Only edition, [4] pp., octavo, 204:126 mm., light age staining. A very good copy bound as issued.

Unrecorded - No copy NLI or other major collections

Title: ...A guide to parents for the religious instruction of their children.

The Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews. History of the community dates to the 16th century. There were certainly Spanish and Portuguese merchants, many of them conversos, in England at the time of Queen Elizabeth I. In the time of Oliver Cromwell, Menasseh ben Israel led a delegation seeking permission for Dutch Sephardim to settle in England: Cromwell was known to look favorably on the request, but no official act of permission has been found. By the time of Charles II and James II, a congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews had a synagogue in Creechurch Lane. Both these kings showed their assent to this situation by quashing indictments against the Jews for unlawful assembly. For this reason the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of England often cite 1656 as the year of re-admission, but look to Charles II as the real sponsor of their community.

Bevis Marks Synagogue was opened in 1701 in London. In the 1830s and 40s there was agitation for the formation of a branch synagogue in the West End, nearer where most congregants lived, but rabbis refused this on the basis of Ascama 1, forbidding the establishment of other synagogues within six miles of Bevis Marks. Dissident congregants, together with some Ashkenazim, accordingly founded the West London Synagogue in Burton Street in 1841. An official branch synagogue in Wigmore Street was opened in 1853. This moved to Bryanston Street in the 1860s, and to Lauderdale Road in Maida Vale in 1896. (A private synagogue existed in Highbury from 1883 to 1936.) A third synagogue has been formed in Wembley. Over the centuries the community has absorbed many Sephardi immigrants from Italy and North Africa, including many of its rabbis and hazzanim. The current membership includes many Iraqi Jews and some Ashkenazim, in addition to descendants of the original families. The Wembley community is predominantly Egyptian. A further synagogue is in the process of formation at Elstree.

The synagogues at Bevis Marks, Lauderdale Road and Wembley are all owned by the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community Sahar Asamaim (Sha'ar ha-Shamayim), and have no separate organisational identity. The community is served by a team rabbinate: the post of Haham, or chief rabbi, is currently vacant (and has frequently been so in the community's history). The day-to-day running of the community is the responsibility of a Mahamad, elected periodically and consisting of four parnasim (wardens) and one gabbai (treasurer). Former members of the mahamad are known as velhos (elders), while individual community members are known as yehidim.

In addition to the three main synagogues, there is a chapel at Ramsgate associated with the burial place of Sir Moses Montefiore. A synagogue in Holland Park is described as "Spanish and Portuguese" but serves chiefly Greek and Turkish Jews, with a mixed ritual: this is connected to the main community by a Deed of Association. The Manchester Sephardic synagogues are under the superintendence of the London community and use a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese ritual, but the membership is chiefly Syrian in heritage, with some Turkish, Iraqi and North African Jews. The London community formerly had oversight over some Baghdadi synagogues in the Far East, such as the Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong and Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai. Newer Sephardic rite synagogues in London, mostly for Baghdadi and Persian Jews, preserve their own ritual and do not come under the Spanish and Portuguese umbrella.

Like the Amsterdam community, the London Spanish and Portuguese community early set up a Medrash do Heshaim (=Ets Haim). This is less a functioning religious college than a committee of dignitaries responsible for community publications, such as prayer books. In 1862 the community founded the "Judith Lady Montefiore College" in Ramsgate, for the training of rabbis. This moved to London in the 1960s: students at the College concurrently followed courses at the London School of Jewish Studies. It closed in the 1980s, but was revived in 2005 as a part-time rabbinic training program run from Lauderdale Road, serving the Anglo-Jewish Orthodox community in general, Ashkenazim as well as Sephardim.