Order of Service … Being the Celebration of Depositing a Sefer Torah … Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia: 16 February 1816

1 framed sheet (9 3/4 x 7 1/8 in.;246 x 185 mm). Printed in English with Hebrew additions. Central creases; early Yiddish inscription in ink on verso; modern pencil notations on recto. Visible on both sides, mounted within a double-matted, double-glazed modern frame.

Singerman 0262; Not in Goldman.

The historic Congregation Mikveh Israel of Philadelphia dates its earliest beginnings to the year 1740. Religious services were held in private homes or rented quarters until 1782, when the community purchased a plot of land and built a two-story brick building, with adjacent space for a home for the Hazan, a school and a mikvah. In 1815, the congregation elected Rev. Emanuel Nunes Carvalho as minister. This printed broadside commemorates the events of Friday evening,16 February 1816, when a Torah Scroll belonging to Carvalho, was transported to the synagogue, in a procession marked by great pomp. Carvalho passed away in March, 1817 after serving the congregation for only a year and a half. The undated Yiddish inscription on the verso of the printed broadside records both Carvalho’s donation of the scroll and its subsequent return.