Israel Abrahams died over a hundred years ago, in 1925, leaving a large legacy of writing. The book, by his friend, Herbert Loewe, was written in 1925/6, but not published until 1944. Herbert Loewe had died in 1940, and this book was privately printed as a reproduction of typescript.
Israel Abrahams came from an interesting family with connections to 19th century orthodox Anglo-Jewry. His grandfather was Rabbi Abraham Sussman, who came to England in 1839. He was born in Siedlce in Poland in Chanukah 1801, and was educated in Zelechow, where he studied with Rabbi Boruch of Rukow, a disciple of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, and received semicha (his rabbinical diploma) from Rabbi Yaakov Shimon Ashkenazi Deutsch.
There is an extensive article about Rabbi Abraham Sussman, who became the Chief Shochet (ritual slaughterer) in London, written by his granddaughter, Phyllis Abrahams, in volume XXI of the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England.
Rabbi Abraham Sussman’s son, Dayan Barnet Abrahams, was Israel Abraham’s father. He was originally known as Baruch Leib Sussman and was a student of the Medrash at Bevis Marks, as well as University College, London. In 1854 he was appointed Assistant Dayan at Bevis Marks, and in 1856, Dayan. Sadly, he died at a young age, in 1863.
Israel Abrahams was only five when his father died. For the first 44 years or so of his life he was associated with Jews College (now renamed the London School of Jewish Studies), where he was educated, and subsequently became Senior Tutor. In 1902 he became Reader in Rabbinic and Talmudic Literature at Cambridge. He was a writer, an academic, a journalist and joint editor of the Jewish Review when it was published in London. He was a member of an intellectual group called “The Wandering Jews”, which originally centred around the old St John’s Wood Synagogue in Abbey Road.
His father-in-law was Rev. Simeon Singer, the author of the Authorized daily Prayer Book or Siddur known as the “Singer’s Prayer Book”, and Israel Abrahams wrote a companion volume explaining the Siddur in English, which was publsihed in 1922.
Jewish Miscellanies 