Mahzor le-Nusah Barcelona Minhag Catalonia (Order of Prayers According to the Rite of Barcelona [and the] Custom of Catalonia), Salonika: Moses Soncino, 1526

ex-JTSAL

During the last decade of the fifteenth and well into and into the sixteenth century Salonika served as a haven for Jewish exiles fleeing the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. The Portuguese marrano chronicler Samuel Usque, describes Salonika in his Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel (Ferrara 1553), as the locale within the new Sepahardic Diaspora where: "the largest number of the persecuted and banished sons from Europe and other places have met therein and have been received with loving welcome, as though it were our venerable mother, Jerusalem." The new arrivals from Spain and Portugal, together with the Ashkenazim who had arrived earlier and the native Romaniote Jews, comprised some thirty independent congregations.

Each component of this mosaic of communities from around the Jewish world, maintained the customs and traditions brought with them from their many diverse points of origin.  In 1527, Catalan Jews who had fled from that Spanish province and its major city Barcelona, in order to retain their historic identity, published this Mahzor for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur.  The colophon records: "The work was completed on the eve of the Great Fast (Yom Kippur), in the year "My help comes from The Lord" (= 9 Tishri [5]287 =16 September 1526) here in the city of Salonica, under the sovereignty of our master, the great king, Sultan Suleiman, may his glory increase, by the young Moses Soncino in the house of the noble Don Abraham Seneor, at the behest of the survivors of the expulsion from Catalonia, especially the sage Eliezer Shimoni, the light of whose Torah shines upon them, may he see progeny and length of days."

This exceptionally rare volume is almost always lacking the first quire of 10 leaves, printed partially in red ink, and which is likewise absent in the present copy. An extensive description of the complete Mahzor and its contents was compiled by renowned bibliophile David Solomon Sassoon, who was the owner of the only other recorded complete copy of this work. Despite its being a printed work Sassoon included his copy in his catalogue of Hebrew manuscripts, declaring this "edition of the Prayer Book so rare, that a full description seems to be justified." (see Ohel Dawid # 822, pp. 841-844).