It’s September 16 and the beginning of Rosh Hashanah,  the Jewish New Year festival. Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar, or ram’s horn trumpet, and eating apples dipped in honey – a symbol of the wish for a sweet new year.

New College Library holds an interesting volume of  prayers and devotions for Ashkenazi Jewish festivals,  Maḥzor ḥeleḳ rishon, published c. 1699  in Sulzbach  in the Rhineland where medieval Jewish communities settled. The book still has some of its original brass studs and brass clasps intact.

This book is part of the Dalman-Christie collection of Hebrew books, which was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.  The Dalman-Christie Collection was transferred to New College Library in 1946 from the Church of Scotland Hospice in Jerusalem. With thanks to our Hebrew Cataloguer, Janice Gailani, for sharing details of this item.

Maḥzor ḥeleḳ rishon [1699] New College Library Dal-Chr 14