In accordance with the more regular pro? gramme explained in the last volume of Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England?annual publication if at all practicable the Publications Committee of the Society has pleasure in presenting Volume XXIII one year after Volume XXII.

With it, following the precedent set in the previous volume, is included Miscellanies, Part VIII. Members of the Society would have received their copies even earlier if the postal strike of early 1971 had not inevitably held up progress just at the time when proofs were to have been corrected (some of our contributors on this occasion live abroad, in Canada and the U.S.A., which added to the difficulties).

This same reason is partly responsible for delays in completing and distributing other works which were approaching completion. Two in particular are now in page-proof form, awaiting final details: an important addition (No. 4) to the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews and the History of the Jews of Ireland, by Louis Hyman. As soon as No. 4 of the Plea Rolls is finished, it is hoped to start work on volume 5?perhaps the final one?in that series, significant for the light it sheds on the life of Jews in medieval England, about which more and more is gradually coming to be known.

Special circumstances will control the publication of two series of papers which were delivered to the Society in conjunction with other bodies. These papers were given in the two sessions 1970 and 1971. In July 1970 the first joint Conference was held by the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Historical Society of England in London, to mark the 75th birthdays, which came close to each other, of the two institutions. A repre? sentative delegation from the U.S.A. Society was welcomed, and members of both Societies delivered papers, followed by discussions and working sessions. The proceedings at this Conference are to be published in a separate volume, to be issued to both Societies.

The year 1970 also marked the Centenary of the foundation of the United Synagogue in London in 1870. The 1970-71 session of the Jewish Historical Society was, by joint arrange? ment with the United Synagogue, devoted, in honour of the event, to a series of papers bearing largely on aspects of the last century in the life of the Anglo-Jewish community, with special reference to events connected with the United Synagogue. This series of papers will also, it is hoped, be published at an early date as a separate volume.

The Publications Committee feel that a new edition of the Nova Bibliotheca, up to the end of 1970, should be published. Miss Ruth Leh? mann compiled the first, which was issued in 1961, and she has prepared fresh material for a new cumulative edition, for sale to members at a reduced price in due course.

Another book now being prepared is one on Solomon de Medina by the late Dr. Oskar K. Rabinowicz, a valued member and generous benefactor of the Society, whose death