WEIL, MOISE.  (Chief Rabbi of Algiers ...

WEIL, MOISE.  (Chief Rabbi of Algiers, 1852-1914). Autograph Letter Signed written in Hebrew to CHEIF RABBI SHMUEL SALANT OF JERUSALEM.

Hebrew written in a Sephardic cursive hand. A personal petition seeking a blessing for improved health. Two pages.

(Algiers), c. 1900.

    Although Ashkenazi by birth, Rabbi Weil writes in a Sephardic hand, asking “the great rabbi… famous and good-named…” to pray for himself and for his wife, being that their health was suffering. On the verso, Rabbin Weil adds the name of his mother, Hannah, and that of his wife, Alice.

    Born in Bouxwiller, Alsace, Moïse, son of Simon Weil had been trained at the Séminaire Rabbinique de France from 1871 to 1877 before being sent to French Colonial North Africa where he had an eventful career. First Rabbi of Tlemcen until 1882, from 1883 to 1891 Chief Rabbi of Oran, he was finally installed on April 16, 1891 as Chief Rabbi of Algiers.

    Weil was an extremely pious man and one of the most devout chief rabbis that France sent to Algeria. Mastering Judeo-Arabic he was fully integrated into Algiers society.

    Following the first Zionist Congress in 1897 Algiers encountered a wave of anti-Semitic riots that caused Weil to appeal to his co-religionists to leave their homes and settle in the Land of Israel. Such actions seen as un-patriotic, displeased his superiors in Paris, and he was summarily dismissed. Due to subsequent illness and eventual penury, Rabbin Weil never succeeded to emigrate to the Holy Land and died and was buried on African soil. His tomb (Le Carré des Rabbins du Cimetière de Saint-Eugène près d'Alger) is a site of pilgrimage to this day.

    See P.B. Fenton, http://judaisme.sdv.fr/histoire/rabbins/mweil/mweil.htm.