This thanksgiving prayer was offered by Ḳ.Ḳ. Shaar haShamayim (a/k/a Bevis Marks, the S&P Synagogue in London) upon the safe return of Sir Moses Montefiore from a trip to Romania on behalf of Romanian Jewry in 1867. The concern at the time was the overthrow in the previous year of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup d’état. Cuza, a reformer, had brought emancipation to the Roma peoples residing in Romania, who had been enslaved for centuries. Similar promises of emancipation for Romanian Jewry had been extended prior to Cuza’s overthrow. Unfortunately for Romanian Jewry, Carol Ⅰ would not be their liberator. (Emancipation for Romanian Jewry would come by treaty after World War Ⅰ in 1919 and enshrined in the Romanian constitution in 1923.) The prayer was likely written by Rabbi Benjamin Artom who was installed as the rabbi for Bevis Marks in late 1866. The English translation is approximate and elides the biblical references offered in the Hebrew text of the prayer. Many thanks to Abe Katz for brining this prayer to our attention. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

“תודה | Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Safe Return of Sir Moses Montefiore from Romania (Ḳ.Ḳ. Shaar haShamayim, 1867)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Benjamin Artom

Rabbi Benjamin Artom (1835–1879), born in Asti, Piedmont, in the Kingdom of Sardinia, was a rabbi in Italy and Britain. He was the first person to hold the post of rabbi of Naples. In 1866, he accepted a call to become the spiritual leader, or Ḥakham, of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Britain, and held the post until his death on 6 January 1879 at 3 Marine Parade, Brighton. He composed a prayer for boys on the occasion of their Bar Mitzvah that was at one time used in most Orthodox synagogues in Britain and is still used in the Spanish and Portuguese ones. He was left fatherless when a child, and his maternal uncle supervised his early training. His theological education he owed to the rabbis Marco Tedeschi, of Trieste, and Terracini. At twenty he taught Hebrew, Italian, French, English, and German. His first appointment was that of minister to the congregation of Saluzzo near Genoa. While rabbi of a congregation in Naples he received a call to London, where he was on December 16, 1866 installed as chief rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese congregations of the United Kingdom. After a year's stay in England, he became so proficient in English that he could preach in that language with eloquence. Deeply interested in Anglo-Jewish institutions, he directed his attention chiefly to organizing and superintending the educational establishments of his own congregation, the Sha'are Tikvah and Villareal schools. Although of Orthodox views, he welcomed moderate reforms, and endeavored to promote any enterprise tending toward the union of discordant factions. He was author of various odes and prayers in Hebrew, and several pieces of Italian poetry. A selection of his sermons delivered in England was published in 1873.

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Moses Montefiore sitting in Harper’s Weekly (20 October 1883) – detail

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17