MELDOLA, RAPHAEL

MELDOLA, RAPHAEL (1754–1828), British rabbi; son of Moses Hezekiah Meldola (1725–1791), professor of Oriental languages in Paris. Raphael was born in Leghorn, received rabbinical ordination there from Ḥ.J.D. Azulai in 1796, became a dayyan in 1803, and in 1804/05 was appointed haham of the Sephardi community in London – an office vacant since the death of Moses Cohen d' Azevedo in 1784. Energetic and capable, he helped to reform the educational institutions of his community in the face of missionary activities, introduced a choir into the synagogue, and cooperated cordially with solomon hirschel , the Ashkenazi chief rabbi. On the other hand, his belligerent nature was responsible for periodic friction with the members of his community. Notwithstanding his imperfect knowledge of English he corresponded extensively with Christian scholars. Before leaving Leghorn, he had published there Ḥuppat Ḥatanim (1797), a handbook on the laws of marital life. He also published sermons and memorial poems: part of his catechism Derekh Emunah (The Way of Faith) appeared with his English translation after his death (1848). His son DAVID (1797–1853), who succeeded him as presiding rabbi though not as haham of the Sephardi community in London, was one of the founders of the jewish chronicle , and ineffectively opposed the movement for religious reform among London Jewry in 1840. A grandson of Raphael's was the British scientist, raphael meldola . -BIBLIOGRAPHY: DNB, S.V.; Roth, Mag Bibl, index; M. Gaster, History of the Ancient Synagogue … Bevis Marks (1901), 159–64; A.M. Hyamson, Sephardim of England (1951), index; Barnett, in: JHSET, 21 (1968), 1–38 (bibl. of Meldola's publications 13–14). (Vivian David Lipman) MELDOLA, RAPHAEL MELDOLA, RAPHAEL (1849–1915), British chemist and naturalist. Meldola was the grandson of raphael meldola , the haham of the London Sephardi community. He worked at the Royal Mint (1868–71), with a firm of color manufacturers, and at the Royal College of Science. In 1875 he led a Royal Society expedition to the Nicobar Islands to observe a total eclipse of the sun. He spent several years as a schoolteacher and in industry and in 1885 became professor of chemistry at Finsbury Technical College, a position he held for over 30 years. Meldola's early investigations were in the fields of natural history and entomology as well as astronomy, but his main interest was dyestuffs. "Meldola's Blue" was the first oxazine dye, and he also discovered the first alkali green. In 1904 he published Chemical Synthesis of Vital Products. Meldola played an important role in the British chemical profession and was president of the Chemical Society and of the Institute of Chemistry, as well as a fellow and vice president of the Royal Society. After his death the Society of maccabeans , of which he had been president, instituted the Meldola Medal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry in his memory. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Marchant (ed.), Raphael Meldola (Eng., 1916); A. Findlay and W.H. Mills, British Chemists (1947), 96–125. (Samuel Aaron Miller) MELEAGER OF GADARA° MELEAGER OF GADARA° (c. 140–70 B.C.E.) was of Syrian parentage and grew up in Tyre. The Palatine Anthology, which includes 130 of his love epigrams (vii. 419, 7–8), exhibits his knowledge of Eastern languages: "If you are a Syrian, Salam\! If you are a Phoenician, Naidius\! If you are a Greek, Chaire\!" His Menippean satires, Cynic sermons in prose mingled with verse (a Semitic form called "maqāma" by the Arabs) are lost. In one of his epigrams (A.P. 5. 160), Meleager sighs for his sweetheart Demo who is naked in another's arms, and disparagingly concludes: "If thy lover is some Sabbath-keeper, no great wonder\! Love burns hot even on cold Sabbaths," an allusion (cf. Rutilius Namatianus) probably to the fact that from a pagan point of view the Sabbath, with its numerous prohibitions, was "cold," i.e., "dull."