Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck College, London, will be in Ramsgate on Sunday (April 7) to give a talk about Sir Moses Montefiore.
The event at the Comfort Inn, is the first of this season’s events from Ramsgate Montefiore Heritage. Professor Latchman is a keen collector of items connected with the Jews of England and especially of items related to Sir Moses.
During the talk, entitled Sir Moses Montefiore: Ramsgate, Great Britain and the Jewish Diaspora, the audience will have the opportunity to view items from Professor Latchman’s collection illustrating the rôle of Sir Moses in Ramsgate life, as a prominent leader of Anglo Jewry and as a worldwide ambassador for the Jewish people.
Sir Moses was born in 1784 and died in 1885, aged 100. He married Judith Cohen, sister-in-law of Nathan Meyer Rothschild; and that connection helped him to make his fortune before the age of 40. Montefiore then retired from the Stock Exchange in order to devote the rest of his long life to the interests of poor and oppressed fellow Jews.
In 1833 Sir Moses opened his own synagogue in Ramsgate, close to his country house. His house has long since disappeared; but his synagogue and the adjacent mausoleum in which he and his wife are buried still stand, carefully maintained by the trustees of his Endowment.
Tickets are available at the door, Comfort Inn, Victoria Parade, Ramsgate at 4pm for a 4.30pm start and cost £5 for visitors – free for Ramsgate Montefiore Heritage members .