From the librarian’s desk – High Holy Days
Find out how Anglo-Jewish families celebrated prepared for high holiday days 100 years ago in The Story of the High Festivals and Feast of Tabernacles.
To celebrate high holy days, Cassy Sachar, LBC’s Senior Librarian, has selected two books from our Library’s collection in a series of blog posts titled ‘From the librarian’s desk’.
Between 1928 and 1932 rabbi, scholar and leader of the Spanish and Portuguese community Moses Gaster, and bookseller and Judaica specialist Moshe Leib Cailingold brought out at least five books each telling “the story of” a Jewish festival. They confidently advertise themselves as “splendid books for reading at school and home.” The target audience the authors identify and their publishing success, the stories of Chanukah and Purim running to a second edition and Passover to a third, indicate the inter-war market for English language religious texts for young people and their families.
Each book cost
s 8 pence (around £1.50 today) and for an extra penny could be sent by post. Gaster tells “The Story of the High Festivals and the Feast of Tabernacles” in a stately yet conversational tone, weaving history and narrative with explanations of practices and liturgy through the High Holiday season. The book features half a dozen illustrations, including the shofar being blown in a synagogue packed full of bearded men draped in tallit, with a father encouraging his son to fulfil the mitzvah and listen to the sound. At the top of the picture you can just make out the women with their prayer books in the gallery.
The book closes with an image of a boy in restoration costume, doffing a three cornered hat. This courtly 18th century image is somewhat incongruous as Gaster discusses the Torah as the tree of life standing fast but perhaps this child is about to join a circle dance to rejoice in that Torah, ignoring the words of teachers, and the strictures of formal clothes to run and join in the chaotic Simchat Torah festivities.
Visit us at the Leo Baeck College Library hear the story Gaster tells and experience how Anglo-Jewish families prepared for the high holy days 100 years ago.
The Story of the High Festivals and Feast of Tabernacles told by Dr Moses Gaster with Illustrations, M.L. Cailingold, 1931
