Report of Sir Moses Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews – an Attempt to Release the ...

Report of Sir Moses Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews – an Attempt to Release the Jewish Child Edgardo Mortara who was Baptized and Kidnapped from His Family – London, 1859
"Report of Sir Moses Montefiore Bart to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on the Subject of his Mission to Rome" in an attempt to release Edgardo Mortara. Reproduction of the handwritten original (possibly written by a secretary). London, July 13, 1859. English.
Edgardo Mortara (1851-1940) was the son of a Jewish merchant from Bologna (then in the Papal State of Italy). When he was two years old, he fell sick and was secretly baptized by a Christian servant of the family, in an attempt to cure him. Several years later, the servant testified before the authorities that she had baptized him. Since at the time, the law forbade the raising of Christians by members of other faiths, Edgardo Mortara was taken from his family. All the family's attempts to bring their son back failed. Mortara was raised as a Catholic and in his adulthood entered the Augustinian Order. Later he even acted as a missionary in Germany and New York.
The Mortara case caused much outrage among Jewish communities and liberal groups in Europe and the USA. Several European governments as well as the USA government expressed their protest and asked to return Mortara to his family. The case was considered a constitutive event in European history and one of the factors that led to the establishment of the organization Alliance Israélite Universelle.
This report describes Moses Montefiore's trip to Rome, in 1859, in order to submit to Pope Pius IX a memorandum calling to release Mortara. It describes Montefiore's attempts to schedule a meeting with the Pope, his meetings with the British diplomat Odo Russell and his meeting with Cardinal Antonelli, to whom he eventually submitted the memorandum. Montefiore also notes in the report that his wife Judith and two of his friends, Gershon (Gershom) Kursheedt of New-Orleans and Dr. Thomas Hodgkin of London, accompanied him on his trip. The report was submitted by Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews, the body that represented the Jews of Britain (whose president at the time was Montefiore).
7, [1] leaves, 32.5 cm (bound with string in their upper left corner). Good condition. Fold lines. Stains and tears, mostly small, to margins.