Orden de las Oraciones Quotidianas (Daily and Sabbath Prayers), The Hague: C. Hoffeling for Selomoh de Mercado & Jahacob Castello, 1734

552 pages (2¾ x 1¾ in.; 70 x 45 mm), including the scarce engraved title by D. Coster, as well as the more common letterpress general title; also present are the additional 6 pages (292*) between pp. 292 & 293 and two final blank leaves. pagination: [2] [1-3], 4-292 [6], 293-533 [534-539] [5]= 552 pp. Light wear and foxing to first few pages. Silk ribbon placeholder; marbled endpapers; all edges gilt. Contemporary brown pebbled morocco, spine in 4 compartments each elaborately gilt; covers richly gilt; minor losses to spine; extremities rubbed.


 

Den Boer, Spanish and Portuguese Editions from the North Netherlands, Studia Rosenthaliana,vol. XXII, nr. 2, p. 131, nr. 85; Palau 202359; Da Silva Rosa, Judaica in... Jüd. Portug. Seminars "Ets Haim" in Amsterdam 55; Bondy p. 31: "A fine Jewish prayer book in Spanish for Jews of Sephardic origin"; Spielmann 397; Welsh 4019.

A luxury miniature volume; The first Jewish liturgical work printed in The Hague

Jewish settlement in The Hague dates to the last decades of the 17th century and by the time this siddur was printed, two Sephardic Jewish congregations had already been established. Most of the crypto-Jewish fugitives who fled from the Iberian Inquisitions and who established the new Spanish-Portuguese community in the Netherlands, settled in Amsterdam. Ignorant of the Hebrew language, they recited their prayers in Spanish, and publishing houses in Amsterdam soon began to issue prayerbooks in that language. While numerous editions were published in Amsterdam throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to serve the liturgical needs of these Jews, the present lot is the only edition printed for the small but prosperous Sephardic Jewish community in the Hague. At the time of publication of this miniature siddur there were probably fewer than two hundred Portuguese Jews in the Hague.

This edition also has the distinction of including the earliest known translation of the Lekha Dodi, the beloved hymn for welcoming the Sabbath.