The National Library of Israel has obtained a rare original copy of what is believed to be the world’s earliest kosher cookbook, an English-language volume published in 1846 that provides a unique look at Jewish cooking and household life in Victorian England.
Titled "The Jewish Manual of Modern Cookery, With a Collection of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette", the book was published anonymously under the name “A Lady" and is widely attributed to Lady Judith Montefiore, wife of noted British Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore.
Acquired ahead of the Shavuot holiday, the volume includes some of the earliest known cheesecake recipes in Jewish culinary literature, along with a variety of dairy dishes that align with the holiday’s traditional foods.
The cookbook was first identified in the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library by researchers Ruth L. Gales and Lila T. Gold and later republished in facsimile form in 1983. Subsequent research, including work by the late Chaim Raphael, connected the anonymous author to Lady Judith Montefiore, one of the few Jewish women in Victorian England to hold the title “Lady."
Scholars have pointed to similarities between the recipes in the book and dishes known to have been served in the Montefiore household, lending weight to the attribution, though definitive proof has never been established.
The collection features recipes ranging from cheesecakes and dairy dishes to “Palestine soup," made with veal, chicken, Jerusalem artichokes and spices. It also contains household guidance and beauty advice, including milk-based “cosmetic baths" that were popular among Europe’s upper classes during the period.
In the introduction, the author states that the book was intended “to guide the young Jewish housekeeper in the luxury and economy of ‘The Table,’ on which so much of the pleasure of social interactions depends."
Dr. Chaim Neria, curator of the Haim and Hanna Salomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel, said the acquisition was particularly meaningful because the library previously had access only to a digital copy.
“Its acquisition fits the library’s mission to collect, preserve and make accessible collections of knowledge, heritage and culture of the Jewish people, the State of Israel and the Land of Israel," Neria said.
Judith Montefiore died in Ramsgate in 1862 at the age of 78 and was buried in a mausoleum built by Sir Moses Montefiore near the synagogue he founded there.