Discovered in the city of Norfolk in what had once been a moat, and donated to Oxford in 1755, the so-called Bodleian Bowl bears a Hebrew inscription that puzzled British Hebraists for centuries. Rebecca Abrams explains what is now known about this remarkable artifact, and offers a brief history of the Jews of England in the Middle Ages:
Standing almost 25 centimeters high and weighing in at a hefty five kilograms, the bowl has a long Hebrew inscription encircling the rim and is impressively decorated with hoof-shaped feet, birds, flowers, stags, and fleurs-de-lys. . . . The marquis of Northampton, writing in 1696, thought the bowl “a great mystery” and described it as a “rabbinical porridge pot,” intended by its users to symbolize the biblical pot of manna. . . . It is now generally agreed that it was in all likelihood used to collect charitable donations. The Hebrew inscription also puzzled scholars with its tantalizing mixture of abbreviations, missing letters, and words without clear meaning. A credible translation for the inscription reads:
This is the gift of Joseph, son of the holy Rabbi Yeḥiel, may the memory of the righteous holy one be for a blessing, who answered and asked the congregation as he desired, in order to behold the face of Ariel as it is written in the law of Jekuthiel, “And righteousness delivers from death.”
Property deeds and other documents, which came to light in the 19th century, reveal that Joseph was a leading member of the Jewish community in Colchester in the 13th century, and the eldest son of Rabbi Yeḥiel of Paris, a leading talmudic scholar in . . . France and the head of the renowned Paris yeshiva. Joseph had spent time in prison (we don’t know for what, exactly) and on his release made a vow to emigrate to the Holy Land, an intention he began to realize in around 1257.
Before his departure, Joseph put his affairs in order, transferred his property on Stockwell Street, Colchester to his brother Samuel and presented the bowl as a gift to the local Jewish community, possibly to thank them for raising money to help fund his journey. Joseph left England in 1260, . . . traveling first to France and Greece, then on to the land of Israel, where he subsequently died. He was buried not far from Haifa in a graveyard at the foot of Mount Carmel, alongside many other eminent rabbis.
Read more on BBC History Extra: http://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/the-jews-of-medieval-england