Detailed Description |
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This booklet, which was published on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London, has two title pages, with the pagination proceeding from each end.
From the right (11 pages) the title includes the words "Kotel Ma'arabi", and authorship ascribed to Paul Goodman, a former secretary of the congregation. This is a history of the congregation and includes a frontispiece which is a picture of the exterior of the synagogue.
From the left, the 27 page portion, is the Order of Service on the occasion of the Jubilee of the synagogue which was celebrated on October 27, 1946. This includes a color photograph of the "Echal of the Synagogue" and the order of service in both Hebrew and English. It included a prayer for the King and the Royal Family, as well as a Prayer for the Congregation, a Mincha service, a sermon and a "memorial prayer for the departed founders and leaders of the synagogue."
Established by a handful of Marrano families in 1656, when Oliver Cromwell tacitly admitted the Jews to England, the Congregation's first synagogue in Creechurch Lane in the City of London was succeeded by the present building in adjacent Bevis Marks. Opened in 1701, the Bevis Marks Synagogue can sadly boast of being the only one in Europe that has been open continuously for worship since that date.
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