Evaluated through His Publications 191
7 After Nieto’s Death 192
12 1733– 1781: Censorship at its Peak— Moseh Nieto’s Prayer Book 202
13 1781– 1810: An “Expected Good End”? English Displaces Spanish 228
Summary: Language as a Censorial Criterion 237
Conclusion: The Sephardic Congregation of London as a Linguistic
Community 239
Bibliography 
Archival Material 249
Printed Primary Sources 249
Research Literature 257
Index 269
Preface
I have heard that an anecdote related to the author is always a good way to
begin a book: I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a Jewish family of
Central European origins. The closest synagogue to where we lived, however,
belonged to a community of Sephardic Jews from Aleppo. Since it was also the
only synagogue within walking distance from our home, this was where my
father took me, as a child, for Sabbath prayers. Between the afternoon and eve-
ning prayer, the rabbi of the congregation, Hakham Batías, would discuss the
commentaries on the weekly Torah portion and give lessons on Jewish law and
traditions connected to the religious festivities throughout the year. Whenever
he wished to draw attention to a difference between the Sephardic and the
Ashkenazic practices, he would say something along the lines of “We do such
and such,” and then he would stop for a second, take a deep breath, extend his
arm, point his index finger at my father and at me and, with eyes wide open, he
would raise his thundering voice and exclaim, “They do so and so.”
Never did I  imagine that four decades later I  would find myself in
Jerusalem, as a historian, researching one of those communities of exiles
from the Iberian kingdoms— the London Sha’ar Hashamayim Spanish and
Portuguese Jews’ Congregation, the subject of this book. There, too, three
centuries before the establishment of the Yeshurun synagogue in Buenos
Aires, the congregation sought to differentiate itself from other Jewish com-
munities, mainly those of the Ashkenazim, as part of an effort to preserve its
own unique identity.
Just recently, I had an experience which awakened a vivid memory of this
attitude. When I visited the Sephardic synagogue at Bevis Marks in London for
the first time in 2014, I noticed a few rows of low wooden benches at the back.
When I asked if these benches were reserved for mourners (according to the
Jewish custom of mourning, during the first week of mourning, the mourner
will sit on a low chair), I was told by the young person who happened to be
there, that these benches are the only remains from the first synagogue estab-
lished in the mid- seventeenth century at Creechurch Lane, not far from the
synagogue where we were now. When the new building was inaugurated in
1701, the old benches were brought to the new synagogue, where they were
reserved, in his words, for the “Tudescos” (German Jews), a rather derogatory
term used by Sephardic communities in the West, following their expulsion
from Spain in 1492, to refer to Ashkenazi Jews. This tradition of separating
the Tudescos is no longer upheld, of course. Not only because it is not politi-
cally correct to do so, but also because without the few Tudescos who regularly
viii Preface
attend this synagogue on Friday evenings, it would be difficult for the congre-
gation to form a minyan, the mandatory quorum to hold prayers in public.
My father, who took me to the Yeshurun synagogue, instilled in me my Jewish
identity. He was also the one who aroused in me my love for history. Born in
Antwerp to Polish parents who left Belgium for Argentina on the eve of the
Second World War, he later immigrated to Israel where his grandchildren— my
two sons— were born. My heritage as an Ashkenazi Jew has in common with
the exiled Iberian Jews these cycles of migration and wandering from country
to country, in search of a better future and a place where they could publicly
and without fear embrace their Jewish identity.
It is to the memory of my father that I dedicate this book. Among the end-
less memories I have of him, I especially treasure his fondness for the saying
of our Sages: “The Holy One, blessed be He, showed righteousness and mercy
unto Israel by scattering them among the nations” (Babylonian Talmud,
Pesakhim 87b).
Acknowledgments
This book was written as part of an ERC project, “Religious and Cultural
Changes in the Western Sephardi Diaspora in the Early Modern Period” at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the direction of Professor Yosef Kaplan.
The seminar held in the framework of the project between 2012 and 2016
was a thought- provoking experience which I will deeply cherish. The exchange
of views with its members: Nourit Meltzer- Padone, Aliza Moreno, Yochebed
Be’eri, Einat Davidi, Mauricio Dymant, Stanley Mirvis and James Novoa
undoubtedly gave birth to some of the ideas developed in the following pages.
The research leading to the book presented here to the reader has received
funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Programme (FP/ 2007– 2013)/E RC grant agreement no
295352 11. I am grateful to the ERC’s generosity. I also wish to thank the very
helpful staff of the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) for facilitating access
to relevant materials as well as the staff of the Central Archives for the History
of the Jewish People in Jerusalem (CAHJP), the special collections staff of the
library of the University College, London (UCL) and the staff of the Sir Charles
Mackerras Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room at the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. Special thanks to the Sha’ar Hashamayim Spanish and Portuguese
Jews’ Congregation of London for their permission to research and copy the
Congregation’s archival materials now held at the LMA. I would like to express
my gratitude to Aya Elyada of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for her
advice and to Moshe Sluhovsky of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and
Miri Eliav-F eldon of Tel Aviv University for reading a first draft of this book
and for their very useful comments. I especially wish to thank Professor Yosef
Kaplan for his most valuable remarks on the manuscript of this book and for
the many hours during which he shared with me and with the other mem-
bers of the research group his extensive knowledge and valuable hindsight on
the history of the ex- conversos communities in early modern Western Europe.
Needless to say, any errors or innacuracies in the text are mine, and mine alone.
Last, but definitely not least, my thanks to Brill’s professional staff and espe-
cially to Meghan Connolly and to Malathy Chandrasekaran for bringing this
project to a successful completion. To Shlomit, Itamar and Hagai for their end-
less love and support.
List of Illustrations
1 The 1784 version to the preface to the Ascamot. Reproduced by
permission of the UCL Library, Special Collections (ref. Mocatta BA
SPA) 55
2 Transliteration of prayers in Hebrew into Latin Characters, from the
Orden de las oraciones cotidianas (1772). © The British Library Board.
C.049.b.8 72
3 Oración del mar (“prayer of the sea”) and transliterated Kaddish, from
the Orden de las oraciones cotidianas (1772). © The British Library Board.
C.049.b.8 73
4 Page from the 1691 Anonymous travel journal. Reproduced by
permission of the Honorary Archivist and the Wardens of the
S&P Sephardi Community of London 80
5 Cover page of Daniel Laguna’s metrical translation of Psalms, Espejo fiel
de vidas (1720) 115
6 & 7 Front and back covers of David Nieto’s almanac Repertorio de los Ros- Hodes
(1717). Reproduced by permission of the UCL Library, Special Collections
(ref. Mocatta X 120 NIE). Photo by the author 157
8 Hakham David Nieto (1654– 1728) 160
9 & 10 Spanish and Hebrew cover pages of David Nieto’s Fuego Leal or EshDat
(1715). Reproduced by permission of the UCL Library, Special Collections
(ref. MS MOCATTA 43). Photo by the author 173
11 The first page of the manuscript of Davis Nieto’s Reflexiones Theológicas
(1715). Reproduced by permission of the UCL Library, Special Collections
(ref. MS MOCATTA 43). Photo by the author 174
12 Jacob de Castro Sarmento (1692– 1762) 195
13 An etching depicting a detail of kosher slaughtering of a cow, from Aaron
Mendoza’s Dinim de Sehita y Bedica (1733). © The British Library Board.
ORB30/ 6171 198
14 Cover page of Ishac Nieto’s Recopilação de Varias Cartas (1761) 199
15 Cover page of Moses Cohen de Azevedo’s English translation of
the sermon given on the occation of George III coronation (1761).
Public domain. Reproduced with permission by the National Library of
Israel, Jerusalem 214
16 A page from Jacob Rodrigues Moreira’s tri- lingual dictionary (1773).
© The British Library Board. 1936.e.6 222