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Volume 76 › Table of Contents › Article Abstract
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The Constitution of the Burial Society of the
Bucharest Sephardic Community, April 30, 1850
Isaac Jerusalmi, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion |
The Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California, has recently acquired the
Ladino manuscript of the Constitution drafted in 1850 for the Burial Society of the two
Sephardic Synagogues in Bucharest, Rumania. We already knew that the first Constitution
of that Burial Society had been written in 1819 by Haham Eliezer Papo, originally
from Sarajevo, when he became the spiritual leader of Rumanian Jewry. Documented
revisions took place in 1821, 1833, 1837, 1849 and 1878, but no trace of the
1850 revision was available until the present, imposing document came to light. By
its contents and structure, it seems to have provided answers to financial and disciplinary
issues, such as introducing three classes of funerals, with specific fees, as
well as shifting the washing of the deceased from the Burial Society to the Bikkur
Holim. For reasons still unknown, this document slipped out of the Society's possession
until 1903, when a dated endorsement on its verso states that it was "donated"
by Albert and Dina Zwiebel to the Spanish Community in Bucharest. As such, it
represents a "missing" link in the long chain of organized good deeds performed by
the Sephardic Community of Bucharest.
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