The Montefiore Collections
Preserving and developing the legacy of Sir Moses Montefiore
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Montefiore Petitions
| About the Collections The Core Collection The Collection at UCL Hebrew Manuscripts Testimonials Petitions Silver Vestments College Artefacts |
Many hundreds of letters and petitions were written to Sir Moses Montefiore from all over the world on his visits to the Holy Land. These include a wealth of fascinating detail about the living conditions of Jews of the time, as individual petitioners called on Sir Moses for help and entire communities sought his assistance in cases of general calamity. The letters and petitions have been carefully preserved in six large volumes as a unique record. They are in many languages and written in a variety of cursive scripts, including Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Maghrebi, square Hebrew, Arabic and European. A project was commenced in 2012 to catalogue these manuscripts in English, with brief descriptions of the form and content of each one. It is expected that several years will be needed to complete the project but the lists will be published on-line as soon as each becomes available. |