ABSTRACT
The first Jewish communities in England were established after the Norman invasion of 1066. The Jews came mostly from France and those who came remained French speaking for a long time. Contemporary Jews in other countries were writing French, Italian, Arabic, Persian, and other languages in Hebrew script, but there is no indication that medieval English Jews ever wrote English in that way. A more organic example of Judeo-English comes from Benjamin Safer a Lithuanian Jew who immigrated to the United States to become the first rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue in Jacksonville, Florida, a position which he held from 1902 to 1933. Among Safer’s surviving papers are several sermonettes written in Judeo-English, which he presumably delivered to his congregation. Copies of the Judeo-English texts of Joseph Solomon Davidson are held by the British Library. Rabbi Benjamin Safer’s Judeo-English sermonettes are available online as part of the University of Florida Digital Collections.
