David Aaron De Sola was born in Amsterdam in 1796. In 1818, just 23 years old, he was appointed Assistant Hazan (Cantor) of the Bevis Marks Sephardic synagogue in London. The De Sola family had a long history and association with Bevis Marks, and his kinsman, Isaac De Sola was Hazan in London from 1690 to 1700. David Aaron had a large family, and his eldest son, Abraham, settled in Canada and was the spiritual leader of the Montreal Jewish community.
De Sola was known as “the learned Hazan’ on account of his scholarship and writings. He quickly learned and mastered the English language, and gave sermons in English. He was an assistant to the Haham, Raphael Meldola, whose daughter he married in 1819. After Haham Raphael Meldola died in 1828, David Aaron De Sola assumed the spititual leadership of the English Sephardim. He produced translations of both Sephardi and Ashkenazi liturgy. He died in 1860.
This was his first book, published in 1829, and financed by Moses Montefiore (not knighted until November 1837). My copy has the name ‘Mocatta’ written on the inside cover – a very prominent Sephardi Anglo-Jewish family.
It is a manual on Jewish blessings, in Hebrew with an English translation and interesting explanations of blessings and customs. The English translations, printed under the Hebrew words, are from right to left. There is an introductory essay on the nature of thanksgiving.
As has been noted in other translations and transliterations of this period, the English London Jews pronounciation of Hebrew may have been influenced by the East End London accent. The H sound is sometimes missing or dropped, and so we have ‘Aphtorah, not ‘Haphtorah”. Also, in the book we have the ‘counting of the Homer’.
Following publication of this book, the Elders of the community decided that sermons should occasionally be delivered in English in the Synagogue, and invited anybody who considered himself able to deliver a sermon in English to communicate with the synagogue secretary. There was only one applicant, David Aaron De Sola. At the end of March 1831, the first sermon in English at Bevis Marks was given by him. From February 1833 this was a formal engagement, and De Sola received two pounds per sermon.
Jewish Miscellanies 
I am writing to thank you for your extensive, very interesting and informative website. We came across it as, together with my son, I was searching for the 1948 edition of ‘History of our People in Rabbinic Times’ authored by the late Rev. Joseph Halpern ז”ל, – my father-in-law of blessed memory. My husband is Vivian Morris (Haim Moshe) Halpern. The Rev. Halpern ז”ל came on aliya on retirement, a few years after us, but for reasons only known to himself had deposited all his writings and papers with the University of Southampton where apparently everything is catalogued. Meanwhile, we acquired the small book missing from our collection from a collector here in Jerusalem.
Again, thank you for sharing your collection and knowledge on line for the benefit of the public; I especially appreciate learning a lot about Anglo-Jewish history.
יישר כוחך
Eva (Esther) Halpern