Beith David

(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

(Portsmouth)

1807-1842

Hebrew Manuscript on paper

Compiled from a work originally published in Wilhermsdorf, 1734 (not Vilna as the copyist erroneously wrote on the first leaf). The manual contains remedies for all kinds of sicknesses, AS WELL AS incantations as to how to defeat enemies, free oneself from danger, exorcise evil spirits. etc Of interest, the manuscript records “Miss Pope’s Prayers” copied on 23 Teveth, 1842, in Portsmouth (f. 30 a -b). Includes many transliterated words into English as an added explanation to the Hebrew. For example, see f. 31 for the ingredients necessary for the segulah to become invisible: “kach shiva pulin - belashon English - White Beans...” Or see the final page with a remedy for “Gelsucht - belashon English - jaundice...Take a Schwartzeh toib - belashon English - a black pigeon” Portsmouth is an English fortified seaport on the coast of Hampshire. The Portsmouth (Portsea) congregation is one of the oldest in the English provinces, having been founded in 1747 with a rabbinate of its own. During the Napoleonic wars the commercial activity of Portsmouth as a garrison and naval town attracted a large number of Jews; and at that time there were two synagogues. After the peace of 1815, the Jewish inhabitants diminished in numbers and the newly built edifice ceased to be used. (Jewish Encyclopedia)