MARGOLIOUTH (Margalita), MOSES

MARGOLIOUTH (Margalita), MOSES (1818–1881), English priest. Margoliouth, who was Jewish by birth, was born in Suwalki, Poland. In his youth he studied in yeshivot, and in 1837 he left Poland for Liverpool, where, under the influence of Jewish converts to Christianity, he himself became a Christian in 1838. After his studies at Trinity College, Dublin (1840–44), he served as curate in Liverpool (1844). From 1877 until his death he served as vicar in Little Linford in Buckinghamshire. Among his works are The Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism Investigated (1843 with Margoliouth's autobiography); The History of the Jews of Great Britain (1857); and A Pilgrimage to the Land of My Fathers (1858), a travelogue of Palestine. He was probably, but not certainly, a relative of the father of David Samuel *Margoliouth, whose close friend he was.

His nephew, george margoliouth (1853–1952), like his uncle Moses Margoliouth, converted to Christianity and became an ordained priest of the Church (1881). Margoliouth excelled in biblical and Oriental studies and was in charge of the Hebrew, Syriac, and Ethiopic manuscripts of the British Museum from 1891 to 1914. His works included The Liturgy of the Nile (Palestine Syriac Text, Translation and Vocabulary; 1896); The Palestine Syriac Version of the Holy Scriptures (London, 1897); and the Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum (3 vols.; 1909–15), which has served scholars as a key bibliographical guide to this most important collection.

add. bibliography:

odnb online; Katz, England, 379–80; P. Jones, Moses: A Short Account of the Life of Reverend Moses Margoliouth (1999).

[Alexander Tobias]