Seder Ha’Ashmaroth MeRosh Chodesh Elul Ve’Asereth Yemei Teshuvah

Abraham Monteil, editor of this prayer book, was a native of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, smallest of “the four holy communities” of Comtat Venaissin, the papal territory in Southern France that historically provided a safe haven for Jews fleeing the provinces of Languedoc and Provence, from whence they were expelled by the French monarchs. (The other three communities were: Avignon, Carpentras, and Cavaillon.) The Jews of the Comtat had their own synagogue rite, which Cecil Roth notes to be “of very considerable historical and literary interest.” See C. Roth, “The Liturgy of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin,” Journal of Jewish Bibliography I (1939) p. 99-105.