 |
| The New Republic: Books & Arts July 1, 2010  Simon Schama BOOK REVIEW: Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero by Abigail Green In 1827, an upright, well-to-do English gentleman, traveling through the Levant with his lady wife, ran into some dirty weather en route from Alexandria to Malta. But this particular gentleman was called Moses and his notion of calming the sea was to throw the afikoman half of the middle matzoh of the Passover seder into the churning waters. Apparently, as Abigail Green tells it, in some Sephardi traditions the breaking of the afikoman symbolizes the parting of the Red Sea. Needless to say, it did the trick. The storm abated and the Montefiores, Moses and Judith, were granted a serene moonlit night. At which point, swept along by Green’s ripping tale and Montefiore’s own description of it “praying to God to preserve us, as He had … our forefathers from the turbulence of the sea,” the enchanted reader wakes from the spell to say—what? The date of this salvation at sea was November 26. Passover was six months gone or six months ahead. Did Moses Montefiore habitually carry with him an emergency matzoh for such occasions? We all know that matzot, even the tooth-testing shmurah discs that can stand up to serious punishment, would probably not survive extreme maritime stress. So must we imagine an all-weather afikoman-preserver, perhaps custom-hammered in silver, for Moses Montefiore, man of substance, bill-broker for Nathaniel Rothschild, and director of insurance, gas, and mining companies? |
