Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov – printed letter, with a handwritten emissary letter for the emissary R. David Netanel Rofe, with signatures of Sephardic rabbis of Tiberias. Tiberias, [1870].

Stationery with the verse Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov and an illustration of the R. Meir Baal HaNes synagogue and Beit Midrash, with the Sea of Galilee in front of them. The letter of appointment itself is in Oriental semi-cursive script, with words emphasized in square script.

Emissary letter addressed to R. Yisrael Istora.

The emissary letter is signed by the Sephardic rabbis of Tiberias, first by R. Chaim Shmuel HaKohen (with an ink stamp), followed by the handwritten signatures (calligraphic) of: R. Avraham Refael Chalfon (Meat Ochel), R. Yosef David Abulafia, R. Yaakov Abulafia, R. Yitzchak Abulafia, R. Shimon Abadi and R. Avraham HaKohen Dweck.

Under the signatures is an official stamp of the tomb of R. Meir Baal HaNes.

R. David Netanel Rofe (d. 1903) was a rabbi of Tiberias who served as an emissary in several North African communities, securing the Tiberias community from financial collapse. The present document is from his 1870 voyage to Morocco; he later traveled to Tunisia and Algeria and to Bombay, India, and again to Tunisia, where he passed away and was buried.

[1] double leaf. 30 cm. Fair-good condition. Creases, tears and folding marks.

Stationery appears to have been printed in Jerusalem, 1867, by Avraham Rottenburg and his son-in-law Yoel Moshe Salomon – see on a similar leaf, Sh. Halevy, no. 747.