‘The voice of the minister heard in words of exhortation and instruction’: Abraham de Sola and the Jewish sermon in Victorian Montreal, and beyond

Abstract

On April 26, 1846 the members of the Board of Shearith Israel, Portuguese Congregation of Montreal, approved the recommendation of their hiring committee to engage Abraham de Sola, from London, as their minister. But there were conditions. First, the Trustees wanted to be sure that enough money could be raised actually to pay the minister. They also wanted reassurance that the twenty-one year old had "the requisite qualifications to give English discourses in addition to the other duties required of him."1 On this, there was a meeting of minds between the Trustees and the candidate: Abraham de Sola had already informed the Congregation that he was eager to deliver sermons to his new community.2 Preaching in English was not a new phenomenon in the Sephardic community, but neither was it commonplace.3 In the early nineteenth century, the ordinances of the Sephardic community of London called only for the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, or Haham, to deliver sermons in Spanish twice a year. After Abraham's father, David Aaron de Sola delivered his first English sermon in 1831, the Elders of the Congregation resolved in the words of David Aaron that "in future, Sermons in the English language should be frequently delivered at the synagogue, in order to afford the congregation religious instruction in the only way it could prove useful."4 These sermons became a regular feature two years later when David Aaron was commissioned to deliver a talk on one Sabbath each month.5 In Montreal, the Trustees of Shearith Israel had stipulated in on March 13, 1844, that de Sola's predecessor, David Piza, be required "to deliver two sermons in the English language appropriate to the approaching festival of Passover."6 But the phenomenon of the hazan, or minister, who could address, instruct, and/or rebuke his congregation was still noteworthy. London's Jewish Chronicle reported with favour in late 1846 on the modern qualifications of A.P. Mendes, who was off to serve as minister in Kingston, Jamaica, and Abraham de Sola. The paper especially commended Mendes for the "agreeable effect produced upon his auditors in the few discourses we had the pleasure of hearing in the Portuguese Synagogue [that] left no doubt in their mind