| Description | An acrostic poem, made up of 12 lines each beginning with a letter of Moses Gaster in Hebrew plus the three letter word Hazak/חזק at the end. Uses some biblical/rabbinic turns of phrase. Notably, in the introductory top paragraph is written: ‘this is the man, Moshe, whom the king and the nation desire to honour’ - this is an adaptation of a quote from the biblical scroll of Esther, chapter 6 verse 6.
The date at the bottom: 3 Nisan the year of ויקרא משה = 5662 based on Gematria calculations.Therefore, the date appears to be April 1902.
The poem is attributed to 'Cansino' from the city of 'Gibrala' [likely referring to Gibraltar.]
There is an accompanying letter from Neville [Laski, Moses Gaster's son in law], 5 August 1957, explaining that the item 'came from the Hore Belisha Papers to Manuel Cansino'. |