Moses Montefiore

Moses Montefiore was born in Leghorn (Livorno in Italian), Tuscany, in 1784, to a Sephardic Jewish family based in Great Britain. His grandfather, Moses Vital (Haim) Montefiore, had emigrated from Livorno to London in the 1740s, but retained close contact with the town. It was known for making straw bonnets. Montefiore was born while his parents, Joseph Elias Montefiore and his young wife Rachel, the daughter of Abraham Mocatta, a powerful bullion broker in London, were in the town on a business journey. Moses was close to his aunt, Selina Hannah Laurence (née Montefiore 1768–1838); a visit to her in 1829 prompted his recollection of the death of his beloved grandmother Esther Hannah Montefiore (1733). Selina lived at Bury Court, St Mary Axe, London, and had anglicised the surname of her husband Zaccaria Levy (1751–1828) to Laurence following his death. ==Career==

uniform of Moses Montefiore, c. 1885–1900, in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland. The family returned to Kennington in London, where Montefiore attended school. His family's precarious financial situation prevented Montefiore from completing his schooling and he went out to work to help support the family. After working for a wholesale tea merchant and grocer, he was hired by a counting house in the City of London. In 1803 he entered the London Stock Exchange, but lost all of his clients' money in 1806 in a fraud perpetrated by Joseph Elkin Daniels. As a result, he probably had to sell or give up his broker's licence. In 1812, Montefiore became a freemason, joining the Moira Lodge, No. 92 of the Premier Grand Lodge of England in London. From 1809 to 1814, Montefiore served in the Surrey Local Militia, rising to the rank of captain in the 3rd Surrey Local Militia's 7th Company. There was nothing unusual about Montefiore's militia career, and though not seeing active military service he did learn how to play the bugle. Montefiore was greatly disappointed when his company voted to disband on 22 February 1814. Marriage and Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild In 1812, Moses Montefiore married Judith Cohen (1784–1862), daughter of Levy Barent Cohen. Her sister, Henriette (or Hannah) (1783–1850), married Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777–1836), for whom Montefiore's firm acted as stockbrokers. Nathan Rothschild headed the family's banking business in Britain, and the two brothers-in-law became business partners. In business, Montefiore was an innovator, investing in the supply of piped gas for street lighting to European cities via the Imperial Continental Gas Association. In 1824 he was among the founding consortium of the Alliance Assurance Company (which later merged with Sun Insurance to form Sun Alliance). Though somewhat lax in religious observance in his early life, after his visit to the Holy Land in 1827, Montefiore became a strictly observant Jew. He traveled with a personal shohet (ritual slaughterer), to ensure that he would have a ready supply of kosher meat. Although Montefiore spent only a few days in Jerusalem, the 1827 visit changed his life. He resolved to increase his religious observance and to attend synagogue on Shabbat, as well as Mondays and Thursdays when the Torah is read. The visit had been a "spiritual transforming event" for him. Soon afterward, Montefiore purchased the adjoining land and commissioned his cousin, architect David Mocatta, to design a private synagogue, known as the Montefiore Synagogue. It opened with a grand public ceremony in 1833. In 1836 Montefiore became a governor of Christ's Hospital, the Bluecoat school, after assisting in the case of a distressed man who had appealed to him to help his soon-to-be-widowed wife and son. Montefiore was elected Sheriff of the City of London in 1837. He was knighted in November 1837. ==Retirement==

and tomb of Montefiore in Ramsgate, England After retiring from business, Montefiore devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy. He was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 1835 to 1874, a period of 39 years, the longest tenure ever, and member of Bevis Marks Synagogue. As president, he corresponded with the British consul in Damascus, Charles Henry Churchill, in 1841–42; a practice seen as pivotal to the development of Proto-Zionism. and to Romania in 1867. These missions made him a folk hero of near mythological proportions among the oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Levant. Montefiore received a baronetcy in 1846 in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people. ==Philanthropy in Ottoman Palestine==

He and his wife travelled to Palestine after the region was wracked by an earthquake in 1836. The towns of Safed and Tiberias were particularly damaged, with the few survivors suffering disorder, terror and disease. Moses and Judith launched an ambitious programme of relief in 1837. In 1854 his American friend Judah Touro, also a Sephardic Jew, died after having bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects to encourage the Jews to engage in productive labor. In 1855, he purchased an orchard on the outskirts of Jaffa that offered agricultural training to the Jews. In 1860, he built the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside the old walled city of Jerusalem, which today is known as Mishkenot Sha'ananim. This became the first precursor of the New Yishuv. Living outside the city walls was dangerous at the time, due to lawlessness and bandits. Montefiore offered financial inducement to encourage poor families to move there. Montefiore intended Mishkenot Sha’ananim to be a new type of self-sufficient, sanitary settlement where Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews lived together. Later on, Montefiore established adjacent neighborhoods south of Jaffa Road, the Ohel Moshe neighborhood for Sephardic Jews and the Mazkeret Moshe neighborhood for Ashkenazi Jews, who had distinctly different traditions and languages. in Mishkenot Sha'ananim Montefiore donated large sums of money to promote industry, education, and health amongst the Jewish community in Palestine. The project, bearing the hallmarks of nineteenth-century artisanal revival, aimed to promote productive enterprise in the Yishuv. The builders were brought over from England. These activities were part of a broader program to enable the Old Yishuv to become self-supporting in anticipation of the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Montefiore built the Montefiore Windmill in an area that later developed as the Yemin Moshe neighbourhood, to provide cheap flour to poor Jews. He also established a printing press and textile factory, and helped to finance several Bilu agricultural colonies. The Jews of Old Yishuv referred to their patron as "ha-Sar Montefiore" ('The Minister' or simply 'Minister' Montefiore), a title perpetuated in Hebrew literature and song. Montefiore commissioned several censuses of the Yishuv, or Jewish community in Palestine: these were conducted in 1839, 1849, 1855, 1866 and 1875, and provided much data about the people. The censuses attempted to list every Jew individually, together with some biographical and social information (such as their family structure, place of origin, and degree of poverty). ==Later life and death==

Montefiore played an important role in Ramsgate affairs, and one of the local council wards bears his name. In 1845 he served as High Sheriff of Kent. In 1873, the year of his 89th birthday, a local newspaper mistakenly ran his obituary. "Thank God to have been able to hear of the rumour", he wrote to the editor, "and to read an account of the same with my own eyes, without using spectacles." The town celebrated his 99th and his 100th birthdays in great style, and every local charity (and church) benefited from his philanthropy. At East Cliff Lodge, he established a Sephardic yeshiva (Judith Lady Montefiore College) after the death of his wife in 1862. In the grounds he built the elegant, Regency architecture Montefiore Synagogue and mausoleum modeled on Rachel's Tomb outside Bethlehem. (He also paid for the refurbishment and upkeep of this historic tomb.) Judith was laid to rest there in 1862. Montefiore died in 1885, at age 100 years and 9 months. He had no children. His principal heir in name, arms and property was his nephew Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore (1822–1903, born Joseph Sebag), a British banker, stockbroker and politician. Sir Joseph's descendant, British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore (born 1965), revealed that his family believes Sir Moses to have fathered a child late in life with a 16-year-old domestic servant. Philanthropist Leonard Montefiore was a great-nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore. Sir Moses Montefiore was buried in the mausoleum which he had had built near the Montefiore Synagogue at Ramsgate. The estate was sold to the Borough of Ramsgate around 1952, and the Lodge was demolished in 1954. All that remains today is a new building housing a firm of architects. It incorporates parts of the original structure, called the Coach House. There are also some outbuildings that survive (including the Gate House). The Italianate Greenhouse has been restored to its former glory in the early 21st century. The Greenhouse and the rest of the estate are now protected as King George VI Memorial Park. A plaque on the Gate House honors Sir Moses. ==Legacy==

The Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids in Manhattan and the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx are both named after him. Montefiore Square, a small, triangular park in upper Manhattan's Hamilton Heights neighbourhood, is named after Montefiore Medical Center. A branch of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also bears his name. Chicago's West Side was home to a special needs public school Moses Montefiore Academy, named in honour of him, until the school's closure in 2016. A number of synagogues were named in honour of Montefiore, including the 1913 Montefiore Institute, now preserved as the Little Synagogue on the Prairie. The Montefiore Club was a private social and business association, catering to the Jewish community located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montefiore Club was a private social and business association, catering to the Jewish community located in Buffalo, New York from 1969 to 1978. In Cleveland, Ohio, a Jewish nursing home is called Montefiore. He was commemorated on two Israeli banknotes. These were the IL10, which was in circulation from 1970 to 1979, and the IS 1, which was legal tender from 1980 to 1986. The Dolphin's Barn Jewish cemetery in Dublin, Ireland, is dedicated to Montefiore. == Archive ==

The Montefiore Family Papers were initially deposited in the Montefiore Museum in Judith Lady Montefiore College, Ramsgate, Kent. The archive spans 24 volumes and 515 items. ==Coat of arms==