Manuscript leaf, prayer for the Jewish child "Gad Yosef son of Miriam" – known by his Italian name Edgardo Mortara, who was kidnapped by the Church in his youth and was the central figure in a worldwide affair. [Rome?, ca. 1858].
Sephardic-Italian script. The prayer begins with a request for mercy, and for the Pope and the authorities to return the Jewish child Gad Yosef son of Miriam, and goes on to describe the child's ill fate far from his family and friends, and the concern for his departure from the Torah. The prayer further asks that every Jewish man and woman merit to educate their children according to the Torah way, and for G-d's kingship over the world to manifest.
Gad Yosef (Edgardo) HaLevi Mortara was born to a Jewish family in Bologna and was kidnapped at the age of six by Catholic authorities based on the claim of the family's Christian servant that she had baptized him secretly. Church law at the time considered a Jewish child who was baptized to be Christian and forbade him to live with his Jewish family.
The kidnapping aroused international protest on the part of world leaders including Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, Emperor Napoleon III of France and Sir Moses Montefiore, who all failed to sway Pope Pius IX, and Edgardo became a Christian priest and missionary. Edgardo's kidnapping became a cause célèbre and led to the founding of organizations such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle which fought for the rights of the Jewish community in Europe, and is detailed in David Kertzer's 1997 book 'The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara' and Steven Spielberg's 2023 movie 'Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara'.
The present prayer, apparently authored in a Jewish community in Italy, was heretofore unknown. R. Yaakov Yosef Fasano of Rome documents a public prayer held in Rome with a similar name and text to the present document (with expansions and other changes). R. Fasano's handwriting is similar to that appearing in the present manuscript, and he may have been the writer.
[1] leaf. Approx. 25 cm. Good condition. Browning. Stains. Marginal tears.
