The Festival Prayers According to the Ritual of The German and Polish Jews

Set of Festival Prayers. A beautiful Hebrew-English machzor of Festival Prayers, published in Vienna and based on David Levi's original translation.

The set was a Bar Mitzvah present to an American-Jewish boy, so was presumably exported from Vienna before the Holocaust.

The volumes are divided according to the five most important holidays in the Jewish calendar: Vol. I - New Year (Rosh HaShanah); Vol. II - Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur); Vol. III - Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot); Vol. IV - Feast of Passover (Pesach); Vol. V. Feast of Pentecost (Shavuot).

David Levi (1742-1801), was an erudite Whitechapel cobbler and one of the most remarkable characters of 18th-century English Jewry. He was born in London and after failing to make a living as a shoemaker, went to the opposite extreme and became a hatter, meanwhile continuing his studies at the Great Synagogue of London. In 1783 he produced a succinct account of the 'Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews, in which their religious principles and tenets are explained'. From that date onwards, he was constantly engaged in literary work, in the intervals of trying to earn his livelihood. He produced grammars, dictionaries, apologetics, pamphlets and polemics. His translation of the Festival Prayers was first published in London in 1794.

5 vols, 18mo (14.5 x 10.5 cm); particularly fine publisher's black cloth, richly embossed and blind-tooled, upper boards lettered in gilt, housed in a modern slipcase; all edges gilt, ornamental endpapers, gift inscriptions in English in old blue ink to verso of three of the front endpapers, and an ownership inscription to verso of the title of vol. I; a fine copy.