A particularly fascinating piece I recently handled is a polemical pamphlet published in Jerusalem in 1862 under the title Shever Poshim (“The Breach of Transgressors”). What at first appears to be a small, unassuming booklet is, in fact, a window into one of the more turbulent chapters of the 19th-century Sephardic community in Eretz Yisrael – a controversy that stretched from Baghdad to Jerusalem to Hebron, and even reached as far as London and Calcutta.
At the center of the storm stood Rabbi Yosef Shalom Abdallah, a distinguished and forceful personality, and a cousin of the Ben Ish Chai. Born in Baghdad into a prominent and prosperous family, he was known for his sharp intellect, keen business acumen, and generosity. His relative, R. Yitzhak ben Binyamin Yehuda, writing in his still-unpublished memoirs, described him as “a man of many accomplishments…with a heart like that of a lion; he feared no one.”
In the mid-19th century, the Sephardic kollels of Eretz Yisrael were responsible for collecting and distributing charity funds sent from Jewish communities abroad – particularly from the great mercantile centers of India, especially through the powerful Yehuda and Sassoon families. In 1852, R. Yosef Shalom was appointed as the general treasurer of the Sephardic kollels in the Land of Israel. Shortly thereafter, disputes began to emerge between the leaders of the Sephardic communities in Jerusalem and those in Hebron.
By 1854, the Hebron community – then burdened with severe financial strain – appointed him to oversee their kollel funds. The situation, however, soon deteriorated. When community leaders in Hebron requested a full accounting of funds and expenditures, R. Yosef Shalom failed to provide one, and the matter escalated to the Jerusalem rabbinate. Tensions flared, accusations multiplied, and in a dramatic turn, R. Yosef Shalom appealed to the British consulate – for he was officially registered as a British subject – resulting in the imprisonment of two leading Hebron scholars, Rabbi Refael Yisrael Elyakim and Rabbi Moshe Kimchi. Their eventual release, after months of effort, only inflamed the dispute further.
The rabbis of Jerusalem and Hebron joined in issuing a public excommunication against him. In response, he published Eidut B’Yehosef, defending himself and shifting blame onto his rivals. Jerusalem’s rabbinic leadership answered with Shever Yosef, and in turn, Hebron scholars issued another book reasserting his innocence and integrity. The pamphlet before us, Shever Poshim, enters the fray at this stage – a sharp rebuttal compiling letters and testimonies from leading Sages in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias.
The conflict soon reached the Ottoman and British authorities. His enemies charged that his British citizenship was fraudulent, alleging he was born in Baghdad rather than Calcutta. A warrant was issued; only the quiet warning of the British consul allowed him to escape. He fled under cover to Damascus, where he lived under the protection of his brother-in-law, the Dutch consul, for nearly two years.
Eventually, through the intercession of the Yehuda and Sassoon families, he succeeded in restoring his status and securing his legal safety. Yet the damage done – reputational, communal, personal – could not be undone. He liquidated his holdings in Jerusalem and settled permanently in Damascus, where he opened a major trading house and lived out his remaining years, passing away in 1897.
For the historian or collector, Shever Poshim is more than a polemic: it is a document of communal governance in the Old Yishuv, of the power struggles between rabbinic leadership and philanthropic authority, and of the complex, far-reaching networks that linked Jerusalem not only to Constantinople and Baghdad, but to Calcutta, Bombay, and London.