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m COMMEMORATION OF THE TENTH ANNIVIR* ARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE

AMERICAN ARCHIVES THE DIRECTION Of JACOB RADER MARCUS

»7-5°

Founcifd in 1947 on the Cincinnati
cainpus of the Hebrew Union College -
Jewish Institute of Religion, the American
Jewish Archives has become, in its first
decade of existence, a major research cen-
ter for American Jewish history. This vol-
ume is published as a Festschrift in tribute
to the Archives and its director and guiding
spirit, Jacob Rader Marcus. The score
of essays comprising it have been written
by noted scholars and range over the field
from the sale of a slave in the Brooklyn of
1683 to the activities of a highly-placed
American Jewish leader at the post-war
peace conference of 1919; from a gene-
alogical study of American Jewry in the
Colonial and Early National periods to an
investigation of the American Jew's role
in the United States of today. Many of
the essays cast new light on important
figures like Isaac M. Wise, Isaac Leeser,
David Einhorn, Bernhard Felsenthal, and
Cyrus Adler, while others explore some
hitherto little-known aspects of the Jewish
experience in America — early American
Jewish Hebrew scholarship, for example.
An intriguing picture of American Jewish
economic, cultural, and political life
emerges from this Festschrift to constitute
another contribution to the small, but
growing, body of literature on which rest
the foundations of American Jewish history
as a scientific discipline.

Jacket design: Maurice Delcgator

3 1148 00132 6859

296 H¥i6e 60-02002
Hebrew Union College- Jewish
Institute of Religion
Essays in American Jewish history

PUBUCATIONS OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES • NO.

JACOB RADER MARCUS

Director of the American Jewish Archives

Since Its Inception

ESSAYS IN AMERICAN
JEWISH HISTORY

To Commemorate the Tenth Anniversary
of the Founding

of the
AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

under the direction of
JACOB RADER MARCUS

THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

Cincinnati •

Published on
THE NEUMANN MEMORIAL PUBLICATION FUND

of the
AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 58-12939

THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

On the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College -

Jewish Institute of Religion

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PRESS OF G^^xw^e^ALox€b^ INC.

224 N, 1STH ST., PHILXDELroiA 2, PENNA.

DEDICATED

TO THOSE WHO MADE THE
AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES POSSIBLE

NELSON GLUECK

AND

THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

OF THE
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE - JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION

SPONSORS OF THE

AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES
Tenth Anniversary Volume

OSCAR HANDLIN
BERTRAM W. KORN
RICHARD B. MORRIS
EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Contents

PAGE

Foreword

Nelson Glueck xi

In Appreciation

Bertram W. Korn xiii

Jacob Rader Marcus — A Biographical Sketch

Stanley F. Chyet i

A Decisive Pattern in American Jewish History

Ellis Rivkin * 23

The Sale of a Negro Slave in Brooklyn in 1 683

Abraham G. Duker 63

The Function of Genealogy in American Jewish History

Malcolm H. Stern 69

The Henry Joseph Collection of the Gratz Family Papers at the
American Jewish Archives
M . Arthur Oles 99

Hebrew Grammar and Textbook Writing in Early Nineteenth-
Century America
William Chomsky 123

The Founders of "Wissenschaft des Judentums" and America

Guido Kisch 147

Some Conclusions About Rebecca Gratz

Joseph R. Rosenbloom 171

Some Unrecorded American Judaica Printed Before 1851

Edwin Wolf 2nd 187

The Motivation of the German Jewish Emigration to America in
the Post-Mendelssohnian Era
Selma Stern- Taeubltr 247

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Economic Life of the American Jew in the Middle Nineteenth
Century
Allan Tarshish 263

A Retrospective View of Isaac Leeser's Biblical Work

Matitiahu Tsevat 295

David Einhorn: Some Aspects of His Thinking

Bernhard N. Cokn , 315

Isaac Mayer Wise's "Jesus Himself"

Samuel Sandmel 325

The Temple Emanu-El Theological Seminary of New York City

Bertram W. Korn 359

The Semikah of the Rev. Dr. Kaufmann Kohler

Joshua Block 373

Bernhard Felsenthal's Letters to Osias Schorr

Ezra Spicehandler and Theodore Wiener 379

Rabbi Sabato Morais* Report on the Hebrew Education Society
of Philadelphia
Menahem G. Glenn 407

The Role of Wolf Schur as Hebraist and Zionist

Jacob Kabakoff

The Human Record: Cyrus Adler at the Peace Conference, 1919
Moshe Davis

The Writings of Jacob Rader Marcus

Compiled by Herbert C, Zjafren 493

Index

Compiled by Abraham I. Shinedling 513

Foreword

JL.N 1947, by action of the Board of Governors, the
American Jewish Archives was organized on the Cincinnati
campus of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of
Religion.

The Archives' steady growth, indeed its emergence as a
unique institution in American Jewish life, has been due
primarily to the gifted direction which it has received from
Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus, Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish
History. The able leadership which he has supplied has turned
the Archives from a bare idea into a living reality. The assem-
bling of archival material necessary to describe the history of
Jews in this country was the first step. Thereafter, Dr. Marcus
proceeded, constantly with the strong support of our Board of
Governors, to establish a photoduplication laboratory and to
borrow important materials for photostating or microfilming.
Thus, within the relatively short space of a decade, the American
Jewish Archives has succeeded in assembling over 1,000,000
pages of documentary correspondence, diaries, and congrega-
tional minutes, much of it of great historical importance.

This Festschrift, published on the occasion of the Tenth
Anniversary of the founding of the Archives, is dedicated both
to the institution and to the man who is principally responsible
for its founding. Dr. Jacob R. Marcus, more than anyone else,
has established the study of American Jewish history on a
scientific basis and has caused the principal resources for that
study to be assembled in one place.

On this occasion, I am pleased to salute him as a dear and
close friend, whose scholarly achievements have brought me

FOREWORD

personal pride. On behalf of the Board of Governors and the
College-Institute family, I express the fervent prayer that he
be spared for decades to come and that he be blessed with
health and strength to carry even further his work in the field
of American Jewish history and of our common American
heritage.

NELSON GLUECK
President

Hebrew Union College -Jewish
Institute of Religion

In Appreciation

Jims Festschrift is, formally, a tribute to the Amer-
ican Jewish Archives on the tenth anniversary of its creation,
more than a year late (in keeping with the well-documented
tradition of scholarly celebrations), in view of the fact that the
first announcement of its founding was made in the Hebrew
Union College Bulletin in September, 1947.

Every new academic departure, every scholarly institution,
is in truth the fruit of one man's labor of love. No scientific
society, no scholarly library, no college, ever moved from a
prospectus on paper to fulfillment in reality without the affec-
tionate and whole-souled devotion of one man. The man who
created the American Jewish Archives is Jacob Rader Marcus.
The Archives is the expression of his personality, his high
academic standards, his penetrating search for source materials,
his love of his Judaism and of his America.

Even Professor Marcus himself is probably unable to explain
just why and exactly when his vision shifted from the more
traditional and, in a sense, respected study of the life of the
Jews in Europe (and especially in Germany) to the vast, un-
explored story of Jewish life on the North American continent.
It was probably a combination of several factors: his thorough
preparation for history courses at the Hebrew Union College
(he has always outlined his lectures for the entire year in
advance, and carefully prepared for each session), which made
him deeply aware of our comparative ignorance of the Jewish
past in our own land; his insight into the millennial movement
of Jewish life from center to center, and his comprehension early
in the 1 930' s that, with the growth of Hitlerism, American

IN APPRECIATION

Jewry must inevitably rise to international pre-eminence in the
next period of Jewish history; his own boyhood in the mountains
of West Virginia and a native American's love for his own land;
and, finally, his personal involvement (more so than almost any
American Jewish scholar) in the day-to-day solution of Jewish
problems on the local scene in Cincinnati; in hundreds of other
cities and towns where his students serve as rabbis and consult
him by telephone and letter when plagued by their own prob-
lems, and where he has lectured and taught and learned from
his audiences and hosts; and on the national scene where, in
the councils of organizations like the American Jewish Historical
Society, the B'nai B'rith, the National Jewish Welfare Board,
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Jewish
Publication Society of America, the National Community
Relations Advisory Council, and the Central Conference of
American Rabbis (which he has served as president), to name
only a few, he has participated in efforts to mold the Jewish
future in America.

During the early 1 930*8, Dr. Marcus was studying the contours
of the contemporary Jewish scene, leading his students towards
an understanding of the host of problems which plagued the
Jews in the days of Hitlerism and American economic depression.
Towards the middle of the decade he began, slowly, to gather
source materials to help his students understand the background
of their own time, to assign themes in American Jewish history
for prize essay competitions, and to approve dissertation subjects
in the field. Finally, in the summer of 1942, he launched the
first graduate course for the study of American Jewish history
ever to be taught. It was my privilege to be one of the handful
of students who attended that course. Professor Marcus had
already digested all the known material in the field, had chosen
letters, speeches, pronouncements, and excerpts for the syllabus
for the course, and outlined a methodology for the detailed
xiv

IN APPRECIATION

investigation of certain periods and trends which was to guide
him and his students for years to come. Into that course he had
poured the fruit of years of learning and self-development; he
came to the teaching and writing of American Jewish history
as a mature scholar, trained to understand documents, to
comprehend trends, to ask the right questions, and to hew to
the line of academic accuracy. This will explain the reason for
his meteoric rise to leadership in a field which sorely needed the
guiding hand of a scientific historian.

While Dr. Marcus was preparing for that first course, it was
natural that he should think of all the questions still unanswered,
of all the names of persons about whom nothing was known, of
all the secrets which lay hidden in attics and basements and in
the old desks of descendants of pioneers. In his travels during the
I9305s he began to search through the collections of libraries
and historical societies in every state of the Union, and to track
down persons who might be the owners of family correspondence
files dating back through the centuries. A methodical admin-
istrator, he organized an archive of his own on the third floor of
his home in Cincinnati, filing away thousands of clippings,
notes of interviews, photostats, pamphlets, references, and
quotations. This search for raw source material continued
throughout the war years. His cabinets and drawers began to
bulge at the seams; his students and friends all over the country
caught his enthusiasm and sent him the prizes of their own
searching.

Then came 1946-1947, and Professor Marcus' recognition
that the job of collecting the records of the American Jewish
experience was too big, too important, and too challenging to
be the side line of one man's spare time. With the enthusiastic
blessing and help of Dr. Nelson Glueck and the Board of Gov-
ernors, the American Jewish Archives was formally organized
and housed in the old Bernheim Library on the Hebrew Union

IN APPRECIATION

College campus, and with a few assistants, the Professor began
to collect in earnest: congregational minute books, periodical
files, thousands of pages of records from local governmental
and Federal archives, excerpts from will books, and on and on.
The Archives rapidly came to be the one place in the country
where sources for every aspect of American Jewish history
would be likely to be found or at least known. No project in
American Jewish history could be undertaken without consulting
its vast holdings; no scholar or student would ask questions
without securing some help from its Director and his staff. As
the Archives passed its tenth birthday, it had already achieved
renown as the greatest single depository of American Jewish
historical data in existence.

The time will come (may it be far, far in the future) when
other minds will guide the Archives, but always it will continue
to be an extension of the mind, the personality, and the insight
of its founder. It is the work of his hands. But his hands have
been busy during this time in other ways. As author and an-
notator of documents, he has published works in American
Jewish history, Early American Jewry (in two volumes), and
Memoirs of American Jews: 1775-1865 (in three), which have
become standard references in the field, and has edited the
semiannual journal of the Archives, containing articles and
source materials of great value. He has trained a generation of
scholars to investigate areas of the American Jewish experience
in his own exhaustively methodical fashion. He has helped in
the research and writing of virtually every volume on any
aspect of his chosen field which has been published in the years
since World War II. He has lectured extensively throughout
the United States and Canada, presenting a historian's view of
the past, present, and future of American Jewry. He has served
as chairman of the Publication Committee of the Jewish Pub-
lication Society of America and is now its vice president, and
xvi

IN APPRECIATION

has helped immeasurably to strengthen its program. He has
toured the Caribbean Sea and South America searching for
archival materials. He has helped to instill new life into the
American Jewish Historical Society and has served as its
president for three years, giving richly of his knowledge and his
charm to his associates. He has helped two generations of
American Reform rabbis to achieve a clear and comprehensive
picture of the community which they are to serve. He has been
friend and counselor to rabbis throughout the land to the extent
that they elected him president of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis, the first since the venerable Isaac Mayer
Wise to be so honored while a professor at the Hebrew Union
College.

But all this does not express the man Jacob Rader Marcus.
Perhaps words alone will never be able to fix him clearly.
Words like "warmth," "geniality," "comprehension," "honor,"
"dignity," remain words; they cannot convey the experience
of being with the man, sharing his thoughts, knowing his
idealism, receiving his help, partaking of the excitement of
discovery with him, and, above all, learning, from his vast
store of knowledge, not only of Jewish history, but also of the
human situation and the role of man in God's world.

Philadelphia, Pa. BERTRAM W. KORN

xvn

ESS ATS IN
AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

Jacob Racier Marcus

A Biographical Sketch

STANLEY F. CHYET

JACOB RADER MARCUS was twenty years old in
1916, In that year, he published one of his earliest articles — in
the Jewish Community Bulletin of Wheeling, West Virginia. The
article was entitled, "America: The Spiritual Center of Jewry."
American Jewish history would have some thirty years to wait
before its foundations as a scientific historical study were estab-
lished, largely through the efforts of this son of immigrant
parents, but already in the youth of twenty there stirred love
and concern for the life of American Jewry,

In the year 1889, a twenty-four-year-old immigrant named
Aaron Marcus arrived in New York from Hamburg, Germany.
The German port had been but a way station for the young
man who had been known as Markelson in his native Lithuania
and in Tiflis where he had served in the army of the Czar.
Marcus was the name which Aaron Markelson had taken for
himself during the months he spent in Germany. Perhaps that
was how he washed away the luckless Eastern past which had

Rabbi Stanley F. Chyet is the Harrison Jules Louis Frank and Leon Harrison
Frank Research Fellow in American Jewish History at the Hebrew Union College -
Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

STANLEY F. GHYET

permitted a lung ailment to claim his father's young life, had
invoked the May Laws of 1882 to dispossess the Markelsons of
their old homestead at Podwerynka, and had compelled Aaron
himself to endure five military years in the Caucasus.

New York, too, proved only a way station. Little more than
a year after his arrival in America, Aaron Marcus found his
way to Pittsburgh. Why he went there is unknown, but we
know that he peddled his way there with a basket of notions. It
was in Pittsburgh that he became an American citizen, and it
was there, too, that he married Jennie Reider (pronounced
"Rader"), about the year 1893. A year later, Jennie Rader
Marcus gave birth to their first child, whom they named Isaac,
after Aaron's father. Jennie's father, Isaiah Reider, had been a
practicing physician in the Lithuanian gubernia of Kovno.
Although lacking a medical degree, he had performed opera-
tions with anesthetics. In all likelihood, he had studied at a
medical school in Russia or Austria, but in accordance with
the anti-Semitic dictates of the time, had never received a
diploma. During the early iSgo's, he had come to New York
to practice medicine, but had soon returned to Europe. Jennie
and some of her sisters had remained in the United States.

After some experiences, most of which were not particularly
happy, in the Pittsburgh steel mills, Aaron Marcus became a
peddler of tinware. The panic of the early 1 890*3 may have
been largely responsible for his withdrawal from the steel mills*
Before long he turned from peddling tinware to peddling cloth-
ing in the coal-and-coke-oven area around Gonnellsville and
New Haven, Pennsylvania, and the Marcus family soon moved
to New Haven. There, on March 5, 1896, a second son was
born, Jacob Rader. Some three years later, Jennie Marcus gave
birth to twins, Frank and Ethel.

Sometime after Jacob's birth, Aaron Marcus traveled briefly
through East Texas, but the lawlessness of the region soon

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

persuaded him to return to Pennsylvania. Around 1900, when
Jacob Marcus was four, the family settled in Homestead,
Pennsylvania, a town on which, in 1892, the violence of the
iron and steel workers5 strike had conferred a dubious fame.
Aaron Marcus opened a clothing store in Homestead, and the
Marcuses remained in the neighborhood until 1907, when
Aaron went into business on the south side of Pittsburgh,

Jacob Marcus* memories of Homestead have little to do with
the labor strife that had made the town notorious four years
before his birth. He remembers selling newspapers — not very
successfully — with his older brother Isaac, and working in
his fathers store when he was no older than ten. At Theodor
HerzPs death in 1904, he sold pictures of the great dreamer for
the benefit of Homestead's local Zionist society, which Aaron
Marcus probably served as secretary. He also attended the local
afternoon cheder (traditional Jewish religious school), where he
learned to read a few Hebrew texts, though never to translate
them, and heard an occasional talmudic tale from the teacher,
who was a shohet (ritual slaughterer) as well, and slaughtered
chickens in the backyard of the synagogue. It was in Homestead,
too, that Jacob Marcus' love for history first awakened. Home-
stead had a Carnegie library, and the young boy patronized it
liberally. He began reading the historical novels of George
Alfred Henty, There were dozens of the Henty juveniles, and
Jacob continued to read them when the family moved to
Pittsburgh. There, too, his Hebrew education was continued
as, during the week, a melammed (religious tutor) would visit
the house on Carson Street, and on Sundays the boy would
cross the Monongahela to attend religious school at the Beth
Midrash Hagadol on Washington Street.

Pittsburgh, as it turned out, was but another of Aaron Marcus5
way stations. In 1907 or 1908, his business failed, and the
family moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, where it remained

STANLEY F. CHYET

some eight years. Here, in Wheeling, Jacob Marcus began high
school, became bar mitzvah (attained, in traditional fashion, his
religious majority) at the Orthodox synagogue, and attended
Sunday school at the Eoff Street Reform Congregation, whose
rabbi at the time was Harry Levi, later of Temple Israel in
Boston. It was Marcus' first contact with Reform Jewry and
the Reform rabbinate.

About two years after the family's arrival in Wheeling,
Marcus was confirmed at the Reform temple — in June, 1910.
He continued, however, to regard himself as an Orthodox Jew,
and the fact that "ethnic" lines were at the time drawn rather
sharply in towns like Wheeling only strengthened his views.
When, therefore, in 1910, Rabbi Levi suggested to him that he
consider a career in the Reform rabbinate, the young confirmand
balked. Levi, in whose debt Marcus has always felt himself, had
been impressed by the boy's achievements at the Sunday school.
Even at that early age, largely as a result of his voracious reading
of historical novels and the example of his father, who loved to
read the Hebrew Bible, Jacob Marcus had acquired a note-
worthy command of biblical history. He was the outstanding
student at the Sunday school. Levi's suggestion, however, did
not please the Marcus family, to whom at the time the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, Solomon Schechter's Con-
servative school in New York, appeared more attractive than
the Hebrew Union College, the Reform seminary in Cincinnati.
The rabbi was persistent, nonetheless, and in addition to
teaching his young prot6g6 Hebrew translation and grammar,
he lent him a number of Jewish books. At about the same time,
the boy read Israel Abrahams' Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,
a book which greatly appealed to him. His growing interest in
history was further reflected in the pleasure which he derived
from his classes in ancient and medieval history at the Wheeling
high school, where he also studied some Latin.

JACOB RADER MARCUS A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Jacob Marcus was fifteen in 1911. In the fall of that year,
he went to Cincinnati to begin his rabbinical training at the
Hebrew Union College, which was then located on Sixth Street,
in the downtown slums, and was presided over by Kaufmann
Kohler. He attended classes at Woodward and later at Hughes
High School in the morning, and went to the seminary in the
afternoon. After graduating from Hughes in 1913, he matric-
ulated at the University of Cincinnati and continued his studies
at the College. An observant Orthodox adolescent in the heart
of Reform, the "emigre" from Wheeling was, initially at least,
somewhat frightened and homesick. The intellectual growth
which he underwent in the "Queen City" was, however, un-
conscious, but impressive. In high school, he studied English
literature, particularly Shakespeare, as well as Latin, Greek,
and German. Around 1913, he also studied ecclesiastical history
for a year, at Cincinnati's Lane Theological Seminary. He
was the best student in the class — much to the astonishment,
no doubt, of his classmates and instructors, who must have
wondered at the precocious youngster. Some of them attempted
to convert the "young Hebrew," as they called him, but Marcus,
who had come to understand that they meant him no harm,
was not offended. The experience of living closely with Christians
for the first time in his life tended to broaden his spiritual
horizons. Years later, when he participated in Reform-sponsored
Institutes of Judaism for the Christian clergy, the constant give
and take of argument with Christian clergymen served to extend
his horizons even further and, at the same time, to give him a
precise understanding of the liberal faith towards which he
had slowly and painfully made his way.

At the University, Marcus was particularly enthralled by
Merrick Whitcomb's lectures on medieval history and on the
French Revolution. Marcus' exposure to American history,
curiously enough, appeared anything but promising; he was

STANLEY F. CHYET

only negatively impressed by Isaac Joslin Cox, who lectured
in that subject.

The Hebrew Union College, which shortly after Marcus'
arrival in Cincinnati had moved to its present site on Clifton
Avenue, offered him an intellectual experience rather different
from the one which he was afforded at the University. There,
at the College, under the exacting guidance of Julian Morgen-
stern and Henry Englander, Jacob Marcus made substantial
gains in his grasp of Hebrew grammar and biblical criticism.
Although, in spare moments during those early years in Cincin-
nati, he had begun to read the English translation of Heinrich
Graetz's History of the Jews purely for pleasure, he came before
very long to detect in himself more than a passing taste for
general Jewish history. Scholarship grants enabled him to begin
building a large Jewish library, and he read widely, if not
wisely. Almost from the very beginning, he evinced a warm
interest in the history of his people. A more formal instruction in
Jewish history was provided him at the College by Gotthard
Deutsch. It was Deutsch, more than anyone else at the time, or
perhaps even since, who made Marcus alive to the study that
was ultimately to become the substance of his intellectual life*
Marcus himself has said of Deutsch:

He became a great influence on me* In part, he influenced me because
of his personality. For the most part, I was influenced by his method.
He was essentially a skeptic, a realist. He believed practically nothing
in history. He believed only in facts, and wanted to be pretty sure
before he would accept the fact. He was in essence an annalist* He
was also a great deal of a debunker .... Deutsch emphasized the
anecdote, social history, and was very much interested in the details
of the lives of individuals. I was influenced by this approach. *

The extent to which this influence continued to operate, the
fruit which it bore, commands perhaps no testimony more

* This and the follo\ving direct quotations arc taken from a brief autobiographical
manuscript prepared by Dr. Marcus.

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

•eloquent than the two volumes of Early American Jewry and the
three of Memoirs of American Jews: 1775-1865 which Marcus, by
then become one of the most distinguished of American rabbis
and Jewish historians, was to publish some three and a half
decades later.

Julian Morgenstern, too, exerted a considerable influence on
the developing young scholar. Morgenstern, to be sure, was "a
severe teacher," but Marcus "learned to enjoy his classes" in
biblical criticism. From Morgenstern he "really learned the
critical method." It was, as the years would bear abundant
witness, a lesson of paramount importance and value.

Yet Marcus was not content with Cincinnati alone. During
one of his vacations from the College, he spent a financially
precarious summer at the University of Chicago Divinity School
where, among other things, he waited on tables and studied
Egyptian history with James H. Breasted.

In 1914, the Hebrew Union College student body founded its
own literary magazine. The first number of the Hebrew Union
College Monthly appeared in June of that year under the editorship
of an upperclassman, Abba Hillel Silver. Eight issues were
published that first year, and the last two, dated April and
May of 1915, included two book reviews by a member of the
class of 1919, Jacob Marcus. As he himself has said, he "worked
very laboriously" on these productions. In one of them, a
review of Israel Cohen's Jewish Life in Modern Times, Marcus
took Cohen to task for forgetting, in his Zionist zeal, that he
was "supposed to be an impartial historian." Later, in 1917,
Marcus himself became editor of the Hebrew Union College
Monthly.

It was in 1916 that Marcus received his first professional
fee — $10.00 — from Joseph Jacobs, the editor of the American
Hebrew, for an article on the famous Eastern European Yiddish
writer, Mendele Mocher Seforim. Conscientious scholar that

STANLEY F. GHYET

he already was, it was a source of some grief to him that he had
had to work from secondary sources only, and the ten dollars
did not make him feel any better. He was all too painfully
aware of his inadequate grasp of primary materials, not to
mention his meager knowledge of the classical languages and
of rabbinic Hebrew. During the years to come, he went to
great pains to make up the deficiency.

On April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson led the United
States into the war against Germany, and all of Marcus5
scholastic plans were temporarily suspended. Some three weeks
later, on the thirtieth of April, two months before he was to
receive his B.A. degree from the University of Cincinnati,
Marcus volunteered as a private in the United States Army,
although as a theological student he was exempt from the
draft. Fortunately, during the first months with the Army,
Marcus was stationed in Ohio and was able to take his bac-
calaureate at the University in June.

The Army, by Marcus' own testimony, "settled" him. He
"ran into some anti-Semitism, but, on the whole, . . . was well
treated.55 Shortly after his graduation from the University of
Cincinnati, he was sent to France, where he spent some nine
or ten months with the American Expeditionary Force. Happily,
though under fire on several occasions, he was spared participa-
tion in active engagements, and passed most of his French
sojourn in a relatively quiet sector. Throughout his military
service, he conducted religious services for his Jewish comrades,
frequently right behind the lines. Out of his wartime experiences
caine a number of articles, including "The Jewish Soldier"
in the Hebrew Union College Monthly in 1918, "Lost: Judaism in
the AEF; the Urgent Need for Welfare Workers55 in the American
Hebrew in 1919, and, in the same year, "Religion and the
Jewish Soldier55 in The Community Voice of the Allentown [Pa.]
8

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Jewish Community Center. By the time he was separated from
the service in May, 1919, he had risen to a second lieutenant's
rank and was the acting commander of his company in the
1 45th United States Infantry. He was then twenty-three
years old.

In June, 1920, a year after his return from the Army, Jacob
Marcus was ordained a rabbi at the College in Cincinnati.
In fulfillment of the College's requirements for ordination, he
had written a thesis of some 200 pages, An Investigation into Polish
Jewish Life of the Sixteenth Century with Special Reference to Isaac
ben Abraham^ Author of Hizzuk Emunah. Shortly after Marcus3
ordination, David Philipson, the rabbi of Cincinnati's Bene
Israel Congregation and a powerful member of the College's
Board of Governors, recommended to President Kohler that
the young scholar be appointed to the College faculty as an
instructor in Bible and Rabbinics. At first, the new instructor
was authorized to teach only biblical history and other subjects
in Bible and Rabbinics, but on Deutsch's death in 1921, Marcus
found himself in charge of all the College's classes in general
Jewish history. He also found himself among the executors of
Deutsch's literary estate, an experience that in itself was to
have meaning for his future development:

When I saw how [Deutsch's] books were thrown around, I lost all
respect for books as sacred entities in themselves. Since that time, I
have never hesitated, when necessary, to destroy a book by marking
it as I saw fit. I have learned that books are instruments and not
masters.

Deutsch, his brilliance, critical acumen, and insight not-
withstanding, had been a thoroughly unsystematic teacher.
Now, under Marcus' aegis, the students at the College had to
read Jewish history systematically for the first time in a genera-
tion. Yet his new duties quickly convinced Marcus that his

STANLEY F. GHYET

own inadequacies in the field of Jewish history stood in need of
substantial correction, and he determined to subject himself to
the discipline of a European training.

The Marcus family had, in the meantime, moved to Farm-
ington, West Virginia, where at length it had achieved a
measure of prosperity. With his father's help, therefore, the
erstwhile soldier found it possible, in the summer of 1922, to
return to Europe, this time as a student. He remained there
four years.

Marcus* European pilgrimage had been motivated primarily
by his desire to study with Ismar Elbogen at Berlin's Jewish
theological seminary, the Lehranstalt. For the most part, how-
ever, as it turned out, he studied at the University of Berlin.
Originally it had been his intention to explore the social and
economic history of the Middle Ages, but he soon discovered
that he was inadequately equipped to execute his plan and
that, in many areas, he would have to "start from scratch,"
as it were. He sought for himself, therefore, private instruction
in Medieval Latin, Hebrew, and Middle High German. Among
his tutors was Fritz Baer, whom Marcus has since characterized
as, "technically, the greatest historian we [Jews] have yet
produced."

Perhaps the chief of his obstacles, Marcus found, was his
lack of ease in reading German. It took him a year before he
was able to read German with a measure of fluency, and at
length, in the summer of 1923, finding that he had too much
occasion to speak English — and too little to speak German —
in Berlin, he went to Kiel to perfect his grasp of the language.
He did learn German in Kiel, but missed there Berlin's Jewish
associations, so vital, he felt, to his Jewish development. He
also missed in Kiel the stimulus of men like Fritz Baer and
Jacob Jacobsbn, the archivist for German Jewry, and the
companionship of the 'cellist Maurice Eisenberg, a fellow

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

American, He missed, too, the warmth of the Chassidic services
to which he had been attracted in Berlin's East European
ghetto and the glow of the ultra-Orthodox Adath Israel Syn-
agogue of which, liberal religionist though he was, he had
become a contributing member. Other Berlin synagogues,
notably the Jewish Reform Congregation in the Johannisstrasse
and the Orthodox Alte Synagoge in the Heidereutergasse,
failed to compel his interest, Marcus' intimates are well aware
of the fact that the former West Virginian with his dry humor
and his ironic "wisecracks" is no "highbrow." He is not overly
fond of pompous people* As in later years with music, so now
with synagogal worship, he preferred schmaltz to elegance and
restraint*

Life in Germany proved "desperately lonely" for him. It
was, in many respects, the first year in Cincinnati all over
again. He was compelled to work very hard, and found little
time to make friends. The loneliness was somewhat alleviated,
however, in the summer of 1923 when three College friends
from Cincinnati — Nelson Glueck, Walter E. Rothman, and
Sheldon H. Blank — arrived in Germany to pursue doctoral
studies. In that year of 1923, Marcus also met Antoinette Brody,
a young music student from New York.

The scholastic labors which Marcus had so tirelessly endured
since his arrival in Berlin three years before led, in October,
1925, to his Ph.D. degree. Since the University authorities in
Berlin declined to accept a Jewish subject, he was advised to
write his doctoral dissertation on the mercantile relations
between England and the Hanseatic League. That dissertation,
Die handelspolitischen Beziehungen zwischen England und Deutschland
in den Jahren 1576-1585, was published in Berlin by Eberling in
1925. It was dedicated to "Pretty Nettie Brody."

By the spring of 1924, Marcus had fallen in love with
Antoinette Brody, and at the end of 1925, the two were married

STANLEY F. GHYET

in Paris, where he had gone to study French. After a brief
honeymoon, Antoinette returned to Berlin to continue her
studies. Marcus had intended to remain in Paris for some time,
but a few days later followed "Pretty Nettie" back to Berlin.

In the fall of 1926, Marcus returned to Cincinnati, but not
until he had first spent three months in Palestine. His hope had
been to learn modern Hebrew, but it had met with only partial
realization. Four difficult years in Europe had left him too
fatigued to endure the rigors of a kibbutz existence, and it was
in the kibbutzim that Hebrew-speaking people were to be found.
He did, however, learn to read modern Hebrew.

Formidable though his years abroad had been, and insuper-
able as some of the obstacles which he encountered must have
seemed, the European sojourn was of permanent value to him.
In Europe, Marcus had found — and seized upon • — the op-
portunity to become a cultured as well as a learned human
being. Despite his thralldom to a relentless doctoral program,
he had found time to associate with artists, musicians, and
other people of culture. The association had not failed of effect.
He had, moreover, disciplined himself to accept the unremitting
demands of a life of scientific scholarship. If, in the years to
come, that would not lead to a life of great leisure and social
activity, it would lead to a life of personal creativity and achieve-
ment. He was fortunate, too, for although Antoinette's interests
were primarily musical, she remained admirably patient with
all the demands which her husband's academic work made on
both their lives and did everything to further Marcus* career.
His wife's gaiety and joie de viure, moreover, presented a much-
needed contrast to Marcus' tense and even hypersensitive
temperament.

The years which followed his return to the College in 1926
presented him with many opportunities and many challenges.
In May of 1929, his wife bore him a daughter. Merle, now an
12

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

accomplished musician and actress living in New York City.
His relationship to her has always been very close, and the two
have always enjoyed a warm camaraderie. The year 1929 also
brought the bitter hardship of the great depression. New prob-
lems and responsibilities beset him upon the death of Aaron
Marcus in April, 1932. Marcus* courses at the College were
subject, moreover, to frequent changes, and he was constantly
under the necessity of exploring new areas of Jewish scholarship.
In the course of his years at the College, he found himself
entrusted with classes in history, Bible, Rabbinics, modern
Hebrew, ceremonials, and other subjects. Yet, as a teacher, he
learned a great deal.

Particularly in Jewish history, Marcus achieved for himself
an excellent background. Early in his career, he worked through
all the eleven volumes of Graetz's History of the Jews., both in
German and in Hebrew, and with all the notes. For Marcus,
Graetz was, and remained, "the great master." He has said of
Graetz:

He is a fabulous figure, and I am annoyed when people attack him.
His arrangement of material is bad, but he had vision and ideas,
imagination and verve, and a tremendous capacity to absorb material.
On the whole, his methodology is excellent. He is as much a genius
for the Jews as [Leopold von] Ranke for general history. It is too bad
that Graetz never came to history as a [professional] historian, but
primarily as a literary historian.

Marcus himself worked through many of the basic source
materials. Unlike Graetz, he had come to Jewish history as a
professional historian with a general historical background. In
his approach to history, Marcus made every effort to avoid an
unscientific chauvinism. It was rather accuracy and critical
methodology that occupied him and fashioned his presentation
of historical material. He had "no special angles as a Jew in
writing history," and the general background always seemed

STANLEY F. CHYET

important to him. He attempted, then as now, to interpret
his material "in the light of its own time and ideals and prej-
udices, but at the same time . . . to relate the material to
present-day Jewish life and institutions and present-day Jewish
interests. . . ." And so, as the years following his return from
Europe passed, he continued to work and to grow. A spate of
articles issued from his study. Still, as an ominous "New Order"
dawned in Central Europe, no book had come from his pen.

Actually, Marcus had written a "book" in 1928. Published in
the thirty-eighth volume of the Central Conference of American
Rabbis Tearbook> it had simply not appeared in book form. That
first "book" was "Israel Jacobson," a study of the founder of
German Reform. In Marcus' opinion, "nothing better has ever
been written" on the subject, and he still considers it one of his
best works. It was subsequently republished as an offprint.

With the Nazis' rise to power in Germany, Marcus found
himself importuned to write on the situation as it affected the
Jews. Reluctant at first to do so, he consented at length, and in
1 934 — the same year in which he became a full professor of
Jewish history at the Hebrew Union College — the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations published his first "hard*
cover" book, The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew. The work
went through two editions, and a year later extracts from it
were published under the title, "Les Juifs et le Nouvel fitat
Allemand," in UUnivers Israelite of Paris. In this book, Marcus
made certain predictions concerning the future of German
Jewry. The fact that later events proved most of them wrong
has always been a source of wry amusement to him, As Marcus
himself has said, this did not mean that he was a poor historian:

When it comes down to guessing, dealing with human intentions,
the ignoramus is just as competent as the scientist. The ignoramus
has a fifty per cent chance of being right which is just as much or
just as little as the scientist has*

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Marcus' next work of singular importance did not appear
until 1 938. In that year, he published a documentary anthology,
The Jew in the Medieval World: a Source Book: 315-1791. In
preparing that book, Marcus investigated hundreds of different
medieval Jewish sources. He was able, consequently, to acquire
an exceedingly thorough background in the entire field of
medieval Jewish history. In the meantime, in 1935, he had
published A Brief Introduction to the Bibliography of Modern Jewish
History and, in 1937, with Albert T. Bilgray, An Index to Jewish
Festschriften.

With the publication of The Jew in the Medieval World, Marcus
believed that he had found the field in which he wanted to
work: the social, cultural, and economic background of Central
European Jewry from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.
Many of the materials relevant to this period, both printed
matter and manuscripts, were in Early Modern Yiddish, which
he had learned to read with facility. In the course of time, he
assembled a large archives of original material, mastered much
of the technical terminology, and learned a great deal about
the societal structure of the period. A decade of work in this
research culminated at length in a number of essays and in a
book, Communal Sick-Care in the German Ghetto, published by the
Hebrew Union College Press in 1947. The book, based as it is
on rarely exploited sources, remains sui generis in Jewish histor-
ical research. In May of the preceding year, the Board of
Governors appointed him the Adolph S, Ochs Professor of
Jewish History.

By the time that Communal Sick-Care appeared, the extent of
the Nazi atrocities had been revealed, and Marcus knew that
the Central European Jewry to whose earlier history he had
so long devoted himself was now no more than a ghostly
shambles. The Hitlerian catastrophe was a terrible shock to
this man who had written in 1934 that,

STANLEY F. GHYET

barring wholesale expulsion or massacre, which seem rather remote
even under the implacable hatred of the National Socialists, what
has been called the "Jewish genius for survival" will manifest itself
in Germany* (The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew, p. 300)

Marcus knew now, in 1947, that for the Jews, "Europe was
dead." For him, too, it was dead. The training and background
in research which he had developed over the years in dealing
with European Jewish history he directed now to an investigation
of American Jewish history.

It was not, however, a sudden volte-Jace. As he himself has
said,

By 1943, I was veering toward American Jewish history, although I
did not realize that I was. I had long realized that America was to
be the great center of Jewish life for the future. I had known it years
before this.

As early as March, 1931, in a Founder's Day address delivered
at the Hebrew Union College, Marcus had turned his attention
to "The Americanization of Isaac Mayer Wise," and all
through the 1930*5 he had come to place increased emphasis on
American Jewry in his courses on general Jewish history. In
1933, the second volume of The American Scholar had included an
article which he had written on "Zionism and the American
Jew." As early, indeed, as 1934, he had been a member of the
American Jewish Historical Society. In 1942, although by no
means fully aware of the extent of the Hitlerian tragedy,
he nevertheless "sensed the growing importance of American
Jewish history," for in the summer of that year he had conducted
the first required course in American Jewish history to be
given in an American college. It was a year later that he had
drawn up "A Brief Bibliography of American Jewish History"
for the Jewish Book Annual, 1943-44, and had written an article
on "Jews" for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The latter dealt with
Jewish life in the modern world and contained material relating
16

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

to Jews in the United States. Reprinted in subsequent issues of
the Britannica, it was the first attempt at a scientific account of
American Jewish history in a standard reference work.

It was during the 1 940*8 that, spurred by his growing interest
in American Jewish history, Marcus suggested to his old friend,
Walter E. Rothman, then librarian of the Hebrew Union
College, that an American Jewish archives be developed at the
Library. With Rothman's aid, a collection of American Jewish
materials was initiated. In 1946, as chairman of its Committee
on Contemporary History and Literature, Marcus recommended
to the Central Conference of American Rabbis, convened in
Chicago, that congregations undertake to collect and preserve
all their records, and in the following year he recommended to
the Montreal convention of the Central Conference that the
National Jewish Welfare Board be requested to sponsor a
ccjewish History Week." Nine years before, Marcus had pre-
vailed upon his friend, Frank L. Weil, of the Jewish Welfare
Board, to allocate to the American Jewish Historical Society a
substantial sum to finance the Society's quarterly. Although,
a few years later, the Welfare Board found it necessary to
withdraw its support from the venture, the Society was able
to continue publication of its journal.

In 1947, one of Marcus5 great dreams was realized. In that
year, Marcus asked President Nelson Glueck's support for the
nascent archives, and was instructed to establish a more exten-
sive, separate national institution. With the help of J. Victor
Greenebaum, a Cincinnati physician and a member of the
Hebrew Union College Board of Governors, the board's finan-
cial support was obtained, and the American Jewish Archives
was established on the Cincinnati campus with its own building
and staff and with Marcus as its Director. In time, the Archives
became the largest institution of its kind, not only in the Amer-
ican Jewish, but in the general Jewish world as well. Literally

STANLEY F. GHYET

hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages of American
Jewish historical materials, many of them on microfilm, were
assembled under its roof, and in June, 1948, the first number of
the semiannual American Jewish Archives was published.

In the decade since its founding, the Archives has become one
of the major research centers of American Jewish history, with
the result, as Marcus has said, that "no history of American
Jewry can be written without recourse to [its] material." Among
the Archives' holdings today are huge collections of the minutes
of Jewish congregations and of various Jewish societies as well
as many special collections, including the papers, originals or
copies, of the colonial Rhode Island merchant-prince Aaron
Lopez, the Canadian merchant Samuel Jacobs, Jacob H. Schiff,
Louis Marshall, Felix M. Warburg, Julius Rosenwald, and a
host of prominent rabbis and Jewish lay leaders. The basic
records of American Jewry since the eighteenth century, as well
as many seventeenth-century materials, are well represented
in the Archives, and many of these sources have been catalogued
so as to facilitate their use by scholars. In addition, detailed
indices of American Jewish materials in European periodical
literature have been prepared.

Not content with these achievements, Marcus has enlisted
the aid of interested scholars, largely students and graduates
of the College, in preparing a number of reference works basic
to research in American Jewish history. It is not too much to
say that he has created a "school" of American Jewish history.
Dozens of graduates have written rabbinic theses in this new
field. Thus he encouraged Earl A. Grollman to compile a
lexicon of seventeenth-century American Jews, published as a
"Dictionary of American Jewish Biography in the Seventeenth
Century" in the American Jewish Archives of June, 1950; and he
assisted Joseph R. Rosenbloom in the preparation of a similar
lexicon for eighteenth-century American Jewry. Under his
18

JACOB RADER MARCUS — A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

guidance, Allan Tarshish has written on nineteenth-century
German American Jewry, and Malcolm H. Stern has drawn
up the genealogical tables so necessary and hitherto so woefully
lacking in this research. He has, furthermore, inspired Bertram
W. Korn to publish a number of valuable books, including
American Jewry and the Civil War, Eventful Tears and Experiences:
Studies in Nineteenth Century American Jewish History, and The
American Reaction to The Mortara Case: 1858-1859, the latter two
published by the Archives itself. Among other ventures spon-
sored by the Archives are an index to Isaac Leeser's periodical,
The Occident, from 1843 to ^69, currently being prepared by
Abraham I. Shinedling; a supplement to Abraham S. Wolf
Rosenbach's bibliographical work on American Judaica up to
1850; and a projected bibliographical catalogue to list all
American Judaica from 1851 to 1860.

In the spring of 1956, Marcus established the American
Jewish Periodical Center for the microfilming of every Jewish
serial published in the United States between 1823 and 1925,
and of a selective group after that. The purpose of the
Center is to make available to Jewish scholars throughout the
world microfilms of Jewish periodical literature on interlibrary
loan.

Yet in the midst of all these activities, and in the face of a
protracted illness which led to the death of Antoinette Marcus
in July, 1953, Marcus continued to teach at the College and to
pursue his own research projects. He continued also to build
his private library of Americana. Comprising an extensive
collection of manuscript as well as printed materials, it is
probably the most complete grouping of the basic tools of
American Jewish historical research in existence. In 1949, his
colleagues in the Reform rabbinate had honored him with
election to the presidency of the Central Conference of American
Rabbis, In 1956, his colleagues in American Jewish scholarship

STANLEY F. GHYET

paid their tribute by electing him to the presidency of the
American Jewish Historical Society.

In 1951, the Jewish Publication Society of America published
the first of his two volumes of Early American Jewry. This dealt
with the Jews of New York, New England, and Canada between
1649 and 1794. The second volume, dealing with the Jews of
Pennsylvania and the South between 1655 anc* 179°> was
published by the Society in 1953. As had been the case with
Communal Sick-Care in European Jewish historical research, so,
too, in American Jewish historical research, Early American
Jewry was sui generis. About a fourth of the second volume was
devoted to a survey of American Jewry's first century and a
half. The Jewish Publication Society said of that survey that
"for brevity, clarity, and inclusiveness nothing like it has yet
been done." Indeed, among the handful of books that constitute
the scientific literature of American Jewish history, nothing can
rank higher than the two volumes of Early American Jewry,
Yet, for all that, the volumes were written with such skill that
the lay reader, not to mention the scientific historian, could
approach them with as much pleasure as profit.

Early American Jewry was followed, in 1955, ^Y Memoirs of
American Jews: 1775-1865, three volumes of American Jewish
autobiographical material. Published by the Jewish Publication
Society, these volumes, too, will serve as a basic source for
mid-nineteenth-century American Jewish history.

Honors, sorrows, and achievements have not caused Marcus
to slacken in his labors. He appears virtually tireless in pursuit
of the goals which he has set for himself and for a scientific
American Jewish history. He has just completed a large-scale
documentary collection dealing with eighteenth-century Amer-
ican Jewry. It is scheduled to appear in the winter of 1958. For
some years, too, he has been working on a history of Colonial
American Jewry through 1776. He plans then "to write a
20

JACOB RADER MARCUS A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

briefer general history of American Jewry and to sum up [his]
studies and researches in the field." His approach to the work
which he has undertaken with such ardor and dedication, and
with such notable results, is nowhere better expressed than in
his own words:

I have no specific philosophy of American Jewish history. As in
general Jewish history, I believe that the Jew is closely integrated
with his background. This is particularly true in America where the
Jews have never been a distinct political group, but always part of
the American body politic. I am very much interested in the religious,
social, economic, and cultural life of the Jew here. I believe that he
is a cultural entity, has always been one, and will always remain one.
I believe that every datum in American Jewish history must be
carefully analyzed from the Jewish and the general points of view, in
relationship to Jewish and general backgrounds. I think it is a mistake,
however, to relate Jewish history too closely to some of the major
movements in general American history. . . . The American Jew is
not completely subject to his general American background. His
history may be, to a certain extent, independent of that background,
although that background must always be very closely studied.

We have had rather little to say of Marcus in relationship
to his students — and for the best of reasons. This man has
exerted so profound and incalculable an influence, both personal
and professional, on those who have studied under him that, in
writing of him, it is difficult to avoid a degree of feeling which
would acutely embarrass him. Suffice it, then, to say that no
man in the world of Jewish scholarship today could be more
universally or more deservedly loved and reverenced. Were it
only for the deep interest which Marcus has always taken in his
students and for the unaffected sympathy which he has always
evinced for their problems, personal as well as academic, this
would be true. But there has been much more: his qualities of
personal warmth and graciousness, blended as they are with a

STANLEY F. CHYET

stern and unrelenting quest for truth and for accuracy, have
significantly broadened the horizons of knowledge and percep-
tion for more than a few students.

Alive to the challenge of the past, Marcus has never lost
sight of the future. Whatever the devotion and concentration
which he has summoned to his study of the Jewish past, it has,
all of it, been motivated by devotion and concern for the Jewish
future. That future will be immeasurably the richer for his-
labors in its behalf.

A Decisive Pattern in

American Jewish History

ELLIS RIVKIN

IHE history of the Jews is a history of involvement.
It is not simply the history of a people living in a specific ge-
ographical area whose development can be treated as something
largely distinct and separate. Jewish history is not the history
of a self-evolving entity. It is always, at one and the same time,
both a history of that which is distinct, that which has had its
special delineation in time, and of that which is interwoven
with the fate of empires and civilizations. The history of the
Jews is intermeshed with the history of the ancient Near East,
the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, the Sassanian dynasty,
and the Moslem, Christian, and Western civilizations. It cannot
be torn from its larger context, although it is not identical with
that context.

Each society in which the Jews grappled with the problems
of existence was radically different from the society which had
immediately preceded it in time, or from a contemporaneous
society in another place, Medieval, feudal Christendom was
structurally very different from the pagan Roman Empire. The
Moslem structure, although existing alongside medieval, feudal
Christendom, was by no means identical with it. These structures
in turn were made up of substructures, diverse one from the

Dr. Ellis Rivkin is Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew Union College -Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

ELLIS RIVKIN

other and often in conflict with each other. At all times we are
confronted with unity embracing diversity and with identity
enclosing difference. The Jews in their involvement refract the
unity and diversity, the identity and difference which char-
acterize the historical continuum.

Since Jewish history has been as diverse as that of civilization
itself, generalizations are inadequate to comprehend it in all its
manifestations. Jewish institutional forms, for example, have
varied from society to society. They have been monarchical,
aristocratic, oligarchical, republican, and democratic. Jews
themselves have been naive and sophisticated, rationalistic and
mystical, legalistic and moralistic, heretical and traditional,
liberal and reactionary, scholarly and ignorant, saintly and
sinful. They have been slaveowners and slaves, merchants and
farmers, moneylenders and artisans, capitalists and proletarians,
rich and poor. They have, in a word, been human beings
wrestling with, and reacting to, the problems of life in the
context of their changing economic, social, political, and reli-
gious relationships. The uniqueness of Jewish history, therefore,
does not derive from any uniqueness of the Jew as a human
being, but from the character and the implication of a history
of involvement.

This involvement, however diverse, reveals a persistent
pattern. No matter how different the society, no matter what
the dominant ideology, the Jews in each case experienced a
phase of acceptance and well-being linked to the expansion of
that society, and a phase of rejection and persecution linked to
the disintegration and collapse of that society. Every society
reveals this pattern. The fate of the Jews has always been
inextricably bound up with the fate of the larger society. Each
unique experience has thus revealed, at a different level of
complexity, a repetitive pattern.

Is there a uniqueness that characterizes the history of the
24

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

Jews in the United States? If there is such a uniqueness, does it
display the repetitive pattern? Is the fate of the Jews in the
United States inextricably bound up with the fate of the country?
And if its fate is thus bound up with that of the Jews, will this
society go the way of all previous societies, or will its ultimate
fate be different?

The history of the United States may be said to be unique in
that it manifests a historical evolution which is dominated by
the dynamics of expanding capitalism. Although capitalism
arose in Europe and penetrated every part of the world, it
found its most unrestricted expression in the United States. In
no other area did capitalism find so few obstacles to its restless
dynamism, and nowhere else did it achieve so vast and so
continuous a success.

The uniqueness of Jewish experience in the United States is
thus to be sought in the relationship of the Jews to capitalism
in its purest manifestation. Never before in their history had
Jews been involved in such a structure. Although it is true that
the Jews in seventeenth-century England and Holland — and,
to a lesser extent, in France and Germany — were radically
affected by the new economic system, capitalism never became
so decisive in Europe as it did later in the United States. Whereas
in Europe the Jews only gradually came to experience capitalism
as it transformed a previous economic and social structure of
which they were part, in the United States the Jews, from the
outset, came into contact with capitalism as the dominant and
decisive system of production.

This essay is intended primarily as a study of the broad,
historical implications of this experience. We shall analyze the
effects of capitalistic development on the old order in Europe,
so that we may discover the roots of emigration, and we shall
analyze also the character of capitalistic development in the
United States, so as to discover the dynamics of immigration.

ELLIS RIVKIN

We shall observe the contrast between the impact of capitalism
on Europe, with its precapitalist structures, and on the United
States, where the impediments were less stubborn and resistant.
We shall then be in a position to assess the meaning of this
unique historic experience in its relationship to previous
patterns. *

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed the vast
growth and expansion of commercial capitalism. The centers
of this commercial activity were concentrated in such seaports
as London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. From these ports trade
reached out across the Atlantic to the newly founded colonies
in North America, to the trading settlements in Central and
South America, to the Indies and China, across the Mediter-
ranean to the Levant, and through the interior of Germany to
the capitals of the numerous princely states. Among the merchant
capitalists who carried on these far-flung enterprises were many
Jews, a good proportion of whom had once been Marranos in
Spain and Portugal, but who had subsequently settled in Lon-

* This essay docs not purport to be a detailed analysis of American Jewish history,
nor does it pretend to deal with it in all its aspects. In considering any structural
phase, one must discern its relationship not only to the prior structure, but also to
the structure yet to emerge. Every structure will be found to have some remnants
of the previous structure as well as some intimations of the structure which is yet
to be. In considering capitalism in its various phases, therefore, I have stressed its
dominant structural components. I am aware, of course, that elements of a prior
phase remain important and active. Undoubtedly there are even today some
fanners who till the soil as did their great-grandfathers; there are, assuredly,
many shopkeepers whose way of doing business differs very little from the way in
which it was done at the turn of the century; and there are still open-air markets
where produce is sold from stalls. Yet one can scarcely claim that the structure of
our contemporary society is that of the nineteenth century. In this essay emphasis
has been placed upon the dynamic elements of structural change, rather than on
the particulars which constitute the whole at any given moment.

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

don, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. These Spanish-Portuguese Jews
were permitted and even encouraged to engage in commercial
capitalist ventures, some of which brought them into contact
with the trading cities of the Western Hemisphere.

Another group of entrepreneurs who had always been profes-
sing Jews made its appearance in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. These were the Court Jews, who served the princes
of Germany in a variety of ways. They provisioned the armies,
minted money, organized trade, and provided luxury goods for
the lavish courts. Their commercial activities kept them in
constant touch with the great trading centers of London,
Amsterdam, and Hamburg in the West, and with the important
trading centers of Poland in the East.

These Court Jews made use of agents who frequently settled
in the great maritime centers and undertook employment in
the trading house of some wealthy Jewish merchant. Some of
these enterprising young men were sent off as agents to America
or went on their own account. Frequently they took advantage
of the capitalistic opportunities in the colonies to buy some
goods with their savings and to become merchant capitalists
themselves. Some of them remained permanently in the colonies,
either continuing to represent the firm, or completely freeing
themselves from their ties and becoming independent cap-
italists, engaged in trade and land speculation.

The emigration of Jews from Europe was thus an aspect of
commercial capitalism. North America beckoned to enterprising,
risk-taking individuals who would engage in trade and com-
merce. It was those Jews who were swept, irrespective of their
place of origin, into the capitalist orbit that became immigrants.
The Jews who had established themselves as successful mer-
chants in Europe did not, as a rule, emigrate, and those — the
overwhelming majority — who had not even been touched by
commercial capitalism likewise remained where they were. The

ELLIS RIVKIN

majority of the first Jewish settlers in the colonies was made
up of capitalistic merchants and tradesmen, enterprising in-
dividuals who were seeking to better themselves.

The character of colonial society encouraged precisely this
type of Jewish immigration. The merchant capitalist was a
highly respected member of eighteenth-century society, and a
Jewish capitalist merchant was viewed in terms of his class and
function rather than his religion. For this reason, merchants
like Aaron Lopez, the Gomezes, and the Frankses, not to
mention others of similar enterprise if less affluence, were
regarded with respect and admiration.

That Jews did not come to settle in large numbers, although
the seventeenth-century was a very harsh one for most of the
Jews in Germany and Poland, is to be explained by the fact
that, aside from trade, only capitalistic enterprise, farming, and
handwork offered opportunities in America. The major sources
of peasant emigration in the eighteenth century were England,
Ireland, France and, to some extent, Germany. But in England
and France the Jews had scarcely any contact with the peasants,
since only Jews who were merchant capitalists had been allowed
to settle in these countries. The Jews, therefore, could not
accompany the peasants of these areas when the latter were
set in motion by advancing capitalism. The sprinkling of Jews
in the colonies and in the early republic is thus explained by
the fact that commercial capitalism determined the character
and the extent of emigration and immigration.

The framework in which Jewish life in America had its
inception and unfolding was from the outset radically different
from any which the Jews had experienced previously. Virtually
from the moment when the Jews set foot in this country, their
destiny became linked with that of capitalism. This was the
only area in the world where capitalism was the very source of
its life and where capitalism and its corresponding institutions
28

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

could develop with little hindrance from an earlier system of
production and from the structures that had been involved in it.
The North American colonies were primarily capitalistic out-
posts pressing against the barriers of mountain and forest, and
although formalized religious establishments, whether indigenous
or European in origin, were operative in most of the colonies,
they never became so firmly rooted in the American environment
as similar or corresponding establishments had been in Europe.
Indeed, the churches that flourished in this country were already
at least once removed from the ecclesiastical institutions of the
medieval world. Anglicanism as established on these shores was
perhaps closest to the medieval norm, but Puritanism already
represented a considerable deviation from Anglican doctrine
and government. In New England, Puritanism took the form
of the Congregational churches and ministered as such to the
capitalist merchant class and the free yeomanry. The Middle
Colonies were already infested with a variety of deviant beliefs,
and in some cities, for example, Philadelphia, Deism had made
considerable progress. Thus even before the Revolution no
church establishment existed in the solid sense that such estab-
lishments existed in England, France, or Germany.

Nor did any other medieval institution gain a strong foothold
in this country. A hereditary aristocracy with legally confirmed
privileges never took root here. Guilds never developed as
privileged and monopolistic entities. Although Negro slavery
existed, all attempts at securing a permanent, unfree, white
agricultural class were unsuccessful. The European husbandman
in this country was virtually from the start a free farmer.

The economic structure, even before the Revolution, thus
displayed the character of relatively free capitalism, wherein
commodities were produced and profit was sought. It was an
economic structure which encouraged fluidity and mobility,
and which rewarded the enterprising and the thrifty. It flour-

ELLIS RIVKIN

ished in a political and ideological framework that was receptive
to its needs and responsive to its drives.

The response of such a society to the Jews was thoroughly in
keeping with its character to the extent that if the institutions
of a medieval orientation had been strong, there would have been
opposition to the Jews. Since, however, the strength of such insti-
tutions was relatively slight and became ever slighter with the
years, the Jew came to be evaluated strictly in terms of his func-
tional role. This functional role, as we have seen, was that of an
enterprising merchant on a large or small scale, and the evalua-
tion of the Jew's role was generally to be as positive as the role
itself at the time.

The thoroughly middle-class character of American society
is evident from the two basic documents of American independ-
ence: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The significance of these documents lies in their appeal to the
authority of natural law and inalienable rights, rather than to
some scriptural authority. These were the first official documents
to rest the authority of a national state squarely on the authority
of the people, and the first to grant complete freedom of worship
and to reject categorically a national church establishment. In
addition, there was to be neither monarch nor aristocrat. Thus
the American Constitution achieved what no state in Europe
was to achieve, however powerful the growth of capitalism.
This achievement guaranteed the American Jew, on a national
level, the utmost that unfettered capitalism can grant; political,
juridical, and economic freedom.

In Europe, the Jews could only approximate such sweeping
freedom; for, in Europe, capitalism could develop only out of a
structure based on a very different system of production, and
out of an array of institutions that were powerful, formidable,
and privileged. Even violent revolutions could not root out the
entrenched institutions of the Old Regime. Monarchy, aristoc-

3°

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

racy, and the Church lingered on, preserving at least some
vestiges of their former power and grandeur. Precapitalistic
economic forms likewise persisted, as did the ideologies char-
acteristic of those classes which drew sustenance from the forms
of a precapitalistic economy.

In England, for example, the monarchy, the Established
Church, and a hereditary aristocracy have been maintained.
In France, the power of the Church and the monarchical
principle reasserted themselves many times during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. In Germany, the Kaisers ruled till
1918, and the Junkers maintained their importance through the
entire period of the Weimar Republic. Italy held on to the
monarchy and failed to free itself from the power of the papacy,
while in Austria the Church never entirely lost its formidable
position. Whenever the development of capitalism called for
the dissolution of anomalous classes, its spokesmen were either
incapable of marshalling the social strength needed for the
venture, or they recoiled at the prospect that they might unleash
the very forces which would endanger them.

The Jews in Europe found, therefore, that their fate was
bound up with a capitalism incapable of freeing itself completely
from the medieval orientation of precapitalism. Little wonder,
then, that the Jews in Europe were placed in an ambiguous
relationship to the entire process. They gradually achieved
emancipation, but this emancipation was never certain. They
were accorded political and juridical rights, but they were
unable to make unrestricted use of them. In most European
countries the army, the aristocracy, and the bureaucracy suc-
ceeded fairly well in blocking the Jews.

A constant obstacle to a genuine and thoroughgoing Jewish
emancipation was the persistence in Europe of medieval in-
stitutions which had never freely or happily accepted capitalism.
These institutions had not only fought the new system of produc-

ELLIS RIVKIN

tion and its political demands, but even when they did accord
reluctant acceptance to the new dispensation, they continued
to resist Jewish emancipation. The reactionary elements in the
French National Assembly insisted that Jews were a nation and
not a religion. The Jewish problem was a very real and persistent
one during the French Revolution, and although the Jews were
granted equality, the opposition never ceased clamoring that
the Jews were a nation and were not, therefore, entitled to
citizenship. During the Napoleonic interlude, Napoleon himself
threw his weight behind the allegation that the Jews were a
separate and a harmful nation which had to be purged of its
backward and anti-social mores. The discriminatory laws issued
by Napoleon, first, in 1806, in the form of a moratorium on
debts owed to Jews, and then in the form of restrictions on their
economic activities, testify to the tenuous character of Jewish
emancipation in a capitalistic society which was still hemmed
in by the persistence of precapitalistic production modes and
of precapitalistic institutions. Thus, even after a revolution as
thoroughgoing as the French, the Jews were not completely
freed from their entanglements in the old order.

The situation was basically the same in Germany. A Jewish
question existed as an inseparable component of the larger
question of the relationship between an emergent capitalism
and precapitalist forms and institutions. From 1815 through
the revolution of 1848, the debate over what the Jews were
raged throughout Germany, In this spectrum, the evaluation
of the Jews was either good or bad, depending on whether
the writer was oriented towards the old regime or advocated
a capitalist and nationalist state- Since the German revolu-
tion of 1848 was even less thorough than the French, the
Jewish question in Germany continued to be as viable as the
strength of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Church
could render it.

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

While Europe entered upon its capitalist phase encumbered
by a Jewish problem that had been spawned by the medieval
world and its collapse, the United States, never having known
any system of production other than capitalistic or geared to
capitalism, was not faced with a Jewish problem. America
had no enclaves of Jews who, as in Alsace-Lorraine, engaged
in petty moneylending and peddling to debt-ridden peasants
and artisans. The situation in America was unlike that in
France, where a chasm separated one group of Jews from
another, and where the capitalist Jews of Bordeaux felt their
position threatened by the Jewish moneylenders, peddlers, and
beggars of Alsace-Lorraine. In the young American Republic
some Jews were poorer than others, but no Jew was committed
to the economy of a previous epoch. Each Jew was a free man,
seeking in his own way a place for himself in the young, dynamic,
and vigorous American society.

The framers of the American Constitution did not have to
engage in debate with powerful opponents to prove that Jews
were not a nation, but a religion. The issue did not even arise,
since strictly capitalistic society does not recognize religibus
differences as relevant, as long as religion does not endanger
the constitutional basis of the state, the Constitution. Pure
capitalism is intolerant of institutional and inherited privileges,
and seeks to make everyone equal before the law. Only when
pure capitalism faces some anomalous vestige which still exerts
power is it forced to compromise. It rarely introduces such
anomalies on its own. Thus, slavery in the new republic had
to be tolerated temporarily because of the very real power of
the slaveowners, and because slavery was an existent reality in
1789. However, the capitalist intent is clear in that the slave
trade was to come to an end.

The United States from its very birth thus had no backlog
of accumulated hates peddled by the institutions and interests

ELLIS RIVKIN

of a decaying order: no desperate artisans whose guild privileges
had been destroyed, no disgruntled peasantry being driven off
the land, no surplus of desperate human beings vainly seeking
new moorings, no proletariat being ground down in the mines
and factories. It is little wonder, then, that though instances of
anti-Jewish feeling were not altogether lacking, the overriding
tone of society was favorable towards the Jews.

The second phase of Jewish history in the United States was
likewise one which proved to be very positive in its outcome
for the Jews. This phase, too, was directly related to the devel-
opment of capitalism in Europe and to rapid capitalist expansion
here.

In Europe, capitalism made vast strides between 1815 and
1848, but its effects differed from area to area. In England, the
industrial revolution was consolidated, and the industrial cap-
italists were given political recognition and power. In France, a
similar, if not so intensive, capitalistic growth took place, but
the reorientation of power involved revolutionary upheavals.
Nonetheless, France emerged in the second half of the nineteenth
century as a great capitalistic power in which effective political
control was in the hands of capitalistic parties. The consolidation
of capitalism in both England and France improved the position
of the Jew, even though it could not completely eliminate the
continuation of hostility on the part of persisting institutions
of the old order and of those classes negatively affected by the
character of capitalistic development.

In Central Europe the consequences of economic change
were radically different. The growth of capitalistic commerce
and industry took place in societies structured for quite different

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

purposes and goals. The heavy hand of decadent monarchical,
aristocratic, and ecclesiastical power stood in the way of initiative
and enterprise. The political disunity of Germany hampered
the drive for national unity. Yet capitalism developed and in its
penetration of Germany steadily broke up the economic founda-
tions of the old order. Peasants found it more difficult to eke
out a living from the soil; factories reached out for hands;
artisans helplessly fought the competition of machine. The
texture of the old economy was dissolved, and those whose
livelihood disappeared with the old economy sought new ar-
rangements for themselves.

Large numbers were swept up by the growing demands of
the new capitalism in Germany itself: some became workers or
entered occupations created by the vast process of urbanization;
some became capitalists; others emigrated. Especially after the
1830*3 did the surplus humanity of the German states seek a
home in the United States.

Among the disrupted were the Jews, who had had a significant
role in the economy of stagnation and decay. Indeed, they
had never been completely expelled from Germany in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries precisely because of the function
assigned to them in the processes of breakdown and decay.

Jews had been permitted to remain in various towns and
villages of Germany as petty moneylenders, pawnbrokers, and
peddlers. By lending money on pawn at high interest rates over
long periods of time, the moneylenders and pawnbrokers helped
the peasants and the artisans to stave off economic disaster.
The peddlers and petty tradesmen made cheap and used
commodities available to the lower classes of town and country.
These services were rendered by the Jews in an atmosphere
laden with hate, distrust, bitterness, and resignation. The
peasants and the artisans were resigned to the necessity of
the Jews, while the Jews were resigned to contempt, hatred,

ELLIS RIVKIN

and humiliation. Paradoxically, so long as stagnation and decay
remained impervious to dynamic change, the Jew was secure
in his role, certain of his future, and geared to expectancies that
were as dependable as they were humiliating.

The moment, however, that advancing capitalism disrupted
the economic foundations of stagnation and decay, the Jews
became as insecure as the artisans and the peasants. They, too,
became divorced from the even and familiar tenor of their
lives — habitually degrading and humiliating though their lives
had been — and found themselves thrust into a rapidly changing
world. Many of them saw opportunities in the growing urban
centers of Germany; some became capitalists; the rest came to
this country with the peasants and the artisans who likewise
sought these shores.

The country to which they came, Jew and non-Jew alike,
was undergoing a twofold expansion, On the one hand, the
factory system was making rapid progress, particularly in New
England; commerce was growing; railroads were being built;
the basis for the prodigious industrial growth of the post-Civil
War period was being laid. On the other hand, the West was
being opened up to settled farming. The vast, untilled, but
fertile lands beckoned to those who had tilled the soil in their
native lands. The immigrants from Germany, torn from the
soil, eagerly returned to the soil.

But there was a vast difference. The precapitalist peasant of
Germany was now an independent capitalist farmer, producing
agricultural surpluses for an expanding country with a growing
population. He was tilling the soil in an economy of vigor which
rewarded toil and enterprise, and which gave him a voice in
the legislative bodies of the land. He was no longer the helpless
victim of stagnation, decay, and privilege. He was a free, proud*
and independent farmer. The capitalism that had ruined the
precapitalist society of his native land and had forced him to

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

seek another land proved to be in America an economic system
giving him land, opportunity, and dignity.

The Jew who immigrated was likewise transformed- Those
skills in moneylending, trade, and peddling which he had
developed in his native town and village, and which had there
been associated with hatred, bitterness, and humiliation, those
skills were now the very ones which capitalism cherished,
encouraged, and rewarded. They were transformed into enter-
prise, imagination, and innovation. Applied to the needs of
the free farmers in the Middle West, they hastened the distribu-
tion of commodities, encouraged the extension of credit, aided
the establishment of wholesale and retail outlets in the towns
and cities, and led to the building of reputations for reliability
and integrity.

The situation of the Jew in this country remained positive
because his role and function continued to be positive. He
contributed in America to an expanding economy. His rela-
tionship to that economy was one of close involvement in its
most dynamic aspects. Anti-Semitism was thus unable to gain
any secure foothold. Nevertheless, here and there disturbing
symptoms manifested themselves at moments of crisis and
uncertainty.

A significant example was General Ulysses S. Grant's Order
Number u during the Civil War. This order excluded the
Jews as a class from the Department of the Tennessee, which
included parts of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, because
of the prevalence of smuggling and illicit trade. That such
smuggling and illicit trading went on can scarcely be doubted,
but that the Jews were solely, or even largely, responsible for
the situation was, of course, untrue. Smuggling and illicit trade
have accompanied every war since the sixteenth century. The
War of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic wars, the
American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War — all

ELLIS RIVKIN

furnished opportunities for extralegal economic activities. Such
activities, to be sure, were hardly calculated to gain the favor
of belligerents devoted to the enemy's destruction. What Grant
did, however, was to identify a common practice with a partic-
ular group, and his prestige gave the discriminatory order a
national audience. In effect, rather than exposing it as a regret-
table concomitant of warfare, Grant attributed an evil within
the system to a distinctive group, the Jews. He appeared blind
to the fact that certain individuals, irrespective of religious or
ethnic affiliations, never fail to grasp the opportunities for large
profit furnished by warfare, however illicit these may be.

Order Number 1 1 was quickly rescinded. Appropriate apol-
ogies were made, and Jews continued to fare well. Grant's
Order remains significant, nevertheless, because it represents
the first utilization on a national scale of what was to become a
basic anti-Semitic device: the attribution to the Jews of that
which is negative in capitalism, so that negative features of
capitalism are viewed as Jewish aberrations rather than as
integral, if disturbing, aspects of an intricate and complex
system of production.

Ill

The third phase in the development of American Jewish history
again reveals the interplay of European forces stimulating
emigration with forces in the United States encouraging im-
migration. The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed
the industrial expansion of Germany and the consolidation of
capitalism as the basic system of production. England and
France entered the phase of imperialism which had the effect
of strengthening capitalism in these areas. The position of the
Jews in these three countries was relatively good, despite the
outbursts of anti-Semitic feeling that accompanied the brief

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

periods of crisis which interrupted the steady expansion of
capitalism.

The consolidation of capitalism in Germany virtually brought
to a halt the emigration of Germans and Jews. The prosperity
and the expectation that Germany would continue to become
more wealthy and powerful encouraged Germans and Jews to
integrate themselves into the new economy and the new society.

In the East, however, capitalism was only beginning to
penetrate the area; it had by no means become the dominant
system of production. The effects of the penetration of capitalism
in an area still largely precapitalist in its economy, an area
still controlled by dynasties and ecclesiastical hierarchies, are
disruptive. The peasantry is dislodged; the old villages are
broken up; the artisans and craftsmen are unable to compete
against factory-made commodities. The disruption of the old
order creates a surplus population. Some of the surplus is
absorbed by the factories and by the urban expansion; others
seek opportunities in those countries where capitalism has
become dominant.

After 1870, at the very moment when the westward agricul-
tural expansion had passed its apex and free land was becoming
scarce, the United States entered the phase of vast industrializa-
tion. Immigration to this country, therefore, had to accom-
modate itself to the opportunities set by the economy, and the
immigrants found that their choices were narrow and more
limited. The Polish, Roumanian, and Italian peasant could
not as a rule become a free farmer. He had to find employment
either in the factories, or in the mines, or in an array of urban
occupations in the expanding metropolises.

The Jewish immigrants after 1870 also discovered that in-
dustrial expansion firmly set the limits of choice for most of
them. Jews, too, were faced with the choice of factory labor
or of some occupation thrown open by metropolitan urban

ELLIS RIVKIN

growth. But, whereas in the case of the non-Jews the scales
were tipped towards factory labor, in the case of the Jews they
were tipped towards other occupations made available by
urban development. The urban or semiurban background of
the Jews made the difference.

The Jews living in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian
empires were not peasants, although frequently they were
closely bound up with the peasant economy. Even in the small
villages they engaged in some sort of trade and business activity.
In the larger cities of the Pale of Settlement, Jews eked out a
livelihood as petty traders, peddlers, and artisans. A large
number were Luftmenshen, people without a fixed occupation.
Many of them made a living from activities related to Jewish
religious life. Some were paupers; only a few were proletarians,
and these were limited to emerging industrial centers. However
different the occupation, most Jews were oriented towards
urban activities.

When Jews from Eastern Europe came to the United States,
they had visions of urban status and accordingly sought out
those possibilities on arrival. The vast expansion of population
in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and
Baltimore necessitated an elaborate growth in occupations
related to distribution and consumption. Millions had to be
fed and clothed. There was thus a great need for large numbers
of peddlers, storekeepers, jobbers, and the like. A great many
Jews immediately sought to fill this need because they were
equipped by previous experience to engage in just these types
of activities. The non-Jewish peasant was not so equipped.

The opportunity, however, did not exist for all the Jewish
immigrants to find such employment. Most of them had to
become proletarians working for contractors at home, or working
for manufacturers in factories. Inasmuch as they had known
something like an independent status in their native cities,
40

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

towns, and villages, they resisted permanent proletarianization,
and viewed their proletarian status as temporary. They were,
therefore, on the lookout for any opening that would permit
them to make their way towards a middle-class status. The
Polish peasant had never known any existence other than work,
toil, and resignation; he had neither urban skills nor middle-
class orientation, and thus he was less sensitive to his lot and
less alert to the possibilities of improvement.

No amount of resistance could have prevented proletarianiza-
tion unless the economy itself gave succor to this resistance by
encouraging a shred of hope. The character of the industrial
expansion and its consequences did precisely that, for it opened
up a vast array of occupations so rapidly and so urgently that
all who were quick to respond found it possible to achieve some
form of middle-class status.

Modern industrialization created a market for white-collar
workers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. It constantly
sought more effective and more efficient distributive outlets
and thus encouraged the vast and rapid growth of wholesale
and retail establishments. The steady population growth con-
tinuously extended the market and encouraged the multiplica-
tion of small enterprises for which only comparatively little
capital was needed. The widespread growth of literacy spurred
the expansion of the publishing business and opened up a large
market for newspapers and magazines, these in turn creating a
need for a large class of writers, journalists, editors, and the like.
The spread of free public education necessitated a large number
of teachers, and the expansion of college enrollments opened up
opportunities for scholarship.

With their urban outlook and their rejection of permanent
proletarianization, the Jews were quick to take advantage of
the new opportunities. Every effort was made to accumulate
some capital, however small, with which to open a small retail

ELUS RIVKIN

store, or to buy sufficient stock to become a jobber, or to set
oneself up as a subcontractor or contractor. Once in some
position of independence or semi-independence in a steadily
growing economy, Jews might slowly accumulate capital, better
themselves, and in a decade or so achieve respectable middle-
class status. By encouraging their children to take full advantage
of free education and to continue through high school and
even college, Jewish parents virtually assured a professional
status for their children.

The over-all situation of the Jews was positive in this period
of tumultuous industrial growth; yet the size and the character
of the new immigration could not but bring spasms of un-
certainty and disquietude. By 1900 the Jews whose roots were
in the German phase of immigration had achieved a durable
position in American life. Most of them had by this time firmly
established themselves as very respectable middle-class en-
trepreneurs: retailers, wholesalers, private bankers, and man-
ufacturers. As a consequence, they enjoyed the prestige that
attended such entrepreneurship. It is not surprising, therefore,
that they felt themselves more threatened by the vast hordes of
Jews from Eastern Europe than did the non-Jews*

The East European Jews represented a raw mass of pre-
capitalist individuals who had earned their livelihood by petty
trade, moneylending, tavern-keeping, peddling, and similar
occupations linked to the plight of the peasant and the artisan.
Viewed from the vantage point of modern capitalistic attitudes,
such occupations appeared sordid, exploitative, and degrading*
The mores, manners, and culture that thrived on these pre-
capitalist foundations were likewise in sharp contradiction to
the manners, mores, and culture of capitalism. If these pre-
capitalist Jews came in very large numbers and settled in large,
compact groups, and especially if they continued in their new
environment the very same precapitalistic type of activities,
42

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

then surely the image of the respectable, enlightened, respected
American Jewish entrepreneur would be endangered by that
of the unkempt, jargon-chattering, shrewd, cheating, medieval
"Shylock."

This antagonism between capitalist and precapitalist Jews
has made its appearance at every phase in history when the
two contradictory forms came into opposition with one another.
The wealthy Jewish merchants and manufacturers of eighteenth-
century Berlin, Vienna, and Leipzig had looked with dismay
upon their fellow Jews steeped in degrading (i. e., precapitalist)
occupations and stubbornly persisting in their Orthodox and
non-Western ways. The Jewish capitalists of Bordeaux had
sought to disassociate themselves completely from the pre-
capitalist Jews of Alsace-Lorraine. In an effort to eradicate
the blight that seemed to endanger their status, French Jewish
merchants, manufacturers, and bankers waged a steady struggle
against their precapitalist coreligionists. In nineteenth-century
Galicia, the Haskalah movement represented similar elements
seeking to modernize the Jews; i. e., to destroy their precapitalist
ways. The first phase of the movement for enlightenment in
Eastern Europe attempted to achieve the same objectives.

Every effort was made, therefore, by the representatives of
an adjusted American Jewry to control the tide of Jewish
immigration so as to transform the mode of economic activity
and the way of life that accompanied it. Attempts were made
to divert the immigrants to the interior, to turn them to respect-
able occupations such as agriculture. The torrent of human
beings that kept flooding in could, however, be accommodated
only by the occupations which this particular phase of economic
development made available.

Anti-immigrant feeling among non-Jews was to be found in
the upper classes of New England who had made their fortunes
primarily in the flush of the heyday of commercial capitalism

ELLIS RIVKIN

and during the first phase of the development of manufacturing
in the pre-Civil War period. After 1870, this class found itself
being pushed aside by the industrial expansion which was
concentrated almost exclusively in the hands of capitalist new-
comers. Since immigration was vital for the rapid success of
these new enterprises, the staid capitalists of a previous era
viewed it as a threat to their former supremacy. They saw in
immigration the disintegration of their American society.

The farmers also had certain misgivings about the con-
sequences of the rapid rate of industrialization. By 1890 the
possibility for the territorial expansion of agriculture was at
an end. For the first time, the farmers were sharply confronted
by the very real threat of insolvency and by the inability to
compete successfully against the continuously growing power
of finance and industry. For the first time, the seemingly over-
whelming power of money threatened to deprive them of their
farms and livelihoods. Opposition to the new finance and in-
dustrialism reached a very high pitch in the 1890*8. Immigration
was viewed by large numbers of farmers as symbolic of their
own downfall.

And, finally, the native-born working class resented the influx
of immigrants who jostled them out of jobs and who kept the
wage rates hovering at the subsistence level. The East European
Jewish immigrants found themselves, therefore, in a somewhat
different position from that which their coreligionists of the
1840*8 and i86o's had encountered. On the one hand, the
future of these immigrants was to be virtually as favorable; on
the other, their present was much more uncertain and ambig*
uous. Their future was assured because they were linked with
that phase of capitalist development which was to become
dominant in the twentieth century, the capitalist development
involving the growth of large-scale industry and the new mam-
moth urbanization. But at the moment of their arrival, very

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

large numbers continued to pursue their precapitalist ways in
the ghettos of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago.
They were thus living witnesses to the charge that they earned
their livelihood in the cracks and crannies of the economic
system. As pawnbrokers, petty shopkeepers, and peddlers, they
seemed to be perpetuating in the cities of this country the
degraded activities of their native lands. The Jews could thus
be pictured as clever cheats, swindlers, and hawkers.

Those Jews who entered the shops and factories as workers
could likewise be cast in a negative light. The first wave of
Jewish immigration in the i88o's supplied the shops and factories
with Jews who had never before been workers and who proved
rather docile and naive in their new-found role. Beginning,
however, with the 1890*3, large numbers of Jewish proletarians
from Lodz came over and entered the shops and factories.
These Jews were experienced workers who had fought many a
battle with their Jewish employers in Lodz. Many had been
drawn into the Social Democratic movement even before em-
igration, and were filled with radical ideas. In addition, many
Jewish intellectuals had already filtered into the labor movement
and were taking an active part in the organizational and
publicistic aspects of the working-class movement. This prom-
inence of Jews in the trade-union movement and in the spread
of radical socialist ideology encouraged the identification of
Jews with radicalism, anarchism, and socialism. However
popular the pioneer Jewish labor activists were to become
in the 1930*8, 1 940*8, and 1950*8, they were viewed, at the turn
of the century, with great animosity and fear not only by the
Jewish capitalists, but by the Jews who were engaged in peddling,
jobbing, contracting, pawnbroking, and shopkeeping.

Three negative features could be ascribed to the Jews of
East-European origin: (i) the so-called nonproductive, ex-
ploitative, and sordid precapitalist occupations; (2) the back-

ELLIS RIVKIN

ward, unenlightened mores and culture that such occupations
bred; (3) the radical, anarchistic, and socialistic ideas of the
Jewish working class and of their intellectual spokesmen. A
fourth negative feature, however, was supplied by the wealthy,
respected, Jewish capitalists themselves: the identification of
Jews with large-scale international finance, particularly as
symbolized by the House of Rothschild. It was thus possible
to create a picture of the Jew with four threatening qualities,
a picture which could be conjured up as an adequate explana-
tion for virtually every ill that plagued society. Every class in
society could emphasize that aspect of the picture which ac-
corded with its own predicament. The farmer saw Jewish
monetary power and Jewish Socialism; the lower middle classes
and the worker saw the Jewish pawnbroker, the peddler, and
the shopkeeper; the old mercantile capitalists saw the usurping
international Jewish banker; and the wealthy saw the Jewish
anarchist. Finally, the Jewish link with Christianity could be
seen in its negative aspect, and the Jew as Christ killer could be
effectively amalgamated with the other four whenever dis-
contented groups, such as farmers, were at the same time also
believing fundamentalist Christians.

These five features were first used during the farm crisis of
the i88o's and the iSgo's. This was the first instance on a large
scale of a stubborn problem: the inability of the farmer to make
a profit in the face of the disproportion between farm prices
and industrial commodities. This basic problem carried with it
the concomitant ones of heavy indebtedness and the threat of
foreclosure. Linked with the problem of prices and mortgage
indebtedness was that of the availability of money. Attempting
to cope with their difficulties, the farmers sought solutions that
were compatible with the maintenance of their independent
positions. Among the most persistent solutions were those which
sought monetary inflation and the crippling of the money power*

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

It was here that anti-Semitism could effectively be exploited
to serve diversionary ends. If the total money power could be
labelled Jewish, then individual bankers were merely the helpless
tools of the Jewish moneyed interests. The major problem, then,
for the farmer would be to cripple the Jewish power. Thus his
difficulties were assumed to stem from that which was alien to
and superimposed upon the economic system rather than from
the dynamism of the system itself. Alien Jewish gold was the
threat!

This diversionary approach could be very effective because it
appealed to seemingly irrefutable facts. The House of Rothschild
was not only an influential banking house, but it was inter-
nationally notorious. It was not difficult to believe that, with
their moneybags, the Rothschilds controlled the governments
of Europe. Besides, wherever one turned, Jews were engaged in
occupations involving money. The Jewish Shylock could be
seen in any large city, and the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, for
money, had led to the crucifixion.

Large numbers of farmers who during earlier decades had
viewed the Jews as useful, reliable, and honest merchants now
saw them negatively as the heartless representatives of the
money power. This shift came about only because the plight of
the farmer had for the first time become real, and he sought
some explanation for his problem.

Although anti-Semitism had raised its head ominously in the
i88o's and iSgo's, it proved to be temporary and was liquidated
fairly rapidly once a new upward swing occurred in farm prices.
Even more important was the fact that the Jews were linked
with the most dynamic and the most dominant aspect of
capitalism: expanding industrialism. The majority of the Jews
were linked to this industrialism through the new urbanization
which it created and through the new middle class that it
brought into being.

4.7

ELLIS RIVKIN

The steady growth of urbanization and the steady increase in
the demand for distributive outlets transformed the precapitalist
Jewish immigrant into the small capitalist. Hawking, peddling,
jobbing, and shopkeeping frequently yielded sufficient savings
for the small capital investment needed to open a store, establish
a shop, or embark upon a profession. Along with the stabilizing
influences of entrepreneurship came the processes of American-
ization, dissolving the old customs, mores, culture, and religion
that had been brought from abroad. As larger and larger
numbers of Jews extricated themselves from the proletariat,
the radical and socialistic ideas receded. As the content of
experience became similar for larger and larger numbers, the
variety of expression dwindled. By 1914 the raw Jewish im-
migrants were well on their way towards firm middle-class
status. It has been well-said that the East-European Jewish
immigrant was neither the son nor the father of a proletarian.

World War I and its aftermath encouraged these tendencies
as the American economy entered a new phase, a phase of
matured, consolidated, contained industrial and financial expan-
sion. Following quickly on the heels of the few years of post-war
instability, the economy of the United States surged forth to
new heights of productivity and prosperity. These new heights,
however, were not achieved through the augmentation of the
working class by immigration, but through the rationalization
of production, the further division of labor, the intensification of
skills, and the tighter integration of productive units. The new
surge not only needed no labor from abroad, but found itself
incapable of utilizing fully even the labor already available.
Just as an earlier phase of the economy had necessitated a free
48

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

immigration policy, the new phase of the economy made it
equally necessary to curb the influx of foreigners.

The closing of the doors to large-scale immigration came at a
time when the economies of Eastern Europe and the Balkans
were undergoing severe disruption. But, whereas prior to 1914
the breakup of the old economies and the displacement of
large numbers of peasants were mitigated by the opportunities
offered in the United States, now the surplus population had to
remain in the very areas which could not possibly provide for
them. A new problem, as yet unsolved, began to plague the
societies of Eastern Europe.

These developments adversely affected the millions of Jews
living in Poland and Russia. A goodly percentage of Polish
Jewry was poverty-stricken and lived off charity. An even
larger number barely eked out an existence through petty
trading. A significant number became workers. A handful
succeeded as capitalist entrepreneurs. All Polish Jews, irrespec-
tive of class, were the victims of virulent anti-Semitism and of
discriminatory legislation. Jews, who in the iSgo's would have
come to the United States along with non-Jewish Poles, now
were locked in a crippled society from which there was no exit.
Their fate at the hands of the Russians and Nazis was sealed by
their superfluity.

In Russia the new type of exploitative economy handled the
surplus population problem with brutal directness. As the old
agricultural structure was smashed, millions were forced into
the factories, and those who could not be used either in the
new-type agricultural collectives or in the new industrial plants
were either conscripted into the army, or utilized as slave labor,
or directly liquidated. The Jews proved especially vulnerable,
because they entered the epoch of the revolution with a bour-
geois taint, with the label of exploitative nonproductivity, and
with a presumed predilection for intellectualizing. Each phase

ELLIS RIVKIN

of the centralization of the bureaucracy brought with it some
recourse to these allegations. The fate of the Jews in the Soviet
Union was thus resolved negatively, although total annihilation
has not yet taken place.

Although the post- World War I economy barred entry to new
immigrants, it continued to unfold opportunities for the Jews
already living here. Swelling productivity and the prosperity
that accompanied it spawned myriads of small and medium-
sized businesses, while the phenomenal growth of white-collar
occupations absorbed those with high school and college educa-
tions. The entertainment media, movies and radio blossomed;
written communication — newspapers, magazines, books — ex-
panded; the continuous growth of higher education increased
the number of city- and state-supported colleges and created
the need for competent teachers and scholars; advertising
emerged as a vast enterprise. Stock market and real-estate
speculation offered the possibility of quickly earned fortunes
unthreatened by income taxes. Little wonder, then, that the
post-war decade witnessed the crystallization of a new Jewish
middle class, firmly bound up with expanding capitalism and
sharply distinct from the precapitalist Jewish classes of the turn
of the century. The emergence of this middle class was at the
expense of the proletarian elements, whose numbers among the
Jews steadily dwindled.

The Jews were thus catapulted by favorable conditions, as
well as by favorable previous conditioning, into the middle
class. It was, however, literally into the middle class* Only a
very few individual Jews fully carved out entrepreneurships in
those areas which had become crucial for the further devel-
opment of capitalism: the area of large-scale industry* In oil,
steel, aluminum, automobiles, mining, and machine tools, Jews
appeared only sporadically as individuals. Some Jews were
still influential in private banking, but virtually without excep-

5°

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

tion these were the descendants of German Jews whose financial
influence had continued into the new epoch. Virtually no
Jewish bankers of any significance appeared during the post-
World War I period. Although some Jewish banking houses
remained, there was little penetration by Jews into the con-
trolling positions of the industrial corporate structure.

The years of prosperity enabled Jews to enter the middle
class, but these very years introduced some negative features.
Prior to World War I the need for professional skills seemed
insatiable* Jews, taking advantage of the demand, entered the
medical, legal, and teaching professions. The matured economy
of the igso's slowed down the tempo of expansion in these
areas and established instead a more stable demand. With the
restriction of the total number of doctors and lawyers to be
trained, quota systems began to appear in all the major univer-
sities, limiting to a more or less fixed percentage the number of
Jews who might be accepted, particularly in the medical schools.
Similar quotas were introduced from time to time even in
undergraduate schools, unofficially limiting the percentage of
Jews permitted to attend. The significance of these measures is
that they were introduced by presumably the least intolerant
segment of society, the community of learning.

More sinister was the manifestation of anti-Semitism as an aspect
of the brief reaction following World War I. This anti-Semitism
was the second outbreak of violent opinion in the history of
the United States. The first was during the farm crisis of the
iSgo's, and it had carried anti-Semitic propaganda expressing
primarily the farmer's discontent with the way in which the
economy was operating. The second outbreak was more elab-
orate, because it was coping with a breakdown that was more
severe and more pervasive. The anti-Semitism not only involved
the total economy; it also made a crucial issue of the threat to
that economy posed by the outbreaks of violent working-class

ELLIS RIVKIN

revolutions in Germany and by the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia. Jews were linked not only with the international banking
which had presumably plunged the United States into a dev-
astating war to enrich Jewish pockets, but also with an inter-
national Bolshevism that threatened to destroy American
institutions by proletarian revolution. On the one hand, the
Rothschilds strangled from above, while Karl Marx and Leon
Trotsky destroyed from below. It was alleged that a clever
international plot, hatched by brainy Jews, rich and radical,
alike, was plunging the entire world into anarchy and agony.
Not only did Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent spew forth these
lies, but senators and representatives in Congress, in the hearings
on the immigration bills, linked the Jews to Bolshevism.

This anti-Semitic outburst was, however, of comparatively
short duration. The economic system in this country was much
more durable than many of its own spokesmen seemed to think;
very shortly the age of prosperity blossomed and anti-Semitism
slipped back once again into the cracks and crevices of the
social order.

The Great Depression which in 1929 engulfed America's
economy had devastating consequences. It was the first depres-
sion in the history of the United States that was not quickly
overcome by a new and more impressive phase of prosperity.
The economic system underwent a collapse from which it did
not fully recover until a decade had gone by. Despite interven-
tion by the Federal government on a very large scale in the
form of the New Deal, unemployment remained high and
productivity low. Stagnation seemed to have set in.

The Jews, along with all other elements of the population,
were hard hit during these years. Because of the New Deal

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

approach to the problem, however, Jews, being largely members
of the middle class, were spared some of the cruelest blows.
Since their proletarian numbers had dwindled, Jews were not
faced so directly with unemployment. Franklin D. Roosevelt's
inflationary policies alleviated the disaster which might have
swept away the entire middle sector of society. To the extent
that this middle layer was not permitted to collapse, the Jews
in that layer were able to hold on precariously to some support.

One major structural change permanently affecting the
stratification of society did occur during these years: the emer-
gence of the Federal government as a significant element in
the economic and social structure. The New Deal brought into
being a large bureaucracy to carry out its measures. The
bureaucracy was dependent on a highly trained administrative
personnel and on a large white-collar class for clerical duties.
The bureaucracy created by the depression became a source of
livelihood for large numbers possessing the requisite skills.
Among them were a considerable number of Jews.

The basic economic and social trends, as they affected the Jews,
further undermined proletarianization and further cemented
the fate of the Jew to that of the middle class. But though the
Jew was of the middle class, he was not just another element
within that class. His middle-class status did not dissolve his
relations with millennia of history that made for vulnerability
in distressed societies, irrespective of class position. During the
depression the Jews came to feel this for the first time as some-
thing other than a metaphysical fantasy. They witnessed a
flare-up of anti-Semitism that involved millions of sympathizers.
They found themselves accused of being the architects of
disintegration.

The anti-Semitic movement of the 1930*8 is largely linked
with the name of Father Charles E. Coughlin. An analysis of
his anti-Semitic message discloses the basic ingredients of which

JACOB RADER MARCUS

Director of the American Jewish Archives

Since Its Inception

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

were an international people who worked unitedly to achieve
their end: the domination of mankind. Financial control, on
the one hand, and revolutionary anarchy, on the other, were
two goals which alone could fulfill their ambitions. Was it
any wonder, then, that disaster had overcome the simple,
trusting American who was helpless before a plot so sinister and
a power so pervading and yet unseen?

This type of propaganda was very effective because superfi-
cially it seemed to be true. There were outstanding Jewish
banking houses throughout the world; some Jews had been
active Bolsheviks and radicals; Jews were spread throughout the
world; Hitler's Germany had taken drastic measures against
the Jews; some Jews were brilliant, and some were prominent
as publicists; others were in the entertainment industry, and
it was generally assumed that they controlled the motion
picture industry and some influential newspapers. As the
readers of Father Coughlin's Social Justice looked around,
they saw that the Jews owned the most important department
stores and that the corner druggist was a Jew, as was the
physician, the lawyer, the haberdasher. Wherever they looked
they saw the Jew — and money. If they turned to the govern-
ment they saw that the New Deal was really Jewish. Some of
Roosevelt's key advisers were Jews. And did they not know that
Bernard Baruch was the adviser of Presidents? Here was the
link to international Jewish banking. No wonder, they reasoned,
that a powerful nation like Germany, in sheer self-defense, had
to break the Jewish power once and for all.

The Coughlin type of propaganda was very effective. It was
hard to refute, precisely because Jews were to be found in every
stratum of the economy and in virtually every country of the
world. So long as their qualitative role was emphasized, the
smallness of their number was unimpressive. It could be argued
that one key Jew controlled literally tens of thousands of non-

ELLIS RIVKIN

Jewish subordinates! The depression was not viewed as the
outcome of the breaking down of the total complex economy,
but as the consequence of external interference with an economy
which otherwise would have been immune to breakdown.

The virulent anti-Semitism of the depression years was espe-
cially ominous because it indicated that the Jews were more
vulnerable than any other group in American society. In
previous crises, Jews had shared with other groups like the
Roman Catholics, Italians, and Negroes, the blame for the
stresses and strains that wracked the country. During the Great
Depression the Jews, for the first time, found themselves bearing
the brunt of responsibility. In the tortuous selective process, the
Jews had been found to possess a scapegoat potential that could
not be equaled by any other minority: i. historically, the Jews
had always played this role; 2. they were linked with the
crucifixion of Jesus; 3. they were scattered throughout much
of the world, and hence seemed eternal aliens; 4. they were
found in every class, and, therefore, could be linked simultane-
ously with capitalism, communism, and intellectualism; 5, they
had no powerful nation or institution to protect them; 6. they
could serve as the common enemy against whom diverse
minorities and oppressed groups could unite; 7. they had been
effectively used by a powerful, modern Western power, Ger-
many, to achieve a fascist form of government. An amalgam
concocted out of such potent ingredients was sure to produce a
powerful effect wherever disaster threatened.

Anti-Semitism, however, was kept within bounds during this
period not because its doctrines were considered false or un-
palatable, but because effective measures were taken to prevent
a total collapse of the economy and of society. New Deal
legislation sealed the major cracks which were on the verge of
releasing an uncontrollable avalanche. This was achieved by
shoring up the corroded foundations of the middle class and of

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

the farmer, and by providing some measure of relief for the
working class and the unemployed. As long as steps could be
taken which held out some realistic basis for hope, anti-Semitism
could spread only as far as these barriers permitted. Despair
was contained by the preservation of some firmness of structure.

World War II ushered in a new epoch: an epoch of permanent
tension generated by the existence of two major constellations of
power unable or unwilling to annihilate each other. Each
constellation has absorbed within its system a welter of states
asserting national sovereignty, yet thoroughly dependent on
one or the other of the two major concentrations of economic
wealth and power. The years since 1946 have witnessed the
steady decline of England and France, the emergence of depend-
ent national sovereignties in the former colonial empires of
Britain, France, and the Netherlands, the consolidation of
Russian power in Eastern Europe, and the emergence of a
powerful Communist China. Virtually every area of the world
is beset by tensions revolving about the competing sovereign
claims within the area (India vs. Pakistan, and the Arab States
vs. Israel), or stemming from the larger pattern of conflict
between the United States and Russia. Under the circumstances,
there is little prospect of reaching any permanent settlement
which will completely eliminate the threat of armed conflict.

The economic and social shifts in the United States are
directly related to the character of the epoch. Since the power
constellation represented by the Soviet Union must be offset by
at least its equivalent, the government in our country emerges
as the largest single factor affecting the organization, structure,
and trend of total society. The government is directly involved

ELLIS RIVKIN

in the economic and military support of those nations whose
strength is vital for the maintenance of its power. The production
of armaments of ever-increasing technical complexity and
quality is necessary for the maintenance of its own power and
the power of its allies. Significant sectors of production are
exclusively engaged in manufacturing weapons of a highly
intricate character, and thousands are employed in research
and in the making of these items.

The government not only has come to play a crucial role in
the productive process, but its power, influence, and resources
have penetrated every corner of national life. The universities
as training schools for the specialized sciences have more and
more been drawn into government projects. A large percentage
of graduate scientists, engineers, economists, administrators, and
the like, immediately find their way to employment in some
government project. The vast bureaucracy absorbs an ever-
increasing percentage of the highly specialized and the highly
trained.

The emergence of the government as a permanent factor in
the total productive pattern comes at a time when industrial
development is undergoing a vast revolution in technique and
rationalization, generated by the radical growth of electronics,
making automation not only possible but necessary* Such devel-
opments have increased the demand for physicists, engineers,
economists, and other highly trained specialists.

This period has likewise witnessed the rapid growth of large-
scale corporate enterprise and the steady reduction in the
significance of small economic units not only in manufacturing,
but also in the wholesale and retail trade and in farming* The
acceleration of mergers and the competitive elimination of even
comparatively large productive units has narrowed down the
class of free entrepreneurs and has enlarged the salaried executive
and employee class. The interdependent character of the

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

economy has become more and more manifest, as an ever
larger percentage of the total population is being absorbed by
gigantic enterprises and by the government.

The position of the Jews is directly related to these new
developments. Since most Jews were already in the middle
and the lower middle classes at the close of World War II,
they responded to the changes in the economy as befitted their
class status and orientation. The basic trend was towards
incorporation into the rapidly growing salaried sectors of the
economy and of the government, as the demand for engineers,
scientists, accountants, economists, and administrators increased
in the post-war decade. The economic growth was so great and
for the most part so steady that former restrictions on Jewish
employment were steadily relaxed by private industry, while
the continued growth of government bureaucracy opened op-
portunities for nondiscriminatory employment. The growth in
retail trade, characterized as it was by continued enlargement
of the entrepreneurial unit, increased the need for administrative
and technical personnel. The expansion of the advertising media
and the emergence of television alongside the earlier means of
mass communication likewise opened opportunities for employ-
ment. The increased demand for medical care led to the ac-
celeration of medical training programs and the relaxation of
quotas as far as Jewish students were concerned.

Jews continued as private entrepreneurs, some in sectors
linked to vast industrial enterprises, others in the manufacture
of clothing, and some in the wholesale and retail trade. The
steady rise of the stock market and the favorable dividend
picture made large incomes possible for those who had significant
sums for investment. But this type of income had no relationship
to an active entrepreneurial role. The investment banking
houses run by Jews, such as the Lehman Brothers, continued to
be active, but no new firms made their appearance.

ELLIS K.IVKIN

The general prosperity of these years offered little fertile soil to
anti-Semitic agitators. To the extent that some dissatisfaction
was inevitable as long as all economic and social problems were
not solved, some anti-Semitism was in evidence. No real threat,
however, could emerge in the context of full employment and
social stability.

VII

As of the moment, the experience of the Jews in the United
States continues. Their relationship to capitalism in this country
thus far has been preponderantly positive. The strength and
power of the economic system in the United States have been
so great that it has successfully weathered both the Great
Depression and a global war. This strength and power have
enabled the Jews to find security, opportunity, and hope.

Although the over-all experience has been highly positive,
the negative aspects cannot be overlooked. At every moment of
economic or social crisis, especially since the 1890'$, anti-
Semitism has manifested itself. This anti-Semitism more and
more linked the Jews with the sources of disintegration and
decay and attempted to identify the Jews with the twin threat
of international capitalism and international communism.
Should any major crisis emerge in the future, it is to be expected
that anti-Semitism will once more be aroused from its mo-
mentary dormancy.

Thus far the experience of the Jews with capitalism in the
United States has been similar to previous patterns. The position
of the Jews in every society of the past has been as secure as
the society itself. For every stress the Jews have been held
essentially responsible; for every collapse they have been
blamed. Thus far every major stress in American society has
yielded anti-Semitism.

A DECISIVE PATTERN IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

As we move into the future, what can we expect? The so-
ciological structure of the Jewish population in 1 958 seems to
indicate that the fate of the Jew in this country is dependent
upon the fate of capitalism. If this economic system is capable
of continuous regeneration, and if it successfully survives the
threats of war without a drastic reduction in its standard of
living; or if, America having become involved in war, its
economic system emerges victorious without society's reduction
to a shambles during the interim; then we may expect that
the position of the Jews will tend to remain favorable. But
if some collapse should take place in the present structure
of the economy, either as the consequence of a depression or as
the result of a drastic reduction in the standard of living,
necessitated by meeting the threats of war or involvement in
war; and if in response to such emergencies the prevailing
institutions in this country are transformed; then the outlook
for the Jews will be poor. Movements will emerge which will
seek to allay despair and to siphon off discontent by diverting
the minds of the helpless and hopeless from the sources of their
difficulties towards fellow sufferers and fellow victims. Then,
once again, the accumulated accusations of the ages will be
amalgamated with the ills of the hour, and the seeming truth
will be so obvious that refutation will be vain. Jews will be
condemned as the representatives of international, alien cap-
italism in league with radical, revolutionary, anti-capitalist Com-
munism. It will be asserted that this invincible, if unnatural,
alliance has destroyed all that is good and worthy.

The fate of the Jew is thus once again linked with the fate
of society. The future alone will indicate what that fate will be.

The Sale of a Negro Slave
in Brooklyn in 1683

ABRAHAM G. DUKER

XHE DOCUMENT published here is a bill of sale relat-
ing to the purchase of a neegerman, a Negro slave, by one Pieter
Strijker (Stryker), of Vlackebos, now the Flatbush section of
present-day Brooklyn, N. Y., from "the honorable Abraham
Franckfoort, a Jew, residing in New York" (den eersame Abraham
Franckfoort een Joodt woonachtig in N. JorcK)* The transaction had
taken place in the Village of Midwout, now Midwood, then a
part of Flatbush, on August 15, 1683. Its terms called for the
payment of half of the 1,025 guldens in 1683 anc^ ^or t^ie com~
pletion of the payment in 1684 or 1685. The receipt for the
second half of the payment bears the signature, "Aberham [sic]
Franckfort [sic]," and the date, "Junij (June) 27, i68[?]s[?]. The
document is on deposit in the office of the Brooklyn County
Clerk. *

Dr. Abraham G. Duker is the President of The College of Jewish Studies,
Chicago, 111,, and an editor of Jewish Social Studies.

1 Flatbush was once one of the original towns of Kings County or the Borough of
Brooklyn. It was legally established as Vlackebos or Midwout.

The document appears in the Flatbush Town Records, book 1004, page 122,
old page 150, in the collection of the former Commissioner of Records Office, now
the Historical Division of the Kings County Clerk, State of New York, located in
the Hall of Records in Brooklyn. I hereby acknowledge the help of Mr. James A.
Kelly, Brooklyn Borough historian and Deputy County Clerk, for his kindness in
locating the document for me; of Mr. James F. Waters, his assistant, for helpful

ABRAHAM G. DUKER

Though Bernard Postal and Lionel Koppman, A Jewish
Tourist* s Guide to the United States (Philadelphia, 1954), p. 443,
report that Franckfoort and Strijker "had entered into a business
arrangement/' the name of Aberham (or Abraham) Franckfoort
does not appear in any of the published standard works on
American Jewish history 2 or in any of the histories of slavery or of
the local histories of New York or Brooklyn. 3 Jews were reported
to have lived in Long Island as early as 1682. According to
Isaac Martens, Asser Levy's family removed "to Long Island

information; as well as of Rabbi Arthur J. S. Rosenbaum in having called to my
attention the existence of documents of Jewish interest in that collection. I wish
to thank also Dr. Jacob Meijer for his help in comparing the official translation by
experts of the former Commissioner of Records Office with the photostat of the
original.

9 Of., for instance, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society
Jacob Rader Marcus, Early American Jewry 9 The Jews of New Tork, New England and
Canada. 1649-1794 (Philadelphia, 1951), I; David de Sola Pool, Portraits Etched in
Stone: Early Jewish Settlers, 1682-1831 (New York, 1952); David and Tamar de
Sola Pool, An Old Faith in the New World: Portrait of Shearith Israel 1654-1954 (New
York, 1955); Earl A. Grollman, "Dictionary of American Jewish Biography in the
Seventeenth Century," American Jewish Archives, III (June, 1950), p. 6.

4 Cf., for instance, Elizabeth Donnan, cd., Documents Illustrative of the History of the
Slave Trade in America, 1441-1700 (Washington, 1930), I; Minutes of the Common
Council of the City of New York 1675-1776 (New York, 1905), VIII; Benjamin F.
Thompson, A History of Long Island, Containing an Account of the Discovery and Settle-
ment; with Other Important and Interesting Matters, to the Present Time (New York,
1839); B. F. Thompson, A History of Long Island from Its Discovery to the Present Time
(2nd ed.; New York, 1843); Collections of the New Tork Historical Society (Second
Series, Vol. I [New York, 1841]); Henry R. Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn
(Brooklyn, 1869), 3 vols.; J. Paulding, Affairs and Men of New Amsterdam: The Time
of Governor Peter Stuyvesant (New York, 1843); Nathaniel S. Prime, A History of
Long Island from Its First Settlement by Europeans to the Tear 1845, with Special Reference
to Its Ecclesiastical Conditions (New York, 1845); David T, Valentine, A History of
the City of New Tork (New York, 1853); Gabriel Furman, Antiquities of Long Island
(New York, 1875); B. Fernow, ed,, Documents Relating to the History of the Early
Colonial Settlements Principally on Long Island (Old Series, Vol. XIV; New Series,
Vol. Ill [Albany, 1883]); B. Fernow, The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to
1674 A. D. (New York, 1857), 7 vols.; Martha Bockee Flint, Early Long Island, A
Colonial Study (New York, 1896).

THE SALE OF A NEGRO SLAVE IN BROOKLYN IN 1683

on his decease in i68s."4 A record of land ownership by Jews
in Long Island goes back to 1 745. s However, the historian of
Brooklyn Jewry traces the beginnings of their settlement in that
borough only as far back as the nineteenth century. 6

It is clear from our document that a New York Jew had
concluded a business transaction involving a human chattel
across the East River from Manhattan as early as 1683. At that
time, although only twenty-nine years old, the Jewish commu-
nity in New York was large enough to have its own "separate
meeting" or steady place of worship. 7 It is also clear from the
document that Jews had at that time the right to buy and sell
slaves. To judge from Abram Vossen Goodman's failure to
mention this problem in his standard study, 8 the right of Jews
to own slaves was not challenged in the Dutch colony of New
Netherlands (or New York, as it was later called under English
rule) . It is not known whether Franckfoort was a slave dealer or
whether he had sold the Negro from his own household. Max J.
Kohler states that "until about 1750 at any rate, every New

* Isaac Markens, The Hebrews in America (New York, 1888), p. 9. Gf. Postal and
Koppman, loc. cit.

* To cite: "It is probable that Jews settled [on Long Island] from the time of their
arrival in New York; but the first definite record is that of the town of Oyster Bay,
January 19, 1745 ... at that time nineteen acres of land in the town were sold by
the executors of the Samuel Meyers estate for £65." Henry Isharn Hazleton, The
Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, Counties of Nassau and Suffolk^ Long Island, New Tork,
1600-1924 (New York, 1925), II, 1119-20. Of. Postal and Koppman, op. cit., p. 464.
The publication of these colonial documents is highly desirable.

6 Samuel P. Abelow, History of Brooklyn Jewry (Brooklyn, I937)> P- 5-

i According to Domine Henricus Selyns in October, 1682. Gf. Albion Morris
Dyer, "Points in the First Chapter of New York Jewish History," PAJHS, III
(1895), 47*

8 Cf. Abram Vossen Goodman, American Overture: Jewish Rights in Colonial America
(Philadelphia, 1947). The problem of permitting Jews to export slaves was treated
on a different level. Cf. Max J. Kohler, "The Jews and the Anti-Slavery Move-
ment," PAJHS, V (1897), 141-42.

ABRAHAM G. DUKER

York family of any wealth or comfort held slaves, and in keeping
and even in dealing in them the Jews were neither better nor
worse than the Christian inhabitants." 9 The second alternative
is, therefore, a possible one. It is interesting to note that, in a
relatively early document of this sort, the Jew is referred to as
eersame, "honorable." It may perhaps suggest that Franckfoort
was a man of wealth or stature. True, this adjective was com-
monly used in the legal terminology of that period. Its use with
reference to a Jew may have been due to the attitude of Johannis
van Eekeln, the clerk of Midwout, who was also a schoolmaster
and chorister in Flatbush. x °

To judge by his name, Franckfoort was an Ashkenazic Jew,
additional proof that Ashkenazim came to this continent in the
seventeenth century. It is not known whether he hailed from
Frankfurt-am-Main or from Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, x x His sig-
nature appears to indicate that he was not too skilled in the
writing of Latin script, for he signed his name as aberham, with
a small "a." ia His name does not appear on published tax lists

9 Max J. Kohler, "Phases of Jewish Life in New York before 1800," PAJHS, II
(1894), 84. On the prevalence of slavery in seventeenth-century New York, cf.
Samuel McKee, Jr., Labor in Colonial New York, 1664-1776 (New York, 1935),
p. 115.

"The contract, dated October 8, 1682, is reprinted in Thompson, A History of
Long Island from Its Discovery to the Present Time (2nd ed.; New York, 1843), pp.
285-86; Furman, Antiquities of Long Island, pp. 171-73; and other works. The
Stryker (Strijker, Strycker) family was prominent in the history of Flatbush. Pietcr
Strijker's commission as captain of foot, Flatbush, Kings County, issued on Decem-
ber 27, 1689, is listed in E. B. O'Callaghan, Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the
Office of the Secretary of State (Albany, N. Y., 1866), Part 2, p. 190, no. 114. There is
also another mention of him on p. 238.

1 x The Jews were driven out of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in the first quarter of the
sixteenth century. By 1635 some Polish Jews had been readmitted. By 1668 a Jew
was identified as a resident of the city, and in 167 1 a Jewish community was founded
by exiles from Vienna. Cf. Josef Heller in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Berlin, 1930), VI,
1115-

*a This may be inconclusive. Varieties in spelling abound in documents of this
period.

THE SALE OF A NEGRO SLAVE IN BROOKLYN IN 1683

of the period or on other early lists of inhabitants of Manhattan.
It is possible that this scarcity of information may be attributed
to his early death or return to Europe. It is also possible that he
moved to another community or colony. Perhaps he disappeared
in the Christian majority through intermarriage or conversion,
with change of name. Whatever the case, the document supplies
another brick in the structure of the history of early American
Jewry.

THE TEXT

Compareerde voor mij, Johannis van Eekeln, geadmittent
clerk van der dorpe midwout en der maer genoemde persoone,
den eersame Abraham Franckfoort een Joodt woonachtig
in N. Yorck bekent alhier bij deese gecocht te hebben en pieter
Strijker woonachtig in 't Vlackebos ter ander zijde bekent
gecocht te hebben een neegerman voor de somme van een
duijsent en vijf en twintigh gulden segge 1,025 §-• de eerste paij
sal zijn de gerechte helft i68f de twede helft oft: paij 168$
welke neeger de gemelte pieter Strijker bekent ontfangen te
hebben. Dit alles sonder drog ofte list gedaen in de dorpe Mid-
wout deese 15 Augustus 1683.

[Signature] pieter Strijcker
In kennisse van mijn Johannis van Ekelen [elk?]

Ich ondergeschrevene Abraham Franckfoort, bekenne voor de
bovenstaande neeger ten voile voldaan te sijn de eerste ende
laatste penninge en bevrijde hem van alle aenmaaning Adij
[Anno Domini] Midwout Junij 27, i68[?]5[?].

[Signature] aberham Franckfort

ABRAHAM G. PUKER

TRANSLATION *

Appeared before me, Johannis Van Eekelen, licensed clerk of
the village [ = Town of] Midwout and [before] the hereafter
named persons, the honorable [ = worthy] Abraham franckfoort
[ = Franckfoort,] a Jew[,] residing in N, Yorck[,] who acknowl-
edges here [ = hereby] that he sold, and Pieter Strijker
[ = Stryker,] residing in Vlackebos on the other side acknowl-
edges that he bought a negro man for the sum of one thousand
and five and twenty [ = twenty-five] guldens [,] that is [=viz.]
1,025 glds. The first payment shall be the rightful half in i68f ;
the second half or payment in i68$[,] which [ = , This] negro
the said Pieter Strijker [ = Stryker] acknowledges he received.
All this done without deceit or trick, in the village [ — Town of]
Midwout, this is[th] of August, 1683,

Peter Strijcker [Strycker]
Known to me, Johannis Van Ekelen [,Clk,]

I, the undersigned Abraham Franckfoort, acknowledge that I
have been paid in full for the above named negro, the first and
last penny fpennie,] and I release him from all claims. In
Midwout, June 27, i68[?]5[?] A.D.

aberham Franckfort [Abraham Franckfort]

* Words in brackets indicate variants from the original text in the official transla-
tion.

The Function of Genealogy in American
Jewish History

MALCOLM H. STERN

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article is based on ten-
tatively complete genealogical tables compiled by Rabbi
Stern for all available American Jewish families settled
in America prior to 1840. This compendium of genealogy
will be published by the American Jewish Archives under
the title Americans of Jewish Descent.

Genesis to Chronicles the Bible is replete with
genealogies.1 Those found in Genesis, chapters 4, 5, 10, and
n, contain intriguing folk-explanations of origins. Of greater
historical import are the data regarding the kings of Israel and
Judah scattered throughout the books of Kings and Chronicles,
data which indicate the genealogies of the several dynasties of
Israel and the Davidic descent of the Judaean rulers. In most
instances paternity and maternity are indicated, providing a
complete family record.

Jeremiah's dual allusion to "a sprout of David" 2 gave rise
to the concept of Messianic descent from David and led two of
the New Testament evangelists to include the genealogies of

Dr. Malcolm H. Stern is the spiritual leader of Ohef Sholom Temple, Norfolk, Va.

1 Cf. Emil G. Hirsch, "Genealogy; Biblical Data," Jewish Encyclopedia^ V, 596 ff.,
which lists twenty-eight actual genealogies in the Bible.

a See Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:15-16.

MALCOLM H. STERN

Matthew i and Luke 3 as evidence of Jesus' messiahship. The
importance of Davidic descent emerged subsequently in the
Babylonian Jewish community where, from the second to the
thirteenth centuries, authority was vested in a hereditary
exilarch for whom the claim of Davidic ancestry was made. 3

In Jewish ecclesiastical and ritual history, through the last two
millennia, the traditions of priestly (Cohen) descent and of
Levitical (Levi) descent have been preserved to some extent. In
the talmudic period, Aaronite descent was demanded not only
of the priest but also of his would-be spouse. 4 Through the ages,
those who preserve a family tradition of priestly descent have
been required to follow special laws, while both the Cohens and
the Levis received special prerogatives in synagogal ritual. s

Among the Jews of Spain, genealogy assumed a dual role.
Some few Spanish Jews, especially after they became New
Christians, acquired titles and patents of nobility. Although the
number of those who achieved such rank is now known to be
far smaller than has been generally believed, certainly those who
did acquire exalted station sought to preserve their family
records. At the same time, the records of the Inquisition were
careful to preserve evidence of Jewish ancestry, and there are
instances of New Christians who were still considered "new"
three and four generations after their forebears' conversion. 6

The Jewish love of scholarship and the high esteem in which
leading scholars were held are attested by the fact that descend-
ants of these intellectual "lights" preserved the record of their
descent from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European leaders

3 Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1893), II, 509.

4 Hirsch, loc. cit.

s Moses Buttenwieser, "Priest," Jewish Encyclopedia, X, 192 ff.

6 See Isaac Da Costa, Noble Families among the Scphardic Jews (Oxford, 1936),
pp. 104 ff.; Cecil Roth, A History of the Marranos (Philadelphia, 1932), p. 74; Cecil
Roth, "Were the Sephardim Hidalgos?" Commentary, XX (1955), pp. 125-31.

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

like Meir of Padua and his son, Samuel Judah Katzenellen-
bogen. 7

None of these factors has motivated the present work, for it
has been the exceptional Jewish family that has preserved in
written form the records of its ancestry. A persecuted minority,
like the Jews of Europe, beset with the basic problems of achiev-
ing livelihood and minimal security, had little concern with
family history. The glories of the general Jewish past satisfied
the interests of the majority. Nor was the constant movement of
the Jews in their search for the essentials of life conducive to the
preservation of lineage records. This fact is clearly evident among
the hundreds and thousands of migrants from the restrictive
atmosphere of Europe to the liberty-radiating air of America.
In pre-nineteenth-century America, the Ashkenazic Jew was
required to alter his accustomed patronymic (e. g., Abraham
ben Isaac; i. e., Abraham, son of Isaac) to a "family" or "last"
name. His Sephardic coreligionist, longer exposed to the custom
of his Christian neighbors, was usually blessed with three names,
and so migration usually required no alteration in Sephardic
nomenclature, although assimilatory tendencies often "reduced"
the mellifluous Spanish "Pardo" to the common English
"Brown." 8 Compounding this complicating factor of names were
the distance and the difficulty of communication across the
Atlantic Ocean, which frequently severed family ties and made it
almost impossible, in most instances, for even those who were
interested to trace their ancestry into Europe.

As has been indicated, the pioneer Jews were too concerned
with acquiring the necessities of life to bother with family
records, and except for an occasional synagogal notation or a

i Malcolm H. Stern, Americans of Jewish Descent, "SAMUEL II" genealogy.

* See David de Sola Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone: Early Jewish Settlers, 1682-1831
(New York, 1952), p. 443.

MALCOLM H. STERN

family Bible, there have been few ready sources of American
Jewish genealogy. The fact that the source material for Amer-
ican Jewish history lies in thousands of bits of data buried in
congregational archives, family letters and manuscripts, court
documents, isolated items in print, and inaccessible cemetery
epitaphs, lends importance to the compilation of genealogy: a
schematic record of individuals, their family connections, and
their dates and places of birth, marriage, and death. Genealog-
ical data offer compact source material to the historian, the
biographer, the sociologist, and even the anthropologist.

The potential uses of these data are legion. Here are a few
examples. The wanderings of eighteenth-century American Jews
can be accurately traced and dated when one examines the
birthplaces and birth dates of the numerous children of, for
example, Michael Marks 9 or Philip Moses Russell. * ° Data long
in print can be shown to be inaccurate; many biographies of
Bernard Baruch, for example, repeat the statement that he is
descended from a late seventeenth-century New York settler,
Isaac Rodriguez Marques, through the latter's son, Jacob
Rodriguez Marques, and supposed grandson, another Isaac,
who changed the family name to Marks and served as a private
in the New York Militia during the Revolutionary War. As can
be readily seen from the genealogy, x * Jacob Rodriguez Marques
died at St. Michaels, Barbados, in 1 725, while the Revolutionary
private, Isaac Marks, was born in New York in either 1 732 or
1741.

It is often difficult for the historian to determine whether an
individual American is Jewish or not. Confronted with such
names as Hart, Davis, and Soher in a locale like Lynchburg,

s» See Stern, "MARKS I" genealogy.

10 Ibid., "RUSSSLL" genealogy.

11 Ibid., "MARQUES — MARKS IV" genealogy,

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

Virginia, the recorder of Jewish history would be inclined to
ignore the record of Michael Hart, of Lynchburg, and his wife
Frances, n6e Davis, did the genealogist not unearth them in
the vital records of New York's Congregation Shearith Israel.
In these records Michael Hart may be found as the son of a
well-known London Jew, Benjamin Hart; and Frances Davis
Hart, as the offspring of a well-documented Jewish family of
Petersburg, Virginia. Their son, David, married a Rosalie
Soher, and the genealogist can adduce equal evidence to prove
the Soher family's Jewish connections. * a

Isolated items of historical information find their proper frame
of reference, as in the case of an obscure reference in Myer
Derkheim's circumcision record13 to "Moses, the son of Uri
Feis, born at Norfolk, Va., 1791." A random guess that "Uri
Feis" might be the synagogal name of Philip Moses Russell,
known to have been resident in Norfolk in 1791, found corrobo-
ration when a Russell family Bible came to light with a notation
of the birth of Philip Moses' son, Moses, "born in Norfolk, May

Pioneer Jews in communities removed from the Atlantic sea-
board can be discovered through genealogical data. Thus Ben-
jamin Myers (1755-1851), known from various sources to have
been a resident of New York and Westchester County,14 is
found to have resided also in Nashville, Tennessee, for a stray
reference in the Shearith Israel vital records indicates that his
daughter Sarah was born in Nashville on December 2, 1795.
Another daughter, Esther, born in New York City in 1805,
married Benjamin Le Jeune, and they became early Jewish

" Ibid., "DAVIS" and "SOHER" genealogies.

*3 See Herbert T. Ezekiel and Gaston Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of
Richmond, Va.,from 7769 to 1917 (Richmond, 1917)9 P- 33-

x* See Stern, "MYERS V" genealogy; Publications of the American Jewish Historical
Society (PAJHS), XXVI, 174 f.; »&, XXVII, 330.

MALCOLM H. STERN

residents of Kentucky, as the birth of a daughter, Rosina, in
West Point, Kentucky, in 1832, makes evident.15

An even more important demonstration of the usefulness of
American Jewish genealogical data can be shown in the following
two studies in assimilation of early American Jewry.

I. ENDOGAMY: SEPHARDIM ABSORBED BY ASHKENAZIM

American Jewish historiography, as well as the compilation of
American Jewish genealogy, awaited the achievement of a
large, established, and prospering Jewish community of several
generations3 existence in America. While in rare instances this
requirement had been met earlier, it was not until the late
nineteenth century that the rise of anti-Semitism, coupled with
a general American interest in history, brought forth full-scale
American Jewish histories. Among these were Isaac Markens*
The Hebrews in America (New York, 1888) and Judge Charles
P. Daly's * 6 The Settlement of the Jews in North America (New York,
1893). December, 1892, saw the first meeting of the American
Jewish Historical Society, whose valuable annual Publications
began to appear the following year.

These early writings, written without the benefit of data which
have since been unearthed, labeled the period from 1654 to 1825
the Sephardic Period in American Jewish history and assumed
that the majority of Jews in that era of American life were of
Spanish-Portuguese descent. The pioneer religious school text-
's Daughters of the American Revolution Ms. record of Elaine Grauman Myers;
see Stern, "MYERS V" genealogy.

16 Judge Charles Patrick Daly (1816-1899), New York-born Catholic, was active
in a number of cultural enterprises in his native city. He became interested in
Jews and Jewish history, and was a staunch defender of Jewish rights. His The
Settlement of the Jews in North America (New York, 1893) was an expansion of an
address delivered in 1872 at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the New York
Hebrew Orphan Asylum (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, III, 448).

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

book in the field, Lee J. Levinger's A History of the Jews in the
United States (first edition, Cincinnati, 1930; since revised), fixed
this concept in the minds of a generation of modern American
Jews. Later researchers on the subject have adduced the
following:

While it is true that six of the pioneer American Jewish con-
gregations17 founded in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies followed the Sephardic rite, Rodeph Shalom of Phila-
delphia, founded in 1795, l8 used the Ashkenazic rite. It is
probable, too, that the Lancaster community, meeting for wor-
ship in the late 1 740*8 at the home of Joseph Simon, followed the
Ashkenazic rite, although close connections with Philadelphia's
Mikveh Israel may have influenced it toward Sephardic ritual. x 9
Furthermore, it has been definitely proved that by the middle of
the eighteenth century, the Ashkenazim in America outnum-
bered the Sephardim. 2 °

As Cecil Roth, the authority on Sephardic Jewry, pointed
out,21 the Jews and Marranos from the Iberian Peninsula
gradually, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

1 7 The earliest congregations, their locations, names, and dates of founding are:

New York, Shearith Israel, 1656.
Newport, R. I., Jeshuat Israel, [1658 or] 1677.
Savannah, Ga., Mickve Israel, 1733.
Philadelphia, Mikveh Israel, 1745.
Charleston, S. G., Beth Elohim, 1750.
Richmond, Va., Beth Shalome, 1789.

18 Edwin Wolf 2nd and Maxwell Whiteman, The History of the Jews of Philadelphia
from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson (Philadelphia, 1957), pp. 225 f.

1 9 No records of this congregation survive. Gf. PAJHS, IX, 36 ff.; Jacob R. Marcus*
Early American Jewry (Philadelphia, 1951-1953), H, 53 f.

80 David and Taraar de Sola Pool, An Old Faith in the New World: Portrait of
Shearith Israel, 1654-1954 (New York, 1955), pp. 459 f-J cf- Marcus, I, xi-xii;
Hyman B. Grinstein, The Rise of the Jewish Community of New Tork, 1654-1860
(Philadelphia, 1947), p. 22.

81 Roth, Commentary, XX, 125-31.

MALCOLM H. STERN

established themselves economically — and, consequently, so-
cially— in such communities as Amsterdam, London, and
Hamburg, and evolved for themselves a myth of superiority to
the later arriving masses of Ashkenazic Jewry. The myth grew
to the status of a conviction, so that by the latter half of the
eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, evidences of the
social distinction appear in print. Especially in England was the
difference between Sephardi and Tudesco (Spanish for Ashkenazi)
enlarged upon, so that a marriage between the groups was
frowned upon as a mesalliance.** In the ketubot of London's
Sephardic Congregation Bevis Marks, the Ashkenazic brides
married between 1795 and 1797 are largely identified only
by the term Tudesca.23 In America, the myth was enlarged
to the extent that Christian authors became convinced that
Sephardic Jews were physically and mentally superior to the
Ashkenazim. 24

In the democracy of America's pioneer generations, however,
these distinctions seem to have had little force on the North
American continent, where the Ashkenazim struggled side by
side with the Sephardim for livelihoods, and where both groups
produced economic and social leaders.

Less tolerant of the Ashkenazim were the West Indian con-
gregations, like the one at Curagao, which in 1 728 addressed to
New York's Congregation Shearith Israel a famous letter, en-
closing a gift for the New York congregation's building fund,

aa Cf. the story of Jacob Israel Bernal, gabay (treasurer) of Bevis Marks Synagogue
of London, who resigned his office in order to marry a Tudesca and was subjected
to severe conditions before the elders of the congregation would permit his marriage
to take place (Bevis Marks Records, II, vi); cf. Albert M. Hyamson, The Sephardim
of England: A History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community, 1492-1951
(London, 1951), pp. 170 f.

3 a Bevis Marks Records, II, vii, 113.

a< E. g., Burton J. Hendrick, "Judah P. Benjamin," Statesmen of the Lost Cause:
Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet (New York, 1939), pp. 153 ff.

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

with the proviso that control of the congregation remain in the
hands of the Sephardic minority. 2 s

Identification of Sephardim and Ashkenazim. The chief
factor in determining which individuals are of Sephardic back-
ground and which of Ashkenazic is the family name. Throughout
the Middle Ages, most Jews were identified by their familiar
Hebrew patronymic, e. g., Mosheh ben Maimon (Moses, the son
of Maimon). Under Arabic domination, some Jews acquired
Moslem-type names, such as Abu al-Walid Merwan (eleventh-
century Spanish physician), along with their traditional syna-
gogal names. (Abu al-Walid Merwan, for example, bore the
synagogal name Jonah ibn Janach.) This dual naming custom
passed into Christian-dominated Spain where it became quite
common for assimilative Jews to bear a "Christian" name as
well as a "Jewish" one. Indeed, the Church often sought to
prohibit the custom among Jews.36 Among the Spanish aris-
tocracy of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, it
became customary to adopt as part of a family name both
patronymic and matronymic, and this led to triple names, a
practice soon generally followed in Christian, Marrano, and
Jewish communities. This was especially true among the Mar-
ranos, many of whom acquired new names at baptism, frequently
the name of their Christian sponsor.27 As the Marranos fled
from Spain and Portugal to northern Europe many of them
returned to Judaism, and assumed synagogal names, often
entirely different from their Marrano names, but still preserving
the flavor of the Iberian nomenclature. 2 8

S, XXVII, 3f.

a6 Abraham A. Neuman, The Jews in Spain: Their Social, Political and Cultural Life
During the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1942), II, 182, 257, 320 (note 3).

2? Roth, Commentary, XX, 125-31.

a8 Cf. Stern, "DA COSTA III" and "SEIXAS (i)" genealogies.

MALCOLM H. STERN

Further confusion for the genealogist is created by the fact
that in some Sephardic communities the tradition, derived from
Spain, was preserved by which a child chose to use his maternal
rather than his paternal family name. This custom seems to
have prevailed more in the West Indian Sephardic communities
than among the British Sephardim. 2 9

But even with all these variations in nomenclature, the
Sephardic family name remains fairly identifiable, except in
those cases where residents of English-speaking lands chose to
Anglicize their name (e. g., Pardo to Brown),30 Other peculi-
arities of Sephardic genealogy include the use of the particle
de to indicate "son of." To differentiate individuals of one family
bearing similar names, two generations are often indicated by
de (e. g., Daniel de Joshua de Daniel Peixotto, showing that
Daniel is the son of Joshua who is the son of Daniel). It was not
uncommon for Sephardim to marry first cousins or to name
sons after fathers; Ashkenazim married less frequently within
their own families, and custom forbade naming a child after a
living person.

Although most German Jews had some form of last name, these
often varied from individual to individual within one family,
and it was not until the Austrian edict of 1787 and Napoleon's
decree of 1808 that the masses of the Jews of Central and Eastern
Europe were compelled to adopt consistent family names. Those
Jews who migrated to English-speaking lands prior to these
edicts usually adopted an Anglicized version of the patronymic
(e. g., Abraham or Abrahams, indicating that the bearer was
the son of an Abraham) . Occasionally the surname was chosen
from the place of European origin (e. g., names ending in

»» Gf. the Rev. Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, son of Samuel Levy Maduro and
Leah Cohen Peixotto (see Stern, "PEIXOTTO I [2]" genealogy); cf. also Bevis Marks
Records, I and II, where patronymics seem to be used exclusively.

jo See Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone, pp. 443 f.

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

"-heim") or from the family occupation (e. g., Kaufman).
These same factors affected the names of those compelled by
European residence to assume last names. 3 r

On the basis of the above criteria, we have elected to consider
as Sephardic those with Iberian-sounding names, especially
when such names occur in the index to the ketubot of Bevis
Marks 3 2 or in the list of members of the Brazilian Jewish com-
munity. 33 All other families have been assumed to be Ashke-
nazic.

Having established our criteria for determining which families
are Sephardic and which are Ashkenazic, we can proceed to a
statistical study of genealogical data, and from them measure the
extent of the disappearance of the Sephardim through marriage
with the Ashkenazim. For the purposes of this study, we made
a list of all marriages available for the period prior to 1840 in
which the full names of both spouses are given. In those instances
in which no marriage date was available, we assumed that if the
male was born prior to 1815 and the female before 1820, their
marriage took place by 1840, unless otherwise indicated by the
birth dates of their children.

We found 942 American marriages in this period, and these
subdivide as follows:

Ashkenazim to Ashkenazim 536 marriages

Sephardim to Sephardim 101 marriages

Sephardim to Ashkenazim 155 marriages

Jewish-Christian marriages 150 marriages

In arriving at these figures, we have included all those with
Sephardic surnames as Sephardic, even though maternal an-

«* For details, see "Names," Jewish Encyclopedia, IX, 156; Universal Jewish
Encyclopedia, VIII, 95 ff.
** Bevis Marks Records, II.

MALCOLM H, STERN

cestry may be Ashkenazic. Similar criteria were applied to
Ashkenazim.

Of the 1 01 marriages of Sephardim to Sephardim, more than
half (fifty-three) took place in the West Indies where the com-
munities have remained predominantly Sephardic, so that there
was little absorption of Sephardim by Ashkenazim in the Carib-
bean area. While we included in our statistics only those West
Indian Jewish families whose members reached the North
American continent, the dominance of the Sephardim in the
West Indies is further attested by the fact that among the above-
mentioned Sephardic- Ashkenazic marriages we find only twelve
taking place in the islands, and six of these are within one family
(Wolff).

The Sephardim whose families settled in continental North
America prior to 1840 have disappeared almost completely.
Most of the families have died out. The remainder have been
absorbed either by marriage with Ashkenazim or by marriage
with non-Jews. Of the aforementioned 101 marriages of Sephar-
dim to Sephardim, forty-eight took place in the area of the
continental United States, and of the latter, fifteen of the
marriages were between individuals who had Ashkenazic as well
as Sephardic ancestry.

Our statistics cover forty-five genealogies of Sephardic families
settled in continental North America before 1840. Six of these
married only Sephardim prior to 1840; they are: De Lucena,
(Bueno) de Mesquita, Marques, and Rivera, who lived only
in the early eighteenth century when the Sephardic and Ash-
kenazic American communities were approximately equal in
size; and the Naar and Palache families, which came from the
West Indies to the New York area in the 1830*8 and married
almost exclusively with others in their own group, before 1840.

Of the remaining thirty-nine Sephardic-American families,
thirty-six intermarried with Ashkenazim within one generation
80

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

after their arrival in America. The other three families married
as follows: Samuel Souza, a Sephardi from Bayonne, France,
married, prior to coming to America, Minkella Gerf, a Prussian-
born Ashkenazi; David Nunez Carvalho, married to a Sephardi
in Charleston, S. C., had one son married to a Sephardi and one
to an Ashkenazi, while two children of the Sephardi-Sephardi
match married Ashkenazim; and while all the children of the
Reverend Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto married Sephardim,
most of his grandchildren married Ashkenazim.

A further examination of our forty-five Sephardic-American
families will show that only nine have living members who may
still be identified as part of the Jewish community: (Fonseca)
Brandon, Cardozo, Delmar, Lopez I (the family of Diego Jose
Lopez, of Portugal), Naar, Nones, Peixotto, Seixas, and Solis.
Many individuals among these families have intermarried with
non-Jews in recent generations, so that it is difficult to ascertain
positive Jewish identification. In addition to these nine families,
however, only the name of Carvalho survives today, and the
present Carvalho generation is completely intermarried.

Thus, we may summarize our findings by stating categorically
what most historians and sociologists in this field have surmised:
the pre-i84O Sephardic settlers on the North American con-
tinent have all but lost their identity as Sephardic Jews. Their
absorption through marriage by the faster-growing Ashkenazic
community took place almost at once, and the process was
already evident prior to 1840. Through marriage with non-Jews,
as will be shown in the next section, they lost not only their
Sephardic but also their Jewish identity, so that few vestiges
remain of this once-important group.

A schematic presentation of the above data will be found in
Appendix I.

MALCOLM H. STERN

II. EXOGAMY: JEWS ABSORBED BY INTERMARRIAGE
WITH NON-JEWS

We turn now to a consideration of those factors which led to the
assimilation of Jews by non-Jews through marriage in the period
prior to 1840.

Throughout American Jewish history it has been impossible
to ascertain an exact figure on the number of Jews in the
United States at any given time. The first American Jewish Tear
Book, 1899-1900, stated:

As the census of the United States has, in accordance with the spirit of
American institutions, taken no heed of the religious convictions of
American citizens, whether native-born or naturalized, all statements
concerning the number of Jews living in this country are based upon
estimate, though several of the estimates have been most conscien-
tiously made.

The statement continues with estimates made by various indi-
viduals and publications, of which the first three fall within our
period: Mordecai M. Noah's estimate of 1818; Isaac Harby's
estimate of 1826; and that of the 1840 American Almanac.*4 Let
us compare these figures with those of the nearest census year
for the whole population:

No. of Jews U. S. Census No. of All Americans**

(round figures)

1818 — 3,000 1820 9,638,000

1826 — 6,000 1830 12,866,000

1840 — 15,000 1840 17,069,000

Thus we see that throughout this period the Jews constituted
only a fraction of one per cent of the population. Most of the

" American Jewish Tear Book: 5660 (Philadelphia, 1899), p. 283.
*s Information Please Almanac (New York, 1954), p. 211.

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

pioneer Jews, like those of the larger group who were to arrive
after 1848, had been limited in Europe to mercantile enter-
prises, and thus the early settlers and their immigrant successors
remained, for the most part, in the growing urban areas of the
Atlantic seaboard.

In the period under survey, Jewish congregations were
ministered to by laymen. Some of these laymen achieved real
status as "minister," a title new to Jewish life when it was
instituted on the American scene. No ordained rabbi appeared in
the United States as a resident until 1840. The conduct of wor-
ship, the interpretation of Jewish law and lore, and the tradi-
tional functions of ritual slaughtering and circumcision were
carried on by lay leaders, many of them self-taught.36 As a
consequence, the real power in the congregation rested with
the all-powerful parnas ("president") and to a lesser extent with
the board of directors. Jewish law, except when, in the direst of
cases, appeal was made to European rabbinic authorities, was
interpreted, usually from memory, by these leaders. Feeling the
weight of their responsibility to guide their people, they invari-
ably gave most stringent answers to queries and verdicts in
trials.37

As a consequence, mixed marriages between Jews and
Gentiles were officially disapproved. In defense of this position
it should be recorded that proper conversion under Jewish law
required examination of the convert by a court consisting of
three ordained rabbis; such a court was unavailable in America
until 1846. 38 It followed that the Jew who married out of the
faith often found it simpler to leave the Jewish community. 3 9

3* Grinstein, pp. 81-99, 543 (note 14)-

s? Ibid., pp. 58-80; cf. also Pool, An Old Faith in the New World, pp. 258-301.

3« Grinstein, pp. 294-96; Pool, pp. 249-51.

»» Jacob R. Marcus, "Light on Early Connecticut Jewry," American Jewish Archives,

I (No. 2), 24 ff.

MALCOLM H. STERN

Often Jews in the rural areas, desirous of retaining their Jewish
identity, avoided the requirements of Jewish law by living in a
common-law relationship with their non-Jewish mates.40 The
social and economic advantages of assimilating to the majority
group also led to defections from the Jewish ranks. 4 1

With these factors in mind, let us examine some details of the
record of the American Jewish community before 1840. Of the
150 mixed marriages mentioned above, twelve give some evi-
dence of the Christian spouse's conversion to Judaism. In every
instance except one, the Jewish spouse belonged to a family
strongly identified with a congregation. The exception, Cath-
erine, wife of George Lyon, converted to Judaism just prior to
the birth of her sixth child.42 Further details regarding these
converts will be found in Appendix IL

Although the great majority of these mixed marriages led
to identification with the Christian community, in at least eight
instances some effort was made to keep the family or a portion
of it in the Jewish fold. Again, it seems that those living in
urban communities where other Jews resided had better moti-
vation toward this than did, for example, Michael Judah,
residing in Norwalk, Connecticut, in the eighteenth century.
Judah had his son, David, ritually circumcised, but failed to
keep the son identified with Judaism.43 At the opposite pole
were several families that had their children baptized, and in a
few cases the Jewish father himself was baptized. These and other
special instances are recorded in Appendix III,

*° E. g., the will of David Isaacs refers to his children by Nancy West (Albemarle
County, Va., Will Book 12, 1837, p. 366). Isaac Levy refers to his son and daughter
as "children of Elizabeth Pue" (Philadelphia Will Book i, 1777, p. 777). Isaac
Rodriguez alludes to Catherine De Spencer as "now living with me and partner in
business" (Philadelphia Wills No. 135, Book 6, 1816, p. 358).

* J Marcus, Early American Jewry, II, 503,

4* Shearith Israel Vital Records.

43 Marcus, Early American Jewry, I, 175 f.

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

The opprobrium with which Jewish families met intermar-
riage is readily evident in the fact that even families whose
genealogies are well-documented often made brusque allusion
to the non-Jewish spouses of their kinfolk in the family record.
In twelve instances we find only the statement: "Married a
Christian," or "Gentile/5 or "out," or "Catholic," or, in one
case, "an Irish cook." Eleven others listed such spouses either
by first or last name but not by both.

While it has been impossible to ascertain the social status of
the majority of the families with whom the Jews intermarried,
both extremes appear on our charts. The three Franks mar-
riages, those of Phila to General Oliver DeLancey, of Abigail
to the prominent Andrew Hamilton III, of Philadelphia, and
of Rebecca to Lieutenant Colonel (later Sir) Henry Johnson,
are well-known to students of American Jewish history. 44 Among
other marriages with people of title or social standing we find
that Catherine Hyams married Anthony Broglio, Marquis
Solari; a scion of the Canadian Harts married a niece of Jefferson
Davis; Caroline Marx, of Richmond, married Richard Barton
of an old Virginia plantation family; and three daughters of
Samuel Wolfe married Civil War generals. At the other end of
the social scale, we have at least two records of liaisons with
ladies of some Negro descent.

Summarizing our findings, we note that upward of 15 per cent
of the marriages recorded before 1840 were between Jews and
Christians. Of these mixed marriages less than 8 per cent led to
the conversion of the Christian spouse to Judaism, and only 5
per cent of those who did not convert made any apparent effort
to identify themselves with the Jewish community. This leaves
87 per cent who seem to have become completely assimilated

44 The St. Charles, I (1935), pp. 31-48, 67; Lee M. Friedman, Jewish Pioneers and
Patriots (Philadelphia, 1942), pp. 227-44; Marcus, Early American Jewry, I, 67 f.,
and II, 1 12 f.

MALCOLM H. STERN

into the non-Jewish community, although the bare statistic
takes no cognizance of the fact that many a Christian descendant
of a Jewish ancestor has found himself labelled "Jew" even
generations after the family embraced Christianity, 4 s

We have shown that Judaism, officially and socially, frowned
on intermarriage and offered no encouragement to would-be
converts, but that proximity to Jewish congregations and
strength of family affiliation did lead to the few conversions
which took place.

Moreover, the above statistics show that although inter-
marriage was prevalent among America's early Jewish settlers,
it does not seem to have been so great as one might expect from
the ratio of the Jewish to the non-Jewish population. But once
an intermarriage did take place, the rate of the assimilation of
he Jew into his non-Jewish environment was high.

Marcus, Early American Jewry, II, 97.
86

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

APPENDIX I: ASSIMILATION OF THE SEPHARDIM
IN NORTH AMERICA

Family Name

Date when
first known in
North America

No. of settled generations
before intermarriage with

Family faith if
extant

Ashkenazim

Christians

FONSECA BRANDON ....
RODRIGUEZ BRANDON. .
GARDOZO

1828
1824
1752

1814

1778
1759
1788
1768
1789
1834
1655
1733
1683
1815

1784
1760
1686
1703
1781
1829

2
1
2

2
3
2
1
1
2
married only
2
married only
2

1
2
married only
3
1
1

2
3

3
2
3

Sephardim
4
Sephardim
1

Sephardim
5
2
1

Jewish
died out
Jewish and
Christian
Christian

died out
died out
Jewish
died out
died out
Jewish
died out

cc
<c

c«

(«

Christian
died out

CARVALHO

COHEN [REVEREND
TACOB R 1 .

DA COSTA

DAVEGA

DE LA MOTTA

DE LEON

DELMAR

DE LUCENA

DE L YON

BUENO DE MESQUITA. .
DE PASS I

(Originally of
Bordeaux, France)

DE PASS
(miscellaneous)
DE TORRES

GABAY FARO

GOMEZ

HARBY*

HENRIQUES I

(Family of Abram
Henriques Quixano,
of Spain)

* Harby is included as Sephardic because of the immediate background of the
first American generation (cf. PAJHS, XXXII, 45 ff.).

MALCOLM H. STERN

Family Name

Date when
first known in
North America

No. of settled generations
before intermarriage with

Family faith if

Ashkenazim

Christians

HENRIQUES II

1833

1800
1819
ca. 1742

1729
1746
1695
1767

1831

Mil
1733
1808
1829

1819
1807

1796
1725
1798
1753
1778
1738

1803
1794
1823
1818
1760
1809

2
2

1
married only
married only

(before
1
2
1
married only
(before
2
3

1
2
2
1
1
1

1
2
pre-American
2
1
2

?
2
3

1
Sephardim
Sephardim

1840)

2
3

Sephardim
1840)

4 (converts)
2

died out

p
died out
Jewish and
Christian

died out
died out

early American
tranches died out

Jewish

?
died out

cc
cc

Jewish
Jewish and
Christian
died out
Christian

died out
u

Jewish and
Christian
Jewish
died out
Jewish
died out

(Family of Moses
Henriques, of
London)

LABATT

LEVY (MOSES E.)
LOPEZ I

(Family of Diego
Jose Lopez, of
Portugal)

LOUZADA

MARACHE .

MARQUES

MENDES

NA AR

NONES

NUNEZ

OTTOLENGUI

PALACHE

(COHEN) PEIXOTTO
(MADURO) PEIXOTTO..

PESOA

PINTO

RODRIGUEZ

SARZEDAS

SASPORTAS

SEDCAS

Sous

SORIA

SOUZA

SUARES

TOURO

VALENTINE

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

APPENDIX II: CONVERTS TO JUDAISM THROUGH MARRIAGE
BEFORE 1840

(The Jewish spouse is listed first; then the convert.)

ALEXANDER, ABRAHAM, SR., married, in Charleston, S. C., his second
wife, Ann Sarah Irby, n6e Huguenin, of Protestant Huguenot
extraction, on December 26, 1784, at which time he was appar-
ently compelled to surrender his position as volunteer hazzan of
Congregation Beth Elohim. His bride evidently underwent a
conversion prior to their marriage and, according to family
tradition, was most observant in her Jewish practices. She survived
her husband by nineteen years and in her will requested burial
in the cemetery of Beth Elohim, a request which seems not to
have been granted as her conversion failed to meet strict Jewish
requirements. (H. A. Alexander, Notes on the Alexander Family . . .
[Atlanta: privately printed, 1954], pp. 13-15.)

COHEN, ABRAHAM HYAM, was the son, assistant, and successor of the
Reverend Jacob Raphael Cohen, a native of the Barbary States,
who had served Shearith Israel of Montreal and of New York
before exchanging pulpits, in 1784, with Gershom Mendes
Seixas. The latter, with many members of Philadelphia's Mikveh
Israel, returned to New York after the Revolution, and Cohen
went to serve the Philadelphia congregation, now depleted in
membership. Cohen functioned as cantor, ritual slaughterer, and
circumciser until his death in 1811. Ill-health and inadequate
income led to frequent altercations with the adjunta ("board")
of the congregation, and on many occasions he relied on his son
to assist or replace him. Upon the father's death, the son func-
tioned pro tempore until he secured his election as official hazzan,
but in 1815, Abraham H. Cohen resigned over what hie consid-
ered a slight to his father's memory. In the light of these bog raphi-
cal data, it is perhaps significant that the Mikveh Israel records are
absolutely silent about his marriage. Indeed, our only source of
information about his spouse is the lady's memoirs, published in
1860 under the title, Henry Luria, or the Little Jewish Convert (New
York: John F. Trow, printer), a precis of which appears in
Ezekiel and Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond.
The future Mrs. Cohen, n6e Picken, was the daughter of a
Presbyterian minister, but had been reared as an Episcopalian,
In January, 1806, when she met Abraham H. Cohen, she was a

MALCOLM H. STERN

young widow. Their romance came to his father's ears, anc
called his son before the adjunta, which endeavored to ext
from the young lover an oath that he would marry only a Jevi
Instead, he persuaded his sweetheart to embrace Judaism,
despite the traditional rejection of converts, the full cerem
was performed, as vividly described by Mrs. Cohen, in
presence of the "elders of the congregation," and the coi
married on May 28, 1806. It is probable that out of deferenc
the aging and infirm father, the adjunta permitted the marr
to take place, but neither Benjamin Nones' carefully presei
congregational archives, nor the Reverend Jacob Cohen's deta
record of his births, circumcisions, and marriages, alludes tc
Subsequently, in 1821, Mrs. Cohen fell ill and became obsei
with a desire to reject her conversion, and in 1828, shortly a
her husband accepted a call to serve as hazzan for Beth Shale
Congregation in Richmond, the death of their small son, He
Luria, led the mother formally to recant her conversion. r.
precipitated a separation in 1831, and they remained apart
the last ten years of the husband's life. (Herbert T. Ezekiel
Gaston Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond,
from 7769 to 1917 [Richmond, 1917], pp. 219-21; Edwin V
2nd and Maxwell Whiteman, The History of the Jews of Philade[
from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson [Philadelphia, 19
PP- 237-38.)

COHEN, JACOB I., in the fall of 1 782, married Elizabeth (Esther) Mordt
ne'e Whitlock. She was evidently English, and about 1760
1761 converted in order to marry Moses Mordecai, a man thi
seven years her senior, who brought her to Philadelphia
died there twenty years later, leaving her a poor widow v
three young sons. She met Jacob I. Cohen, and despite
efforts of Congregation Mikveh Israel to block their marri
on the ground that he was a Cohen (of priestly stock) and
eligible to marry a convert, they married, moved to Richmc
and lived "happily ever after." She, too, seems to have b
denied burial in the Jewish cemetery of Richmond, for
epitaph is in the record of St. John's Episcopal Church. (Eze
and Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond, p.
Jacob R. Marcus, Early American Jewry [Philadelphia, 19
1953], II, 185-87; Wolf and Whiteman, The History of the j
of Philadelphia, p. 126.)

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

JUDAH, URIAH HENDRICKS, as his name indicates, a scion of two of
the leading families in New York's Congregation Shearith Israel,
was also connected genealogically with such important clans as
Seixas, Gomez, Nathan, and Myers. We can imagine the stir
created when he fell in love with a Gentile, one Gertrude Simonson.
Her desire to convert met with the traditional opposition on the
part of the congregation's officialdom, so she went elsewhere
(probably to one of the three Ashkenazic congregations which
had been formed in New York) and underwent conversion. The
couple returned to Shearith Israel, and by pointing to precedents
in the congregation's records, persuaded the authorities to permit
Hazzan Isaac B. Seixas to solemnize their marriage, which took
place on July 27, 1836. One wonders whether Uriah's and
Gertrude's difficulties affected the case of Uriah's brother, De
Witt Clinton Judah, When his eyes strayed matrimonially beyond
the Jewish fold, there is no record of any effort at conversion, and
the family recorded this match with the curt statement: "Married
an Irish cook." (David and Tamar de Sola Pool, An Old Faith
in the New World: Portrait of Shearith Israel, 1654-1954 [New York,
1955], p. 251; Shearith Israel Vital Records.)

LYON, GEORGE, is known to us only through the vital records of New
York's Shearith Israel. We can only guess that either his arrival
in the metropolis from some outpost or his sudden desire to rear
his ever-growing family in the faith of his fathers brought him to
arrange for the conversion of his wife, Catherine (maiden name
unrecorded), a ceremony which took place on April 8, 1821.
When, three years later, on October 19, 1824, their sixth child,
Joseph, was born, George Lyon recorded his birth in the con-
gregation's archives. The father listed himself as George —
Hebrew name, Judah, son of Isaac — Lyon, and added the
names of his first five children (Shearith Israel Vital Records) .

NATHAN, ESTHER, youngest of the five daughters of Lyon and Caroline
Webb Nathan (below), married, at some point, a Dr. Bingley.
On the grounds that her father was an official of the synagogue,
and that three of her four sisters married men who were actively
identified with congregations, the late Dr. Walter Max Kraus
assumed that Bingley was a convert (Kraus-Sandor Collection).

NATHAN, LYON, married in New York, in 1750, Caroline Webb, by
whom he had five daughters. By 1770, he was living in Phila-
delphia, and when Congregation Mikveh Israel erected its first

MALCOLM H. STERN

synagogue, he was the successful candidate of the three who
applied for the position of shammas ("sexton"). On this slim
evidence we have made the assumption that his wife was a
convert, or else deceased, for it is hardly likely that the husband
of a Gentile would have acquired the menial, but ritually
important, post over his competitors. (Kraus-Sandor Collection;
David de Sola Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone: Early Jewish Settlers,
1682-1831 [New York, 1952], pp. 288, 401, 403, 412; Wolf and
Whiteman, p. 124.)

NATHANS, ISAIAH, married, as his first wife, a woman named Barbara
(last name unknown), who, upon her conversion, was given the
Hebrew name Sarah. That her conversion was accepted by his
fellow Philadelphians is attested by the fact that she was buried
in the Spruce Street Burying Ground of Mikveh Israel Con-
gregation (Spruce Street Cemetery Record).

NATHANS, MOSES, elder brother of Isaiah, seems to have lived in
common-law relationship with a non-Jewess, Betty Hart, before
1790. On January n, 1792, they were legally married in Phila-
delphia. Moses petitioned Mikveh Israel for the conversion of his
wife, and after some delay, this was accomplished. They were re-
married according to the Jewish rite in Philadelphia, May 18,
1 794, and she, like her sister-in-law, received the synagogal name
of Sarah Abrahams. She was born in 1756, and died in Phila-
delphia, March 12, 1830, with burial in the congregation's
cemetery. (Wolf and Whiteman, p. 127; Spruce Street Cemetery
Record; Myer Solis-Cohen.)

NONES, DAVID BENJAMIN, son of the Revolutionary patriot, Benjamin
Nones, married a woman named Anna. As the eldest son of a
man prominent in the affairs of Mikveh Israel, David succeeded
in bringing his wife into the Jewish fold and in having bestowed
upon her the Hebrew equivalent of her name, Hannah, with the
traditional patronymic of a convert, bat Abraham (daughter of
Abraham our father). Their marriage is recorded, probably in
his father's handwriting, in the Mikveh Israel vital records, as
having taken place on September 6, 1818, and she found accept-
ance in the Jewish community, for her burial is recorded for
August 28, 1832 (Mikveh Israel Records; Spruce Street Cemetery
Records) .

SALOMON, DEBORAH, renamed DELIA (probably at a time of severe
illness to delude the Angel of Death, in keeping with a traditional

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

Jewish custom), was the eldest child of Haym M. Salomon, and
granddaughter of the famous financier, Haym Salomon. On July
15, 1840, she married, in the city of New York, a convert to
Judaism, Dr. J. W. (or T. W.} Donovan. This conversion is attested
by the fact that the marriage is recorded in the Shearith Israel
vital records. Her father, too, mentions the marriage and the
name of this son-in-law without comment, whereas, when Delia's
brother, Ezekiel, married, the father wrote: "Married a lady
not a Hebrew. . ." (Shearith Israel Vital Records, Salomon
Family Record [American Jewish Historical Society]).

SEIXAS, BENJAMIN (1811-1871)5 eldest son of Moses Benjamin and
Judith Levy Seixas, belonged to a family both prolific and
actively identified with colonial congregations for three genera-
tions before Benjamin's birth. We do not know exactly when
Benjamin married Mary Jessup, but their eldest child was born
in New York, on June 21, 1832. At the time of the marriage,
Benjamin's uncle, Isaac B. Seixas, must have been functioning
as hazzan of New York's Shearith Israel. The absence of the
marriage from the congregation's vital records may show that
Benjamin, to avoid embarrassment to his uncle, took his bride
to one of the "German" congregations for conversion. Evidently
her conversion was recognized, for her death on January 25,
1869, is recorded, and she seems to have been buried in the
congregation's cemetery at Cypress Hills. (Shearith Israel Vital
Records; Pool, An Old Faith, pp. 176 f.)

MALCOLM H. STERN

APPENDIX III: UNUSUAL INSTANCES OF
INTERMARRIAGE BEFORE 1840

DA COSTA, SARAH, daughter of Isaac Da Costa, first hazzan of
Charleston's Congregation Beth Elohim, married a Revolutionary
colonel, David Mqysor, of whom nothing is known, but who seems
definitely not to have been a Jew. His death in 1780, three
years after the birth of their only known child, Rebecca, un-
doubtedly led her mother to rear Rebecca as a Jewess. Thus it
was that Rebecca subsequently married the scion of a well-known
Jewish family, David Hyams. (Charles Reznikoff, with the col-
laboration of Uriah Z. Engelman, The Jews of Charleston: A
History of an American Jewish Community [Philadelphia, 1950],
p. 15; DAR Lineage Book; Ancker DAR Lineage.)

FRANKS, DAVID, the important Philadelphia merchant and land
promoter, as is well-known, married Margaret Evans, a daughter
of Philadelphia's Registrar of Wills. Their five children, born
between 1744 and 1760, were all baptized at Christ Church,
although David Franks maintained a semblance of Jewish identity
by contributing to his father's synagogue, Shearith Israel of
New York, and even attended services there. (Marcus, Early
American Jewry, II, 10 f.; Wolf and Whiteman, p. 33.)

HART, BERNARD (1763-1855), well-known in the annals of New York's
Shearith Israel as well as in those of the New York Stock Exchange,
whose secretary he was, in 1799 contracted a marriage with a
non- Jewess, Catherine Brett. They soon separated, and even though
he contributed to her support and that of their son Henry, this
liaison remained a secret for over a century. Bernard subsequently
married Rebecca Seixas and had a large family, long unaware of
their relationship to one of America's leading men of letters, Bret
Harte, grandson of Bernard. (Helen I. Davis, "Bret Harte and
His Jewish Ancestor, Bernard Hart," PAJHS, XXXII, 99-1 1 1 ;
Pool, An Old Faith in the New World, p. 316.)

ISAACS, RALPH, a colonial resident of Connecticut, may or may not
have been a Jew. Kraus states that he was a cousin of Aaron
Isaacs of Easthampton, L. I., a known Jew, but fails to support
the statement with evidence. If Kraus is correct, then his deduction
that Isaacs was a convert to Christianity may also be correct.
(Kraus-Sandor Collection; cf. Jacob R. Marcus, "Light on Early
Connecticut Jewry," American Jewish Archives, I [No. 2], 20-21.)

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

ISRAEL, ISRAEL, is a similar case of questionable Jewish origin. Morais,
who consulted with Israel's descendants, points out that the
family was of Jewish origin, but that Israel Israel himself was
not Jewish. He is known to have been the son of Michael Israe]
and Mary J. Paxton, of Philadelphia. It is also known that Isaac
Adolphus, prominent New York Jewish merchant, had a nephew,
by the name of Michael Israel, resident in Philadelphia in the
eighteenth century, and we have chosen to believe that the two
Michael Israels are the same individual. If our assumption is
correct, then Israel Israel, the son of a Jewish father and a Chris-
tian mother, was baptized on June 13, 1746, at the age of twenty
months. (Henry Samuel Morais, The Jews of Philadelphia: T heir
History from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time [Philadelphia,
l894L PP- 3I-34; Elzas Mss.)

JUDAH, MARIA, was the fourth child of Benjamin S. Judah (1760-
1831), one of the most active and prominent members of Con-
gregation Shearith Israel in New York. Benjamin was a man of
strong opinions, ever ready to fight for his views. History does not
record his reactions when, on January 28, 1829, Maria became
the bride of Stephen C. Richard, "in a church." (Kraus-Sandor
Collection; Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone; Pool, An Old Faith in
the New World.)

LEVY, SAMSON (1722-1781), was the fourth child and oldest son of
Moses Levy and his second wife, Grace Mears. Moses Levy was the
most prosperous member of Shearith Israel in the early decades
of the eighteenth century and seems to have been president of the
congregation at the time of his death in 1728, shortly before the
erection of the congregation's first synagogue. Samson followed
his older half-brothers, Nathan and Isaac, to Philadelphia. On
November 3, 1752/3, he married, in Old Swedes' Church, a
widow, Martha Lampley Thompson. According to the well-preserved
family Bible, their eldest son was circumcised by the New York
mohel, Jacob Moses, in 1754. The gradual assimilation of the
family is attested by the fact that no more circumcisions are
recorded, and in 1780, the three youngest children, Henrietta,
Samson, Jr., and Rachel, were baptized in Christ Church at the
ages of twelve, sixteen, and nine, respectively, (Lee M. Friedman,
Pilgrims in a New Land [Philadelphia, 1948], p. 96; Pool, Portraits
Etched in Stone, pp. 198-201.)

MALCOLM H. STERN

LOPEZ, DAVID, JR., a scion of the Charleston, S. C., branch of the old
Newport clan, married, in April, 1832, a non-Jewess, Catherine D.
Hinton, by whom he had five children. Her death in 1843 precip-
itated a burial problem for Congregation Beth Elohim. Lopez
solved the problem by purchasing his own cemetery adjacent to
that of the congregation. His second wife, Rebecca Moise, was a
Jewess, which may account for the fact that the three of her
stepchildren (whom she helped rear with her own brood of six)
who married did so within the Jewish fold. (Lopez Genealogy,
in Jacob R. Marcus Collection; Reznikoff and Engelman, p. 152.)

MARKS, MORDECAI, eight months before his marriage to Elizabeth
Torieu, of Stratford, Conn., was baptized in the Episcopal Church,
on April 20, 1729. The baptismal record lists him as "Mordecai
Marks, Jew." (S. Orcutt, History of Stratford, Conn., II, pp. 1243-
44; cf. Jacob R. Marcus, "Light on Early Connecticut Jewry,"
American Jewish Archives, I, No. 2, p. 26.)

MARX, CAROLINE (1800-83), demonstrates the gradual assimilation of
two Virginia families: the Marx family, descended from Joseph
Marx, of Richmond; and the Myers family, descended from
Moses Myers, of Norfolk. A glance at the genealogies of these
two clans will show that Caroline became the second wile of
Richard Barton, plantation owner of Orange County, Virginia.
Caroline's older sisters, Louisa and Judith Marx, married the
brothers Samuel and Myer Myers of Norfolk, respectively. The
Myers clan was apparently stronger in their Judaism than
the Marxes, for on the death of Myer Myers, his widow, Judith,
promptly became an Episcopalian. And the marriages of the
subsequent generations between descendants of the Bartons and
those of Samuel and Louisa Myers led to further defections from
the Jewish fold. Samuel and Louisa's son, Moses Myers II, was
buried in Norfolk's Hebrew cemetery, but his remains were
removed by his son Barton to the Christian Elmwood Cemetery.
(Family records.)

MOISE, THEODORE SIDNEY, a member of a well-known Charleston
family, married, in 1836, Cecilia F. Moses, a Charleston Jewess.
He found Charleston a barren field for his talents as a portrait
artist and subsequently, following the death of his wife, moved
to New Orleans, where he married a Catholic, Matilda Vaughan.
Two of their offspring entered the Church, Robert as a priest,

FUNCTION OF GENEALOGY IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY

and Charles as Brother Ambrose, (Elzas Mss.; Reznikoff and
Engelman, p. 88.)

PETTIGREW, JAMES (1756-1793), a Scottish-born Revolutionary soldier,
met and eloped with Judith, daughter of Myer Hart, one of the
founders of Easton, Pa., and its leading Jewish merchant. They
were married by a Christian chaplain, but with the prospective
arrival of their first child, her mother persuaded Judith's uncle, the
Reverend Mordecai M. Mordecai, a functionary of Philadelphia's
Mikveh Israel, to perform a Jewish wedding ceremony. The
young couple agreed that their sons would be reared as Christians
and their daughters as Jewesses. Mordecai's action led to a cause
citibre when the news leaked into Philadelphia. Family records
indicate that, of the Pettigrews' seven children, three daughters
married, and married Jews, so the agreement was evidently kept.
(The St. Charles, I [1935], pp. I33f.; Wolf and Whiteman, pp.
128-29.)

SIMON, SHINAH, one of the daughters of Pennsylvania's important
Jewish landowner and trader, Joseph Simon, married, on August
13, 1782, Dr. Nicholas Schuyler, of a prominent New York State
family. She seems to have converted to Christianity, yet main-
tained close associations with her family, despite legends to the
contrary, now proved spurious. (PAJHS, XXXI, 241 ; Rollin G.
Osterweis, Rebecca Gratz: a Study in Charm [New York, 1935];
Joseph R. Rosenbloom, "And She Had Compassion: The Life and
Times of Rebecca Gratz" [Doctoral dissertation, Hebrew Union
College -Jewish Institute of Religion, 1957].)

The Henry Joseph Collection

of the Gratz Family Papers

at the American Jewish Archives

A Survey of the Yiddish Material

M. ARTHUR OLES

OF the largest collections of papers relating to
eighteenth-century American Jewry is that of the Gratz family.
The bulk of this collection is found at the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, The Library Company of Philadelphia, the Amer-
ican Jewish Historical Society, and the Henry Joseph Collection
in the possession of the American Jewish Archives. It is from the
latter source that the material described on the following pages
has been selected.

Some of the material in the Henry Joseph Collection is in
Yiddish, i. e., the Judeo-German idiom of the Jews of Holland,
Germany, and the eastern countries of Europe. Insofar as the
term "Yiddish" is applied to the modern vernacular of the East
European Jews, it should be understood that the eighteenth-
century language of the Jews represents a greatly different idiom.
It is much closer, both in vocabulary and in structure, to the
standard German of its time than is modern Yiddish to modern
German. Its spelling is considerably different and, of course,

Rabbi M. Arthur Oles is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Am, Seattle, Wash.

M. ARTHUR OLES

as is the case with other languages of the time, much less
standardized than today.

While it would require an exhaustive linguistic study to
determine precise dialectal variations, certain characteristics
can be more easily detected. The Yiddish idiom is an offshoot
of Middle High German * and is thus easily distinguished from
the Low German of the North, in which even Dutch may be
included for our purpose. In fact, the community of Ashkenazic
Jews in Hamburg was at one time called that of the Hoch-
deutsche, as contrasted with the Sephardic group who spoke Low
German.2 Furthermore, while the High German character of
Yiddish was evident, it was no longer identical with the con-
temporary eighteenth-century German. The result of these two
facts is that one can detect, without undue difficulty, idiomatic
expressions essentially foreign to Yiddish, whether they are of
High or of Low German origin. It is possible, therefore, to
deduce from the use of such expressions the close familiarity of
the writer with one or the other. 3

Thus, for example, the use of the relative pronoun wo for was
by Aaron Levy would indicate familiarity with High German
rather than Dutch. 4 While a single usage of this kind may not
be at all conclusive, it should be kept in mind that it is a word
not common in the Yiddish books or letters of the time and would
thus have hardly been acquired synthetically. Other examples
will be pointed out where they occur.

Of great interest are Aaron Levy's two English notes written
in Hebrew letters — one of them, the draft of a contract, and

* Matthias Micses, Die Jiddische Sprache (Berlin, 1924), p. 203.
a Article "Hamburg," in Judisches Lexikon (Berlin, 1928).

3 Joshua N* Neumann, "Some Eighteenth Century American Jewish Letters,"
Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (PAJHS\ XXXIV (1937), 102-3.

* Sidney M. Fish, Aaron Levy, Founder of Aaronsburg (New York, 1951), p. I, assumes,
on the basis of weak evidence, that Levy came from Holland.

IOO

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

the other, a short notation (Nos. 33 and 37). s In all the Amer-
ican Yiddish letters, and in the Yiddish insertions in Englist
letters, there are found many English words and expressions
spelled in Hebrew characters. Levy's samples are almost unique
in that they are completely in English. It may be suggested,
perhaps, that these documents indicate a great linguistic
adaptability on Levy's part, an adaptability which would rendei
our previous point about his German provenance even more
significant. Particularly revealing in this respect are the notations
made for his own information (No. 37 and others occurring
sporadically). For a man who certainly was at home in Yiddish,
his use of English was quite significant. The Hebrew script may
have been a device to keep those notes from prying eyes, bu1
the English language was his own preference, strongly suggesting
that he had good ability in that direction. 6

A word of caution is in order here: there is a temptation to be
influenced in the interpretation of dialectal peculiarities, eithei
by the Yiddish of the twentieth century or by irregularities ir
spelling, such as, for example, the substitution of d for J, b for p.
etc., and vice versa. In studying the phonetics of eighteenth-
century American Yiddish, we usually deal with two unknowns:
the writer's pronunciation of words and of specific letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. Aaron Levy's repeated use of a spelling like
*]Vs7S irto ["my tself '] for "myself," for example, makes one
wonder how Levy pronounced the word or how he pronounced
the letter s. The problem can be more fully realized when one
remembers that among some Sephardim of today the 25 sounds
like an s, that most German Jews pronounce t like an s rathei
than a £, and that the writer of this article has heard some
German Jews pronounce the Hebrew 0 like the German £ ( = is)

* There are a number of very short notations of the same type, not reproduced here
6 It should be understood that this has no relation to orthography.

101

M. ARTHUR OLES

Add to that the well-known confusion among Lithuanian Jews
between s and sh, and the consistent ignoring by some of an
initial h and the sounding of an h before an initial vowel, and one
gets an inkling of the great variations in Hebrew and Yiddish
pronunciation existing today. There is no reason to assume
that there was greater uniformity in the eighteenth century. 6a

Regarding the occasional tendency to use modern Yiddish
as a point of reference, one must proceed with the utmost
caution. Thus, to consider ffVtf (als) as an obsolete spelling of
the modern TK [az] and, therefore, to include it in a list of
"phonetic and orthographic peculiarities," as Joshua N. Neu-
mann does,7 is to ignore the fact that, though they may be
etymologically related and even interchangeably used in some
German dialects, 8 they are nevertheless two separate words.

There seems to be a particular affinity for the use of 1 where
one would expect p and of 1 where D would be appropriate.
Examples are pJfcni [grank, or German krank = "ill"] in No. 24;
TVinn«a [bartiglir^ English "particular"]; Bpsnosn [resbekt —
English "respect"] in No. 31 ; HOBttStt [negste, or German nachste =
"next"] in No. 28; T^D*1X1 [barsilz = English "parcels"] in No.
36; and many more. A hard consonant, on the other hand, is
sometimes substituted for a soft one: WIN [unt, or German und—
"and"] in No. 9; MtnxpK [akorting = English "according"];
m&JK [antere, or German andere = "others"] in No. 31 ; and others.
The occurrence of such apparent substitutions, while neither
consistent nor very frequent, is nevertheless rather typical of the
time, as is attested by the variety of writers who employ them.

da See, for example, the comment on No. 41.

7 Neumann, "Letters," p. 105.

8 Alfred Landau, "Die Sprache der Memoiren Gluckels von Hameln," Mitteilungen
der Gesdlschaft fur Judische Vdkskmde (MGJV), VII (1901), 47, 51; Alfred Landau
and Bernhard Wachstein, Judische Priv at brief e aus dem Jakre 1619 (Vienna, 1911),
115-16.

102

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

It is worth mentioning that similar cases occur also in the letters
reproduced by Alfred Landau and Bernhard Wachstein, 9 letters
which are older by some 150 years.

Most peculiarities in spelling10 are found in the Hebrew
transliterations of English words and names. This fact is not
surprising, since no traditional spelling was available. While
English is, of course, written phonetically in Hebrew characters,
that rendition is improvised and fully dependent on the writer's
own ear, accent, or predilection. Meyer Josephson, for example,
spells the name of Barnard Jacobs as mpttff BKnw, x r whereas
Aaron Levy spells it as ff»pTO T21M (No. 28). I2 Leizer ben Leib
(No. 12), who by his own admission could not write "Heng-
lish," writes VDpsn ttntfl. Aaron Levy spells his own name as
rD1*1? pl^. * 3 Examples of this type abound and are not confined
to names alone.

Hebrew words and phrases are very common in Yiddish. The
salutation in a letter is almost invariably in Hebrew, and is so
formalized that, except where gross misspelling occurs, it has
no significance whatsoever in determining the Hebrew scholar-
ship of the writer. A typical salutation might be the following
excerpt from No. 41 : K'"»K pspm twin *]V?Kn rran WK "in1? D^B
VWIKDI nno*o VTI JWK fiTonm nsnasn intwrtn rsr DSOTM TM BTD
pnr»Ti ttr^KDi "TW Him m& "Peace to my beloved master and
friend, the chief, head, and magnate, the God-fearing and
exalted Mr. Barnard, may the Lord protect him, and to his
chaste and pious wife, a woman of valor like Esther and Abi-

9 Landau and Wachstein, pp. 115-33.

I ° No account is taken here of the general deviations from present Yiddish orthog-
raphy, many of which are adequately discussed by Landau and Wachstein, Jiidische
Privatbriefe, and by Landau, in MGJV.

II Neumann, p. 197.

Ia Interestingly, both render the initial J by 0.

x* His signature, however, is invariably pn« 13 prw.

103

M. ARTHUR OLES

gail, x 4 Mrs. Richea, may she live, and peace to all that is yours.
First of all, praise to God. Secondly . . ." Although these
forms are not identical, they are well standardized. An interest-
ing feature is that frequently, though not universally, there
appears the form: j?"*?1 T"i, "first of all, may the holy God be
praised," and the letter proper begins with the word ITW,
"secondly." The religious implication is clear. Sometimes, as in
No. 3, the writer will omit the word JTW. Sometimes, as in
No. 6, he writes nw, although he had omitted TH. Occasionally
the salutation is omitted altogether. An example of this type is
the series of notes to Benjamin Nathan (Nos. 17-20). The
extremely unfriendly nature of the communications may have
persuaded the writers to dispense with all formal courtesies.
It is possible, however, that they were omitted for the sake of
brevity, since these are only copies, and that the originals
preserved the customary form. Another letter without any
opening formalities is No. 7. Here, Meyer Josephson is obviously
so shaken by the death of his employee that he simply forgets
the formal niceties.

With the signature there is usually an expression such as
imffV pi»n •*»», "from me, ready to serve you," or *]TT» rftto,
"from me, your friend," or something similar, usually in Hebrew,
followed by the signature. The concluding line is, thus, less
elaborate, though hardly less standardized, than the address,
Sometimes we find a line like: "Further, I remain your well-
wisher who prays day and night for your long life, Rachel,
daughter of Seligman Aaron" (No. 40; the line is here in
Yiddish). Meyer Josephson likes to conclude his letters, after
the signature and the postscript, with the words J7HX or
BM1?, "Adieu" or "Adieu, farewell."15

x* This name provides a simple rhyme in Hebrew.
x* Nos. 3 and 6, also the letters reproduced by Neumann.
104

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

The signature is often followed by a postscript, which may be
almost a continuation of the letter proper (No. 31), or an
apology of some sort (No. 40). If there exists any personal
acquaintance at all, the postscript will contain greetings to
any number of people.

Besides the salutation and the concluding lines, Hebrew
appears in the Yiddish of our letters quite extensively. Very com-
mon are hybrid expressions like fwm Vapfc, "received"; mwn
pw)&, "answer"; ft paaa, "believe"; and p MID, "write."
Words like "hour," "day," "month," and "year" are usually
rendered in Hebrew, as are "also," "therefore," and business
terms like "cheap," "expensive," "profit," "business," etc. It
would be idle to present here a complete list of such words and
expressions.

Another type of hybridization is the use of Hebrew words as
though they were Germanic, and thus to conjugate or decline
them in the Yiddish manner. This type of usage, very common in
modern Yiddish as well, is exemplified by words such as vtaai,
from nVna, "cadaver" (No. 41); pain, from nain, "shame"
(No. 24); and iviicnn raff, "Sabbath expenses," the two Hebrew
words being joined here in the German or English manner
(No. 9).

It would require an intensive linguistic study, thus far un-
attempted, to establish the system by which the inclusion of
certain Hebrew words was determined. Their use appears at
first sight rather arbitrary, except for religious terms which are
consistently in Hebrew. The regular appearance of certain
Hebrew words in virtually all the letters, however, leads one to
suspect something more than haphazard selection,16 Another

x6 Cf. Landau and Wachstein, p. xxxi, and elsewhere in the introduction.
The following works also are referred to in the notes on the letters:
Jacob Radcr Marcus, Early American Jewry, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1951-53).
Edwin Wolf 2nd and Maxwell Whiteman, The History of the Jews of Philadelphia
from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson (Philadelphia, 1957).

105

M. ARTHUR OLES

subject for further investigation would be the non-Germanic
and non-Hebrew elements, including Slavic, French, and
English. They cannot be adequately discussed here, although
something more will be said about English later on.

It is possible at times to determine whether the writer was well
versed in the Hebrew language, or whether such Hebrew words
were used merely as customary elements of the Yiddish ver-
nacular. A safe assumption is that everyone who wrote Yiddish
letters was somewhat familiar with the Hebrew of the liturgy,
although not necessarily fluent in it. But it is a long step from
reading or even remembering the text of the Hebrew prayer
book to being able to reproduce Hebrew vocabulary in its proper
spelling, especially in the midst of a phonetically spelled Yiddish
letter. That is why we find, for example, such words as pp^K
(for p ^57, "therefore"); TO (for ^, "Gentile") in No. 28;
nVsnsn, rfaasw, rftsna (for rfeai, "cadaver") in No. 41; *\xn (for
ann, "debt") in No. 10; and many others. As isolated instances,
such spellings may be due merely to inattention. If they occur
consistently, we are justified in assuming that the writer's
acquaintance with the Hebrew tongue was sketchy and did not
go far beyond the mechanics of Jewish ritual.

If, on the other hand, Hebrew words and phrases are used
extensively and are usually correctly applied and spelled, we
may take it as reliable evidence of the writer's learning in the
field of Hebrew. Such evidence is present in the letters of Meyer
Josephson, who makes frequent use of Hebrew in a correct and
appropriate manner. Similarly, Mordecai Moses Mordecai and
Leizer ben Leib evidence a thorough familiarity with good
Hebrew. The letter of Rachel bas Seligman (No. 40) paraphrases
a talmudic expression characterizing intoxication: m *«7 vVK
wia -jro 2K pn IT-IK pa arm, "as though he could not dis-
tinguish between 'cursed be Hainan5 and c blessed be Mordecai' "
[see Tractate Megillah yb]. Also, she uses the expression

1 06

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

(for O^DnV, "spitefully55) and, by including the 1 sound, makes
here a substitution that is still very common.

Mention has already been made of the transliteration ol
English words. It is, of course, to be expected that English words
and phrases will find their way into the Yiddish of American
Jews. That is part of the inevitable process of linguistic assimila-
tion. It is, furthermore, quite understandable that English
predominates in those pursuits furthest removed from condi-
tions and experiences in the old country. Thus it is that the
American Jewish "merchant" finds himself with a very unsatis-
factory Yiddish vocabulary of business terms, since the usual
business activity of the Ashkenazic Jew of Europe was confined
to petty trade. Adding to this deficiency the fact that it was in his
business life that English was most necessary, we justly expect
to find that the major portion of English vocabulary in the
Yiddish letters consists of business terms. And, of course, we are
not disappointed. Such words as "charge,55 "account,55 "bill,55
"certificate,55 "order,55 "exchange,55 "suit,55 "writ,55 etc., abound
in the business correspondence. In addition, we find words like
"satisfaction,55 "particular,55 "iron,55 "box,55 "board,55 "proof,55
"assembly,55 and many more. The varieties in the spelling of
these words have already been mentioned, and examples could
be multiplied almost endlessly.

The question may well be asked here why these letters were
written in Yiddish and not in English. One might assume, con-
sidering the fact that most of the writers had been conducting
their business in America, that they would have a sufficient
command of English to make use of it in their correspondence.
Yet they preferred to use Yiddish for at least a goodly part of it.

Without a more intensive study of the material than has been
possible so far, a definitive answer cannot be attempted. Yet
certain considerations present themselves, some subject to veri-
fication by further research, some of a purely speculative nature.

107

M. ARTHUR OLES

We must take into account, first of all, the possibility that for
some people Yiddish may have been the preferred tongue in
general, and that they availed themselves of the opportunity to
use it wherever possible. One receives the distinct impression,
for example, that a man like Meyer Josephson simply enjoyed
Yiddish and used it when his correspondent also was familiar
with it. Similarly, Mordecai Moses Mordecai, quite outspoken,
seems to let his thoughts flow more naturally in this idiom.
Furthermore, where a letter is addressed to someone abroad,
Yiddish may be expected as the only language of communica-
tion. For a note such as that of Lovi Lyons to the Parnassim
of Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, the writer may
well have felt that Yiddish was the proper "Jewish59 idiom in
preference to English. Again, the set of congregational rules
would traditionally be in Yiddish, though it is conceivable that
there existed also an English draft of the same text.

One factor that is certain to have suggested the choice of
Yiddish is the confidential nature of some communications. At a
time when letters were forwarded "per favor of coachmen,
captains, and travelers who sometimes might be expected to be
less than scrupulous, and might while away a long evening by
perusing the correspondence entrusted to them and possibly
extracting profitable or juicy information, it was important to
keep certain matters from their prying eyes. Perhaps Aaron
Levy's draft of an agreement (No. 33) was written in Hebrew
characters for such a reason, although he frequently writes
English in Hebrew characters. The element of secrecy is most
pronounced in the Yiddish words or paragraphs which we find
as part of English correspondence, some samples of which are
also included in the listing below.

An example is the following Yiddish passage in a long English
business letter (No. 60): "I bought from him all wampum and
other merchandise which I expect to sell here to Congress

1 08

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

together with the merchandise of Mr. Trent which you have
there on hand and what is still in Maryland, whereby I hope
we will make a good profit as no other is available in this
country . . .," and later in the same letter: "So you will set all
the prices at 250 or 300 percent." The convenience of Yiddish
for conveying confidential information is even more pointedly
demonstrated by the following (No. 70): "I hope to settle with
Mr. Claibern in a few days, as he is to be here next week. How-
ever, I shall not wait until he comes here, I shall go to his home, and ij
he is not there I shall go wherever he is . . ." The first sentence here
was in English in the original text; the italicized words were
originally in Yiddish.

Aside from the purpose of secrecy, there is also the convenience
of Yiddish (or Hebrew) in spelling the names of old-country
people who were not ordinarily known by names current in
English-speaking countries. A letter such as No. 43 demonstrates
this fact in that Barnard Gratz consistently renders into English
the names of people living in England or America, and uses
Yiddish or Hebrew for the names of those living on the European
continent.

Almost all the English letters with Yiddish insertions perused
so far are from Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, or vice versa.
It is quite revealing of the Gratz brothers' level of Hebrew
knowledge that they repeatedly use biblical or talmudic quota-
tions appropriate to the subject discussed, as, for example.
Psalm 55:23 in No. 50, Psalm 32:10 in No. 51, and Talmud
Berakot Gob in No. 52. Their Hebrew spelling in general is
almost flawless, indicating that they received a thorough
grounding in the language of their youth and retained it
throughout their later years.

The following analyses of the Yiddish letters (Nos. 1—42) and
the subsequent list of English letters containing some Yiddish
(Nos. 43-84), in the Henry Joseph Collection at the American

TOO

M. ARTHUR OLES

Jewish Archives, comprise only the papers studied so far, and
represent approximately one third to one half of this type of
material contained in the Collection.

[The compiler's notes, concerning each Tiddish letter, are bracketed and
printed in smaller type, following the content analysis of each letter.]

ANALYSES OF YIDDISH LETTERS

1, Barnard Gratz to his brother Hayim

Philadelphia, 28 lyar, 5515 (May 9, 1755).

Barnard Gratz has been in Philadelphia for a year with a great
merchant, the same for whom his relative Koppel had worked. Barnard
has acquired a partner now and also intends to open his own shop.
He has heard that brother Michael left for the East Indies with a
"good boss," who will teach him the business.

[Barnard arrived in Philadelphia in February, 1754, and was employed by David
Franks, referred to above as the "great merchant." Koppel is Jacob Henry, Bar-
nard's cousin, who had previously worked for Franks. Michael Grate's East Indies
excursion ended after three and a half years, as he returned to London late in
1758 or early in 1759. Barnard did not become commercially independent until
*759- (See Wolf and Whiternan, pp. 36 ff.) Other names mentioned: Solomon
(Solomon Henry); Liebcrman — both are relatives in London; Jonathan, Bar-
nard's brother.]

2. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz

Philadelphia, June 28, 1 759.

Barnard welcomes Michael to New York and gives him directions for
coming to Philadelphia. If Michael needs money, he should ask Jacob
Franks for it.

[Other names mentioned: Samuel Judah; David Franks,]

On the same page:

Jacob Bluch to Michael Gratz

Jacob Bluch greets Michael on the latter's arrival.

[Jacob Bluch is probably to be identified with Jacob Henry, the "Koppel"
mentioned in No. i. The names Henry and Bluch both appear in that branch of

ItO

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

the family, as evidenced by the power of attorney issued in connection with th«
estate of Joseph Henry Bluch (No. 34), who was known in America also as Joseph
Henry. (See Wolf and Whiteman, p. 182 and notes.)]

3. Meyer Josephson to Michael Gratz

Reading [Pa.], 17 Tebet, 5520 (January 6, 1760).

A business letter. In a postscript Josephson asks Gratz to send him the
velvet cloak which he intended for his bride and had left with Gratz,

[The first evidence of Meyer Josephson's marriage appears in 1762. (See Wolf and
Whiteman, p. 392; Neumann, "Letters," in PAJHS, XXXIV, 77.) At the time oi
the writing of this letter he was apparently engaged.]

4. Mordecai Moses Mordecai to Michael Gratz

Lancaster [Pa.], May 4, 1761.

Mordecai expects to be a father in seven months. Mr. Josephson writes
that he followed this example, too. Mordecai gives this graphic descrip-
tion of his wife's condition: "My wife sends a thousand regards and
asks you to forgive her, because she cannot write herself as she is,
unfortunately, not well. She vomits in the morning and eats no meat
or fowl at all. Alas, she is getting very thin, but I hope she will fill out
elsewhere."

5. Mordecai Moses Mordecai to Barnard and Michael Gratz

Lancaster, Hoshanw Rabba, 1761 (October 19, 1761).

The letter contains references to some business dealings with various
people. Any suspicions about Clara are unfounded, "Mr, Simon told
me that everything Ettings said is a lie, and that she would be a good
match for him, and an advantage to his creditors."

[It is not clear who Clara is and for whom she is intended. Other names mentioned:
Meyer Hart; Isaac Adolphus; Mr. Bush; Berchc (Bcracha?); Miss Abigail Lazarc;
Meyer Zupbeiler (?),]

6. Meyer Josephson to Michael Gratz

Reading, 6 Elul, 5522 (August 25, 1762).

A business letter. In a postscript Josephson asks Gratz to order kosher
cheese for him from London.

M. ARTHUR OLES

7. Meyer Josephson to Michael Gratz

i Tammuz, 5524 (July i, 1764).

Josephson regrets to inform Gratz that Joseph ben Benjamin died
yesterday. He asks Gratz to write to New York for a trustworthy man
who is also a shohet [ritual slaughterer] . Josephson is willing to pay
£20 per year. He would also consider Haim Myers, who had served
someone else as shohet.

[This letter lacks the usual flowery salutation, evidently because — as the general
tone of the letter indicates — Josephson was too much upset by his employee's
death.]

8. Meyer Josephson to Barnard and Michael Gratz

Reading, ir Marheshvan, 5525 (November 6, 1764).

Josephson is sending the Gratzes one quarter of a deer that he slaugh-
tered that morning. They may share it with Mr. Bush. "If you were
to consume it together, make a meal of it and drink a glass of good
wine with it, and were also to parade my health on the table, I would
be very pleased." He asks them not to tell others of the deer, as he
fears they would be offended.

The remainder of the letter is taken up with business.

9. Meyer Josephson to Barnard and Michael Gratz

"The day after the Holiday, 5528" [October 17, 1767, or April 10,

1768, or May 24, 1768].

This is a business letter referring to dealings with Nachman and with
John Patton(P).

[Josephson seems to be pressed for money, as he writes: "... because I would like
to close his account, and it also would be good for Sabbath expenses." For Nachman
ben Moses, see No. 22 and also Neumann, "Letters," in PAJHS, XXXIV, 78, 95-
96. The three dates suggested above are computed on the possibility that the
"Holiday" was either Sukkot, Passover, or Shabuot, 5528.]

10. Abraham ben Moses to Meyer . . .

The evening of Sabbath Bereshith, 5528 (October 17, 1767).

Abraham complains that a writ has been issued for his debts. He
considers himself trustworthy enough to pay without the writ.

112

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

1 1 . Henry Marks to brother Zanvil

Philadelphia, i Heshvan, 5529 (October 12, 1768

Henry requests his brother to advise him of the exact date of t
mother's death. He has not seen or heard from Zanvil in twenty-
years and asks him to write. Zanvil should also take care of t
sister Leah and find her a good husband.

[The death of Henry Marks's mother is mentioned also in an English letter
Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, dated London, August 10, 1769. The date o
death is given there as Sivan, 1769. A possible explanation for the discrepant
the dates lies in the fact that Henry Marks may have made a mistake in the He
year, writing only one month after the New Year. The proper date then wou]
553O — November I, 1769. Other names mentioned: Jonathan; Solomon Hen
London.]

12. Leizer ben Leib to Michael Gratz

Lancaster, 3 Ab, 5529 (August 6, 1769

Leizer writes that he and Barnard Jacobs are carefully examining
Torah scroll with the aid of the very best European tikkunS jo/
[the plural form of tihkun sqferim, the model which the scribe, or s
uses in copying the Torah] , and have already found five words miss
God knows how many more they will find. Leizer asks Gratz to rr
apologies on his behalf for his failure to write to Gratz's "dearest 01
She knows that he cannot write English. He also wishes Gratz
merry Tisha b'Ab" (fast of the ninth day of Ab).

[The wish for a "merry Tisha b'AB" is curious, as that day is, in the Jewish tradi
one of fasting and mourning, commemorating the destruction of the Temp]
Jerusalem in the year 70 G. E. Among some mystics, however, Tisha b'Ab is <
brated as a rather joyous day, despite the fasting, because it is to be the birtl
of the Messiah. The writer of the letter may have been an adherent of the m
doctrines currently prevalent in Eastern Europe.

In a letter sent by Barnard Gratz from London on October 31, 1769, tc
brother Michael, and in other letters, mention is made of a Torah scroll w
Barnard had been asked to purchase in London. This would indicate that
scroll being examined by Leizer either was borrowed, ultimately to be returne
its owner, or that it was in such bad shape that it was beyond repair. It should
be noted that the Distillery List (No. 36) contains an item of parchment fox
scroll.

Leizer ben Leib, also Leizer ben Leib Uri (No. 15), is probably identical
Eleazar Lyons (1729—1816), a Dutch Jew who died in Philadelphia. Other ns
mentioned; Mr. (Mathias) Bush; Miss Bella; Mrs. Bush; Mr. Solomon;
Marks; Levi Solomon; Henry Marks.]

M. ARTHUR OLES

1 3 . Henry Marks to Jonathan [last name unknown]

Philadelphia, November 7, 1769.

Jonathan is requested to hold, as a dowry for Henry's sister Leah, the
money which Jonathan's brother Solomon sent him. He is also to
retain the six guineas which Barnard sent on Henry's brother Lipman's
order.

Lipman is otherwise known as Levi Marks.

[Other names mentioned: Jonathan Gratz; Frumat (the writer's relative); Feivel
and family.]

14. Joseph Simon to Michael Gratz

Lancaster, 30 Tishri, 5531 (October 19, 1770).

Simon has received Mrs. Mordecai's letter from Baltimore and has
strictly examined the maid. He has also had her before the justice.
Apparently she is completely innocent. The accusations were made
probably because Mrs. Mordecai could not get along with her and
even came to blows with her.

[This letter is signed Joseph Simon, but both the text and the signature are in the
handwriting of Leizer ben Leib, who apparently served as Simon's secretary.
Leizer adds a postscript of his own in which he sends regards to Miss Relah (Rachel
Simon?), Miss Beila.]

15. Leizer ben Leib Uri to Isaac Wolf

Lancaster, 8 Ab, 5532 (August 7, 1772).

A short business letter. "One starts small, and by degrees one goes
higher."

[Reference is made to Michael Hart as a "stutterer." See J, Trachtenberg, Consider
the Tears, p. 76.]

A series of letters written consecutively on two pages; each is marked
"true copy," All are in Yiddish and undated, except No. 16.

1 6. Joseph Simon to Elietzer Lyon (in English)

November n, 1773.

An order to seize the goods and chattels of Benjamin Nathan for unpaid
rent in Heidelberg [Pa.] .

114

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

1 7. Barnard Jacobs to Benjamin Nathan

Undated.

Mr. Simon wants to take an inventory of Nathan's merchandise, and
Nathan is requested to come immediately and bring the keys of shop
and trunks.

1 8. Joseph Simon to Benjamin Nathan

Undated,

Simon did not find the large silver spoon, teaspoons, cream jug, the
large bed quilt, and many other things. He is sending Nathan a tallith
[prayer shawl], tefillin [phylacteries], prayer book, shehitah [ritual
animal-slaughtering] knife, and grindstone, so that Nathan can be a
good Jew, but Simon is keeping the rest of the books as security for
the charity money.

19-

Unsigned, undated.

The writer was without tefillin for fifteen days as the sheriff had
packed everything away. He has neither pot, nor spoon, nor bed.

20. Joseph Simon to Benjamin Nathan.

Undated.

Simon has ascertained that all the bad things said about Nathan are
true. Nathan refuses to give his books to Barnard (Jacobs). Simon will
sell Nathan's and Nathan's wife's clothes. Nathan is to answer within
a half hour or the bed will be sold.

2 1 . Tobias ... to Barnard and Michael Gratz

Rhode Island, 5 Kislev, 5534 (November 20, 1773).

The writer thanks the Gratzes for their letters of recommendation. He
was asked to preach in the synagogue because of them. He will write
from all the places which he visits.

[This is Rabbi Tobiah ben Judah, a Polish rabbi and cabalist, who visited the
mainland colonies and the West Indies in 1773. See F. B. Dexter, The Literary Diary
of Ezra Stiles, I, 421-^23; II, 174; III, 78; S. Broches, Jews in New England, II>
38-39.]

M. ARTHUR OLES

22. Nachman ben Moses to Michael Gratz

Berne [Pa.], February 26, 1779.

The children of Meyer Josephson are with Mrs. Josephson at Chestnut
Hill, Pa. Perhaps Michael can persuade her to part with the children,
so that he can get them out of Gentile hands and among Jews.

[This letter shows that Meyer Josephson's second wife was a Gentile woman. His
first wife, whom he married no later than 1762 (see No. 3), was definitely Jewish,
and her children too old by 1779 to be referred to in the above manner. So far, no
trace has been found of this second marriage in other sources.]

23. Henry Marks to Barnard Gratz

New York, April 28, 1 786.

Marks complains about his business difficulties and also about his
children. He hopes that his son Solomon will behave better.

[Solomon Marks, 1766-1824, was, in later life, a Richmond merchant. Another
name mentioned: Mrs. Wister, with whom Marks had some business dispute.]

24. Henry Marks to Barnard Gratz

May 1 6, 1786.

Marks hopes to do some business in Irish Town. He cannot earn
anything. He has heard that his son Solomon was sick in Easton. He
asks Gratz to do for him what he can.

He has heard a rumor that David Franks is in the King's Bench for
debts.

[Other names mentioned: Rachel Marks and Haim Marks, Henry Marks's children;
Mrs. Wister.]

25. Henry Marks to Barnard Gratz

New York, 8 Marheshvan, 5547 (October 30, 1786).

Marks was sick in Rhode Island and has been unable to do any busi-
ness. He asks Gratz to find a job for his son Haim.

[Other names mentioned: Mrs. Wister; Wes Fulton (?) of Virginia.]

26. Benjamin ben Wolf of London to Michael Gratz

Lancaster [Pa.], 12 Adar, 5547 (March 2, 1787),

The writer requests a personal appointment.
116

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

27. Heiman Heilbron to Mr. Phillips

New York, November 25, 1 787.

The writer requests that some papers be transmitted to Moses Hom-
berg, who will send them on to Holland. Heilbron states that he is
related to Homberg,

28. Aaron Levy to Michael Gratz.

Northumberland [Pa.], May n, 1788.

Levy writes that Mr. Simon is here and will not return home until the
end of next week. He asks Gratz to advise his family and to inform
Barnard Jacobs that if Levy's brother should come to board with him,
Levy will not pay one penny for him.

[This letter mentions a brother of Aaron Levy, not otherwise known, with whom
Levy apparently was not on very good terms. Levy's Hebrew spelling in this letter
is very poor; e. g., nai"m raNirfr for WN »ain«V; j'p^N for p hy. His Yiddish spelling
also is unusual for the time, particularly in the use of n for the almost universally
used D. There are certain idiomatic expressions which seem to indicate that Levy
either grew up in Germany or spent enough time there to become accustomed to
the German idiom. Examples are a«n JOtnEW is "j'N Nil Try^a H, "The glasses that
I promised"; 1«3 p« 03N3, "completely." This, however, is not conclusive.

Other names mentioned: Mr. Hosterman; Hugh Ogden, umbrella maker in
Sourkraut Alley.]

29. Suesskind ben Kosmann Hollander to the Parnassim of Phila-
delphia

[The] Hague, Holland, 5 Tammuz, 5549 (June 129, 1789).

Suesskind's father, Kosmann Hollander, was in the West Indies and
has not been heard from for twelve years. He asks the parnassim to
inform him, if they can, whether his father is alive or dead, and
whether he left any money.

[The letter is addressed to "Phidelphi in the West Inies." The outside address is
written in the symmetrical order common to many seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century letters:

p'pi

117

M. ARTHUR OLES

30. Mordecai Moses Mordecai to Michael Gratz

Baltimore, June 13, 1790.

Mordecai recommends a certain Meir ben Koppel (Jacob) who has
been working near Baltimore for years and is a worthy man. He is on
the way to New York in order to bring his wife and daughters into a
Jewish environment. Mordecai asks Gratz to see to it that Meir is
helped along. "I have done what was my duty."

Also, as Mordecai intends to open a store, he asks Gratz to persuade
brother-in-law Myer to help him out. Not much money will be
required.

[The Meir ben Koppel mentioned obviously had a Gentile wife. Mordecai's "duty"
seems to have been to convert her and her daughters. He is known to have per-
formed such acts on his own. (See Wolf and Whiteman, pp. 128 flf.) Myer is Myer
Hart. (See Wolf and Whiteman, p. 417.).]

31. Cohen and Isaacs to Mr. Gratz

Richmond, November 25, 1791.

A business letter dealing with the settlement of some bills. The signa-
ture is in English.

[Cohen and Isaacs was a partnership of Jacob I. Cohen and Isaiah Isaacs. (See
Marcus, Early American Jewry, II, 182 ff.).]

32. Yehiel ben Naphtali of Werdorf (?) to Barnard Gratz

Since a Gentile wants to buy the "nigger wench," Gratz is requested
to send her with Sarah, NichePs (?) wife, and to send along the
certificate,

[Barnard Gratz is here addressed as tt'inya (Barnet), rather than the usual "lyn (Baer)
or "Dew (Issachar). Mention is made of Solomon Lyon (Lyons).]

33. A draft of an agreement, dated January, 1793, for Robert Morris
and Walter Stewart to buy some lands from Aaron Levy.

It is in English, written in Levy's handwriting in cursive Hebrew ,
characters. The style is at times somewhat elliptic: ". . .which they
agree to take out warrants and pay for the same . . . ."

Among other peculiarities, it is interesting to note that Levy often

118

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

uses the Hebrew s for the English s: v}hyx »"B for "myself." The
same is true about No. 37.

[For similar agreements between Levy, Morris, and Stewart, in English script,
see Sidney M. Fish, Aaron Levy, pp. 72 ff.]

34. Jonas Hirschel Bluch to Barnard and Michael Gratz

Langendorf [Silesia], April 6, 1796.

Bluch is sending to the Gratzes a copy of the power of attorney to sell
the land of his late son Joseph Henry. He asks the Gratzes to send him
the money when they have sold the land.

As Bluch does not know whether his last letter reached the Gratzes,
he is sending a copy of it.

[The copy contains the statement that the Gratz brothers notified Bluch on Novem-
ber I, 1795, of the death of his son. According to the official statement enclosed, the
death occurred on May 10, 1793. Note the delay!

There is appended a German copy of a power of attorney, authorizing the
Gratz brothers to dispose of the lands of Joseph Henry Bluch in the vicinity of
Winchester, Va. There are additional Bluch papers in the American Jewish
Archives.]

35. Barnard Gratz to Isaac . . .

Undated.

Gratz recalls the favors which he had from Isaac when he was in
Amsterdam. He has now been in Philadelphia for nine years and in
business for two years.

He expects to go to Amsterdam, and inquires about business con-
ditions, etc.

[Barnard Gratz arrived in Philadelphia in January, 1754 (see Wolf and White-
man, p. 36), which would date this letter in late 1762 or early 1763. According to
Wolf and Whiteman (p. 40), he opened his own business in 1759. The two years
mentioned in this letter would thus be a very general approximation. It is possible,
however, that Barnard here is referring to a later and more specialized phase.
(See above, No. i.)J

36. A list of materials and supplies to be bought for a "Distill House'*
in Philadelphia. Listed are such items as tubs, barrels, cedar boards,
sail cloth, etc., and a number of different spices.

There is appended a note in English, signed by Joseph Solomon,

M. ARTHUR OLES

asking the unnamed addressee to deliver a message to Mr. [Mathias]
Bush.

[The date of this document may be about the year 1765, as there is extant in the
McAllister Collection at The Library Company of Philadelphia another letter of
similar content dated 1765. Mr. Bush may be assumed to be Mathias Bush, the
only person by that name known at that time. His sons were not then old enough to
have a message addressed to them. Joseph Solomon was a shohet in Lancaster in
the employ of Joseph Simon. See also the note to No. 12.]

37. An undated note by Aaron Levy in English, written in cursive
Hebrew characters:

"Memorandum of stores sent by Jacob Anderson to the Big Island.55
"David [AJllison Martins Lake is about a mine (a mile?) Western of

said Allison, the south west corner is a small oak or sapling. Inquire

of Allison for Daniel Sanderlin (?). Inquire for Michael Miniver, ask

for the white oak corner.'5

On the reverse side, in English, is a list of items taken from David

Hannah.

38. Lovi Lyons to the Parnassim of Philadelphia.

Undated.

Lyons asks to be excused from being called as Hatan Bereshith ["Bride-
groom of Genesis," the person given the honor of beginning the annual
cycle of the Pentateuchal readings in the synagogue] this year, because
he may be out of town.

[The signature appears in Hebrew as Yehudah Leib'n ben Seligman, and in English
as Lovi Lyons. The writer must have been a person of some prominence to be
given the honor of Hatan Bereshith.

A. J. Lyons appears in the records of Mikveh Israel Congregation in 1783.]

39. Meir to his father Hirsch and his mother Sarah.

Undated.

A short note telling his parents that he is busy with his studies. It is
the work of a child.

40. Rachel bas Seligman to Barnard Gratz.

Undated.

Rachel asks Gratz to come to her house on the morrow because "he"
120

HENRY JOSEPH COLLECTION OF GRATZ FAMILY PAPERS

is lying in a drunken stupor. He has brought the Irish woman back
into the house.

["He" is referred to as a relative of the writer. Neither can be further identified.
This is an uncommon example of a Yiddish letter in cursive script written by a
woman. It is very literate, both in style and in orthography.]

41. Barnard Jacobs to Barnard Gratz.

Undated.

This letter was written in jail and concerns a business dispute with
Joseph Simon and the "German thief Jacob," who is not further
identified. Jacobs, in this three-page letter, asks Gratz to send him the
receipts of Enrich (Heinrich?) and Wurm, and repeatedly bemoans
his sad fate and invokes God's help.

[It is interesting to note that Jacobs never writes the initial h of any word, e. g.,
ab for hab) elf en for heljen, except hoffen, "hope." Also, he uses a large number of
English words, such as riB'syi, "receipt**; itu, "nor"; mx'a, "sued"; rwyDwa,
"summoned"; msiD, "suffer"; B!?KD, "fault"; hyv, "jail"; and many more. His
spelling of Hebrew words is very poor; e. g., nynjP for ny'T, 3»3«3 for 3M, Q^lN for
D^IJ?, D'JNDmo for maom, etc.

Other names mentioned: Mr, Bush, Mr. Franks, "Benjamin Levy.]

42. A draft of a congregational constitution. It is presumably that of
Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, and defines the manner
of election and the duties of the Governing Board of Five (Junta?), the
Parnass, their qualifications and duties, and the rights of members and
non-members.

[The congregation resolved to draw up a constitution in 1782. This may be one of
the drafts of that year.]

ENGLISH LETTERS WITH YIDDISH INSERTIONS

43. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, August 10, 1769

44. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, September 7, 1 769

45. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, October 31, 1769

46. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, November 16, 1769

47. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, December 6, 1769

48. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, January 12, 1770

49. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, March 19, 1770

121

M. ARTHUR OLES

50. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, May 17, 1770

51. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, June 26, 1770

52. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, July 20, 1770

53. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, London, August 24, 1770

54. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Lancaster, January 13, 1772

55. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Carlisle, December 3, 1772

56. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, New York, April u, 1774

57. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, January 10, 1775

58. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Pittsburgh, November 14, 1775

59. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Pittsburgh, November 15, 1775

60. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, January 21, 1776

61. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, January 28, 1776

62. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Lancaster, April 9, 1776

63. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, April 12, 1776

64. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, May 16, 1776

65. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Lancaster, May 31, 1778

66. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Philadelphia, July 27, 1778

67. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Philadelphia, January 20, 1779

68. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Williamsburg, March 3, 1 780

69. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Petersburg, April 17, 1780

70. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, June 27, 1780

71. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, July 5, 1780

72. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, July 18, 1781

73. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, December 18, 1785

74. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, January 30, 1 786

75. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, February 6, 1786

76. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, February 20, 1786

77. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Richmond, March 14, 1786

78. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, Lancaster, November 23, 1787

79. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Cooperstown [N, Y.], Septenv

ber 19, 1792

80. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, New York [month not given],

'3> '793

81. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, Philadelphia, June 28, 1794

82. Michael Gratz to Barnard Gratz, undated

83. Joseph Simon to Michael Gratz, undated

84. Barnard Gratz to Michael Gratz, undated

122

Hebrew Grammar and Textbook Writing

in Early Nineteenth-Century America

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

THE STATUS OF HEBREW STUDIES AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE CENTURY

JL/URiNG the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Hebraic scholarship in America seems to have been on a fairly
high level. It was the exclusive province of Christians. The
number of Jews in America at that time was very small, and
there were few, if any, Hebrew scholars among them. Some
members of the New England Mather family, we are told, were
well-versed in Hebraic sources of Jewish literature, biblical as
well as rabbinic and medieval, and some are even reported to
have had a fine mastery of Hebrew conversation. x Similarly,
Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, "was a thorough master
of the Hebrew language, which he wrote and spoke with
fluency and clarity. . . ." a

Dr. William Chomsky is Chairman of the Faculty at Gratz College in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

1 Cf. D. de Sola Pool, "Hebrew Learning among the Puritans of New England
Prior to 1700," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, XX (1911),
55 f. and 67 f.; also A. I. Katsh, Hebrew in American Higher Education (New York,
1941), 16, n. 41.

a See the article by Charles Seymour, president of Yale University, published in
Hadoar, XXI, No. 12 (Jan. 17, 1941), 189. Incidentally, it may be interesting to
note that Stiles was close to forty years old when he began to study Hebrew. He
served then as minister in Newport, R. I., where a relatively dynamic Jewish
community was then flourishing. One of Stiles's intimate friends was Isaac Touro,
who had studied at the rabbinical seminary in Amsterdam, had come to America
in 1760, and was made minister and reader of the Sephardic synagogue, Jeshuat

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WILLIAM CHOMSKY

An entirely different picture of Hebraic scholarship in Amer-
ica during the early nineteenth century is depicted by Moses
Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological
Seminary at Andover. When he assumed his teaching post in
Andover, Mass., in 1810, Stuart testifies, he knew hardly more
than the Hebrew alphabet and could scarcely translate the first
five or six chapters in Genesis and a few psalms with the aid of
Parkhurst's dictionary. According to Stuart, there was hardly
anybody in America at that time (1810) — unless one chanced
to study Hebrew abroad — who possessed the requisite knowl-
edge for instruction in Hebrew. 3 Even if we assume, with George
Foot Moore, that this is an exaggerated statement, and that it
merely depicts conditions in New England and not those in
New York and Pennsylvania, it must be admitted that the status
of Hebrew studies during the early part of the nineteenth
century was not on a very high level. Witness the attempts,
during that early period, at the preparation of Hebrew chres-
tomathies and grammars for the study of Hebrew.

TEACHING VOWEL-LESS HEBREW

Among the earliest Hebrew chrestomathies of the nineteenth
century is one by John Smith, A.M., Professor of the Learned
Languages, at Dartmouth College. This text was published in
1810 under the title, A Hebrew Grammar Without Points: Designed
to Facilitate the Study of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, in the
Original. 4

Israel, in 1763, when that synagogue was opened. Stiles may have been taught
Hebrew, or have been helped in his Hebraic studies, by Touro.

3 See George Foot Moore, &itschrift fur die Alttestamcntliche Wissenschaft, VIII
(1888), 18.

* Ibid., 12; Moore refers to an earlier text by John Smith, under the same title,
published in 1803.

124

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

Smith's text was rather meagre and insignificant, but a more
pretentious text, entitled An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge
oj the Hebrew Language, Without the Points, by James P. Wilson,
D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia,
was published two years later. In the introduction to this text,
where he discusses the alphabet, the author rationalizes the
novel approach of teaching Hebrew by dispensing with vowels.
Hebrew, he maintains, is a dead language. The present vowels,
he argues, do not record the original pronunciation of ancient
Hebrew. The study of the vowels is, accordingly, both misleading
and an unnecessary encumbrance for the student. Why, then,
not dispense with them altogether?

In support of his approach he adduces the fact that our
pronunciation of biblical names differs from that recorded in the
Masoretic text. As additional evidence, he cites the fact that no
vocalization is used in the scrolls read in the synagogues. He
concludes, therefore, that since the vowels are "a late invention,
which seems to be the fact, we might with equal propriety con-
sider the traditions and talmudical writings of the Jews to be of
divine authority, and receive for doctrines the commandments
of men.'5

In consonance with this theory, the author first presents the
alphabet arranged in a column. Beside each letter is given the
name of the letter, as well as its value, in accordance with
different schools and individual grammarians. This is followed
by selections from the books of Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, and Job.
The texts are, of course, devoid of vowel-points, and the only
vowel-indications recognized by the author are the weak letters
r'^iriN, which were adopted as vowel letters, in their old Hebrew
forms, in the Greek alphabet, and subsequently in the alphabets
of other Indo-European languages.

What about the letters neither followed by any of these vowel-
indications nor placed at the end of a word? How are they to be

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

sounded? In such instances, the author suggests, "the beginner
is advised to supply as he is reading, a short vowel of any kind,
suppose e, after every consonant." In this manner the language

may not only be more easily and uniformly read, and sound more
agreeable to the ear, but be much more intelligible to the hearer, by
distinguishing the numerous prefixes from the roots.

Wilson's text is divided into three parts. The first part con-
sists of selections from Genesis and Isaiah, translated into English.
Each Hebrew word is annotated and parsed. The second part
consists of selected chapters from Job, likewise supplied with an
English translation and notations furnishing the roots of the
words, but without the word-for-word parsing. The third part
comprises the Hebrew Grammar of John Parkhurst, to which
the author refers in his parsing of the words in the first part of
the text, and in which he claims to have "made as few altera-
tions as were consistent with the plan adopted."

Since the vowels, except those indicated by vowel-letters, are
indistinguishable from one another in the author's system, he
has no difficulty in "simplifying" his grammar. The pfel and
pu'al conjugations are completely discarded. The form DBfn&
(Gen. 1:2), he regards as hipffil, while isp (ibid. 2:16), nrjpjj
(ibid. 2:23), nanpBrn (ibid. 3:7), and KingJ (ibid. 3:10), are all
regarded as forms of the kaL His lexical etymologies are likewise
confused. To mention only a few of them, px, "earth," is a noun
compounded of K formative and *p, a verb, "to break to pieces"
(p. 10); Mtf, "seven," is derived from Mfc, "satisfy" (p. 144);
and JT»a, "house," stems perhaps from W, "a hollow vessel," and
both from HI, "a hollow," or rather M, the same (p. 145).

The whole book abounds in such grammatical and etymolog-
ical fallacies. Stuart's strictures regarding the state of Hebraic
studies during the first decade of the nineteenth century seem
hardly exaggerated in the light of Wilson's performance. Wil-

126

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

son's book was, after all, an outstanding Hebrew text during
that period, and the author boasts in the Preface that, after
"having been taught originally with the points, I am self-
taught in the Hebrew without the points."

Incidentally, the practice of teaching Hebrew without vowel-
points was quite in vogue among Christian students of Hebrew
during the eighteenth, and probably the early part of the nine-
teenth, century. This practice was the outgrowth of the contro-
versy among both Jewish and Christian scholars as to the antiq-
uity and divine authority of the vowel-signs. The controversy
reached its high watermark in the sixteenth century between the
Jewish scholars Elijah Levita and Azariah dei Rossi, and in the
seventeenth century between the Christian scholars John Bux-
torf and Louis Capellus. Capellus accepted Levita's view,
denying early antiquity to the vowel-signs, while Buxtorf,
relying on dei Rossi's arguments, credited the vowel-signs with
antiquity and divine authority.

Even as late as 1824, Martin Ruter, D.D., published a text
entitled, An Easy Entrance into the Sacred Language; being a Concise
Hebrew Grammar Without Points. In the Preface the author asserts
dogmatically:

That the points and accents form no constituent part of the language,
that the language can be studied successfully without them, and with
more ease to the learner, cannot rationally be denied. Some of the
best Hebrew scholars became such without the aid of the points; and
some who studied and used them have laid them aside, preferring the
language in its original form.

The vowel-points were, according to this author, nothing
more than a sort of commentary on the original text by the
"Mazorites" (Masoretes). "But as they were added by Jewish
teachers, without divine authority, they can have no more
weight than any other comment."

Little wonder, therefore, that when these grammarians at-

127

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

tempted to transliterate the Hebrew texts of the Bible, their
readings were so farfetched and wide of the mark as to be hardly
recognizable. Moses Stuart was undoubtedly right in his denun-
ciation of this practice. In the Introduction to his Hebrew
Grammar > published in 1821, he declared that

there never was, and it may be doubted whether there ever will be,
a thorough Hebrew scholar who is ignorant of the vowel-system. The
Hebrew language, destitute of vowels, is "without form," and is but
little removed from being "void" and having chaotic "darkness upon
it." Seven years' experience of the writer, in teaching Hebrew without
the vowel-points, has brought him fully to this conclusion.

THE FIRST HEBREW TEXT BY AN AMERICAN JEW

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Jews in the
United States constituted a small, insignificant minority. In the
year 1 790, out of a total population of less than four million in
the United States, the Jewish group numbered about 2,500,
and, according to some authorities, the number was not much
more than some 1,500. Most of the Jews lived in Philadelphia
and New York, while a good many were completely cut off from
any Jewish contacts.

Among the new arrivals at the beginning of the century was
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho, who was born and educated in
England and came to New York in 1806. There he taught
Hebrew and other languages privately, and was later (1808-1 1)
engaged as teacher in the Polonies Talmud Torah, an institution
which subsequently became part of the public school system. In
1811, he went to Charleston, S. G., where, in addition to his
official duties as minister of Congregation Beth Elohim, he
taught Hebrew and Spanish in the school of ancient and modern
languages which he himself established. In 1814 he assumed the
ministry of Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, where

128

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

he published a Hebrew text (1815), entitled matf pffV
A Key to the Hebrew Tongue Containing the 3"N Alphabet with the
Various Vowel Points: accompanied by easy lessons of one and more
syllables, with the English translation affixed thereto, so that the learner
may understand as he proceeds. To which is added An Introduction to the
Hebrew Grammar with points; Intended to facilitate the scholar in
his progress to the attainment of the primitive languages.

The book was designed by Carvalho, as "professor of Hebrew
and Chaldee languages, ... for the use of his pupils.'9 He was
also engaged, according to Dr. Bertram W. Korn, s in completing
a Hebrew-English dictionary when he died in 1817.

Garvalho's Hebrew text is a primitive attempt at the teaching
of Hebrew grammar. Judged by modern standards, this work is
pathetically inadequate and leaves much to be desired, both in
regard to content and to method. It is difficult to conceive how
any of the pupils could acquire from such a text either an
understanding of grammar or a mastery of Hebrew.

The book is divided into two parts, one containing language
lessons and the other the grammar. The language lessons consist
of isolated words and their translation. In the first ten lessons,
the words are arranged in an alphabetical order, while in the
eleventh lesson, the alphabetical order is reversed (pntzm). The
first of these lessons comprises only monosyllables, including also
an original coinage, tPK, "fear," on the basis of the biblical nnn<,
as well as such unusual and obscure words as ]T, which the
author translates, after Menahem ben Saruk, as "food."

In the eighth lesson, nouns in the singular, with pronominal
suffixes in the first person singular, are given, while the ninth
contains nouns in the plural, with pronominal suffixes in the
first person plural. The numerals are given in the twelfth lesson.

s See the Introduction to Carvalho's Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West,
edited by Bertram W. Korn (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954), p. 19.

129

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

Beginning with lesson 15, the vocabularies are generally un-
vocalized, and in lessons 28 to 40, biblical phrases, mostly
unvocalized, are presented with translations.

The author evidently manifests some sense of method, but he
gives little attention, in selecting his vocabulary, to the value of
the words in terms of biblical frequency or even of biblical
occurrence. Included in this vocabulary are a good many tal-
mudic and medieval words, as well as original coinages, for some
of which no basis can be found. Thus in lessons 19 and 24, we
find such new coinages as ]S*in, "responder," from the talmudic
verb "pn, "answered" or "settled a difficulty"; mwo, "pins,"
from TOO, "support"; ontfj?, "buttons," from itfp, "bind"; and
H1p3, "jelly," from rnp?, "ice"; but also TO", "ribband," or
"ribbon," the origin of which cannot be found by this writer.

The author is frequently careless in his vocalizations and trans-
lations. He makes no provision for recurrence of vocabulary. No
word occurs more than once, and the biblical phrases included in
the last twelve lessons are not based at all on the preceding
vocabularies. Under such circumstances, any learning of the
language, except by rote memorization of each individual word
and phrase, is inconceivable.

The second part of this book, comprising the grammar, is
more satisfactory in terms of method* In it, the author attempts
to present concisely and systematically the rudiments of Hebrew
grammar. He was apparently familiar with David Kimhi's
Mikhlol, whose influence is detectable in both the content and
the method of this part of the book. He evinces, however, some
originality in the succinct arrangement of the material.

Carvalho was apparently a scholar after a fashion. He must
have been fairly conversant with the Bible and later Hebraic
sources. But his scholarship was undisciplined and desultory. His
book may have made no contribution to the advancement of the
methodology of the Hebrew language and to the study of Hebrew
130

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

grammar, but it undoubtedly represents an important stage in
the groping for a method of teaching Hebrew in America. It is
worthy of note that this was the first beginner's text, perhaps the
only such text, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
where recognition was given to post-biblical Hebrew and where
this phase of Hebrew was regarded almost on a par with biblical
Hebrew.

HEBREW GRAMMAR IN AMERICA COMES OF AGE

The first modern Hebrew grammar, worthy of this designation
and published in America, appeared in 1821. The author was
Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological
Seminary at Andover. A second edition of this grammar, en-
larged and improved, was published two years later. It is the
latter edition which is under consideration in this essay.

Moses Stuart, to whom reference has already been made in
these pages, was an autodidact. When, at the age of thirty, he
assumed his post at the Andover Seminary, his knowledge of
Hebrew was, by his own admission, extremely limited. In the
course of time, however, he succeeded in. furthering his Hebraic
knowledge by studying the works of Schultens, Schroder, and
especially Gesenius, among others, and turned the knowledge
acquired to good advantage. His grammar is a methodical and
comprehensive work, and it bears evidence of pedagogic insight.
He must have been a gifted teacher.

At the conclusion of Part II of this book, dealing with orthog-
raphy and phonology, the author presents a grammatical anal-
ysis of the first five verses of Genesis, in order to exemplify the
application of the rules discussed in this part. He also offers
occasionally sound pedagogic suggestions. For example, in order
to enable the student to learn to identify the Hebrew letters and
vowels with their respective sounds, he advises him to

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

practice writing them down, calling each aloud by name and uttering
the sound of it as often as he writes it. Let this practice be persisted in,
until all the vowels and consonants can be recognized with facility
and pronounced readily; their distinctions definitely described and
drawn with the pen at pleasure; and their names familiarly recalled
(p. 46).

This advice is in keeping with the psychological principle of
"multiple sense appeal."

In a text of this type, written over a century ago by a pioneer-
ing autodidact, it should not be surprising to find some basic
errors in the light of modern grammatical science. Thus Stuart
maintains that the final forms of S ,E> ,5 ,» ,D were unknown to
the translators of the Septuagint. The various Hebrew inscrip-
tions, such as those of Mesha, Siloam, and others, had not yet
been discovered, and he was, therefore, unaware of the fact that
the final letters retain, in effect, the original forms. Nor did he
know that the hard pronunciation of the n ,& ,D .1 A ,3 letters
actually preceded their soft pronunciation. The theory held by
him and other contemporary grammarians was that the dagesh
was designed to indicate the removal of the original "aspirated"
pronunciation of these letters. His discussion of the division of
the vowels is unduly complicated and unscientific.

Less excusable are some unfounded and rash statements. One
wonders, for example, where he picked up the information that
"according to the Rabbins, the S7 suspended in 1SW? (Ps. 80:14)
means Christ suspended" (p. 44). He was certainly on the wrong
track when he attributed to the German Jews the pronunciation
of the kametz "as a in father" while "the Jews in most of Europe,
and (if I am rightly informed) in Palestine . . . are in favour of
giving to it the sound of a in all" (p. 61). He was evidently not
"rightly informed." At the time Stuart wrote, the prevailing
pronunciation of Hebrew in Palestine was Sephardic, while that
of the European Jews, including the Jews of Germany, was
generally Ashkenazic, in which the kametz was pronounced a
132

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

as in all. The Jews of the Ukraine and Poland, on the other
hand, gave the long kametz the sound of oo as in food. He should
have checked the sources of his information more carefully.
There is, likewise, no justification for his confusing Rashi script
with "the Tarn letter (probably so named from Tarn a grandson
of Yarchi, about A. D. i2oo)."6

These and a number of other errors in this book do not,
however, detract from its significance as an important milestone
in the progress of Hebrew grammatical studies in the United
States. The fact that this book went through seven editions
bespeaks the esteem in which it was held and the influence which
it exercised on scholars and students of the Hebrew language at
that period.

The influence of Stuart's work is evident in the works of
other grammarians of that period, particularly in that of James
Seixas.7 In the Introduction to the first edition of his Manual
Hebrew Grammar, published in 1833, Seixas declared: "From a
careful and frequent reading of the Bible with Professor Stuart's
Hebrew Grammar (2nd edition) before me, I have obtained what
these sheets contain." In this Manual, Seixas attempted to
present a concise digest of Stuart's Grammar, comprised within
the compass of forty-four pages, to which was added "A List of
Peculiar and Anomalous Forms Found in the Hebrew Bible."

6 Cf. p. 29. The reference is, of course, to Jacob Tarn, a grandson of Rashi. The
confusion of Rashi with Yarchi occurs in another place in the text (p. 25), and was
not uncommon among some scholars, who erroneously applied the surname
Yarchi to Rashi, as early as the sixteenth century. This error is due to the confusion
of Rashi, whose real name was Solomon ben Yitzhak, with Solomon ben Judah of
Lunel, in the fifteenth century, who was given the surname of Yarchi, because the
Hebrew yareah is the equivalent of the French lune,

? James Seixas was a converted Jew, who taught Hebrew to the Mormons and
other Christian sects. A letter of appreciation for his "valuable course of Hebrew
instruction" and profound influence on his pupils, written by Orson Hyde, one of
the early Mormon leaders, dated March 31, 1834, is in the Library of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

133

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

Seixas recognized the inadequacy of this succinct digest, and
in his Introduction he stressed that it was "intended for those
only who have read or may hereafter read Hebrew with
the author." He undoubtedly supplemented this digest, in
teaching his pupils, by additional exercises and exemplification,
and he was very skeptical as to "whether anyone can obtain
any satisfactory knowledge from these pages without some one
to explain them,"

Seixas must have been a popular teacher. He speaks of "the
several hundreds whom I have instructed." In the second
edition, which he published in 1834 "at the request of many
friends/' the text was "enlarged by more copious rules; by
exercises in spelling, reading and translating, and by a full table
of the Accents. Also a table of the characteristics of the conjuga-
tions in the future tense and in the participles has been added,
and the list of the anomalies at the end has received some
accessions."

Yet even the second edition, although expanded to more than
double the size of the first edition, fails to measure up to our
modern standards, both from the standpoint of methodology and
from that of grammatical science. The exercises are inadequate
and desultory. The nouns are not discussed at all. The author
failed to understand the nature of the n"b verbs, and he regarded
the he in these verbs as the original third radical, which changed
to yod in the middle of the word. Had he read Stuart's Hebrew
Grammar more carefully, he would not have made this error. 8

A Hebrew textbook and grammar, small in size and meagre in
content, appeared in 1834, under the authorship of Joseph
Aaron, "Hebrew Professor and Teacher of Hebrew Grammar."
The book bears the title, pnpTn n&rmi na» yvh VH rms>& n&o
.nmp3 DS; mw, A Key to the Hebrew Language and the

8 See Stuart, Section 122.
134

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

Science of Hebrew Grammar Explained (with Points). First Part. In
his Preface, the author states:

This little work is calculated to teach adults to read the Hebrew
Language, with points, correctly, with Rules, which will enable them,
with their own study and application, to attain that most desirable
acquisition, of an acquaintance with the Holy Tongue.

This text consists of three parts: (a) a series of phonetic and
grammatical rules, especially related to nouns; (b) a dictionary
comprising some three hundred words, all monosyllables stem-
ming from the Bible, with English translations; and (c) reading
exercises drawn from the liturgy and translated into English.
According to the author, in his prefatory comment to the
Dictionary,

the following collection of words will not only serve to perfect the
learner in joining the final consonants in syllables, the most abstruse
to beginners, but also to furnish him with a good stock of words, both
of which first principles of language (and most essential to the Hebrew
tongue, in respect to the different translation of words nearly, and often
identically the same in orthography and pronunciation) he will acquire
by an imperceptible gradation, if his master assigns him a daily
portion as a task, to be learned by rote.

The author is obviously overoptimistic, both as to the efficacy
of the daily study of isolated words and as to the value of his
selected vocabulary as a basis for a knowledge of the Hebrew
tongue. The study of isolated vocabulary is not regarded as
desirable practice in modern linguistic methodology. Nor is the
virtue of monosyllabic words recognized in modern pedagogy,
especially when these words are not selected either in terms of
occurrence frequency or of functional utility, as is the case of the
vocabulary included in this text,

Aaron's text represents no distinct contribution either to the
methodology of the Hebrew language or to grammatical science.
The author, probably an East European or German Jew, must

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

have acquired some familiarity with the Sephardic pronuncia-
tion, then fashionable among the American Jews, and he con-
fused the pronunciations of Hebrew considerably, as is evident
from his inconsistent transliterations. Thus he transliterated
Shiva Nang (shewa na6, vocal shewa), Chataph pausuch (hataph
patah), and Maisag (meteg). He pronounced the tzerei i as in
mine and the kametz o as in £0, but the consonant ajrin is pro-
nounced by him as ng, in accordance with the usage then in
vogue among the Sephardic Jews in America.

In his Preface, Aaron promised to publish a second part in
which he intended to discuss "verbs with their conjugations.'*
But this part apparently never appeared.

THE MOST SCIENTIFIC HEBREW GRAMMAR OF THE
PERIOD IN AMERICA

Allusion has previously been made to the low level of Hebraic
scholarship in America during the early part of the nineteenth
century. There was hardly anyone in America during that period
who possessed a thorough grounding in Hebraic sources and a
scientific mastery of the Hebrew language. Little wonder, then,
that the most scientific Hebrew grammar of that period and,
perhaps, of the century, published in America, was written by a
European-trained Jew, Isaac Nordheimer (1809-42).

Nordheimer received his early Hebraic training from the
noted Talmudist, Moses Sofer of Pressburg, Hungary. He con-
tinued his studies in Germany and received his Ph.D. in Oriental
languages from the University of Munchen in 1834. Shortly
thereafter, in 1835, he came to America, and in 1836 accepted
the post of "Acting Professor of Arabic, etc." in the University
of the City of New York. With the encouragement and assistance
of his friend, William W. Turner, whose "constant and essential
aid in both the literary and typographical execution35 he
136

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

acknowledged, he published in two volumes A Critical Grammar
of the Hebrew Language (New York, 1838, 1841).

In this grammar, the author brings to bear upon his investi-
gations of the Hebrew language his vast knowledge of Oriental
and Indo-European languages, as well as of the general prin-
ciples of comparative linguistics. He makes frequent references
to Arabic, Aramaic, and Ethiopic, as well as to Sanskrit, Greek,
and Latin, and to Germanic and Slavic languages. Some of
his ideas may sound to us now farfetched, fanciful, and obsolete,
but they certainly bespeak extensive erudition, ingenuity, and
scholarship.

In the Introduction, Nordheimer sets forth his

constant aim, to analytically investigate, and synthetically investigate
and explain, these laws which give rise to the phenomena of formation
and inflection presented by one of the most natural and regular of
languages; and at the same time incidentally to point out its surpris-
ingly intimate connection, both lexicographical and grammatical, not
only with the other Shemitish languages, but also with those of the
Japhetish or Indo-European stock, . , .

Both in his style and in his approach he distinctly manifests the
influences of his Germanic training, of German mysticism, and
especially of that "new and splendid era of philology [which]
has been reserved for the nineteenth century,55 and which had
been ushered in by such brilliant grammarians as Wilhelm
Gesenius (1786-1842) and Heinrich Ewald (died 1875). His zeal
and enthusiasm for this "new and splendid era" seem to be
boundless, and he regards "the revolution . . . produced within
the last thirty years in the science of philology" as "one which
for magnitude and rapidity has not been surpassed in the history
of the human mind." He is often carried away by his zeal and
enthusiasm into the realm of metaphysics, into philosophical
discussions of the "eternal laws of speech," of "the intimate
connection between the internal impression of the soul and its

137

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

external representative," of the "nature of the human mind and
the genius of the language which is its offspring."

Aside from its involved style and pretentious metaphysics,
Nordheimer's work contains much interesting material and
many sound grammatical ideas. The discussion of the vowels
and their development (Chapter II) based on the vocalic
triangle, on the three ends of which are the three original vowels
z, a, and u, is in consonance with our modern conceptions of the
vowel-system. The treatment of consonant changes (Chapter
VI) and vowel changes (Chapter VIII) is generally good and
is amply exemplified, although it contains a number of errors.
The analogies and comparisons adduced by the author from
other Semitic and Indo-European languages are often en-
lightening and interesting. Thus, for example, the author's
reference to the i vowel as a characteristic of the feminine gender
in Semitic and Indo-European languages (Section 127) is in-
triguing and serves to explain a number of grammatical
phenomena in Hebrew. 9

Nordheimer, like the other grammarians of that period,
failed to understand the phonetic evolution of the n ,D ,D ,T ,Ji ,a
letters. Like Stuart, he regarded the dagesh in these letters as
evidence of their original "aspirate" pronunciation (Section 38).
Unlike Stuart, however, he misunderstood and misconstrued
the nature of the segolate nouns and of the n"1? verbs.

In corroboration of the assumption that the "aspirate" pro-
nunciation is the original, Nordheimer adduces "the fact that
the aspirate pronunciation is that which is denoted in the
simplest manner, viz., by the character alone, while the unas-
pirate sound is signified by the addition of a diacritical point";
namely, the dagesh. This evidence is, however, invalid. The
dagesh originated during the Masoretic period, long after the

9 Gf. the writer's ICtmhi's Hebrew Grammar (Mikhlol), 274, n. 475.

138

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

original explosive pronunciation of the n ,& ,D ,7 j ,3 letters had
been lost by a process of partial assimilation of these consonants
to the open-lip position of the preceding vowel; compare the
Latin habeo, Anglo-Saxon haeban, and English have; or the Latin
sapiens and French savant. * °

The rejection of the helping-vowel in the declension of the
segolates was regarded by Nordheimer as due to the fact that
"the second vowel is shifted back to the first consonant and
shortened, e. g. ^g with suff. ••sVa for 'oW* (Section 103, 2).
Stuart, on the other hand, correctly interpreted such instances
as a restoration of the original form, where the "furtive vowel"
in the second syllable is dropped in the declensions, the original
form being TjVa (Section 143).

Similarly, Nordheimer erroneously construed the he in the
rrb verbs as a radical, which changes in the inflections to yod
(rpia) or is "hardened into its cognate n, e. g. nnVj for nnVa"
(Section 439). He merely observes in a footnote that the evidence
in Hebrew and in Arabic has led "some late writers to conclude
that all Hebrew H"1? verbs were originally either •»**? or l"1?."
Stuart consistently and correctly viewed the he in these verbs
as replacing z.yod or a waw, in order to avoid ending a word with
these "moveable consonants" (Section 12s).11 Both Stuart and
Nordheimer were, however, wrong in regarding the D in nrfrjj,
as well as in the inflected nominal forms of the feminine (''n&Dn),
as a substitute for the he. As a matter of fact, the n (t) is the
original feminine characteristic termination of both verbs and
nouns in the Semitic languages. Under the influence of a preced-
ing vowel, this characteristic ending tends to fall away, by
partial assimilation to the open-lip position of the vowel, also

I ° On the origin of the dagesh see W. Chomsky, Jewish Quarterly Review, XXXII,
I, p. 45, n. 63.

II Ibid., 205, n. 301.

139

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

in Arabic and in Aramaic in nouns, but it is retained in both
these languages in the verb. This phenomenon is common also
in Indo-European languages. x 2 The he at the end of the word in
Hebrew merely serves as a vowel indication, warning the reader
not to end the word with a vowel-less consonant. In the in-
flected forms, however, the n is retained. In the case of
the form probably evolved from rfra (contracted from
cf. nfettl Lev. 25:21), where the n came to be regarded as a
radical, consequently giving rise to nrh\ under the influence of
the predominating form fl^tpfj.

Incidentally, the theory that the third radical in the verbs is
really yod (or waw which passes intoyod) was advanced as early
as the beginning of the twelfth century by Moses Ibn Chiqui-
tilla, 13 although Derenbourg attributes this theory to Samuel
Ha-Nagid. I4 Among the modern grammarians, Gesenius seems
to have been the first to arrive at this theory independently. x s

Neither Stuart nor Nordheimer had any clear idea about the
nature of the Hebrew tenses. Both employed the Indo-Germanic
names of the three periods of time (past or preterite, present, and
future), which are entirely foreign to the Semitic tense idea,
according to which occurrences are viewed only in terms of
completed or incomplete action. The character or kind of the
action, rather than the time of the action, is indicated by the
Hebrew tenses, as was clearly and cogently stated by Driver in
A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (1874). Nordheimer's
lengthy and involved statement, in which he argues that the

18 Cf. O. Jesperscn, Language, 265, and O'Leary, Comparative Grammar of Semitic
Languages t 54 flf.

s» Cf. Backer, Hebrdische Sprachwissenschaft, 60, and Abraham Ibn Ezra als Gram-
matiker, 91 f. and 153.

x* Opuscules et Traitts tf Abort l-Walid Merwan Ibn Djinah, Introduction XX,
*$ Lehrgebdude der hebrdischen Sprache> 421,

140

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

" choice of tenses in the Hebrew, as well as the paucity of their
number, are additional proofs of the venerable antiquity of the
language," is, therefore, unfounded, and further attests the
influence of German mysticism on his grammatical thinking.

Both Stuart and Nordheimer were the outstanding Hebrew
grammarians of that period in America. Nordheimer was the
greater Hebraic scholar and the more profound linguist, but
Stuart must have been superior to him in teaching ability.
Nordheimer's Grammar lacks the simplicity and clarity of style,
as well as the systematic, methodical organization which
Stuart's Grammar possesses. This might explain why Stuart's
work enjoyed such vogue and popularity as to go through seven
editions, whereas only two editions of Nordheimer' s Grammar
appeared.

Stuart, Seixas, and Nordheimer x 6 all refer erroneously to an
inverted nun in tfbaa (Num. 10:35). This error is due to the fact
that the section tfbaa wi (Num. 10:35-36) is marked off in our
Masoretic text by an inverted nun at the beginning and at the
end. This nun was plausibly construed by Ludwig Blau as the
initial of nakud (punctuated), referring to the dots which had
been in the text originally above and below the letters in this
section, but were later eliminated to prevent confusion resulting
from the letters and dots running into one another. T 7 These
grammarians must have regarded this inverted nun as referring
to the nun of BOH.

16 See M. Stuart, Hebrew Grammar (2nd edition), 44; J. Seixas, Manual Hebrew
Grammar (1833), 12; I. Nordheimer, A Critical Grammar of the Hebrew Language
(New York, 1838, 1841), I, 7, n.

J7 Cf. the talmudic statement, Shabbat H5b-n6a, nVjmVo nvao'D n'npn nV npy
m VNP l»iV nBD^oi, and Rashi ad loc.t also Soferim 6:1.

141

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

THE FIRST SPELLERS AND PRIMERS FOR JEWISH
SCHOOLS IN AMERICA

All these scholarly efforts were designed primarily for adult
beginners or advanced students of Hebrew in the colleges and
universities. The first attempt to meet the needs of the young
pupils in the elementary grades of the Jewish schools, which
began to be established during the second quarter of the nine-
teenth century, was made by that indefatigable worker on
behalf of Jewish education in America during that period, Isaac
Leeser. His textbook, entitled 'antf' ^D nstt flK IB1?1? *p7 n*n»
nnar p0*? •0*n, The Hebrew Reader Designed as an Easy Guide to
the Hebrew Tongue for Jewish Children and Self-Instruction. No. I,
The Spelling Book, was first published in 1838, and in 1856 the
fourth edition of this text was issued.

This book, as Leeser writes in his Preface to the fourth edi-
tion, was to be the first of "a whole series calculated for the
acquisition of the Hebrew, if proper encouragement had been
extended." He complained, however, that although the book
"has met with approbation, still the sale has been quite small."
Yet the author drew comfort from the fact that " additional
efforts are made to erect schools for the spread of the Hebrew
language," and consequently he felt that he might be encour-
aged to proceed with the publication of "Hebrew Reader No. II,
containing easy lessons for translations from Hebrew into
English."

It is regrettable that Leeser did not carry out his plan for the
publication of the subsequent readers of the series. The Spelling
Book merely gives attention to phonetic aspects of Hebrew. It
provides exercises, as well as a few simple grammatical rules of
pronunciation and reading of the language. Liturgical selec-
tions with English translations are appended at the end of
the book.

142

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

The Spelling Book also includes directions to the teachers,
designed to guide them in the proper use of the lessons in the
text. These directions are interspersed among the lessons, a
practice which is, from a pedagogic point of view, unsatis-
factory. However, both in the construction of the reading
exercises for the pupils, as well as in his suggestions to the
teachers, Lesser evinces a fine pedagogic insight and acu-
men.

A primer much more comprehensive in scope and ambitious
in approach and method was that by the Reverend G. M. Cohen,
published in 1850, bearing the endorsements of Rabbis Leo
Merzbacher, Max Lilienthal, Herman Felsenheld, and Muhl-
felder. This work. The Hebrew Language, consists of two parts:
theoretical and practical. The first, the theoretical part, con-
tains rules covering virtually the entire range of Hebrew gram-
mar, concisely presented, as well as paradigms of both nouns and
verbs. The second part comprises reading and language exer-
cises. The language exercises are modeled on the pattern of the
Ollendorf method of teaching foreign languages, according to
which each lesson exemplifies a certain specific principle of
grammar or usage and operates with a limited new vocabulary,
which is given at the beginning of the lesson. Translation
exercises for drill purposes are provided in each lesson. These
exercises consist of expressions and sentences which are mainly
disconnected, although toward the end of this book some original
stories and connected discourse, incorporating biblical materials,
are included.

Cohen was undoubtedly a good Hebraist and a fine peda-
gogue. His Hebrew is, in the main, accurate and, in the spirit
of the time, biblical, but it is simple and direct, without the
periphrases and the flourishes characteristic of the Haskalah
style, then in vogue. Some of his pedagogic ideas may sound
revolutionary even today. Few of our modern Hebrew educators

143

WILLIAM CHOMSKY

in America would subscribe, for example, to the following
recommendation made by our author:

As soon as the scholar knows the letters well and is able to combine
them with some alacrity, nothing should be read by him without the
meaning thereof being given immediately. He ought never to imagine
that a word could be read without understanding it.

Yet it is doubtful whether Cohen had any direct experience
in teaching children. He attempted to achieve results which are
unrealistic. He managed to compress within the framework of
some thirty pages the fundamental principles of Hebrew gram-
mar, and, within a little over fifty pages, a vocabulary of some
six hundred words in various formations. It is inconceivable how
children, in the primary grades, could be expected to master all
this material in one year, or even in two years, even taking into
consideration the fact that the Hebrew instruction in those days
was given in all-day schools. Such a feat would tax the capacities
also of older beginners.

Furthermore, one finds it difficult to reconcile the author's
statement that the pupil "ought never to imagine that a word
could be read without understanding it'3 with his procedure of
including in the text liturgical selections, without translations,
which are couched in a vocabulary beyond that incorporated in
the Hebrew section. Did he mean to exempt liturgical Hebrew
from the category of words that should never be read without
comprehension? Cohen's point of view in this regard is not
entirely clear.

The mechanical make-up of the Hebrew primers in those
days was, of course, far below the modern standards for such
books. They were drab and unattractive in appearance. The
print was small, and no pictures or illustrations, no rhymes or
songs, no frills or furbelows were employed to relieve the
monotony and drabness of these texts. This may be one reason
why Jewish education was so unpopular in those days, even
144

HEBREW GRAMMAR AND TEXTBOOK WRITING

though the public schools had not yet come into vogue to
claim the major part of the time and attention of the Jewish
children.

SUMMARY

In sum, the development of Hebrew grammar and textbook
writing during the early part of the nineteenth century pro-
ceeded along two lines: methodological and philological. Most
of the works discussed here had a didactic motivation and
purpose. They were designed primarily to teach Hebrew to
beginners, young and old. Two of these grammars, those by
Stuart and Nordheimer, were also designed to further the
science of Hebrew grammar. Although crudities and errors are
to be found in both the methodological and the philological
areas, there is no doubt that these works constituted the ground-
work for the progress of Hebraic studies in this country. Some
of these works, especially those of Stuart and Nordheimer, can
still be studied with profit.

145

The Founders of

"Wissenschaft des Judentums"
and America

GUIDO KISCH

ON AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORIOGRAPHY

TWENTY-THREE years ago, even before his arrival in
America, this writer became acutely aware of the importance
of research in the history of the Jews in the New World. The
various causes of emigration from Europe, political and legal
as well as religious and economic, the fate of the immigrants
in their new homeland, their religious activities, and their
achievements in all areas of human culture aroused his interest
as an historian. The interaction of European atmosphere and
American climate caught his special attention and occupied it
for many years. From this interest several studies resulted, small
in size at the beginning, later growing in volume through
increasing historical materials and a deepening insight into the
religious developments and sociological problems. * Future Amer-

Dr. Guide Kisch is Research Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew Union
College -Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.

1 "German Jews in White Labor Servitude in America," Publications of the American
Jewish Historical Society, XXXIV (1937), n~49; "A Voyage to America Ninety
Years Ago: The Diary of a Bohemian Jew on His Voyage from Hamburg to New
York, 1847," PAJHS, XXXV (1939), 65-113; "Israels Herold: The First Jewish
Weekly in New York," Historia Judaica, II (1940), 65-84; "Two American Jewish
Pioneers of New Haven," Historia Judaica, IV (1942), 16-37; "The Revolution

GUIDO KISCH

lean Jewish historiography will have to assess whatever merit
these researches may have.

Despite the availability of the abundant resources of the
libraries in New York, great idealism and sincere devotion to
scholarship were needed to carry on and successfully complete
such studies. A volume of the Publications of the American
Jewish Historical Society appeared at irregular intervals, about
every two to four years. "Unlike the quarterly of the American
Historical Association where there frequently appear speculative
and theoretical articles, the Publications show a consistent devo-
tion to notes, sketches, isolated documents, historical oddments
and tag ends. Exceptions, such as Alexander Marx's 'Aims and
Tasks of Jewish Historiography3 (1918), were few in number.
The first volume, published in 1 893, bears a close resemblance
to many of its thirty-four successors."3 Obviously, historical
research owes a debt of gratitude to all the well-meaning
amateur historians who preserved historical materials in the
pages of the Publications. As a rule, however, their comments

of 1848 and the Jewish 'On to America' Movement," PAJHS, XXXVIII (1949),
185-234; In Search of Freedom: A History of American Jews from Czechoslovakia (London,
1949), xvi, 373 pp.

8 Harold J. Jonas, "Writing American Jewish History," Contemporary Jewish Record,
VI (1943), 144; moreover, the important discussion in Bernard D. Weinryb,
"American Jewish Historiography: Facts and Problems," Hebrew Union College
Annual, XXIII, Part II (1950-51), 221-44; cf- a*80 H. Schmidt, "A Broader
Approach to Jewish History," Commentary, VIII (1949), 588-93. On the American
Jewish Historical Society, Isidore S. Meyer, "The American Jewish Historical
Society," Journal of Jewish Bibliography, IV (1943), Nos. 1-2. A good survey of
the present state of research in American Jewish history is found in Joshua
Trachtenberg, "American Jewish Scholarship," The Jewish People — Past and
Present, IV (New York, 1955), 446-48. On modern Jewish scholarship in America
in general, Ismar Elbogen, "American Jewish Scholarship: A Survey," American
Jewish Tear Book, XLV (1943), 47-65; Solomon B. Freehof, "Prospects for Amer-
ican Jewish Scholarship," Judaism, III (1954), 381-90; cf. also Joshua Trachtenberg,
* 'Jewish Bibliography in America," Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, II (1956),
99-101; Moses Rischin, An Inventory of American Jewish History (Cambridge, Mass.,
1954).

148

FOUNDERS OF WISSENSGHAFT DBS JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

were limited to such remarks as "The document is self-
explanatory," "The letters may speak for themselves/' and the
like. This, of course, hardly deserved the name of historiography .
Nor did it produce understanding or encouragement of attempts
at a scholarly approach toward American Jewish history.

The present situation differs considerably from that of even
ten years ago. American Jewish history, which in some circles
was regarded as altogether without scholarly quality because
of its lack of Hebrew sources, has risen to the academic level.
All Jewish institutions of higher learning in the country teach
it as a supplement to the study of the ancient, medieval, and
modern European history of the Jews. A number of important
research centers came into being, destined to collect and preserve
materials as well as to stimulate iuterest in this most recent
addition to the various fields of Jewish history. Still more, a
methodology of American Jewish history is under scholarly
discussion, and new ways and means of literary approach are
being worked out, adjusted to the specific character of the
subject. The tercentenary celebration made the general public
aware of the aims and tasks of American Jewish history and
historiography, although, from a scholarly point of view, it
has failed — at least until now — to produce the American
"Graetz" or "Dubnow."

To Professor Jacob R. Marcus goes credit for a considerable
share in the upward trend of the development so briefly out-
lined. In addition to the founding of the American Jewish
Archives and the scholarly journal of the same name published
under its auspices, his own well-known literary output in the
new area of Jewish historiography furnishes ample evidence of
this. It was appreciation of his work and achievements that
persuaded me to accept the invitation of the editor to participate
in the volume commemorating the tenth anniversary of the
American Jewish Archives. To contribute an article to a

GUIDO KISCH

Festschrift comprised exclusively of essays in American Jewish
history involved considerable difficulties not only on account
of the time limit, but also because of my present preoccupation
with problems of the history of European Jewry during the
sixteenth century. The very sketchy presentation that follows
can, therefore, merely touch on and direct the attention of
scholars to a problem of American Jewish Geistesgeschichte that
deserves thoroughgoing investigation on a larger scale than has
heretofore been accorded it. Unfortunately, the author must
deny himself the privilege of delving more deeply into this
subject.

LEOPOLD ZUNZ'S LETTERS TO AMERICA

More than half a century ago, Ludwig Geiger stated in the
conclusion to his interesting article, "Aus L. Zunz5 Nachlass":
"In three years Zunz's one hundredth birthday will be commem-
orated; a dignified biography would seem the most worthwhile
celebration of this memorial day."3 In 1936, at the time of
Zunz's fiftieth Tahrzeit, Ismar Elbogen revived the memory of
one of the greatest Jewish historians of the nineteenth century
with a fine brief, yet comprehensive, essay.4 Up to this day,
however, a biography worthy of the "father of cWissenschaft
des Judentums' " has not yet been written. s In an earlier
valuable study, "Aus dem Leben Leopold Zunz*, " Siegmund
Maybaum correctly assessed the great difficulties which will
confront the future biographer of that outstanding figure in

3 Ludwig Geiger's %sitschriftfur die Geschickte derjuden in Deutschland, V (1892), 268.

* Ismar Elbogen, "Leopold Zimz zum Ged&chtnis," Funfyigster Bericht der Lehranstalt
fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin (Berlin, 1936), 14-32.

s For bibliography, see Alexander Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore
(New York, 1944), 346, note I.

150

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

the history of Jewish scholarship: "Through his many-sided
activities in scholarship and life Zunz makes no small demands
on the intellectual qualities of his biographer. First of all, he
must be thoroughly acquainted with the development of the
entire 'Judische Wissenschaft' in his century, influenced as it
was for the most part in its foundation and growth by Zunz;
then, he must be familiar with the school system of the Berlin
Jewish community and also with the political movements of
the year 1848 and the following period; finally, he must not
be lacking an intimate knowledge of the cultural history of the
Jews in this era and of the history of journalism and belles-
lettres in Prussia and Berlin during the first half of the nine-
teenth century."6 This statement is of undiminished validity
even today.

Zunz's modern biographer will be even more intrigued.
While the work of preceding generations concentrated on the
collection and presentation of the documentary raw material,
his task will be to evaluate it from the point of view of the
history of ideas. Only recently was Zunz's dependence on the
ideological structure of scholarship in his own time first
investigated.7 A similar approach will be necessary to reveal
his influence on modern Jewish scholarship in general and also
on America. That such a topic is by no means far-fetched is
self-evident. If it should need support from the factual aspect of
Zunz's personal interest in America and the receptivity of
American Jewish scholars to the master's work even during
his lifetime, a few documents offer eloquent evidence of such

6 Wissenschaftliche Beigabe zum Oster-Programm der Lekranstalt fur die Wissmschaft
des jfudenttans (Berlin, 1894), 63 pages in quarto.

i Luitpold Wallach, "The Scientific and Philosophical Background of Zunz's
'Science of Judaism*," Historia Judaica, IV (1942), 51-70; Wallach, "The Begin-
nings of the Science of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century," ibid., VIII (1946),
44-60, with tether bibliography; Fritz Bamberger, "Zunz's Conception of His-
tory," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, XI (1941), 1-25.

GUIDO KISCH

contacts. Attention will be directed to them in the following
pages.

The earliest document goes back to the year 1822, a time
from which very few examples of the otherwise abundant Zunz
correspondence are preserved.8 It is the well-known letter of
June 1 5 1822, addressed to Mordecai Manuel Noah, who had
launched his "Ararat53 project of a Jewish State in America
and found interest for it among the members of the Vere in fur
Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden in Berlin. 9 After some contacts
with the group had been established, Noah received an official
letter from the Verein in Berlin, signed by Eduard Cans, the
learned Hegelian, antagonist of Friedrich Carl von Savigny,
and later professor of law at the University of Berlin, as the
president, and by Zunz, as the vice-president. It expresses ap-
preciation, gratitude, and even enthusiasm for the project be-
cause of "the general distress and public calamity under which
a great part of the European Jews labored some years ago and
still are seen to labor." "The more enlightened and respectable
segment of European Jews are looking with anxious eagerness
to the United States of North America, happy to exchange the
miseries of their native soil for public freedom which is there
granted to every religion and likewise for that general happiness

8 Zunz, "Meine Schriften," Jahrbuchfurjudische Geschichte und Literatur 1936 (Berlin,
I937)> * 68, note 10, by Immanuel Bernfeld.

9 Published in two different English translations: Samuel Oppenheim, "Mordecai
M. Noah; A Letter to Him, Dated 1822, from Eduard Gans and Leopold Zunz,
Relating to the Emigration of German Jews to America," PAJHS, XX (1911),
147-49; Morris U. Schappes, A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States,
1654-1875 (New York, 1950), pp. 159 f., with an historical account on pp. 157 f.
and p. 604, note 4. Cf. Bernard D. Weinryb, "Noah's Ararat Jewish State in Its
Historical Setting," PAJHS, XLIII (1954), 170 ff., especially pp. 184 f. and
note 50; Siegfried Ucko, "Geistesgeschichtliche Grundlagen der Wissenschaft des
Judentums (Motive des Kulturvereins vom Jahre 1819)," ^eitschriftjur die Geschichte
der Juden in Deutschland, V (1934), 23, 33 (on Sinai [Eliezar Simon] Kirschbaum's
pamphlet, Hilkhoth Temoth Hamashiah, published in 1822).

152

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

which not the adherents of a privileged faith alone, but every
citizen is allowed to share/5 "Information relating to the state
of the Jews in America, their progress in business and knowledge
and the rights allowed them in general and by each state" is
requested in order to promote "the emigration of European
Jews to the United States . . . from a country where they have
nothing to look forward to but endless slavery and oppression."
This letter which, unfortunately, is preserved only in contem-
porary translations from the German published in American
newspapers, reflects very clearly the mood of despair and the
waning hope for a change in the oppressive political climate
in Germany.

Another such outpouring of despondency from Zunz's pen
reached the shores of America after the failure of the Revolution
of 1848. As much as fifteen years earlier, Zunz had an eye on
America, at that time giving consideration to an offer of a
rabbinical position in New York. I0 Now, in the spring of 1849,
he became a literary contributor to the newly founded first
Jewish weekly in New York, Israels Herold, and also a cor-
respondent, sending to its editor, Isidore Busch, reports on the
situation of the Jews in Germany.11 An anonymous "Letter
from Berlin," preserved in the original German in the pages of
that newspaper, is for the most part political in content.12
Zunz's interest in politics and his journalistic-political activity
as a member of the editorial staff of the influential Spenersche
in Berlin are well known. * 3 There can be no doubt

10 David Kaufmann, Gesammelte Schriften, I (Frankfurt am Main, 1908), 343.

11 For details, see Guido Kisch, "Israels Herold," Historic. Judaica, II (1940)? 75 f-
" Israels Herold, I (1849), 63.

*3 Siegmund Maybaum, "Aus dem Leben Leopold Zunz," 14, note I; 1 6. Zunz's
work on the editorial staff of the Spenersche fyitung deserves a detailed investiga-
tion.

153

GUIDO KISCH

that this letter was written by him. x 4 It displays his skepticism,
sarcasm, and bluntness. As he had done earlier, and as he did
again later on, in discussing the status of the Jews, Zunz resorted
to a "Flucht in die Offentlichkeit" by mentioning in public his
private affairs. Who else was as well informed and concerned
about Zunz's pitiful personal situation as Zunz himself? He
who in 1848 had expressed his loyal sympathy with the rev-
olutionaries,15 offered in mocking terms a description of the
Jewish situation, against the background of the general situation,
and bitterly complained about his own misfortune. The letter,
dated Berlin, April 30, 1849, reads in part, in English translation,
as follows:

You ask me for reports on Jewish conditions at a time when no one
is a Jew, and no one a Christian, when perhaps the Jews feel more
sympathy for Pope Pius IX (who, with the aid of the French, is now
entering Rome quite peacefully and grants amnesty) than many a
Catholic; when many a Christian is a more ardent admirer of the
Jews of Jacob than of his saints! A time when our brothers in Hungary
put on the knapsack instead of the %idakel [£izit: "fringes"] and even
the walls of Bremen do not collapse at the acceptance of Jews as
citizens within it !

For instance, who is concerned now when the wealthy [Jewish] commu-
nity of Berlin, in wretched niggardliness, withdraws the small annual
stipend from an old man highly deserving of it for his scholarly work,
a man who is an ornament of Israel of whom one might well be proud,

x* Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore, 353, refers to a statement by Zunz:
"There appeared in November, 1842, in the Spenersche %eihmg an article against
[Zacharias] Frankel which some people wrongly ascribe to me; I do not write
anonymously." "This statement is rather curious," adds Marx, "since twelve
years earlier Zunz had sent a long critical article (which was never printed) to
[Gabriel] Riesser with the injunction to publish it anonymously and not to tell
even his most intimate friends who the author was." In the case under discussion
above, the reason for the anonymity is, quite obviously, to be found in the then
existing political situation. On the latter, see Zunz's own remarks in Marx, op. <?#»,
355-

xsSee Ludwig Geiger, "Zunz im Verkehr mit Behdrden und Hochgestellten,"
Monatsschriftjur Gesckichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, LX (1916), 246.

154

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

and would expose him to want, a man like Zunz, were it not for the
noblehearted friends who gladly efface such disgrace by contributing
of their own means? Berlin continues to be besieged, a second Chamber
elected by the people is dissolved once more. Again a few human
sacrifices fall before the Moloch-like kingdom, the purple is revived
with blood. . . .

. . . and with all this, you still wish reports on Judaism? Pardon me,
I cannot help you in this; nevertheless, I shall shortly send you the
[Allgemeine] ^eitung des Judentwms and the Orient by steamer; besides,
they are not read very much even here. l6

The third Zunz letter sent to an American correspondent
is of an entirely different character. It was written twenty-five
years later and was addressed to Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal in
Chicago. On the eve of Zunz's eightieth birthday Felsenthal
joined with two other eminent American rabbis and scholars,
Kaufmann Kohler and Liebmann Adler, as well as with a
prominent lawyer and leader in Jewish community activities,
Julius Rosenthal, all of Chicago, in addressing an enthusiastic
letter of congratulation to Zunz. In it his great achievements
and his many contributions to the Wissenschaft des Judentums
were extolled, and the debt owed him by American Jewish
scholarship and the letter writers who recognized him gratefully
as their teacher was described in vivid language. His entire
literary work was reviewed in detail and praised. A draft of
the letter is preserved in the Felsenthal collection of the Amer-
ican Jewish Historical Society, and is published here for the
first time. J 7 Zunz's letter of thanks and appreciation did not

1 6 The original wording in German is reproduced in Appendix I. A similar habit
of employing the press in the interests of his own private affairs is related also of
Zunz's friend and onetime associate in the Kulturverein, Heinrich Heine, the poet;
see Eugen Wohlhaupter, Dichterjuristen (Tubingen, 1955), II, 515: "Nach einem
Zwischenspiel, in welchem Heine wieder einmal die Presse fur seine privaten
Interessen zu mobilisieren versuchte, . . ."

*i Appendix II. This letter is mentioned by Adolf Kober, "Jewish Religious and
Cultural Life in America as Reflected in the Felsenthal Collection," PAJHS,

155

GUIDO KISCH

convey similar rejoicing. x 8 It was dictated by a mood of mel-
ancholy and depression. Having lost, less than a week before,
his faithful companion "after fifty- two years and one hundred
days of happily married life," he was broken in spirit, never
again to recover.19 From a letter of Moritz Steinschneider,
published below, we learn that through his mediation Felsenthal
sent another letter of congratulation to Zunz ten years later, on
the occasion of the master's ninetieth birthday.20 Neither its
wording nor the reply is known.

Zunz's work, however, has not ceased to exert influence upon
American Jewish scholarship to this very day. If literary support
for this positive statement be needed, a more impressive state-
ment could hardly be found than the following paragraph in
the conclusion of Solomon Schechter's appraisal of Zunz's
literary work, which was written with clear vision long before
the future leader of the Conservative movement was called to
America.

It is difficult to say what turn Judaism would have taken without
the influence of Zunz in those parts of the world where the Jews have

XLV (1955), 100. Sincere thanks are due to Rabbi Isidore S. Meyer, librarian and
editor of the American Jewish Historical Society, for placing this, as well as the
Zunz, Geiger, and Steinschneider letters, Appendices III, V, and VI, at my
disposal, and for permission to publish them.

1 8 It is published from the original in the Felsenthal collection, Appendix III.
C£ Adolf Kober, "Aspects of the Influence of Jews from Germany on American
Jewish Spiritual Life of the Nineteenth Century," in Eric E. Hirschler (editor),
Jews from Germany in the United States (New York, 1955), I/O f.

1 » This is corroborated also by a letter from Abraham Geiger to Felsenthal of
September 16, 1874, printed in Kober, loc. cit., pp. 171 f. There Geiger refers to
the congratulatory letter that "pleased him [Geiger] greatly and brought much
joy also to Zunz, evidence of which is found in his letter of thanks."

20 Appendix VI. On the same occasion Felsenthal published an article, "Leopold
Zunz," in the Illinois Staatszeitung of August 8, 1884, which was reprinted in the
Jewish Herald of August 15, 1884; Emma Felsenthal, Bernhard Felsenthal, Teacher
in Israel (New York, 1924), 325, No. 191.

156

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

already ceased, or have not as yet begun, to think, and in which
the respect for institutions is so great that the fact of their mere existence
is sufficient reason for maintaining them. In these countries Judaism
will always remain the private property of Parnasim and a matter of
indifference to the great bulk of the community. But happily there
are also other countries, and they contain the great majority of the
Jews, where people do think and where the power of the idea is so
great that nothing else but ideas could reconcile them with Judaism.
For these countries Zunz did a saving work by revealing to them the
great idea of Judaism, and it is in these countries that we have to
look for the future of Judaism.21

Ill

AMERICAN CONTACTS OF OTHER LUMINARIES OF
"WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS"

No less research and effort than for Zunz will have to be expended
also on determining the influence on American Jewish scholar-
ship of other luminaries of Wissenschaft des Judentums. In fact,
such names as Zacharias Frankel (1801-75), Abraham Geiger
(1810-74), Heinrich (Hirsch) Graetz (1817-91), and Moritz
Steinschneider (1816-1907) became stars in the firmament of
the modern Jewish scholarly world, including America. Here,
too, only a few literary finds and observations can be offered
in the notes that follow; intensive search for as complete raw
material as possible and its evaluation must at present remain a

31 Solomon Schechter, "Leopold Zunz," in his Studies in Judaism: Third Series
(Philadelphia, 1924), pp. 115 L This essay, comprising pp. 84-142, "was written
in -1889 for a prize offered by the New York Jewish Ministers* Association, which
was awarded for it in 1890. The intention to enlarge it and to add some of Zunz's
unpublished notes was never carried out." Of, Schechter, op. cit., p. 279, note. It
would seem to be a good idea for the New York Board of Rabbis to offer another
prize for a definitive biography of Zunz. It is significant, indeed, that the editor of
and contributors to the most recent one-volume Jewish history, Great Ages and
Ideas of the Jewish People (New York, 1956), could find no more appropriate motto
for their work than a quotation from Leopold Zunz.

157

GUIDO KISGH

wistful hope. The name of Adolf Jellinek (1820-93), the cel-
ebrated preacher and profound student of philosophy, Kabala,
and Midrash, should not be left unmentioned in this connection.
Not even its significance for the development of Jewish preaching
in America has until now claimed an historian's attention. 2 2

Abraham Geiger's ideas had a most powerful impact on the
growth of American Judaism, and his influence proved to be
lasting. *3 Yet he himself could not realize or foresee this during
his lifetime. Only five weeks before he died, he wrote to Rabbi
Felsenthal in Chicago: "My contact with America is very loose.
Kohler, Landsberger [Max Landsberg] in Rochester, young
Adler [Felix Adler] do not write a single word." Nevertheless, he
concluded what was probably his last letter to America with the
following question and statement: "Will you send us new pupils
from America? We could use them and they us." 24

Zacharias FrankeFs importance for American Jewish religious
thought and life is by no means of lesser magnitude, nor should
it be underestimated, in spite of the fact that until now American
scholars have given it scant attention. 2S Frankel is the only one

2a A brief article, "Jellinek and America," was published by George Alexander
Kohut in PAJHS, XXXIII (1934), 237-49. Apart from the few documents re-
produced therein, it contains merely sentimental reminiscences in a more
belletristic style. Not even the alleged occasion of their compilation and publication
is historically correct: the year 1930 did not mark "the centenary (1930) of the
death of Adolf Jellinek." He died in 1893. Cf., moreover, Guido Kisch, In Search
of Freedom, 298, note 1 8.

a* Gf. David Philipson, The Reform Movement in Judaism (New York, 1931), passim.

a * Abraham Geiger's letter to Felsenthal of September 16, 1874 (the Felsenthal
collection of the American Jewish Historical Society): "... Meine Verbindung
mit Amerika 1st sehr locker. Kohler, Landsberger [Max Landsberg] in Rochester,
der junge Adler lassen nicht ein Wortchen von sich h6ren. . . . Werden Sie uns neue
Schuler aus Amerika senden? Wir konnen sie und sie uns brauchen."

*s Gf. Philipson, op. cit., passim; Louis Ginzberg, "Zechariah Frankel," in his
Students, Scholars and Saints (Philadelphia, 1928), 195-216. Ginzberg, op. cit., 216,
concluded his discourse on Frankel with these words: "The whole future of Jewish
science depends upon whether we shall number among ourselves many more men

158

FOUNDERS OF WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

among the early representatives of Wissenschaft des Judenturns
who gave any thought to American Jewish history. As early as
1863 he even published a long article, "Zur Geschichte der
Juden Amerikas," which has completely escaped American
Jewish historians. It is an extensive, critical review of I. J.
Benjamin IPs Drei Jahre in Amerika, 1859-62, with numerous
references to related publications and a number of corrections. 2<s
In commenting on George Washington's well-known letter to

who, like Frankel, shall combine harmoniously the old and the new," In commem-
oration of the one hundredth anniversary of Frankel's birth, a pamphlet was
published by Professor Gotthard Deutsch of Cincinnati entitled %achariah Frankel
(author, place, and date of publication not given on the cover). A dedication page
reads: "To the Rev, Dr. B. Felsenthal, Rabbi Emeritus of Sinai Congregation,
Chicago, 111., are these pages respectfully dedicated on the occasion of his Eightieth
Birthday, January 2, 1902, by his true friend and admirer, G. Deutsch." The
pamphlet contains three addresses, each entitled "Zachariah Frankel," by Gotthard
Deutsch, Louis Ginzberg, and Kaufmann Kohler, which had been delivered at
the Frankel memorial meeting of the Ohole Shem Society, on October 6, 1901,
in New York. (A copy of the rare pamphlet is hi the New York Public Library.)
In his necrology, "Solomon Schechter," Ginzberg, 250 f., remarked: "In his first
public address in this country he [Schechter] stated that the paramount duty of
American Jewry is the emancipation of Jewish science ... it is ... the source of
our rejuvenation, the spring from which we draw life and existence." This is in
the good tradition of Wissenschaft des Judenturns. In contrast to Ginzberg, Norman
Bentwich, Solomon Schechter: A Biography (Philadelphia, 1938), pp. 42 ff., relates
practically nothing of Schechter's relationship to Frankel's school of thought and
apparently did not search for solid information. Yet Bentwich knew that Rabbi
Pincus Fritz (not Friedrich) Frankl lived with Schechter "as David and Jonathan,"
that the last-mentioned "lived much of the time in FrankPs house," and that
Schechter dedicated to his memory the first volume of his Studies in Judaism. Pincus
Fritz Frankl, successor to Abraham Geiger, as a rabbi in Berlin, was one of Zacharias
Frankel's most gifted students and a favorite pupil of his. His intellectual relation-
ship with Schechter was certainly important, of lasting influence, and by no
means confined to the insignificant details reported by Bentwich.

a6 Monatsschrift jvr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, XII (1863), 321-29;
361-77; 431-33; cf. Guido Kisch, In Search of Freedom, pp. 185 f. Frankel's article
remained unknown also to all who cooperated in the recent English translation,
I. J. Benjamin, Three Tears in America, 1859-1862, translated from the German by
Charles Reznikoff, with an introduction by Oscar Handlin, 2 vols. (Philadelphia,
1956), in spite of the fact that the last-mentioned author once reviewed my book
in which the quotation is to be found.

159

GUIDO KISGH

the Hebrew congregation of Newport, R. I,, Frankel remarked:
"In Newport, a phase in American Jewish history has found
fulfillment, which evokes admiration as well as sadness. History
finds its continuation on different soil, if, as we must state
regretfully, with less splendor. Yet America has a great future,
and the hope may be uttered that Judaism in America, too, will
fulfil its mission."37

Heinrich Graetz is perhaps the only historic figure among the
founders of Wissenschaft des Judentums to whose significance for
Jewish learning and education in the broadest meaning of the
terms for American Jewry a specific study has been devoted. In
commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the
great Jewish historian, the editor of Historia Judaica invited
Dr. Solomon Grayzel to write an historical evaluation of the
role played by Graetz's classical work on Jewish history in
America. This fine essay, to which the reader may be referred
for detailed information, studies the genesis and success of the
"American Graetz" on the basis of archival and newspaper
material.28 Only a few illustrative findings and statements of
its author on Graetz's influence upon Jewish historical thought
and knowledge in America may be quoted here.

. . . Of the greatness of that influence there can be no doubt. It
may be measured by the number of sets of the American edition sold
by the Jewish Publication Society, which reached into many tens
of thousands, though their price was not particularly cheap. It may
also be measured by the fact that other publishers thought it good
business to produce a translation of the Volkstumliche Geschichte, another
and more condensed abbreviation of the larger German work. . . .

* f Frankel, loc. cit.9 329 (translation from the German). In his Monatssckrift> VI
(1857), 359-64, Frankel had published (in German translation) the three messages
of congratulation addressed to George Washington in 1790 by the "Hebrew
Congregation" in Savannah, Ga.; the one in Newport, R. I.; and a joint message
from the congregations in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, S. C., and
Richmond, Va. He also published Washington's reply to these congregations.

«8 Solomon Grayzel, "Graetz's History in America," Historia Judaica, III (1941),
53-66; the quotation is taken from pp. 62 f.

160

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS59 AND AMERICA

This edition, too, has undergone several reprintings. The same edition
has also been translated into Yiddish and has had a fairly wide cir-
culation in this form. Nor is this all; every text-book written during
the past fifty years has openly, or silently though quite as obviously,
based itself on Graetz. It would be difficult indeed to find a university
thesis or any other volume, by Jew or Gentile, dealing with the Jews,
wherein the name of Graetz does not appear in the footnotes or the
bibliography.

The volumes of Graetz, sometimes the original German but usually
the American edition, have served as an inexhaustible mine for articles
in Jewish dailies or weeklies. The sermons of the hundreds of American
rabbis have not infrequently derived their meat and substance, and
sometimes even their attitudes and eloquence, from the English
translation. . . . The fact remains indisputable that an entire generation
of American Jews has been brought up on Graetz's historical teaching
and that Graetz's ideas have become current intellectual coin.

Graetz's warm-hearted treatment of and his pride in the Jewish
scholars of the past has certainly coincided with the efforts to revive
Jewish culture on American soil, and may, in part, have been a
stimulus to these efforts. . . . The sense of optimism which pervades
his work and his faith in the future of the Jewish people have been a
source of perennial encouragement. Graetz has undoubtedly been
a builder of American Israel.

On Graetz's personal contacts with American Jewry during
his lifetime very little has come to light. For this reason, a
personal letter written in English by the historian in 1890 and
addressed to an otherwise unknown officer of an unnamed society
in Dallas that had conferred honorary membership on Graetz
may be of some interest.29 It may possibly even lead to the
discovery of other Graetz letters to America which have re-
mained hidden until now. 3 °

a 9 Autograph letter in the author's collection of Jewish autographs, Appendix IV.
A facsimile reproduction appeared in Historia Judaica, III (1941), facing p. 54.

a ° There is, however, reason to doubt that other such letters are extant, if more
were written at all. None are found in the Felscnthal collection, or in the American
Jewish Archives, or in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Library.
Prior to 1891 there were very few correspondents in America who could possibly
have exchanged letters with Graetz.

GUIDO KISGH

Moritz Steinschneider, "father of Jewish bibliography/' the
fiftieth anniversary of whose death was commemorated in 1957,
had, among other students who later came to America, one
who continued his work in our country and earned for himself
the name of the "American Steinschneider": Alexander Marx.
Marx devoted a number of publications to his revered teacher,
and from these Steinschneider's importance for Jewish bib-
liography in America can be sensed. Although this particular
topic has not been treated specifically,31 the renowned bib-
liographer nevertheless left his mark on American Jewish
scholarship, through his writings as well as his pupils. Moreover,
his private library, his literary apparatus, and his unpublished
manuscripts and correspondence form one of the most treasured
collections in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in
New York. It seems that Steinschneider was the only one among
the European scholars mentioned whose work found recognition
in the form of academic degrees bestowed on him honoris causa
by American institutions of higher learning (Hebrew Union
College and Columbia University).32

In his correspondence with Rabbi Felsenthal in Chicago,
Steinschneider' s interest in the progress of American Jewish
scholarship can be detected long before Jewish bibliography was
fostered in the United States by his own students. As early as
February 5, 1883, he asked for an announcement in an American
journal calling on Jewish authors to send him copies of their
published works for review in his journal of Jewish bibliography,
Hamazkir. 3 3

s* Cf. Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore, pp. 346 f., note I, with bib-
liography.

3* Guido Kisch, In Search of Freedom, pp. 8 1 f.

33 Letter (post card) of February 5, 1883, in the Felsenthal collection, Appendix V;
cf. Kober, PAJHS, XLV (1955), p. 127, where, however, this interesting passage
was omitted.

162

FOUNDERS OF "WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

Another letter, dated one year later, contains news of the
discontinuance of Hamazkir and information on its editor's plans
for its resumption. "Since number 126 no issue of Hamazkir
has been published. If I should continue it in 1885, ^ w^ not
be printed by Benzian [the publisher], who has systematically
verschlemilt [neglected] it."34 The same letter speaks of the
imminent death of Steinschneider5 s son Albert, "whom you
[Felsenthal] saw in Cleveland." Other letters extant in the
aforementioned correspondence of Steinschneider might possibly
yield additional information of historical interest for American
Jewish scholarship.

"The history of thought, of learning, and of the various
sciences is usually conceived in terms of the ideas and contribu-
tions of outstanding individuals, and those who are eager to
relate these contributions to some more general factors, are
inclined to stress the impact of an individual's nationality, his
real or imagined class status, the 'spirit of the time/ or the
'social situation,3 whatever that may mean."35 Such considera-
tions, with appropriate modification, may certainly be applicable
to Jewish Wissenschaftsgeschichte also. That in many instances
they may be fruitfully supplemented by a study of certain more
modest and prosaic, and therefore not decisive, factors may well
be demonstrated by the abo\e exposition.

34 Letter (post card) of August 5, 1884, in the Felsenthal collection, Appendix VI.
No. 126 of TDrDn, Hebraeische Bibliographic, XXI, dated November-December,
1881-82, was issued in March, 1883 ("ausgegeben Marz 1883")- No further issues
were published by Steinschneider.

35 Paul O. Kristeller, "The University of Bologna and the Renaissance," Studi e
Memorie per la Storia dell9 Universita di Bologna, New Series, I (Bologna, 1956), 313.

163

GUIDO KISGH

Appendix I*

Anonymous letter (by %unz) to the Editor of Israels Herold.

Berlin, den 30. April 1849.

Sie verlangen von mir Berichte iiber judische Zustande in einer Zeit,
wo Niemand Jude ist, und Niemand Christ, wo vielleicht die Juden
mehr Sympathie fur den Papst Pius IX. fuhlen, der nun mit Hilfe
der Franzosen auf fast ganz friedliche Weise in Rom einzieht und
Amnestic gibt, als mancher Katholik, und mancher Christ ein warmerer
Verehrer der Juden Jacobi, als seiner Heiligen ist! Wo unsere Briider
in Ungarn das Tornister statt das Zidakel umhangen, und selbst
Bremens Mauern nicht dariiber zusammenstiirzen, dass Juden in
ihrer Mitte aufgenommen werden und Burger sind ! ?

Wer kummert sich zum Beispiel jetzt darum, wenn die reiche
Gemeinde Berlins aus elender Knickerei einem alten, um die Wissen-
schaft hochverdienten Manne, der Israels Zier ist und auf den es
stolz sein darf, wenn es einem Zunz den kleinen Jahresgehalt entzieht
und der Noth preisgibt, wenn es nicht hochherzige Freunde gabe,
die solche Schmach gern aus ihren eigenen Mitteln tilgen? Berlin
wird weiter belagert, wieder wird eine vom Volk erwahlte zweite
Kammer aufgelost, wieder fallen dem Moloch-Konigsthum einige
Menschenopfer, mit Blut wird ja der Purpur aufgefrischt. In Schleswig
kampft man fort ob deutsch, ob danisch; indess Deutschland selbst um
einen Konig bettelt. Der Konig von Preussen hat die Krone definitiv
ausgeschlagen.

Ueber das tapfere Ungar-Volk erhalten Sie gewiss von Wien
bessere Nachrichten, da Sie aber dieses durch Herrn D's. Giite friiher
als die Post erhalten durften, will ich Ihnen mittheilen, dass ich aus
zuverlassiger Quelle weiss, es werden an 100,000 Russen in
Siebenbiirgen und durch Galizien iiber die Karpaten einriicken und
Radetzky soil mit einem Theil seiner Armee durch Steyermark
herbeieilen, nachdem der Frieden in Italien zu weit herabgestimmten

* The footnotes to sections I to III contain information as to where the originals of the following
letters may be found, or, if originals have not been preserved, the journals in which the letters
were published.

These letters are exact copies; even the antiquated orthography of the originals has been
preserved.

164

FOUNDERS OF WISSENSGHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

Forderungen (von 213 Millionen zu 80 Millionen Franken)
abgeschlossen 1st. Auf diese Weise diirfte das tapfere Magyaren Volk
trotz aller Opfer und Anstrengung, trotz ihren wahren Heldenkampfen
und neuen glanzenden Siegen endlich erliegen miissen. Bei so bewegtem
politischen Leben, wozu noch wichtige Handelsnachrichten kommen,
da das bedeutende Steigen der Seide-, das Fallen der Getreide-Preise
und die allgemeine Geschaftsstockung und Geldnoth; bei dem Allem
wollen Sie noch Nachrichten das Judenthum betrefiend? ! Entschul-
digen Sie, ich kann damit nicht dienen, doch will ich Ihnen die
Zeitung des Judenthums und den Orient nachstens per Steamer
senden; hier werden sie ohnedem wenig gelesen.

Ihr etc.

Appendix II

Rabbis Bernhard Felsenthal^ Kaufmann Kokler, Liebmann Adler, and Mr.
Julius Rosenthal, all of Chicago, to Leopold %unz*

Chicago, 111., 20. Juli 1874.
Herrn Dr. L. Zunz in Berlin.

Hochgeehrter Herr !

Veranlasst durch Ihren bevorstehenden 80. Geburtstag (am 10. Aug.
1874) mochten die erg[ebenst] U[nterzeichneten] , wenn auch durch
ein schwaches Wort bloss, Ihnen hiermit die herzlichsten Gluckwunsche
darbringen, und Ihnen dadurch ein Zeugniss ablegen, dass auch in
gar weit entlegenen Gegenden der Erde Leute leben, die sich dankbar
als Ihre Schiller erkennen und bekennen.

Inniger Dank sei dem allgutigen Gott, der Sie uns so lange geistig
riistig erhalten hat, und der Ihnen die Kraft verliehen, auch im
hohen Greisenalter noch die "Wissenschaft des Judenthums" zu
pflegen, ihren Inhalt zu vertiefen und zu berichtigen, ihre Granzen
zu erweitern und auszudehnen. Moge Er, der Allvater, Sie noch
recht lange uns erhalten, und es Ihnen ermoglichen, noch viele, viele
Beitrage zur Weiterfuhrung der jxidpschen] Wissenschaft zu liefern!

Mit der vollsten subjectivsten Hingebung und mit der lautersten
Objectivitat in der Behandlung Ihrer Untersuchungen haben Sie,

165

GUIDO KISGH

hochgeehrter Herr, seit mehr denn einem halben Jahrhundert auf
Ihrem Spezialgebiet erfolgreich gearbeitet. Sie haben gleichgesinnten
Mitstrebenden sowohl wie nachgebornen Jiingern den Weg und das
Ziel gezeigtj und sich als Bahnbrecher in fruher unbetretenen Gebieten
und als Herrscher in denselben einen Namen erworben, der noch in
spaten Jahrhunderten mit Ehre und Dank genannt werden wird.

Sie haben bereits vor 56 Jahren (1818) "Etwas iiber die
rabb[inische] Literatur" vielversprechend veroffentlicht; haben 1823
durch Ihre "Zeitschrift" den Grund gelegt zur "Wissenschaft des
Judenthums"; 1832 durch Ihr klass[isches] Werk iiber "Die gottesd-
[ienstlichen] Vortrage der Juden" Ordnung und Licht in ein bis
dahin wirres Chaos gebracht; 1837 durch Ihre "Namen der Juden"
Ihrem eigenen Namen neuen Anspruch verliehen darauf, dass sein
Trager in Tiichtigkeit und Griindlichkeit seiner Forschungen in erster
Reihe stehe; Sie haben ferner 1845 durch Ihre Schrift "Zur Geschichte
und Literatur" das Wissen um judische Dinge ganz bedeutend geklart
und gemehrt; 1855 durch Ihre "Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters,"
1859 durch Ihre "Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes," 1865 durch
Ihre "Literaturgeschichte der synag[ogalen] Poesie" die Kunde und
die Erkenntniss der relig[iosen] Poesie Israels fast bis zur Vollendung
gefuhrt; und haben noch vor 2 Jahren (1872) durch ein nach den
"Monatstagen des Kalenderjahres" geordnetes Verzeichniss von
Sterbetagen einen neuen Beweis geliefert von dem unermudlichen
Sammlerfleisse, dem ordnenden Sinne, und der allseitigen Griind-
lichkeit, die Sie in Ihrer ganzen langen literarpschen] Laufbahn
ausgezeichnet haben. Sie haben ferner seit vielen Jahrzehnten in
verschiedenen Zeitschriften zerstreute Abhandlungen den wissens-
durstigen Jiingern dargeboten, die ganz entschieden bleibendes
Interesse haben, wie ja jiingst noch in der Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenl[andischen] Gesellschaft, u. s. w.

Und wir, Ihre dankbaren Schiiler, die wir geschopft aus Ihrem
Wissensborne, die wir uns so oft gelabt an der geistigen Nahrung, die
Sie uns bereitet, — wir sollten den Tag gleichgiiltig und gedankenlos
voriiber gehen lassen, an dem Sie vor 80 Jahren das Licht der Welt
erblickten? —

Nein, das konnen, das wollen wir nicht. Wir folgen bloss dem
Drange unserer Herzen, wenn wir Ihnen, hochverehrter Lehrer und
Mei$ter, bei dieser Gelegenheit ein Wort der Anerkennung und der
Dankbarkeit aussprechen, und wenn wir in Verbindung damit
wiederholt dem innig empfundenen Wunsche Ausdruck leihen, dass
es Ihnen noch eine lange Reihe von Jahren vergonnt sein moge,

166

FOUNDERS OF WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS" AND AMERICA

frisch, riistig, und an Ergebnissen reich das Feld der jiidischen Wissen-
schaft welter anzubauen.

In Hochachtung und Ergebenheit verharren, hochgeehrter Herr
Doctor,

Ihre allezeit dankbaren
B. FELSENTHAL
K. KOHLER
LIEBMANN ADLER
JULIUS ROSENTHAL

Appendix III

Leopold %unz to Rabbis Felsenthal, Kohler, Adler, and Mr. Rosenthal,
all of Chicago.

An die Herren Dr. Felsenthal, Kohler, Adler,
Rosenthal in Chicago.

Sehr geehrte Herren!

Ihre Gluckwiinsche zum 10. August haben mich erfreut, aber Ihre
iibertriebenen Lobpreisungen mich beschamt; wie soil man von den
Helden der Literatur, der Astronomic, der Dichtkunst, wie (iberhaupt
von denen reden, die mit Thaten und Schriften der Menschheit
fuhrend und leuchtend vorangeschritten, wenn ein so kleines Licht
so gepriesen und geschmeichelt wird? Und grade jetzt fuhle ich
Staub meine Ohnmacht; acht Tage nach dem Eingange Ihres
Schreibens starb in meinen Armen meine geliebte Frau, mit der ich
52 Jahre und 100 Tage in glucklicher Ehe gelebt: mein Stolz und
meine Liebe sanken in das Grab und hinterliessen mir nur Thranen.
Wenn mir im Leben Ehre und Beifall zu Theil geworden, hat es mich
mehr um meiner seligen Frau als um meinetwillen erfreut; ach,
das ist nun alles auf immer dahin! In mein Buch "Die Sterbetage"
muss nun fiir den 18. August auch der Name meiner Adelheid einge-
ruckt werden.

Sie sehen, meine Herren, dass ich jetzt wenig geschickt zu einer
belehrenden oder unterhaltenden Correspondenz bin; von einer

167

GUIDO KISGH

einzigen Empfindung in Besitz genommen, straubt sich das Gemiith
gegen den freien Gebrauch seiner Krafte. Daher wird es gerathen
seyn, diese Klage-Schrift zu beendigen, und indem ich nochmals fur
Ihre liebenswerthe Freundlichkeit meinen Dank ausspreche, fuge ich
noch den Wunsch hinzu, dass Sie und die Ihnen nahe stehen gesund
und glucklich bleiben. n*a» rWD 1J7

Hochachtungsvoll und ergebenst

Zunz

Berlin, 24. August 1874
Auguststrasse 60

Appendix IV

Heinrich Graetz to Mr. Ben W. Austin, Dallas.

Breslau 28 Febr. 1890
Dear Sir,

I beg to express my deepest gratitude for the honour your Society
has bestowed on me, electing me their honorary member. According
to your wisch, I send my portrait. Now you would not have any use
of my literary works, as all of them are written in German. I schall
take the honour to send the englisch translation of my "History of
the Jews," as soon as it will be completely finisched.

Very thankfully
Yours

Prof. DR. H. GRAETZ
Mr. Ben W,
Austin
Dallas

168

FOUNDERS OF "WISSEN.SCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS5' AND AMERICA

Appendix V

Moritz Steinschneider to Bernkard FelsenthaL

Rosenstr. 2.
Berlin 5. II. [i8]8s

Sehr geehrter Herr!

Von der H\ebraisckeri\ B[ibliographie] istN. 1 25 im December erschienen,
N. 126 soil in 8 Tagen erscheinen, fur die Regelmassigkeit bemiihe
ich mich vergebens durch meine punktliche Arbeit — obwohl ich
jetzt mit einer grossen Arbeit liber die hebr[aischen] Ubersetzungen
des Mittelalters beschaftigt bin, was aber unter uns bleibt. In folge
dessen ist auch das Supplement] zu Benjacob nur bis Ende
Buchst[aben] K redigiert. Auf Manuscripte nehme ich natiirlich
Riicksicht; ich hatte Benjacob gerathen, Manuscripte iiberhaupt
nicht aufzunehmen, da ihm selbst die wichtigsten Gatalfoge] nicht
zuganglich waren. Schriften nach 1862 sind ausgeschlossen (mit
wenigen Ausnahmen). ^59? '» liest auch mein Catalog. — Jiidpsche]
Typographic] in Ersch und Grfuber] ist in der III. Section des
Gatal. Bodl. vollstandig umgearbeitet. Ich wurde mebie Vorlesungen
xiber judfische] Handschriftenkunde und manches Andere herausgeben,
wenn ich Zuhorer hatte, die Zeit und Lust haben zu helfen. Ich leite
eine Schule von 350 Schiilerinnen und unterrichte taglich 2 Vor-
mittagsstunden, bin auch bald 67 Jahre alt. — Durch Mitteilungen
liber amerikanpsche] Schriften, welche bisher nicht im TDTDrr
vorkamen, werden Sie verbinden Ihren

erg[ebenen]

M. STEINSGHNEIDER

Mochten Sie vielleicht in einem amerik[anischen] Blatte Autoren
veranlassen, mir Recenspons]- Exemplare zu schicken.

Herrn Dr. Felsenthal
in Chicago, 111.
237 S. Desplaines St

169

GUIDO KISGH

Appendix VI

Moritz Steinschneider to Bernhard FelsenthaL

Rosenstrasse 2. 5. VIII. [i8]84.
Sehr geehrter Herr !

Ich werde nicht verfehlen, Ihre Gratulation an Zunz am 10. personlich
zu ubergeben. Ich hatte schon langst Ihr freundlpches Schreiben]
vom 29. VI. beantwortet, wenn nicht amtliche u[nd] personliche
Riicksichten meinen schriftlichen Verkehr gehemmt batten, unter
Anderm muss ich taglich einer Trauerbotschaft entgegensehen. Mein
Sohn Albert, den Sie in Cleveland gesehen habe[n], leidet an unheil-
barer Schwindsucht, er ist augenblicklich in der Wasserheilanstalt
meines Vetters Dr. Alois Brecher in Eichwald. Gott behiite Sie u[nd]
die Ihren vor Triibsal! — Seit n. 126 ist von Town nichts erschienen,
und wenn ich ihn 1885 wieder fortsetzen sollte, so wird er nicht bei
Benzian erscheinen, der ihn systematise!! verschlemilt hat. Ich habe
Ihnen fiir verschiedene Zusendungen zu danken, die ich seiner Zeit
benutzen werde. Augenblicklich bin ich mit einer grosseren Arbeit
beschaftigt, die bis December fertig sein muss und mich von allem
Anderen abzieht. Ihnen zu antworten rechne ich mir zur Pflicht, und
zeichne in aufrichtiger Gewogenheit und Hochachtung

M. STEINSCHNEIDER
An Dr. B. Felsenthal
in Chicago

237 South Desplaines Street
Amerika.

170

Some Conclusions About Rebecca Gratz

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

XXEBECCA GRATZ remains one of the distinguished
personages of American Jewish history. She was well-known
and respected in her generation and, even today, stands out as
a figure of some importance among American Jewish women.
In spite of her rather high contemporary evaluation, Rebecca
Gratz was not a great woman. This conclusion is based on an
intensive study of her correspondence, of which some fifteen
hundred letters are extant, as well as on other contemporary
sources, including congregational and organizational records.
Her position in her home community of Philadelphia and in
American Judaism at large is firmly based on fact, while her
popular position is founded, for the most part, on the unverified
and probably unverifiable allegation that she was the prototype
of Sir Walter Scott's Rebecca, the Jewish heroine of Ivanhoe.
She was not a great person, for her accomplishments were
significant neither in the realm of ideas nor in the realm of
social innovation. Her importance rests on two facts: she

Dr. Joseph R. Rosenbloom is the spiritual leader of Congregation Adath Israel,
Lexington, Ky.

This essay epitomizes the author's doctoral dissertation, "And She Had Compas-
sion: The Life and Times of Rebecca Gratz," written in January, 1957, under
Dr. Jacob R. Marcus at the Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion in
Cincinnati. The original dissertation was based on a study of Rebecca Gratz's
manuscript letters, both published and unpublished, found in the following depos-
itories: The American Jewish Historical Society, The Library of Congress, the
Library of the University of North Carolina, the New York Historical Society,
and the Henry Joseph Collection at the American Jewish Archives.

171

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

introduced into her particular religious group needed institu-
tions which had previously been established in the general
community ; and, as current research attests, she stood practically
alone as an American Jewish woman of prominence in her
century.

Miss Gratz was a native-born daughter of one of American
Jewry's most prominent families. The Gratzes had been well-
known and prosperous merchants and landholders in eighteenth-
century America. Rebecca's father, Michael, and her uncle,
Barnard Gratz, were among the founders of Philadelphia's
first synagogue, Mikveh Israel. Her brothers were active in
the political, cultural, and economic affairs of that city over a
period of many decades. If, as a family, they did not attain
greatness, they did represent Jews who were well integrated
into, and accepted by, the most socially prominent elements of
the Philadelphia community. The Gratzes became a symbol
of gentility and acceptability for American Jewry. Rebecca
Gratz, the only outstanding woman of her family, became the
feminine symbol, not only for the Gratz family and for Phila-
delphia Jewry, but for all American Jewry during her lifetime.
Her fame resulted, to a considerable extent, from the absence
of others to fill the r61e which she assumed — a r6le which had
to be filled by a lesser personage, since a greater one did not
live or had not yet been discovered. The wealth of material
concerning Rebecca Gratz has made her easily "discoverable."
Miss Gratz's prime interest, throughout her lifetime, was
her immediate family. To a lesser degree, she was concerned
with her home community. She evinced little interest in the
greater issues of her time except as they affected her family.
She was born at the very beginning of the national period of
the United States, and her span of years included the Civil

172

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

War, the greatest crisis through which America had yet passed.
While no person is an island unto himself, Rebecca Gratz
managed, from all appearances, to remain quite removed from
most of the vital international and national events of her day.

During the eighty-eight years of her lifetime (1781-1869),
Europe experienced the French Revolution, the rise and fall
of Napoleon, and the struggle between liberalism and reaction.
Rebecca Gratz was only a child of eight when the Bastille fell.
Still, it is noteworthy that the climactic events of the French
Revolution found no mention in her letters. Nor was there a
word about Napoleon Bonaparte, although she did speak of
the Bonapartes, Joseph and his family, who resided briefly in
Philadelphia after Napoleon's fall. Nothing, moreover, in her
letters reflects the furor caused in 1850 by America's commercial
treaty with a Switzerland which refused to exempt American
Jews from the anti-Jewish restrictions prevalent at the time in
the Swiss cantons. There was, furthermore, in her letters no
echo of the notorious Mortara affair of 1858, an affair in which
Edgar Mortara, a Jewish child of Bologna, Italy, was abducted
and baptized with the approval of papal authorities.

Rebecca Gratz's lifetime also covered a period of tremendous
national growth and development in America. The country
spread, during those years, from the East coast to the West,
and from Canada to Mexico, The American population in-
creased from 4,000,000 to almost 50,000,000; the Republic
was involved in three major wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican
War, and the Civil War. Other issues of wide-reaching signif-
icance were raised at this time: territorial rights; new states and
slavery; the development, growth, and decline of many great
national political parties, such as the disappearance of the
Federalists, the decline of the Whigs, the growth of the Dem-
ocratic party, the rise of the Republican party and of the
American (or "Know Nothing") party; the troubles on the

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

Barbary coast; the great growth in industry and commerce;
and the abolitionist movement.

While Rebecca Gratz was surely affected by these devel-
opments, her anxiety over them was peripheral and superficial,
limited to their immediate effect upon her family, friends, and
community. This was exemplified, on the national scene, by
her concern over the affairs of Henry Clay who, as a rather
close friend of Benjamin, her brother in Lexington, Kentucky,
appeared frequently in her correspondence. In contrast, one
looks in vain for any mention of Abraham Lincoln in the same
correspondence. Neither the abolitionist movement nor the
battle for women's rights attracted her attention to any signif-
icant degree. Miss Gratz3 s lack of involvement in most of the
vital interests and developments of her time deprived her of
any imposing historical importance.

On rare occasions, she did succeed, to be sure, in transcending
the parochial limits which her life and character had imposed
on her. Such an occasion was the anti-Catholic rioting in
Philadelphia in 1844, rioting in which dozens of people were
killed or maimed. Miss Gratz wrote at that time to her brother
Benjamin in Lexington, Kentucky, that

the present outbreak is an attack on the Catholic Church, and there
is so much violent animosity between that sect and the Protestants
that unless the strong arm of power is raised to sustain the provisions
of the Constitution of the U. S., securing to every citizen the privilege
of worshipping God according to his own conscience, America will
be no longer the happy asylum of the oppressed and the secure dwelling
place of religion. Intolerance has been too prevalent of late, and
many of the clergy of different denominations are chargable with its
growth. The whole spirit and office of religion is to make men merciful
and humble and just. If such teaching was preached by the pastors to
their own congregations and the charge of others left to their own
clergy, God would be better served and human society governed more
in accordance to His holy commandments.

174

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

Such eloquence on her part was, however, as we have said,
exceedingly rare.

It was her role in the Jewish community of Philadelphia —
a r61e which, of course, affected many other American
Jews — that gave Rebecca Gratz the importance that she
had. She merits mention in general American history only
by virtue of her position as one of the few outstanding Jewesses
whom this country had produced. Her historical importance,
therefore, must be recognized in relative, rather than in absolute,
terms.

To what do we owe Rebecca Gratz's impressive and signif-
icant r&le, even in this limited sense? Her significance emanated
from two facets of her life: her social position in the Jewish and
non-Jewish communities, and her accomplishments, which had
their most direct effect on the Jewish community of her city.
The social life of the Jewish community of Philadelphia in the
early decades of Miss Gratz's life centered chiefly about one
institution — the Sephardic synagogue, Mikveh Israel. Here the
Gratz family's involvement was almost as old as the congrega-
tion itself, and here the Gratzes enjoyed great prominence.
Rebecca's father and uncle, Michael and Barnard, served as
officers as well as members of the congregation's Board. Her
brother, Simon, was a member of the Board as early as 1810,
and another brother, Hyman, held an official position in the
congregation for more than forty years. The Gratzes' activity
in the affairs of the synagogue, together with their relative
economic well-being and their relationship with the non-Jewish
community, assured them social prominence among their
coreligionists.

Rebecca Gratz's status and the range of her contacts in the
non-Jewish community were also impressive. They included
every phase of Philadelphia's most distinguished society. Her
activity in this realm depended, to a large degree, on her

175

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

brothers, themselves active in both cultural and political circles.
Joseph Gratz was particularly interested in politics. Jacob Gratz
was one of the first directors of the Philadelphia Athenaeum,
founded in 1814, and delivered the first report to its Board oi
Directors. Among its other founders were such outstanding
Philadelphia leaders as William Tilghman, Chief Justice of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court; James Mease, the famous physi-
cian; Thomas I. Wharton, a noted lawyer and author; and
Nicholas Biddle, later the president of the Bank of the United
States and Andrew Jackson's bete noire. Hyman and Simon
Gratz were among the earliest subscribers to the Academy oi
Fine Arts. An early list containing their names includes also
those of Thomas Jefferson and another Revolutionary political
leader, Francis Hopkinson. Hyman was director of the Academy
from 1836 to 1857, its treasurer from 1841 to 1857, and, finally,
its president. By means of such associations Rebecca Gratz
was enabled to play a notable part in community affairs. She
participated, for example, in the fund-raising program for the
rebuilding of the Fine Arts Academy, which had been destroyed
by fire. Her associates in this work included Mrs. George
MifHin Dallas, whose husband was a Vice President of the
United States, a United States Senator, and a mayor of Phila-
delphia. She was friendly also with Mrs. Henry Dilwood Gilpin,
whose husband served as a United States Attorney General.
Another close friend was Mrs. William Meredith, wife of a
prominent lawyer and bank president.

Early in her life, Rebecca Gratz's activities in charitable
institutions brought her into contact with other outstanding
Philadelphia families. In her twenties, she was already interested
in Philadelphia's Female Association for the Relief of Women
and Children in Reduced Circumstances and in the Orphan
Society, or Asylum. With her on the Board of the Female
Association were eight other Jewish women, and she served as
176

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

secretary of this organization for a time. Far more energy was
expended by her on the Orphan Society, a group associated
with one of the most fashionable and influential churches of
Philadelphia, the Second Presbyterian. Rebecca Gratz served
as a Board member of the Orphan Society from its inception
in 1814, and was its secretary from 1819 until her death in
1869.

Miss Gratz's work with important Philadelphia charities also
brought her into contact with a number of distinguished per-
sonages: Mrs. John Sergeant, whose husband was a leading
Philadelphia lawyer and a congressman; the family of Prince
Achille Murat; Dr. John Syng Dorsey, a prominent physician;
Dr. James Rush, author and physician; and the prominent
Unitarian clergyman, the Reverend William Henry Furness.
Particularly in her youth, Miss Gratz maintained many close
and cherished friendships with literary figures. Her closest friend
in her late teens and early twenties was Maria Fenno, daughter
of John Fenno, a prominent newspaper publisher. The two
girls enjoyed the company of such promising literati as Wash-
ington Irving; Joseph Dennie, the first editor of The Port Folio ;
Samuel Ewing; John E. Hall; Gouverneur Kemble; James K.
Paulding; Henry Brevoort; Thomas I. Wharton; and Joseph
Hopkinson. From these friendships developed several of the
most interesting, if exaggerated, aspects of the Rebecca Gratz
story. Samuel Ewing, who quite seriously entertained literary
ambitions, but ultimately became a fairly successful attorney,
is generally and frequently identified as the object of Rebecca
Gratz's only romance, a romance which was presumedly
thwarted by their religious differences. While there is no indica-
tion of a close relationship with any man other than Ewing,
there is very little evidence to support the supposed intensity of
their relationship. We have no proof that they were in love,
and we find no intimation of Rebecca's having rejected Ewing —

177

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

or having had the occasion to^reject him — on any grounds at
all, religious or otherwise.

Washington Irving is the central figure in the oft-repeated
legend that Rebecca Gratz was the prototype of Sir Walter
Scott's Rebecca of York, the beautiful Jewess in his novel,
Ivanhoe. While this identification was made by friends of Rebecca
Gratz at the time of the publication of the book, there is, again,
nothing to substantiate such a claim. The tradition that the
fictional Rebecca of York is to be identified with the historical
Rebecca of Philadelphia arose from the friendship between
Irving and Scott Washington Irving met with Scott in 1818.
It is assumed that, at this time, Scott was planning Ivanhoe.
When, as the legend would have it, Irving told him about
Rebecca Gratz and her romance with Samuel Ewing, a non-Jew,
Scott made a central figure of the Jewess, based her on Miss
Gratz, and incorporated her into his book. We find, however,
nothing in the letters of Miss Gratz and nothing in the writings
of either Scott or Irving to lend any truth to this legend. Yet it is
for this reason that Rebecca Gratz is best known.

It was through Rebecca Gratz that Thomas Sully, a contem-
porary artist, was introduced to Philadelphia, at the request of
Washington Irving, their mutual friend. Miss Gratz's friendship
with Sully extended over several decades, and in 1834 Miss
Gratz sought to aid Sully's son to find employment as a portrait
painter in Kentucky*

Miss Gratz's social circle was among the finest in Philadelphia.
Her associates had respect and appreciation for her, and accepted
her as a Jewess who was proud of her heritage. On occasion,
her hostesses would take special pains to serve food which was
in keeping with the Jewish dietary laws. Such a social position
in the non-Jewish community served to maintain her stature
among her Jewish friends. This station tended also to ease the
integration of other Jews into Philadelphia society, Rebecca

178

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

Gratz having presented a fine and dignified example of the
cultured Jewess. v

Miss Grate's communal efforts were, for the most part, con-
centrated in the Jewish community. A major exception was her
devoted service to the Orphan Society. Her efforts in communal
activities, particularly among Jews, increased as she grew older
and withdrew more and more from the social life of her city.
Within the Jewish community, she was the leading force in a
whole series of communal enterprises. Here she served as the
motivator and rallying point about which a necessary organiza-
tion could come into being. Through her efforts directly, and
through others, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, the
Jewish Foster Home, the Hebrew Sunday School, and the Sewing
and Fuel Societies were initiated, filling hitherto unattended
needs of the Jewish community. To each of these institutions
she brought extensive prior experience. We may be sure that
these organizations met much resistance, as people in those days
were loath to spend money for social-welfare purposes. It was
only after seven years of urging that the Jewish Foster Home
came into being. When it was finally established in 1855,
Rebecca Gratz at seventy-four was still considered vigorous
enough to be offered the position of its First Directress. This
she declined, accepting that of Second Directress.

Through the efforts of Rebecca Gratz, the Jewish community
not only became aware of its communal responsibilities, but
also actually strove to fulfill them- Philadelphia's growth pre-
sented many problems, due particularly to the ever-increasing
immigrant population. The Quakers had long ago set an
excellent pattern of communal responsibility, a model which
was to guide many other religious groups. The relation of the
Jewish Foster Home to the Orphan Society is as readily apparent
as that of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society to the Female
Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

Circumstances, an organization in which Rebecca Gratz was
also active, as we have noted. It is apparent, therefore, that her
contribution as an innovator was limited. She put into practice
in the Jewish community those patterns which were already in
operation in the general community — endeavors in which she
had taken a considerable and significant part. Her own major
contribution was her ability to extend to Jewish communal needs
her notable leadership and almost endless energy and resource-
fulness. This was true, too, of her accomplishment in establishing
a Sunday School for the Jewish children of Philadelphia.

The Sunday School movement had been initiated in the
non-Jewish community to educate poor working-class children
who had no other opportunity for general educational and
religious training. Somewhat later, the movement changed its
emphasis and sought to combat the secularizing tendency of
the day schools as they came more and more under public
control. The establishment of a Jewish Sunday School was
undertaken in 1838 by Rebecca Gratz because no one else in
Philadelphia was adequately fulfilling the religious needs of
Jewish children, Isaac Leeser's attempt in 1835 to establish a
Jewish day school having proved too ambitious for success.
Moreover, a school conducted for two or three hours every
Sunday was more in consonance with the prevalent non-Jewish
pattern of religious education. Other similarities between Miss
Gratz's Sunday School and the non-Jewish Sunday schools were
apparent in that both provided for children on a community-
wide basis, without cost to the children or to their families and
without denominational affiliation. In time, to be sure, the
Christian Sunday schools became affiliated with denominations,
or were established by denominations, but the school founded
by Rebecca Gratz remained open to any Jewish child in the
city and never limited its enrollment to the children of a partic-
ular Jewish congregation.

180

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

While the Christian Sunday School movement is generally
acknowledged as having originated in England, its center for
many years in the United States was Philadelphia. Rebecca
Gratz was quite frank about her dependence upon the Christian
Sunday school pattern and, for a time, when no Jewish textbooks
were available, she was forced to use at least one of the Christian
Sunday school textbooks. In the area of education, as in other
areas, she perceived a serious need in the Jewish community,
and she set out to fill it. The established congregations were
not providing for the education of their children, nor for those
whose parents could afford neither congregational affiliation
nor private tutors. In 1818, her first attempt, its nature hazy
and its basis limited, proved to be abortive. Only one of her
letters referring to the school is extant. She did succeed, however,
twenty years later. It is interesting to note her advanced age at
the time when she undertook the responsibility of this new and
exacting venture. Not only was she instrumental in establishing
and directing this school for many years, but she also stimulated
the production of textbooks for Jewish children. Her efforts led
directly to the establishment of similar schools in Charleston,
Savannah, New York, and, probably, Richmond.

Religion in general and Judaism in particular constituted
an intimate part of Rebecca Gratz5 s daily existence. Association
with the synagogue was a deeply ingrained trait of her family,
a family which had been instrumental in establishing and
sustaining Congregation Mikveh Israel in its formative years.
Miss Gratz followed the traditional interpretation of Judaism.
She observed the dietary laws not only at home, but also when
dining with others, and her Gentile friends, out of respect to
this lady, served foods which would not be offensive to her.
She was punctilious in the observance of the Jewish holidays,
and looked forward with joy to those occasions on which the
members of her family might come together. The Sabbath,

181

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

too, was observed traditionally, and Rebecca Gratz refrained
from writing and engaging in many other activities.

The extensive correspondence with her Christian sister-in-law,
Maria Gist Gratz, Benjamin's first wife, illustrates Rebecca
Gratz's deep appreciation for other religions. She was quite
liberal in her approach to Christianity, although she would
countenance no weakening of traditional Judaism. The slacken-
ing observance of Jewish practices in her day distressed her, as
did the development of "unorthodox" Jewish practices at
Charleston's Congregation Beth Elohim in 1824. As under-
standing as she was of the diversity of religious expression in
America, she, nevertheless, vigorously opposed attempts at
converting Jews to Christianity. Frequently she noted occasions
when persons tried to convert her. Her response was a pride in
her own religion and, not infrequently, a contempt for persons
who sought to convert others.

Part of Rebecca Gratz's fervor and devotion for Judaism is
seen in her intense opposition to intermarriage. When Benjamin,
her, youngest brother, announced his intention to marry Maria
Gist, of Lexington, Kentucky, Rebecca made known in definite
terms her opposition to the match, because of the couple's
religious differences. She felt that such a dissimilarity between
mates might offend one or both partners, that it demanded too
great a sacrifice from the partner who felt obliged to abandon
or de-emphasize his or her former religion. She feared, too, the
deleterious effect upon the children of such unions. Her views
on this subject did not thwart Benjamin Gratz's choice, for
both of his wives (he married Ann Boswell after Maria died)
were Christians and all his children were reared as Christians,
although Benjamin himself never converted to Christianity.
Miss Gratz, a§ we have indicated above, appears finally to have
accepted the marriage to Maria Gist and to have cultivated
Maria's friendship.

182

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA ORATZ

Intermarriage was not foreign to other members of her
immediate family. Her mother's sister, Shinah Simon, married
Dr. Nicholas Schuyler. Simon Gratz, her eldest brother, also
married or at least lived with a Christian woman. His children
appear to have been reared as Christians, although Louisa, one
of his daughters, embraced Judaism in 1851. Another of his
daughters, Mary, was denied burial in the Mikveh Israel
cemetery, since she was not considered to have been a practicing
Jewess. Throughout her lifetime, Miss Gratz's opposition to
intermarriage remained strong. With reference, however, to her
brothers5 relationships with non-Jewish women, she did have
the grace to make the best of a situation about which there was
actually nothing she could do.

In matters of theology, too, Rebecca Gratz conformed to the
traditional Jewish views. She accepted the concept of im-
mortality as the reward of a loving God. God, for her, was an
ever-present force, guiding and comforting those who believed
in Him. All things, for her, had their source in God, and her
willingness to accept what life brought her made her something
of a fatalist. All things happened, she believed, because God
willed them — this made acceptance of disappointment and
misfortune relatively simple for her.

In general, Rebecca Gratz's thoughts on religion and philos-
ophy contained no great profundities and no solution to any
of the traditional or historical philosophical problems. Hers
was a homey, rather pedestrian type of investigation into those
facts and principles of reality, of human nature and human
conduct, which came within the purview of her own personal
experience. It was, to an extent, a form of rationalization, as
are all expressions of personal philosophy. Her philosophy was
sincere, uttered with a deep understanding of other persons and"
of herself. It seems to have served her well.

183

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

All that has thus far been said in this study confirms the
view, expressed above, that this woman was something less
than a great personage. Why, then, has Rebecca Gratz held,
and why does she continue to hold, so prominent a position in
the history of American Jewry? Her accomplishments for
Philadelphia Jewry, we must remember, were manifold. She
held a symbolic importance for her coreligionists; she stood as a
symbol of Jewish integration into the haul monde of Philadelphia
society. She was instrumental also in the establishment of many
worthy and influential agencies of social-service significance.
Surely, we must be cognizant of the fact that there have been
scores of other such outstanding Jewish women in the century
between the Revolution and the Civil War. For none of them,
however, have we literally thousands of historical documents
recording their lives and accomplishments. Have these doc-
uments — her letters and the records of her communal activ-
ities — made of Rebecca Gratz a historical personage? To a
considerable extent, we would answer, yes. It is also possible
that there were indeed few, if any, other Jewesses to equal
Rebecca Gratz in stature and achievement. If Rebecca Gratz
loomed large in nineteenth-century American Jewry, it must
be understood that the Jews in America at this time were a
minute group. During the nineteenth century, in general, the
role of American women in the making of history was cir-
cumscribed by law and custom. It is no wonder that Rebecca
Gratz loomed as large as she did among her coreligionists. On
the other hand, every ethnic and religious group must of
necessity have its heroes and heroines. Rebecca Gratz's true
achievements, taken together with the traditional view that she
was the prototype of Rebecca in Scott's Ivanhoe, and the fact
that she was the daughter of one of Colonial America's most
prominent Jewish families, tended to confer on her the r61e of

184

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT REBECCA GRATZ

the heroine of the Jewish people — at least for the earlier part
of the Jewish historical experience in America.

Rebecca Gratz's efforts, in any supposed history-making r61es,
were confined to adapting established institutions to new situa-
tions. The organizations which she inaugurated in Philadelphia
were of importance, but were new only in relation to the small
group for which she created them. It is here that Rebecca
Gratz's historical importance is to be found.

If Miss Gratz's alleged identification with Sir Walter Scott's
Jewish heroine could be proved, her historical importance would
not be enhanced; if proved, this identification would only
adumbrate her popular renown, based as it is primarily on this
allegation. It would be interesting; it would not be significant.
Her r61e as the creator of Jewish institutions in Philadelphia is
of significance, at least to that particular community. The fact
that the pattern of some of these institutions was followed
elsewhere in the American Jewish scene makes her relatively
important to the larger American Jewish group as well.

Viewed in relation to the American Jewish community of
her time, and on the basis of available documentation, Rebecca
Gratz was the most important Jewess of that period. When,
however, she is assessed in absolute terms, in relation to truly
great historical personages, she cannot be counted in their ranks.
She is of prominence in Jewish circles, when they write of Jews,
since so few others of any real stature are known to have lived
and worked during her lifetime.

Rebecca Gratz was an outstanding woman in a limited area.
If she was charming in some ways, she was prosaic in others.
Her letters are without humor, and she is generally revealed in
them as a rather strait-laced individual. Yet while she was a
conformist in most situations, she was, at the same time, a true
leader. Her sensitivity, her compassion for others, led her to

185

JOSEPH R. ROSENBLOOM

work for the reduction of suffering and want among many
unfortunates. She knew where her leadership was most needed
and how she could be most effective. This ability, together with
other factors, gave her great status in her own group as well as
in others.

Some outstanding persons are creative thinkers, and others
are more proficient in putting established patterns into practice.
Few achieve both. Rebecca Gratz had few, if any, original
thoughts, but she was sensitive to the needs of others and she
knew how to care for them. Through her accomplishments, her
social position, and the traditions that developed about her, she
has become the American Jewess of her time. While her fame
is due more to traditions than to achievements, the latter
remain truly worthy of admiration and recognition.

186

Some Unrecorded American Judaica
Printed Before 1851

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

WHEN Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach issued his pioneer
American Jewish Bibliography in 1926, he defined a new field of
bibliographical research. He stimulated a continuing interest in
early American Judaica. His entries indicated that here were
both high points and depth. And his work has proved of inesti-
mable value to the writers of early American Jewish history.

In 1954 Dr. Jacob R. Marcus published a supplement which
contained titles unnoticed by Rosenbach, but was limited to
books in the Library of the Hebrew Union College -Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. In all, 916 titles of "Books
and Articles by Jews or Relating to Them Printed in the United
States from the Earliest Days to 1850" have been recorded.

The increase of activity in American Jewish historiography,
however, has emphasized the inadequacies of both these contri-
butions to the subject, and the need for a full-scale "second
edition" has become evident. Both Rosenbach and Marcus
devoted much space to books of only peripheral Jewish impor-
tance, such as Christian theological works on Old Testament
themes, to poems and essays with a biblical, but no essentially
Jewish, content, and to comprehensive religious histories where
the Jewish interest is limited to biblical history as a prelude to
Christianity. They have listed at length successive editions of the

Mr. Edwin Wolf 2nd is the Librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

187

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

often-reprinted Josephus and Merchant of Venice. On the other
hand, they did not record many items which are of more
significance and usefulness to researchers, particularly political,
scientific, and commercial works by American Jews.

My own additions are not the result of systematic research,
but rather the accumulated by-products of work in the field of
American Jewish history. They include a few titles which might
be considered peripheral, but in most cases these are other
editions of works already noted by Rosenbach or Marcus. They
do not include articles in newspapers or periodicals which —
still unrecorded — occur in great number. I offer these entries
merely as a token of still undiscovered riches, as a challenge to
one who will plow the field in regular furrows. Contrary to the
opinions of a past generation, the source materials for early
American Jewish history are far from sparse.

I am greatly in the debt of Dr. Marcus and Maxwell White-
man for their help in compiling this list. They have made
available to me items of which they had personal knowledge, as
well as books, broadsides, and photostats to be found in the
American Jewish Archives. But, even more, they have both
encouraged me to get this fragmentary addition to Rosenbach
and Marcus into print.

1 83

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 1851

BIBLIOGRAPHY*

1719

i . JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS. The Wars of the Jews. / In Two Books. / With
the most Deplorable / History / of the / Seige and Destruction / of
the / City of Jerusalem. / And / The Burning of the Temple . . . /
. . . /Epitomiz'd from the Works of Flavius / Josephus, Translated
into English by Sir / Roger L'Estrange, Knight. / The Fourth Edi-
tion. / London Printed: Reprinted at Boston / by S. Kneeland, for
B. Eliot, at his / Shop in King-Street. 1719.

241110, pp. (2), 262. A variant issue of Rosenbach 15. AAS.

1752

2. NATHANS and HART. Price Current. / Halifax, 175 / New England
Rum / Leeward Island Do. / . . . / Your Humble Servants, / Nathans
and Hart / Halifax: Printed by John Bushell. 1752.
Folio, broadside. Massachusetts Historical Society.

1771

3. OTTOLENGHE, JOSEPH. Directions / for breeding / Silk-Worms, /
Extracted from a Letter of /Joseph Ottolenghe, Esq; / Late Super-
intendent / of the / Public Filature / in Georgia. / Philadelphia: /
Printed by Joseph Crukshank, in Third-Street. / M, DCC, LXXI

8vo, pp. 8. LCP.

* I have not attempted a census of copies, but merely have indicated the location
of the copy used for the description. Librarians in the institutions noted have been
most helpful to me, and specially Dr. Bertram W. Korn and Dr. Clarence S, Brig-
ham and Clifford K. Shipton of the American Antiquarian Society. The symbols
used are as follows: AAS — American Antiquarian Society; EW2 — Edwin Wolf
2nd; HUC — Hebrew Union College (inch American Jewish Archives); LGP —
Library Company of Philadelphia; and MW — Maxwell Whiteman.

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

1791

4. JEFFERSON, THOMAS. The Secretary of State, to whom was referred,
by the House of Representatives of the United States, / the petition
of Jacob Isaacks, of Newport, in Rhode-Island, has examined into the
truth and importance of the alle- / gations therein set forth, and makes
thereon the following / Report. / . . . / Philadelphia, November 2ist,
1791. / Th: Jefferson. / [Philadelphia, 1791.]

4to, broadside. Concerning Isaacs' claim for a reward from the
government for having developed a method of extracting salt from
sea-water, LCP.

5. [MAGGOWAN, JOSEPH.] The /Life /of /Joseph /The / Son of Is-
rael. / In Eight Books. / Chiefly designed for the use of youth. /
Republished from the first London Edition. / Hartford: / Printed by
Elisha Babcock. / M, DCC, XCI [1791].

8vo, pp. 147. EWa.

5a. NIGODEMUS. Evangelium Nicodemi; / oder / Historischer Bericht /
von dem / Leben / Jesu Christi, / welches / Nicodemus, / Ein Rabbi
und Oberster der Jiiden, / beschrieben, / Wie er solches selbst gesehen
und erfahren, weil er / ein Nachfolger und heimlicher Jiinger Jesu /
Christi gewesen: / Auch sind / Viel schone Stiicke und Geschichte /
dabey zu finden, / Welche die Evangelisten nicht beschrieben haben; /
Nebst einer / Historic von einem Rabbi und Obersten / der Jiiden, /
Welcher offentlich bekant: / Dass Christus Gottes Sohn sey. / Aus des
Herrn Philippi Kegelii Anhang zum Geistlichen / Wegweiser nach
dem himmlischen Vaterland, &c. ge- / nommen. / Wie dann auch /
Die erschrecklichen Strafen und Plagen / der zwolf Jiidischen
Stamme. / Lancaster, / Gedruckt bey Jacob Bailey, in der Konig-
strasse, im / Jahr 1791.
I2mo, pp. 95. LCP.

1793

6. A Confession of the / Christian Faith, / Which was made at
Constantinople, in the Year 1585, by One, who be- / ing complained
of as a Great Heretic, gave this Answer and Reason / of his Faith, to
some Latin and Greek Christians; as also to se- / veral Jews and

190

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

Turks that were present. / . . . / London: printed in the year 1711 —
New-York: / Re-printed in the Year 1793.
4to, broadside. EWa.

7. NASSY, DAVID DE ISAAC COHEN. Observations /on the / Cause,
Nature, and Treatment / of the / Epidemic Disorder, / Prevalent in
Philadelphia. / By D. Nassy, M.D. Member of the American / Philo-
sophical Society, &c. / (Translated from the French.) / Philadelphia: /
Printed by Parker & Co. for M. Carey. / Nov. 26, — 1793.
8vo, pp. 26. LCP.

8. . Observations / sur la / Cause, la Nature, et le Traite-

ment / de la / Maladie Epidemique, / qui regne a Philadelphia. /
Par D. Nassy, Docteur en Medicine, et Membre de / la Soci6t6 Philo-
sophique de Philadelphie, &c. / Philadelphie: / Imprime* par Parker &
Cie. pour M. Carey. / 26 Nov. — 1793.

8vo, pp. 48. With English title as in preceding entry and English
text on the right hand pages. LCP.

1794

9. [CROUCH, NATHANIEL.] A /Journey / To /Jerusalem. / Contain-
ing, / The Travels / of / Fourteen Englishmen, / In 1668, / To Jeru-
salem, Bethlehem, Jericho, the / River Jordan, Lake of Sodom and
Go- / morrah, / In a Letter from T. B. / To which is added, a
Description of the / Empire of China. / Poughkeepsie, Dutchess
County: / Printed and sold by Nicholas Power. 1794.

8vo, pp. 34. AAS.

10. JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS. The / Whole Genuine and Complete / Works /
of / Flavius Josephus / the Learned and Authentic /Jewish / Histor-
ian, / and / Celebrated Warrior. / Containing / Also a / Con-
tinuation / of the / History of the Jews, / . . . / By George Henry
Maynard, LL. D. / Illustrated with Marginal References and Notes . . . /
By the Rev. Edward Kimpton, /..../ New-York: / Printed and Sold
by William Durell, / No. 208, Pearl-Street, near the Fly-Market. /
M, DCC, XCIV[i794],

Folio, pp. 723, (3), with 60 engravings. AAS.

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

1795

1 1 . BRETT, SAMUEL. A / True Relation / of the / Proceedings / of the /
Great Council / of the /Jews; / Assembled in the Plains of Ajayday,
in / Hungaria, about 30 Leagues distant from / Buda; to examine the
Scriptures con-/cerning Christ. /On the i2th of October, 1650. /
By Samuel Brett; / (An Englishman) there present. / Printed at
Keene — (New-Hampshire,) / For Amos Taylor; / Travelling Book-
Seller. / M, DCC, XCV [1795].

isuno, pp. 12. AAS.

1796

12. CAREY, MATHEW, compiler. Select Pamphlets: /viz. / i. Lessons
to a Young Prince, by an Old Statesman, / on the present Disposition
in Europe to a general Revolution. / 2. Appeal from the New to the
Old Whigs, / in Consequence of some late Discussions in Parliament. /

3. Address to the House of Representatives of the United States. /

4. Features of Mr. Jay's Treaty. / 5. Short Account of the Malignant
Fever, / prevalent in Philadelphia, in the Fall of 1793 — by Mathew
Carey. / 6. Dr. Nassy's Account of the Same Fever. / 7. Observations
on Dr. Rush's Enquiry into the Origin of / the late Epidemic Fever —
by Mathew Carey. / 8. Trial of Mr. Walker, and others, for High
Treason. / Philadelphia: Published by Mathew Carey, / No. 1 18
Market-Street. / 1796. / (Price two dollars.)

8vo. A collection of separate pamphlets of various dates, with the
general title as above. The Nassy pamphlet is the 1793 French-
English edition. Carey issued other similar collections the same year
with different contents. Another one, including the Nassy pamphlet,
has exactly the same title as above, except: "8. Revolution of Amer-
ica — By the AbW Raynal." LCP.

1797

13. COOPER, WILLIAM. The Promised Seed. / A / Sermon / Preached
To God's Ancient Israel /The Jews, /at Sion-Chapel. White-
Chapel, / On Sunday Afternoon, August 28, 1796. /By William
Cooper. / To Which Are Added, / The Hymns That Were Sung, and

192

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 1851

The /Prayers That Were Offered Up, /Before and After The/
Sermon. / Windsor; Re-Printed by Alden Spooner. / 1 797.
8vo, pp. 28, (2). AAS.

14. [MACGOWAN, JOSEPH.] The / Life / of / Joseph, / The / Son of
Israel. / In Eight Books. / Chiefly designed to allure young minds to a
love of / the Sacred Scriptures. / By John [sic] Macgowan. / Wind-
ham: (Connecticut) Printed by /John Byrne. / 1797.

8vo, pp. 1 66. EWa.

1798

15. A / Dictionary / of the / Bible: / or an explanation of the Proper
Names & Difficult Words / in the / Old and New Testament, / ac-
cented as they ought to be pronounced. / With other / Useful Partic-
ulars / for those who would understand the / Sacred Scriptures, / and
read them with propriety. / First American Edition, / from the second
London edition, enlarged. / Printed at the Press of and for / Isaiah
Thomas, Jun. / Sold by him at his Bookstore, also by Isaiah Thomas,
at the / Worcester Bookstore, and by Thomas & Andrews, No. 45,
Newbury Street, Boston. / Worcester — January — 1798.

tamo, pp. iv, (231), (4), EW2.

1799

1 6. PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. A / Comparison / of the / Institutions of
Moses / with those of / The Hindoos / and / other Ancient Nations; /
with / Remarks on Mr. Dupuis's Origin of all / Religions, / The Laws
and Institutions of Moses / Methodized, / and / An Address to the
Jews on the present state of the / World and the Prophecies relating
to it. / By Joseph Priestley, L.L.D., F.R.S. &c. / Trutina ponantur
eadem / Horace. / Northumberland: / Printed for the Author by A.
Kennedy. / MDCCXCIX [1799].
8vo, pp. xxvii, 428. (8), EWs,

1800

17. NONES, BENJAMIN. To the Printer of the Gazette of the United
States. / Sir, / I hope, if you take the liberty of inserting calumnies

193

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

against individuals, for the amusement of / your readers, you will have
so much regard to justice, as to permit the injured .-./... to appeal
to the public in self defence. . . . / Benjamin Nones. / Philadelphia,
August n, 1800. [Philadelphia: William Duane, 1800.]
Folio, pp. 2. MW.

1 8. SOLOMON, SAMUEL. A / Guide to Health; / or, / Advice to Both
Sexes: / with / An Essay / On certain Disease, Seminal Weakness, /
and / A destructive Habit of a private Nature. / Also an address /
To Parents, Tutors & Guardians of Youth. / To which are added, /
Observations / on the / Use & Abuse of Cold Bathing. /By S.
Solomon, M.D. / Fifty-second Edition. / Stockport / Printed, for the
Author, by J. Clarke, 21, Underbank; /and sold by /Robert Bach,
New- York. / Price One Dollar. [1800]

8vo, pp. 283, with frontispiece portrait and one plate. LCP.

1801

19. ETTING, REUBEN. Schedule of the whole number of Persons in the
District of Maryland. / [table of 14columns\ / Baltimore, December 2ist,
1 80 1, / Reuben Etting, Marshal of the District of Maryland. [Balti-
more: 1801.]

Folio, pp. 2. Possibly printed at Washington. On verso are printed
letters of transmittal from Etting to Madison, Dec. 21, 1801, and
from Jefferson to Congress, Dec. 23, 1801. Mass. Hist. Soc.

1803

20. COHEN, JACOB i. Sales at / Auction, / By Prosser & Moncure, /
All That Valuable Assortment of / Merchandize, / Belonging to the
estate of Israel I. Cohen, dec. late of this City, / on Wednesday the
1 6th inst. .../.../ Richmond, November 7th, 1803. /Jacob I.
Cohen, Adm'r. / Printed by S. Pleasants, Junior, Richmond [1803].
Folio, broadside. EW2.

2Oa. ILLINOIS AND WABASH LAND COMPANIES. An / Account / of the /

Proceedings / of the / Illinois and Ouabache / Land Companies, /
in persuance of their purchases made of the / Independent Natives, /

194

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

July 5th, 1773, anc* i8th October, 1775. /Philadelphia: /Printed by
William Duane, No. 106, Market Street. / 1803.

8vo, pp. 74. Among the original shareholders who made the purchase
were Moses, Jacob and David Franks, Barnard and Michael Gratz,
oseph Simon and Levy Andrew Levy. LCP.

21. [MACGOWAN, JOSEPH.] The /Life /of /Joseph/ The Son of Is-
rael. / In Eight Books. / Chiefly designed for the use / of youth. /
[four-line quotation^ / Brookfield, Massachusetts, / Printed by E. Merriam
& Co. /July 1803.

iizmo, pp. 153, (3). HUG.

22. MONTEFIORE, JOSHUA. Commercial and Notarial / Precedents: /
consisting of / All the most approved Forms, Common and Special, /
which are required in Transactions of Business: / With an Appendix, /
Containing principles of Law relative to / Bills of Exchange, Insurance,
and Shipping: / By Joshua Montefiore, / Attorney and Notary Public
of the City of London. / Philadelphia: / Printed and Sold by James
Humphreys, / At the N. W. Corner of Walnut and Dock-Streets. /
1803.

8vo, pp. xvi, 350, 2. LCP.

23. PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. The Originality / And / Superior Excellence /
Of The / Mosaic Institutions / Demonstrated. / By Joseph Priestley,
LL.D. F.R.S. &c. / . . . / Northumberland: / Printed by Andrew
Kennedy, Franklin's Head, Queen-Street: / for P. Byrne, No. 72
Chesnut Street, / Philadelphia. / 1803.

i6mo, pp. 36. AAS.

1805

24. [PHILLIPSON, SIMON.] Report / of / the Committee / of / Commerce
and Manufacturers, / to whom / was referred on the eighteenth / of
December last, / the / Petition / of / Simon Philipson, / of the City of
Philadelphia. / 20th February, 1805. /Read and ordered to be
referred to a committee of the whole / House, tomorrow. / [Washing-
ton: 1805.]

8vo, pp. 4. HUG.

195

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

25. SMITH, ELIAS. The / Whole World Governed by a Jew; / or The /
Government / of The / Second Adam, as King and Priest; / Described
From The Scriptures. /Delivered March 4, 1805, the Evening after
the / Election of the President & Vice-President. / By Elias Smith. /
. . . . / Exeter; / Printed By Henry Ranlet, / And sold at his Bookstore:
and by Elias Smith, Portsmouth; / B. B. Macanulty, Salem; Daniel
Gonant, No. 8, and /Joseph Pulsifer, No. 36, Backstreet, Boston;
J. Prince, / Freetown, Mass.; Timothy Kezer, Kennebunk, and the /
Book-sellers in the United States. 1805.

i2mo, pp. 84. AAS.

1809

26. [HOLFORD, GEORGE PETER.] The /Destruction /of /Jerusalem, /
an Absolute and Irresistible Proof /of /The Divine Origin /of/
Christianity: / Including / A Narrative of the Calamities Which
Befel / the Jews, so far as they tend to Verify / Our Lord's Predictions
Relative / to that Event. / With / A Brief Description of the / City
and Temple. /..../ Third American Edition. / Philadelphia: / Pub-
lished by Joseph Sharpless, at Rose-Mount, / half a mile above
Callowhill Street, / on the Ridge Road. 1809.

i2mo, pp. 144. AAS.

27. NOAH, MORDEGAI MANUEL, ed. Shakspeare Illustrated: /or, the/
Novels and Histories / on which the / Plays of Shakspeare / are
founded. / Collected and translated from the originals, / By Mrs.
Lenox, / Author of the Female Quixote, &c. / With Critical Re-
marks, / and / Biographical Sketches of the Writers, / By M. M.
Noah. /In Two Volumes. / Vol. I, / Published by /Bradford &
Inskeep, Philadelphia; Inskeep & Bradford, / New York; William
M'llhenney, Jun., Boston; Coale & / Thomas, Baltimore; and E.
Morford, Charleston. / Printed by T. & G. Palmer, Philadelphia. /
1809.

8vo, pp. viii, (2), 341. Only the first volume was published.
LCP.

2ya. [ETTING, SOLOMON.] Memorial /of the / United / Illinois and
Wabash / Land Companies, / to the / Senate and House of Repre-

196

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

sentatives / of the / United States. / Baltimore: / Printed by Joseph
Robinson, 96, Market-St. / 1810.

8vo, pp. 44. The memorial was signed by the agents of the com-
panies, one of whom was Etting. LCP.

1810

28. GOLDSMITH, LEWIS. An / Exposition / of the / Conduct of France /
towards / America: / illustrated by / Cases / decided in the / Council
of Prizes in Paris. / By Lewis Goldsmith, / Notary Public, / Author of
"The Crimes of Cabinets" — Translator of Mr. D'Hauterive's /
"Etat de la France k la Fin de PAn 8," &c. &c. / [two-line quotation

from Virgit] / Second Edition. / New York: / Printed for Ezra Sargeant,
86 Broadway, / opposite Trinity Church. / 1810.

ismo, pp. 99. First printed at London the same year. LCP.

28a. GOLDSMITH, LEWIS. The / Secret History / of the / Cabinet of
Bonaparte; / including / His Private Life, Character, Domestic Ad-
ministration, and / his Conduct to Foreign Powers; / Together with /
Secret Anecdotes / of the different courts of Europe, and of the
French / Revolution. / With / Two Appendices, / . . . / by Lewis
Goldsmith, / Notary Public. / . . . / Edited and Illustrated with
Notes, / By a Gentleman of New-York; / . . . / Vol I (-11). / New-
York: / Printed for E. Sargeant and M. & W. Ward. /And also
sold by / Brannan & Morford, Philadelphia; E. Morford, Willington
& Co. Charles- / ton; Seymour & Williams, Savannah; Munroe &
Francis, O. C. Green- / leaf, W. Wells, West & Blake, John West &
Co. Boston; .../..,/ 1810.

2-vols., I2mo, pp. (4), 257; (2), iv, 300. LCP.

29. LA MOTTA, JACOB DE. An / Investigation / of the / Properties and
Effects, / of the / Spiraea Trifoliata / of Linnaeus, / or / Indian
Physic. / By /Jacob de La Motta, / Of Charleston South Carolina. /
Member of the Philadelphia Medical and American Linnaean/
Societies; and Member of the Charleston Philosophical Society. /
"Fiat Experimentum." / [four-line quotation from Darwin] / Philadel-
phia: / Printed by Jane Aitken, No. 71, / North Third Street. / 1810.

8vo, pp. 44. Dissertation submitted to the University of Pennsyl-
vania, April 18, 1810, for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. EW2.

197

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

30. A / Word of Entreaty / to the /Jews / dispersed throughout the
United States / of America, [cap. title] / [colop:] Published at J.
Tiebout's, No. 238 Water Street, / for the Author. / Largin &
Thompson, Printers. [New York: ca. 1810.]
I2mo, pp. 12. MW.

1811

31. FLEURY, ABB£ CLAUDE. A Short History /of the /Ancient Isra-
elites: / with an account / Of their Manners, Customs, Laws, Polity,
Re- / ligion, Sects, Arts, and Trades, Divi- / sion of Time, Wars,
Capti- / vities, &c. / A work of the greatest utility. / Written originally
in French by the Abb6 Fleury, / Much enlarged from the Apparatus
Biblicus of Pere Lamy, / And corrected and improved throughout /
By Adam Clarke, L.L.D. / Baltimore: / Published by J. Kingston,
Bookseller, / 164 Market-Street. / B. W. Sower, & Co. Printers. /
1811.

I2mo, pp. 307, frontispiece portrait. LCP.

32. MARTIN, JOHN. The / Conquest of Canaan: / in which /The
Natural and Moral State of /its Inhabitants; / The Character of
their Conquerors; / with / The Manner and Design / of / Their Con-
quest, / are considered. / In a Series of Letters from a Father to his
Son. / By John Martin. / Frankford [Philadelphia] : Printed by Coale
& Gilbert./ 1811

i2mo, pp. 303, folding map. EW2.

33. MONTEFIORE, JOSHUA. The / American Trader's / Compendium; /
containing / The Laws, Customs, and Regulations / of / The United
States, / Relative to Commerce. / Including the most useful precedents
adapted to / general business. / Dedicated by Permission / to the /
Honorable William Tilghman, / Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. / By
J. Montefiore, / Author of the Commercial Dictionary, Commercial /
and Notarial Precedents, &c. &c. / Philadelphia: / Published by
Samuel R. Fisher, Junr. / No. 30, South Fourth Street, / William
Brown, Printer. / 1811.

8vo. pp. xii, 304. EW2.

198

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

34. MONTMOLLIN, FREDERICK, and MOSES, SOLOMON. [Circular] / Phila-
delphia, 1 2th August 1811. / [Sir.] / In compliance with the general
wish of my friends, I have formed an / Establishment in the Auction
and Commission business, with Mr. Solomon / Moses . . . / Signa-
tures. / Frederick Montmollin. / Solomon Moses.

4to, broadside. Girard College.

35. NEW YORK (STATE), ASSEMBLY, SENATE. In Senate — February 27,
181 1. / Gentlemen, / I deem it my duty to communicate to you . . . /
. . . / Report of the Managers of Union College / Lottery. / . . . /
[Albany: 1811.]

Folio, pp. 4. An emergency report made necessary by the failure of
Naphtali Judah, one of the major purchasers of tickets. HUG.

1812

36. BINNY & RONALDSON. Specimen / of / Printing Types, / from the /
Foundery / of / Binny & Ronaldson. / Philadelphia. / Fry and Kam-
merer, Printers. / 1812.

8vo, 41 leaves. Pica, Long Primer, and Brevier Hebrew are dis-
played. LCP.

1813

37. CLARKE, EDWARD DANIEL. Travels / in / Various Countries / of /
Europe, Asia, and Africa. / Commencing January i, 1801. / By Ed-
ward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. / Part the Second. / Greece, Egypt, and
The Holy Land. / Section the First. / New- York: / Published by
Whiting and Watson, / Theological and Classical Booksellers, No. 96,
Broadway. / Printed by T, C. Fay, 157, Chatham-street. / 1813.

I2mo, pp. xvi, 327, 113. This is the only section dealing with
Palestine. LCP.

37a. . Travels / in / Various Countries / of / Europe, Asia,

and Africa. / By Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. / Part the Second. /
Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. / Section I. / Second American
Edition. / Printed by Heman Willard, / Stockbridge, Massachusetts. /
1813.

i2mo, pp. xxiv, 400. LCP.

199

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

38. HORWITZ, JONAS. Just put to Press, / and will be published with all
convenient speed, / The first American edition of / Van Der Hooghfs /
Hebrew Bible, / without the points. / By J. Horwitz. [Philadelphia:
Thomas Dobson, 1813.]

8vo} pp. 4. Prospectus for the first Hebrew Bible printed in America.
University of Virginia.

1814

39. The / American Speaker; / A / Selection / of / Popular, Parlia-
mentary and Forensic / Eloquence; / particularly calculated / for the
Seminaries in the United States. / Second Edition. / Philadelphia: /
Printed and published by / Abraham Small. 71814,

I2mo, pp. xii, 395. On pp. 279-282 appears the "Speech delivered
by Jacob Henry, in the Legislature of North-Carolina, on a motion
to vacate his seat, he being a Jew." Henry's speech does not appear in
the first edition of 181 1. LCP.

3ga. CLARKE, EDWARD DANIEL, Travels / in / Various Countries / in /
Europe, Asia, and Africa. / By Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. / Part
the Second. / Greece, Egypt, and The Holy Land. / Section I. / The
Fourth American Edition. / New-York: / Published by D. Hunting-
ton. / C. S. Van Winkle, Printer. / 1814.
i2mo, pp. xii, 406, (i). LCP.

1815

40. LUTYENS, GOTTHILF N. The / Life and Adventures / of / Moses
Nathan Israel. / By G. N. Lutyens. / Containing / An Account of his
Birth, Education and / Travels through Parts of Germany, / Italy,
and the / United States, / where he met with his family; / interspersed
with many interesting / Anecdotes: / With a description of the Govern-
ment, Manners / and Customs of different parts of / Germany &
Italy. / Easton: / Printed by Christian J. Hutter, / 1815.

I2mo, pp. 214, (2). Rosenbach Foundation.

1816

4oa. [ETTING, SOLOMON.] Memorial /of the / United / Illinois and
Wabash / Land Companies, / to the / Senate and House of Repre-

200

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

sentatives / of the / United States. / Baltimore: / Printed by Joseph
Robinson, 96, Market-St. / 1816.

8vo, pp. 48. The memorial was signed by the agents of the companies,
one of whom was fitting. LCP.

41. NORFOLK AND PORTSMOUTH, CITIZENS. To the / President and
Directors / of the / Bank of the United States, / at / Philadelphia. /
Gentlemen, / At a numerous meeting of the citizens of Nor- / folk
and Portsmouth, . . . [Norfolk: 1816.]

8vo, pp. 12. Moses Myers was one of the committee who signed the
memorial. LCP.

42. RONALDSON, JAMES. Specimen / of / Printing Type, /from the/
Letter Foundry / of /James Ronaldson, / Successor to / Binny &
Ronaldson. / Cedar between Ninth and Tenth streets, / Philadel-
phia. / 1816.

8vo. 43 leaves. Double Pica, Pica, Long Primer, Pica with Points,
and Brevier Hebrew are displayed, LCP.

1817

43. BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD. Hebrew Melodies. / By Lord
Byron. / Philadelphia: / Published by James P. Parke, / No. 74, South
Second Street. / Wm. Fry, Printer. 1815.

i2mo, pp. 47. LCP.

44. COHEN, JACOB i., JR. Cohen's / Lottery and Exchange-Office, /
Baltimore. / The proprietor of this establishment, begs leave to present
to his customers, / agents and correspondents, and to the publick (by
Authority of the State of Maryland,) / the most splendid lottery ever
projected in this Country, being / For the Benefit of the / Surgical
Institution of Baltimore. / . . . / J. I. Cohen, Jr. / . . . / Baltimore,
1817.

Folio, broadside. Library of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty
of the State of Maryland.

45. [jUDAH, MANUEL, and SAUNDERS, CHARLES H.] (27) / Report / Of

the Committee of Ways and Means on the Peti- / tion of Charles H.

201

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Saunders and Manuel Judah. /January 2, 1817. / . . . / [Washington:

8vo, pp. 4. The petitioners' claim for recovery of duty on liquor
lost by fire was turned down. HUG.

46. LACEY, HENRY. The / Principal Events / in the / Life of Moses, /
and in the / Journey of the Israelites / from / Egypt to Canaan. / By
Henry Lacey. /Philadelphia: /Published by Benjamin Johnson, 31
Market-street. / D. Dickinson, Printer. / 1817.

I2mo, pp. 84. LCP.

46a. MARKS, ELIAS. The / Aphorisms / of / Hippocrates / From the
Latin Version of Verhoofd / with a /Literal Translation on the
Opposite Page / and / Explanatory Notes / [one-line quotation] / The
Work intended As a Book of Reference / to the Medical Student. /
By Elias Marks, M.D. / Member of the Physico-Medical Society of
New-York / New-York: / Printed and Sold by Collins & Co., no. 182,
Pearl /Street. /i 817.

I2mo, pp. 169 (pp. 145-6 omitted). College of Physicians of Phila-
delphia.

47. The / Return / of / The Jews, / and the / Second Advent of Our
Lord, / proved to be a scripture doctrine, / By a citizen of Baltimore. /
"Slave to no sect, who takes no private road." / Baltimore: / Printed
by Richard J. Matchett. / 1817.

8vo, pp. 60. LCP.

1819

47a. NIGODEMUS. Das / Evangelium Nicodemus, / oder / Gewisser Be-
richt / Von dem Leben, Leiden und Sterben, / Unsers Heilands /
Jesu Christi, / und von den / Zwolf Stammen der Juden / und sonst
noch mehr schone Stiicke, / wo das mehrste von den Evangelisten
nicht beschrieben / worden ist, / Beschrieben von / Nicodemus, / ein
Priester und Oberster der Juden und ein / heimlicher Junger und
Nachfolger Jesu, / Nebst Theotesius, / welcher auch ein Priester und
Schriftgelehrter / der Jiiden war. / Aus Herrn Philippi Kegelii An-
hang zum geistlichen Weg- / weiser nach dem himmlischen Vater-
lande &c. / genommen. / Auch ein neuer Zusaz zum Evangeli Nico-

202

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

demi / Und ein Anhang von der / Genoveva und Helena. / Neu
verfasset und zum erstenmal in dieser Form heraus- / gegeben von /
Johann George Homan, / im Rosenthal, nahe bey Reading, Penn-
sylvanien, im / Jahr Christi, 1819. / Reading . . . gedruckt bey C. A.
Bruckman ... 1819.
i2mo, pp. 302. LGP.

1820

48. HOLFORD, GEORGE PETER. The / Destruction of Jerusalem, / an /
Absolute and Irresistible / Proof / of / the Divine Origin /of/ Chris-
tianity: / Including / A Narrative of the Calamities which Befell / the
Jews, so far as they tend to Ver- / ify Our Lord's Predictions Rel- /
ative to that Event. / With / A Brief Description of the City and /
Temple. /..../ Third American Edition. / Pottstown: / Printed by
John Royer. / 1820.

i2mo, pp. 132. AAS.

49. MILMAN, HENRY HART. The / Fall of Jerusalem. / A / Dramatic
Poem. / By the Rev. H. H. Milman. / New-York: / Published by L.
and F. Lockwood. / C. S. Van Winkle, Printer. / 1820.

I2mo, pp. 1 80. LCP.

50. [NOAH, MORDECAI MANUEL.] Essays / of / Howard, / on / Domestic
Economy. / Originally published in the New-York Advocate. / "Eye
Nature's Walks." / New-York: / Printed by G. L. Birch & Co. / No.
39/4 Frankfort-street. / 1820.

I2mo, pp. 214. LCP.

51 . TAPPAN, WILLIAM B. Songs of Judah, / and other / Melodies. / By /
William B. Tappan, / Author of New England and Other Poems. /
Philadelphia: / Published by S. Potter & Co. 87 Chesnut Street. /
1820.

I2mo, pp. xi, 204, and engraved title-page. LCP.

1821

52. JOHNSON, DAVID ISRAEL. Auction. / This Evening, at early Candle-
light, will be sold, / at the Auction and Commission Store of / D. I.

203

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Johnson, / No. 1 75, Main Street, / A Valuable Assortment of / Dry
Goods, / Hardware, &c. / . . . Together with a few Books, &c. /
Cincinnati, Thursday, January 4, 1821. / Printed at the Office of
the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette [1821].
Folio, broadside. HUG.

53. [SEDCAS, DAVID G.] An / Account / of the / Origin and Progress /
of the / Pennsylvania Institution / for the / Deaf and Dumb. / With /
A List of the Contributors, &c. / Published by order of the Directors. /
Philadelphia: / Printed by William Fry, No. 63, South Fifth Street. /

8vo, pp. 38, (i). David G. Seixas was the founder and first director
of the Institution, LCP,

54. - . To the Editors of the American Sentinel. / My com-
munication of the yth, which appeared / in several gazettes of this city,
remains until this / day unanswered. .../..../ David G. Seixas. /
December 14*. / . . . / [Philadelphia: 1821.]

Folio, broadside. HUG.

55. VIRGINIA, HOUSE OF DELEGATES. Report / and / Resolutions / con-
cerning / The Citation of the Commonwealth, / to answer a com-
plaint before / The Supreme Court / of the / United States. / [Printed
by order of the House of Delegates.] / Richmond: / Printed by Thomas
Ritchie, / Printer for the Commonwealth. / 1821.

8vo, pp. 24. Philip I. Cohen and Mendez I. Cohen were the plain-
tiffs in the Supreme Court. LCP.

1822

56. BOSTON, BAPTIST FEMALE SOCIETY. Constitution / of the / Baptist
Female Society / of / Boston and Vicinity / for / Promoting the Con-
version of the Jews; / Organized, October 24th, 1822. /With /An
Address on the Subject. / (three-line quotation) / Boston: / Printed by
Thomas Badger, Jun. / No. 10 Merchants' Hall / 1822.

8vo, pp. 8. Abraham Karp.

57. IRVING, c. A Catechism /of /Jewish Antiquities / Containing /
An Account / of the / Classes, Institutions, Rites, Ceremonies, Man-

204

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

ners, / Customs, &c. / of the / Ancient Jews. / Adapted to the use of
Schools in the / United States. / With Engraved Illustrations. / By
C. Irving, LL.D. / Holyrood-house, Southampton. /..../ First Amer-
ican Edition, Revised and Improved. / New- York: / F. and R. Lock-
wood, 154 Broadway. / 1822, / Gray & Hewit, Printers.
I2mo, pp. 80, frontispiece. AAS.

58. MONTEFIORE, JOSHUA. Commercial and Notarial / Precedents: /
consisting of / The Most Approved Forms, / special and common, /
required in / the daily transactions of business, / by / Merchants,
Traders, Notaries, Attornies, &c. Each set of precedents preceded by /
A summary of the law on the subject. / Particularly on / Bills o
Exchange, Insurance, Salvage, &c. / By Joshua Montefiore, / Attor-
ney and Notary Public of the City of London. / Second American,
from the last London Edition, / with / An Introduction, / and / Con-
siderable Alterations and Additions, / By Clement C. Biddle, Notary
Public. / Philadelphia: / H. C. Carey & I. Lea — Chesnut Street, /
and H. C. Carey & Co. No. 157, Broadway, New York. / 1822.

8vo, pp. xx, 480. University of Pennsylvania.

59. PENNSYLVANIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. Deaf and

Dumb, / From the Columbian Observer, / April 20, 1822. / . . . /
[Philadelphia: 1822.]
4to, pp. 2, A pro-Seixas statement. LCP.

6O> m Deaf and Dumb School. / "On evil deeds, censures ac-
cumulate." / . . . / [signed] Anti-Persecutor. [Philadelphia: 1822.]
Folio, broadside. A pro-Seixas statement. LCP.

61. sous, JACOB s. Circular. / In compliance with my pledge . . . /
. , . / Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, N. Y. / P. S. — J. S. S.
will call for the answer to this Circular. / [2nd page:] The Plan / For
Improving the Condition of Jewish Youth of Both Sexes, / by Jacob
S. Solis. / Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, N. Y. / . . . [n. p.:
1822?]
4to, pp. 2. EW2.

205

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

1823

62. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MELIORATING THE CONDITION OF THE JEWS.

The American Society, / For Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, /
Was formed in New- York in 1820: / Whose Object is thus Stated — /
(cap. title) . . . / (colop:) Wm. Riley, Printer, 41 Broadway, Charleston.
[1823].
8vo, pp. 4. Rutgers University.

63. CUMBERLAND, RICHARD. The Jew. / A Comedy. / In five acts. /
By Richard Cumberland, Esq. / As performed at the Philadelphia
Theatre. / Philadelphia: / Published by Thomas H. Palmer. / 1823.

i6mo, pp. 67, (i). HUG.

1824

64. ENGLISH, GEORGE BETHUNE. Five Pebbles / from / The Brook. /
being / A Reply / to / "A Defence of Christianity" / written by /
Edward Everett, / Greek Professor of Harvard University. / In answer
to / "The Grounds of Christianity Examined / by / Comparing the
New Testament with the Old." / By / George Bethune English. / [five
lines of biblical quotations} / Philadelphia: Printed for the Author. / 1824.

I2mo, pp. 124, (2). EW2.

65. [GOLDSMITH, MORRIS.] i8th Congress, / ist Session. / [91] / Report /
Of the Committee of Claims in the case of Goldsmith and Roderick, /
with a bill for their relief. / March 22, 1824. / Read, and, with the
bill, committed to a committee of the whole House to-morrow. / . . .
[Washington, 1824.]

8vo, pp. 2. Approving a claim of Morris Goldsmith for payment of
services rendered in arresting pirates while he was acting as deputy to
the Marshal for the State of South Carolina in 1819-20. LCP.

66. [LEVY, JACOB c.] A / Table / of the Corresponding Prices /of/
Cotton, / Shipped from the United States, / and / sold in Liverpool, /
from / five pence to two shillings / Rising by Farthings; / And Ex-
change on / London / from par to sixteen per cent / Premium. /
Charleston / Printed by Gray & Ellis, No. 9 Broad-Street / 1824.

i6mo, pp. 26. Levy's name appears in the copyright as "author and
proprietor." LCP.

206

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

66a. HILLHOUSE, JAMES ABRAHAM. Scena Quarta / del / Quinto Atto /
di / Adad, / Poema Drammatico. / Del Signer Giacomo A. Hill-
house. / Tradotta in verso Italiano / da / L. Da Ponte. / E / Dedicata
rispettosamente / alia Signora Cornelia Hillhouse. / Sua veneratissima
allieva. / New-York: / Stampatori Gray e Bunce. / 1825.

i6mo, pp. 17. This is Rosenbach 274 of which no copy was located
and no detailed description given. EW2.

1825

67. MOORE, CLEMENT c. A / Lecture / introductory to / The Course of
Hebrew Instruction / in the / General Theological Seminary / of the /
Protestant Episcopal Church / in the / United States, / Delivered in
Christ Church, New- York, on the Evening of / November i4th, 1825. /
By / Clement C. Moore, A.M. / Professor of Oriental and Greek
Literature. / New-York: / Printed by T. and J. Swords. / No. 99
Pearl-street. / 1825.

8vo, pp. 28. LCP,

68. NORTON, ELIJAH. The /Jew's Friend, / By which all their doubts
are removed respecting / Melchizedec, / Compared with Christ; / And
proved to be the same person and / True Messiah; / And Contains an
Answer- to all Socini- / an and Unitarian Arguments / against the
Trinity. / By Elijah Norton, / Minister of the Gospel. / / Dedi-
cated to the Rev. F. Frey, for / the Conversion of the Jews under his
min- / istry at New- York, and in all the world. / Woodstock: / Printed
by David Watson. / 1825.

24010, pp. 48. AAS.

1826

69. LOPEZ, MATHIAS, ed. Lopez and Wemyss' Edition. / The Acting
American Theatre. / Marmion; / or, / The Battle of Flodden Field. /
A Drama, / in Five Acts. / By James N. Barker, Esq. / with / A
Portrait of Mr. Duff, / in the / Character of Marmion. / The Plays
carefully corrected from the Prompt Books of the / Philadelphia
Theatre. / By M. Lopez, Prompter. / Philadelphia: / Published by
A. R. Poole, and Ash & Mason: P. Thompson, / Washington: H. W.
Bool, Baltimore: E. M. Murden, New / York. For the Proprietors, and

207

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

to be had of / all the principal booksellers in / the United States. /
Price to non-subscribers, Fifty Cents. [1826]

I2mo, pp. 62, and portrait. University of Pennsylvania.

70, . Lopez and Wemyss' / Edition. / The / Acting American

Theatre. /The Tragedy of / Superstition, /by /James N. Barker,
Esq. / Author of Mannion A Tragedy, &c. / with a portrait of /
Mrs. Duff, / in the character of / Mary. / The Plays carefully cor-
rected from the Prompt books of the / Philadelphia Theatre. / By M.
Lopez, Prompter, / Published by A. R. Poole, Chesnut Street, / For
the Proprietors. / And to be had of all the principal booksellers in the /
United States. / Price to non-subscribers, Fifty cents. [1826]
I2mo, pp. 68, and portrait. LCP.

7oa. . Lopez & Wemyss' / Edition. / The / Acting American

Theatre. / Wild Oats, / with a portrait of Mr. Francis, / (Father of
the American Stage,) / as / Sir George Thunder. / The Plays carefully
corrected from the Prompt books of the / Philadelphia Theatre. / By
M. Lopez, Prompter. / Published by A. R. Poole, Chesnut Street. /
For the Proprietors, / And to be had of all the principal booksellers
in the / United States. / Price, 37^ cents. / J. R. M. Bicking, Printer,
— 1826.

I2mo, pp. 82 and portrait. EW2.

71. . Lopez and Wemyss' / Edition. / The / Acting American

Theatre. / The Old Maid, / A Comedy in two acts, / By Mr. Mur-
phy. / With a portrait of / Mrs. Francis, / as / Miss Harlow. / The
Plays carefully corrected from the Prompt books of the / Philadelphia
Theatre. / By M. Lopez, Prompter. / Published by A. R. Poole,
Chesnut Street, / For the Proprietors. / And to be had of all the
principal booksellers in the / United States. / Price to non-subscribers,
Fifty cents. [1826]
i2mo, pp. 35. LCP.

7 1 a. MORE, HANNAH. Sacred Dramas, / by / Hannah More. /To
which are added / Reflections of King Hezekiah; / Sensibility, a
Poem; / and / Search after Happiness. / Princeton Press: / Published
by D. A. Borrenstein. / 1826.

i6mo, pp. 209. University of Pennsylvania.

208

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

72. PONTE, LORENZO DA. Assur, Re d'Ormus: / Drama, / di / Lorenzo
da Ponte. / Imitato da Tarar / di / Beaumarchais. / Messo in musica /
da / A. Salieri. / Pel Teatro imperiale di Vienna. / New- York: /
Stampatori Giovanni Gray e Co. / 1826.
I2mo, pp. 47. LCP.

73- - • H / Don Giovanni, / Dramma Eroicomico, / di / Lorenzo
Da Ponte, / Composto da lui per la Nozze del Principe Antonio di /
Sassonia — Colla Principessa M. Teresa Figlia/dell' Impr. Leo-
poldo. / E messo in musica dall' immortale / V. Mozzart. / Nova-
Jorca,: / Stampatori Giovanni Gray e Co. / 1826.

i2mo, pp. 51. An entirely different edition from Rosenbach 288.
LCP.

1827

74. [PHILLIPS, JONAS B.] Tales / for / Leisure Hours, / [six-line quota-
tion from " Winter Evenings**} / Philadelphia. / Atkinson & Alexander,
Printers. / 1827.

i2mo, pp. 162. LCP (Presentation copy from the author).

75. [SAUL, JOSEPH.] The /Opinion /of /The Supreme Court /of/
The State of Louisiana, / on a question / arising in / The Cause /
of / Saul vs. His Creditors, / whether, / In the case of a Marriage
contracted in a State, governed by the / Common Law of England,
between Parties there residing, / but who afterwards remove to Lou-
isiana, and there / acquire property, such property on the dissolution /
of the Marriage should be regulated by the / Laws of the Country
where the / Marriage was contracted, / or of that where it / was
dissolved. / New-Orleans: / Printed by Benjamin Levy, / Corner of
Chartres and Bienville streets. / 1827.

8vo, pp. 24. Joseph Saul was married in Virginia in 1794, moved to
Louisiana in 1804, and his wife died in Louisiana in 1819. LCP.

76. The / Young Jewess: / A Narrative / illustrative of the / Polish
and English Jews / Of the Present Century. / Exhibiting the / Superior
Moral Influence / of / Christianity. / From the London Edition. /
Boston: / Published by James Loring, / No. 132 Washington-street. /
1827.

i2mo, pp. 1 80, woodcut frontispiece. LCP.

209

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

1828

77. [HAYS, ISAAC, ed.] American Ornithology; / or / The Natural
History / of the / Birds of the United States. / Illustrated With
Plates / Engraved and coloured from original drawings taken / from
nature. / By Alexander Wilson. / With a sketch of the Author's
Life, / By George Ord, F.L.S. &c. / In Three Vols. — Vol. I (-III). /
Published by Collins & Co., New York, / and / Harrison Hall,
Philadelphia. / 1828.

8vo, 3 vols., and 4to atlas of plates, pp. cxcix, 231; 456; vi, 396; and
76 plates. Although Isaac Hays's name does not appear as the editor
of this edition, the Dictionary of American Biography states that he
was. An unsigned editor's preface appears on pp. [v]-vi. EW2.

78. PHILLIPS, ZALEGMAN. To the Electors / Of the Second Congressional
District of the State of / Pennsylvania. / . . . [signed at end:] Zalegman
Phillips. / Philadelphia, August I5th, 1828.

8vo, pp, 15. LCP.

1829

79. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. Elements / of / Physics, / or / Natural Philos-
ophy, / General and Medical, / explained independently of / Tech-
nical Mathematics, / and containing / new disquisitions and practical
suggestions. / By Neil Arnott, M.D., / of the Royal College of Physi-
cians. / First American from the Third London Edition, / With
Additions, / By Isaac Hays, A.M., MIX, &c. / Philadelphia: / Carey,
Lea & Carey — Chesnut Street. / 1829.

8vo, pp. 532. College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

1830

80. ABRAHAM, RICHARD. A / Catalogue / of / Italian, Flemish, Span-
ish, Dutch, French, / and English / Pictures; / which have been col-
lected in Europe and brought to / this country by / Mr. Richard
Abraham, / Of New Bond Street, London, / and are / Now Exhibit-
ing / at the / American Academy of Fine Arts. / New York: / Printed
by Christian Brown, /an Water Street. / 1830.
8vo, pp. 53. LCP.

210

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

81. BALTIMORE, HEBREW CONGREGATION. Constitution / and / By-
Laws / of the / Hebrew Congregation / Nitgy Israel / of the / City of
Baltimore. / 5590. / Baltimore: / Printed by Sands & Neilson, / at the
Chronicle Office. / 1830.

i6mo, pp. 14. MW.

82. [CARDOZO, JACOB N.] 2ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Rep. No.
306.] / Ho. of Reps. / J. N. Cardozo. / March 17, 1830. / Mr. Over-
ton, from the Committee of Ways and Means, made the following /
Report: / . . . [Washington, 1830.]

8vo, pp. 2, Releasing Cardozo from a contract with the government
for printing in the Charleston Southern Patriot. LCP.

83. MADDEN, RICHARD ROBERT. Travels / in / Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, /
and / Palestine, / in 1824, ^s, 1826, and 1827. /By/ R. R-
Madden, Esq., M.R.C.S. / In Two Volumes. / Vol. I. (-II) / Phila-
delphia: / Carey & Lea. / 1830.

2 vols., i2mo, pp. 250; 238. Dedicated to Moses Montefiore. EW2.

84. MONTEFIORE, JOSHUA. Synopsis / of / Mercantile Laws, / with an /
Appendix: / Containing the most approved forms of notarial and
commercial / precedents, special and common, required hi the daily /
transaction of business. / By Merchants, Traders, Notaries, Attornies,
&c. / A New Edition / Revised, corrected and enlarged, with refer-
ence to the / alterations effected by the revised statutes / of the State
of New- York. /By Joshua Montefiore: /Attorney, Solicitor, and
Notary Public, Author of the Commercial Diction- / ary, Notarial
and Commercial Precedents, Law of Insolvents, / &c. &c. &c. /
New-York: / G. & C. & H. Carvill. / 1830.

8vo, pp. xxvii, [164], 336, [2]. University of Pennsylvania.

85. NEW YORK, HESRA HASED VA AMET. Hebra Hased Va Amet. / To
the Ladies / of the /Jewish Persuasion. / The Committee appointed
by the Hebra Hased Va Amet, to adopt such measures as / may be
deemed expedient for the formation of a Society of the Ladies .../•••/
Isaac B. Seixas, / Myer Levy, / Aaron H. Judah, / Solomon Seixas, /
Samuel N. Judah. / New York, isth March, 1830. [New York: 1830]

8vo, broadside. American Jewish Historical Society (Lyons Collec-
tion).

211

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

1831

86. HAYS, ISAAC, ed* Elements / of / Physics, / or / Natural Philos-
ophy, / General and Medical, / explained independently of / Tech-
nical Mathematics, / and containing / new disquisitions and practical
suggestions. / In Two Volumes. / Vol. L / By Neil Arnott, M.D., /
of the Royal College of Physicians. / Second American from the
Fourth London Edition. / With Additions, / By Isaac Hays, A.M.,
M.D., &c. / Philadelphia: / Carey and Lea — Chesnut Street. / 1831.
i2mo, pp. 552. Apparently Hays did not edit the first part of Vol. II
which appeared the same year. University of Pennsylvania.

87. m History / of / Chronic Phlegmasiae, / or / Inflamma-
tions, / founded on / clinical experience and pathological anatomy, /
exhibiting a view of / the different varieties and complications of these
diseases, / with their / Various Methods of Treatment. / By F. J. V.
Broussais, M.D. / [six lines of titles] / Translated from the French of
the Fourth Edition, / By Isaac Hays, M.D. / and / R. Eglesfield
Griffith, M.D. / Members of the American Philosophical Society,
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Honorary / Members of the
Philadelphia Medical Society, &c. &c. / Volume L / Philadelphia: /
Carey & Lea./ 1831.

8vo, pp. 497. University of Pennsylvania.

88. . Select / Medico-Chirurgical / Transactions; / A Collec-
tion / of the / Most Valuable Memoirs / read to the / Medico-
Chirurgical Societies of London and Edinburgh; the Association / of
Fellows and Licentiates of the King and Queen's College of / Physi-
cians in Ireland; the Royal Academy of Medi- / cine of Paris; the Royal
Societies of London and / Edinburgh; the Royal Academy of Turin; /
the Medical and the Anatomical So- / cieties of Paris, &c, &c. &c. /
Edited by Isaac Hays, M.D. / Philadelphia: / E. L. Carey and A.
Hart, / Fourth and Chesnut St. / 1831.
8vo, pp. 4, 420. EWa.

89. LEO-WOLF, JOSEPH. Observations / on the / Prevention and Cure /
of/ Hydrophobia. / According to the latest publications in Germany. /
Read before the New- York Medical and Philosophical Society, / By

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

Joseph Leo- Wolf, M.D., / Physician in the City of New- York. / [one-
line quotation from Bacon] / New York: / G. & C. & H. Carvill. / 1831.
8vo, pp. 31. LCP.

90. MYERS, MOSES. 2ist Congress, / 2<l Session. / [Doc. No. 70.] / Ho.
of Reps. / Memorial of Moses Myers. /January 24, 1831. / Referred
to the Committee of Ways and Means. / . . . / [Washington: 1831.]

8vo, pp. 2. Asking compensation for outstanding bonds after being
relieved as collector of the District of Norfolk and Portsmouth in
1827-30, LCP.

1832

91. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. Principles /of/ Physiological Medicine, / in the /
form of propositions, / embracing / Physiology, Pathology, and Thera-
peutics, / with / Commentaries / on those relating to / Pathology. / By
F, J. V. Broussais, M.D. / [six lines of titles] / Translated from the
French, / By Isaac Hays, M.D. / and / R. Eglesfield Griffith, M.D. /
Members of the American Philosophical Society, of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, Honorary / Members of the Philadelphia Medical
Society, &c. &c. / Philadelphia: / Carey & Lea. / 1832.

8vo, pp. 594. EW2.

92. Nicholas Biddle / and the / Bank. / Loans and Discounts. / "Fair
business transactions." / . . . / [1832]

8vo, pp. 14. Entirely concerned with M. M. Noah's loan from the
Bank of the United States to buy out his partner in the New Tork
Courier. LCP.

93. PEDCOTTO, DANIEL L. M. New York, August i, 1832. / Sir, / I deem
it my duty to call your attention to the propriety of so modifying the
observance of the / Fast, which takes place on the ninth of Ab. (Sunday
next,) as not to expose those who strictly keep it, / to incur the pesti-
lential disease .../.../ Very respectfully, / Daniel L. M. Peixotto,
M.D. [New York, 1832]

4to, broadside. Dropsie College.

94. PHILLIPS, JONAS ALTAMONT. Philadelphia, August 6, 1832. /At a
meeting of the Committee of Correspondence, for the / City of Phila-

213

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

delphia .../.../ S. Badger, Chairman. / J. A. Phillips, Secretary. /
Address / Of the Committee of Correspondence for the City of Phila- /
delphia, appointed by the Democratic Convention of the / State of
Pennsylvania, held at Harrisburg, March 5, 1832. / . . . / [colopkon:]
Printed by Mifflin & Parry, at the office of "The Pennsylvanian," /
No. 59 Locust street, Philadelphia. [1832]

8vo, pp. 8. Phillips was also one of the signers of the address. EW2.

1833

95. [GRATZ, MICHAEL.] 2$d Congress, ist Session. / [Rep. No. 71.] /
Ho. of Reps. / Michael Gratz. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 81.] /
December 23, 1833. / Mr. Marshall, from the Committee on Revolu-
tionary Claims, made the / following / Report: / . . . [Washington,

1833-]

8vo, p. i. Ordering the payment of the continental loan office
certificates, issued to Gratz in 1779 for supplies bought in the West
Indies. LCP.

96. [HOLFORD, GEORGE PETER.] The /Destruction /of /Jerusalem, /
An Absolute and Irresistable / Proof / of the Divine Origin of /
Christianity: / Including a Narrative of the / Calamities which Befel
the Jews. / So far as they tend to verify / Our Lord's Predictions /
Relative to that Event. / With a Brief Description of the / City and
Temple. / Millbury, Mass: / Printed and Published by B. T, Albro. /
1833.

24mo, pp. 96, with frontispiece* AAS.

97. The / Manners and Customs / of the Jews, / and other Nations
mentioned in the Bible. / Illustrated by 120 Engravings. / First
American Edition. / Hartford: / Published by Henry Benton. /
1833.

I2mo, pp. vi, 172. This was included in error; it is Rosenbach 362.
MW.

98. PONTE, LORENZO DA. A / History / of the / Florentine Republic: /
and of /The Age and Rule /of /The Medici. / By / Lorenzo L.
Da Ponte, / Professor of Ital. Lit. in the University of the City of

214

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

New-York. / Vol. I (-II). / New-York: / Collins and Hannay. / W. E.
Dean, Printer. / 1833.

2 vols., ismOj pp. 285; 293. LCP.

1834

99. BALTIMORE, UNITED HEBREW BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. Constitution /

und / Neben-Gesetze / der / Vereinigten hebraischen wohlthatigen
Gesellschaft / von Baltimore, / errichtet in dem Monate tns^7 / ntwi /
amn antf* fip'li / Baltimore. / Gedruckt bey Johann T. Hanzsche,
Nord-Eutawstrasse. / 1834.

i6mo, pp. 48. English title-page supplied. MW.

100. BENJAMIN, JUDAH P., and SLIDELL, THOMAS. Digest / of the/

Reported Decisions / of the / Superior Court of the late Territory of /
Orleans, / and of the / Supreme Court / of the / State of Louisiana. /
By / J. P. Benjamin and T. Slidell, / Attorneys at Law. / New Orle-
ans: / Printed by J. F. Carter, / Camp Street. / 1834.
8vo, pp. 479. Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

101. COHEN, E. A., & co. For 1834. / A / Full Directory, / for / Wash-
ington City, Georgetown, / and / Alexandria: Containing / [18 lines] /
Stages, Etc. / By E. A. Cohen & Co. / Pennsylvania Avenue, two
doors below Gadsby's. / Washington City, / Wm. Greer. / 1834.

8vo, pp. 56, 21, 62, 22, (4). LCP.

102. LEVY, AARON. Catalogue / of / Books, / being / the Libraries of
the late / Honourable Cadwalader D. Golden, and Right /Rev.
Bishop Provost, / To be sold at Auction, / on / Tuesday Evening, May
6th, / And continued until the whole is Sold, / By Aaron Levy, / in
the / Large Sales Room, No. 128, Broadway, / Sale to commence at
7 o'clock. / New- York: / Vinten & Elton, Printers, & Wood Engrav-
ers, / 72 Bowery. [1834]

i2mo, pp. 33. AAS.

103. LEVY, URIAH PHILLIPS. 23d Congress, / ist Session. / [Doc. No.
240.] / Ho. of Reps. / Statue of Jefferson. / Letters / from / Lieuten-
ant Levy, of the United States Navy, / Presenting to Congress a

215

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

statue of Thomas Jefferson. / March 25, 1834. /Referred to the
Committee on the Library. / . . . / [Washington:] Gales & Seaton,
print. [1834]
8vo, p. i. LGP.

104. NORFOLK COUNTY, VIRGINIA, CITIZENS. 2$d Congress, / ISt SeS-

sion. / [364] / Memorial and Resolutions / of / the Citizens of Norfolk
County, Virginia, / Against the measures of the Executive in removing
the Deposites from / the Bank of the United States. / May 13, 1834. /
. . . / [Washington: 1834.]

8vo, pp. 6. John B. Levy signed the memorial as chairman of the
citizens' committee. LCP.

105. [PHILLIPS, ZALEGMAN.] 23d Congress, / ist Session. / [83] / Pro-
ceedings / of a / Meeting of Democratic Citizens of Philadelphia, / In
favor of the removal of the Public Deposites from the Bank of the /
United States. / February 10, 1834. /Referred to the Committee of
Finance, and ordered to be printed. / , . . / [Washington: 1834.]

8vo, pp. 5. The text is largely the preamble and resolutions of
Phillips, which the meeting unanimously adopted. LCP.

1 06. [RUNDALL, MARY ANN.] The /Juvenile Sacred History, / contain-
ing the / Principal Events / recorded in / The Old Testament, / with
an account of the Jewish Literature, / Manners, Customs and An-
tiquities; the Weights and Measures, and Nummary / Value of all the
Jewish Coins, / reduced to the American Standard: with an Ex-/
planation of the / Hebrew Names; / and Geographical Sketches of
the / Twelve Tribes, / accompanied with six maps; / and a set of
appropriate questions for / Examination of Students. / Third Edition
revised. / By / C. W. Bazeley, A.M. / Principal of the Brooklyn
Collegiate / Institute. / Brooklyn: / Printed for the Author; and sold
by William / Bigelow, 55 Fulton-street. / 1834.

I2mo, pp. 228, frontispiece and five maps and charts on yellow
paper. EWs.

107. UNITED STATES, CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 23d Con-

gress, /2d Session. / [Doc. No. 41.] /Ho. of Reps. / War Dept. /
216

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

David Cooke. / Report / of / the Secretary of War, / On the claim
of David Cooke. / December 27, 1834. / . . . / [Washington:] Gales &
Seaton, print. [1834]

8vo, pp. 5. Simon Gratz was attorney for one of the parties involved.
LCP.

1835

1 08. CAREY, EDWARD L., and HART, ABRAHAM. Trade List of Books, /
Published, and Offered for Sale to the Trade, by / E. L. Carey and
A. Hart, / Philadelphia. /January i, 1835. / . . . / [Philadelphia:
Carey and Hart, 1835.]

4to, broadside. EW2.

io8a. [GRATZ, JACOB.] Annual Report / of the / Managers / of the /
Union Canal Company / of / Pennsylvania, / to / The Stockholders. /
November 17, 1835. / Philadelphia: / Printed for R- p- Desilver. /

1835-
8vo, pp. n, (3). Signed by Gratz as president. LCP.

io8b. JUDAH, SAMUEL B. H. David and Uriah. /A Drama, /in five
acts; / founded on the exploits of the man after / God's own heart. /
(two-line quotation from Epictetus] / Philadelphia: / Published by the
author. / 1835.

I2mo, pp. 35. American Jewish Historical Society.

109. LEO-WOLF, WILLIAM (or WERNER). Remarks / on / The Abraca-
dabra / of the / Nineteenth Century; /or on / Dr. Samuel Hahne-
mann's / Homoeopathic Medicine, / with particular reference to /
Dr. Constantine Bering's / "Concise View of the Rise and Progress of
Homoeopathic Medicine," Philadelphia. 1833. / B7 William Leo-
Wolf, M.D. / [four-line quotation from Pope] /New-York: 1835. /Pub-
lished by Carey, Lea and Blanchard, in Philadelphia.

8vo, pp. 272. LCP.

no. [PORTER, DAVID.] Constantinople / and Its Environs. / In a Series
of Letters, / exhibiting / the actual state of the manners, customs, and

217

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

habits of/ the Turks, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, as modified / by
the policy of Sultan Mahmoud. / By an American, / long resident at
Constantinople. / In Two Volumes. / Vol. I (-II). / New-York: /
Published by Harper & Brothers, / No. 82 Cliff-Street. / 1835.
2 vols., i2mo, pp. 280; 323. LCP.

1836

in. HEINE, HEINRIGH. Letters / Auxiliary to the history of/ Modern
Polite Literature / in Germany. / By Heinrich Heine, / Translated
from the German, /By G. W. Haven. /Boston: /James Munroe &
Company. / 1836.

I2mo, pp. vi, 172. MW.

ma. [GRATZ, JACOB.] Annual Report /of/ The Managers / of the /
Union Canal Company / of Pennsylvania, / to / The Stockholders. /
November 15, 1836. / Philadelphia: / Printed by Charles Alexander, /
Athenian Buildings, Franklin Place. / 1836.

8vo, pp. 7, (3). Signed by Gratz as president. LCP,

112. [LEVY, NATHAN.] 24th Congress, / ist Session./ [Rep. No. 705.]
Ho. of Reps. / Nathan Levy. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 658.] /
May 31, 1836. /Mr. Cushman, from the Committee on Commerce,
made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Blair & Rives,
printers. [1836]

8vo, p. i . Concerning claim for money paid by Levy as American
Consul at St. Thomas in 1832. LCP.

1837

113. GATHERWOOD, FREDERICK. Description / of / A View of the City /
of /Jerusalem / and / the Surrounding Country, / Now Exhibiting /
at / The Panorama, Charles Street. / Painted by Robert Burford, /
from Drawings Taken in 1834, / by F. Catherwood, Architect. /
Boston: / Printed by Perkins and Marvin. / 1837.

8vo, pp. 12, folding plate. AAS.

114. A / Compendium / of /Jewish History, / exhibited hi the form
of a / Catechism, / designed / for the use of Sabbath Schools / Second

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

Edition, / Revised and Corrected. / Boston: / Abel Tompkins, / Uni-
versalist Sabbath School Depository / Cornhill. / 1837.
I2mo, pp. 50. HUG.

115. [LEVY, NATHAN.] 25th Congress, / sd Session. / [Rep. No. 87.] /
Ho. of Reps. / Nathan Levy. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 103.] /
December 22, 1837. /Mr. Cushman, from the Committee on Com-
merce, made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Thomas
Allen, print. [1837]
8vo, p. i. LCR

1838

1 1 6. FEUCHTWANGER, LEWIS. A / Treatise on Gems, / in reference to
their / Practical and Scientific Value; / A useful guide for the jewel-
ler, amateur, artist, lapidary, / mineralogist, and chemist. Accom-
panied by a de- / scription of the most interesting American / gems,
and ornamental and arch- / itectural materials. / By Dr. Lewis
Feuchtwanger, / Chemist and Mineralogist, Member of the New York
Lyceum of Natural History, and of the / Mineralogical Societies of
Jena, Altenburg, etc. etc. etc. / New- York: / Printed by A. Hanford. /

1838.
8vo, pp. 162. EW2.

117. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. Elements/of /Physics; /or, /Natural Philos-
ophy, / General and Medical: / written for / universal use, / in /
Plain or Non-Technical Language; / and containing / new disquisi-
tions and practical suggestions. / In Two Volumes. / Vol. I. /By
Neil Arnott, M.D., / of the Royal College of Physicians. / Fourth
American, from the Fifth English Edition, / With Additions, / By
Isaac Hays, M.D. / Philadelphia: / Lea & Blanchard, / Successors to
Carey & Co. / 1838.

8vo, pp. 592. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

1839

1 1 8. JUDAH, SAMUEL, and PARKER, SAMUEL w. Speeches / of Samuel
Judah, of Knox, / and S. W. Parker, of Fayette Counties, / in answer

219

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

to the charge of / Amos Lane, of Dearborn County, / that the internal
improvement system was a Democratic Whig measure. [1839?]
8vo, pp. 14. Indiana State Library.

119. [LEVY, E.] The Republican Bank: / being / An Essay /on the
Present System of / Banking: / showing its evil tendency and develop-
ing an entire- / ly new method of establishing a currency, / which will
not be at all subject / to the various ill effects / of our present / paper
money. /By /A Citizen of Indiana. / Price 25 Cts. / Madison: /
Printed by W. H. Webb — Banner Office. / 1839.

8vo, pp. 24, with wrappers. This was included in error; it is Rosen-
bach 448. Indiana State Library.

120. [LEVY, MOSES E.] 25th Congress, / 3d Session. / Rep. No. 236. /
Ho. of Reps. / Moses E. Levy. /January 26, 1839. / Read, and laid
upon the table. / Mr. Saltonstall, from the Committee of Claims, sub-
mitted the fol- / lowing / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Thomas Al-
len, print. [1839]

8vo, pp. 2. Concerning the claim of Levy for the destruction of his
property by United States troops during the Indian War in Florida.
LCP.

121. [LEVY, NATHAN.] 25th Congress, / 3d Session. / Rep. No. 238. /
Ho. of Reps. / Nathan Levy. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 1099.] /
February 6, 1839. / Mr. Cushman, from the Committee on Commerce,
made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Thomas Allen,
print. [1839]

8vo, p. i. LCP.

1840

122. BENJAMIN, JUDAH P., and SLIDELL, THOMAS. Digest / of the/

Reported Decisions / of the / Superior Court of the Late Territory of /
Orleans, / and of the Supreme Court / of the / State of Louisiana. /
Originally compiled by /J. P. Benjamin and T. Slidell, Attorneys at
Law, / and now revised and enlarged by / Thomas Slidell. / New
Orleans: / E.Johns & Co., Stationers' Hall: / 1840.
8vo, pp. xii, 758. Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

220

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

123. CHARLESTON, CITIZENS. Proceedings / of a /Public Meeting of
the Citizens of Charleston, / held at the City Hall, / on the 28th
August, 1840; / in relation to the / Persecution of the Jews / in the
East. / Also, / the proceedings of a meeting / of the / Israelites of
Charleston, / convened at the / Hall of the Hebrew Orphan Society, /
on the following evening, / in reference to the same subject. / Charles-
ton: / Hayden & Burke, Printers, 3 Gillon-Street. / 1840.

8vo, pp. 32. HUG.

124. [COHEN, JACOB.] 26th Congress, / ist Session. /Rep. No. 233. /
Ho. of Reps. / Heirs of Jacob Cohen. / March 5, 1840. / Laid on the
table. / Mr. Ely, from the Committee on Revolutionary Claims, made
the fol- / lowing / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Blair & Rives,
Printers. [1840]

8vo, p. i. Rejection of the claim of the heirs of Jacob Cohen of
Virginia for five years5 pay as captain of cavalry in the Continental
Army. LCP.

125. [LEVY, NATHAN.] 26th Congress, / ist Session. / Rep. No. 72. /
Ho. of Reps. / Nathan Levy. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 59.] /
March 3, 1840: /Mr. Toland, from the Committee on Commerce,
made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Blair & Rives,
printers. [1840]

8vo, pp. 2. Ordering refund to Nathan Levy, of Boston, of payment
made to seamen of disabled vessel. LCP.

126. M'GAUGHEY, EDWARD, PARKER, SAMUEL w., and JUDAH, SAMUEL.
Speeches / of / Edward M'Gaughey, of Putnam, Samuel W. Parker,
of/ Fayette and Samuel Judah of Knox. / [Indianapolis: 1840?]

8vo, pp. 23. Indiana State Library.

127, PEDCOTTO, SIMHA c. Elementary Introduction / to the / Scrip-
tures, / for the / Use of Hebrew Children. / By / Simha C. Peixotto. /
[two-line quotation from Proverbs] / Philadelphia: / Printed by Haswell,
Barrington, and Haswell. / 5600 [1840].

i2mo, pp. 196. EW2.

221

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

I27a. PHILLIPS, PHILIP. Digest of Cases / decided and reported in / the
Supreme Court of the State of Alabama, /from/ ist Alabama Re-
ports to yth Porter inclusive; / with the / Rules of Court and Prac-
tice, / and / a Table of Titles and Cases; to which are appended, /
the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution of the United /
States; the Act to enable the People of Alabama to form / a Constitu-
tion and State Government, etc.; the / Constitution of the State of
Alabama; / and the Fee Bill established / by Law. / By P. Phillips, /
Counsellor at Law. / [3-line quotation^ / Mobile: / Printed and Pub-
lished by R. R. Dade and J. S. Kellogg & Co. / 1840.

8vo, pp. xlviii, 9-350. Circuit Court Library, Birmingham, Alabama.

128. UNITED STATES, CONGRESS, SENATE. 26th CongTCSS, / ISt Session. /

[Senate.] / [437] / In Senate of the United States. / April 28, 1840. /
Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Hubbard made the
following / Report: / The Committee of Claims, to whom was referred
the memorial of Susan / Murphy, report: / . . . / [Washington:] Blair
& Rives, printers. [1840]
8vo, pp. 7. David Levy was attorney for the memorialist. LCP.

1841

129. HACKENBURG, JUDAH L., ALLEN, LEWIS, LEESER, ISAAC, ET AL.

Circular. / Philadelphia, Ab, 5601, July, 1841. /To the President
and Members of Congregation at / the

Israelites of Philadelphia, send greeting. / Brethren! /.../!• L.
Hackenburg, / Lewis Allen, / Isaac Leeser, / Simon Elfelt, / Mayer
Arnold, / Henry Cohen, /Jacob Ulman. / Committee. [Philadelphia:
1841.]

Folio, pp. 3. A call for a union of the Hebrew congregations of the
United States. EW2.

130. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. Elements/of /Physics; /or, /Natural Philos-
ophy, / General and Medical: / written for / universal use, / in /
plain or non-technical language; / and containing / new disquisitions
and practical suggestions. / Comprised in Five Parts, ist, Somatology,
Statics, / and Dynamics. / 2nd, Mechanics. / 3rd, Pneumatics, Hy-
draulics, and / Acoustics. / 4th, Heat and Light. / 5th, Animal and

222

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

Medical Physics. / Complete in One Volume. / By Neil Arnott,
M.D., / of the Royal College of Physicians. / A Nefa Edition, revised
and corrected from the last English Edition, / With Additions, / By
Isaac Hays, M.D., / Philadelphia: / Lea & Blanchard. / 1841.
I2mo, pp. 520, [16]. University of Pennsylvania.

131. [JUDAH, SAMUEL.] State of New- York. / No. 78. / In Assembly, /
January 27, 1841. / Communication / From the Governor, trans-
mitting a resolution of the / General Assembly of Indiana, relative to
an / amendment to the Constitution of the United / States. / . . . /
[Albany: 1841.]

8vo, pp. 2. Signed by Samuel Judah as Speaker of the Indiana House.
HUG.

132. . / 26th Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [197] /Reso-
lutions / of / the General Assembly of Indiana, / in relation / To the
completion of the Cumberland Road. / February 17, 1841. / . . . /
[Washington:] Blair & Rives, printers. [1841]

8vo, pp. 4. One of the resolutions was signed by Judah as Speaker of
the Indiana House. LCP.

133. . / 26th Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [207] / Reso-
lutions / of / the General Assembly of Indiana, / in relation / To the
distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. / February
22, 1841. / . . . / [Washington:] Blair & Rives, printers. [1841]

8vo, pp. 3. One of the resolutions was signed by Judah as Speaker
of the Indiana House. LCP.

134. . 26th Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [208] / Reso-
lution / of / The General Assembly of Indiana, / on the subject / Of
raising revenue by duties on foreign goods. / February 22, 1841.7
. . . / [Washington:] Blair & Rives, printers. [1841]
8vo, p. i . Signed by Judah as Speaker of the Indiana House. LCP.

135- • s6th Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [209] / Resolu-
tions / of / the General Assembly of Indiana, / in relation / To the
bill "to establish a permanent prospective pre-emption system in/
favor of settlers on the public lands who shall inhabit and cultivate

223

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

the /same, and raise a log-cabin thereon." / February 22, 1841.7
• • • / [Washington:] Blair & Rives, printers. [1841]

8vo, p. i. Signed by Judah as Speaker of the Indiana House. LCP,

1 36. LEVY, DAVID. Speech /of/ Mr. Levy, of Florida, / on his motion /
To postpone to the next session the consideration of the report and
reso- / lution of the Committee of Elections respecting his eligibility to
a seat / as Delegate. Delivered September 6, 1841. / . . . / [Washing-
ton: 1841.]

8vo, pp. 7. HUG.

137. • 27th Congress, / i st Session. / Res. No. i./Ho. of

Reps, / Seminole Indians. /July 29, 1841. /Read, laid upon the
table, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Levy submitted the following /
Resolutions. / . . . [Washington, 1841.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

jjjg, 9 1 g^th Congress, / ist Session. / Rep, No. 10. / Ho. of

Reps. / David Levy. / September 3, 1841. / Read, and laid upon the
table. / Mr. Halsted, from the Committee of Elections, submitted the
following / Report: / . . . [Washington: 1841.]

8vo, pp. 45. Concerning the right of David Levy (Yulee) to a seat
in the House of Representatives. EWa.

139. LIPMAN, HYMEN L. Diary, / for / 1842: / or / Daily Register, /
for the use of /private families, / and / Persons of Business: / con-
taining / a blank for every day hi the year, for the record / of events
that may be interesting, / either past or future. / Published yearly, /
By Hymen L. Lipman, / (successor to Samuel M. Stewart,) / Stationer
& Blank Book Binder, / No. 139 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia [1841]

i2mo, pp. 126. HUG.

140. [MORDECAI, ALFRED.] Ordnance Manual / for / The Use of the
Officers / of the / United States Army. / Washington: / J. and G. S.
Gideon, Printers. / 1841.

8vo, pp. xi, 359, and 15 plates. LCP.

141. . / 26th Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [229] / Doc-
uments / relating / To the improvements of the system of artillery. /

224

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

March 2, 1841. / Submitted by Mr. Benton, and ordered to be
printed. / . . . / [Washington: 1841.]

8vo, pp. in. Captain Alfred Mordecai was one of four Ordnance
officers who wrote the report. LCP.

1842

142. [ANLEY, CHARLOTTE.] Miriam; /or, /The Power of Truth. /A
Jewish Tale. / By the Author of "Influence." / A new Edition, Revised
and Improved, / with an / Introduction / by / Rev. John Todd, /
. . . / Philadelphia: / Griffith & Simon, 188 North Third Street, /
and / 384 North Second Street. / 1842.

I2mo, pp. 292. AAS.

143. [COHEN, JACOB.] 27th Congress, / 2d Session. / Rep. No. 371. /
Ho. of Reps. / Representatives of Jacob Cohen. / March 8, 1842. /
Laid upon the table. / Mr. Hall, from the Committee on Revolu-
tionary Claims, made the following adverse / Report: / . . . [Washing-
ton, 1842.]

8vo, pp. 3. LCP.

144. [JUDAH, SAMUEL BENJAMIN HALBERT.] Spirit /of/ Fanaticism: /
A / Poetical Rhapsody. / [four-line quotation] / New- York: / Published
at the "Beacon" Office, / 94 Roosevelt-Street. / 1842.

I2mo, pp. 12. EW2.

145. [LEVY, DAVID.] 27th Congress, /2d Session. / Rep. No. 450. /
Ho. of Reps. / David Levy. / March 15, 1842, / Read, and laid upon
the table. / Mr. Barton, from the Committee of Elections, to which
the subject had / been referred, submitted the following / Report: /
. . . / [Washington, 1842.]

8vo, pp. 154, 6, 3. Concerning the right of David Levy (Yulee) of
Florida to his seat in the House of Representatives. EW2.

j^S, . / 27th Congress, / 3d Session. / Doc. No. 15. / Ho. of

Reps. / Florida Contested Election. / December 14, 1842. / Laid upon
the table. / . , . [Washington, 1842.]
8vo, pp. 13. LCP.

225

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

147. [LEVY, SARAH.] 27th Congress, / sd Session. / [Senate.] / [44] /
In the Senate of the United States. /January n, 1842. / Ordered to
be printed. / Mr. Smith, of Indiana, submitted the following / Re-
port: / The Committee on Public Lands, to whom were referred the
petition and papers of Sarah Levy, of Camden, South Carolina,
report: / . . , / [Washington:] Thomas Allen, print. [1842]

8vo, p. i. Concerning the claim of Sarah Levy to the right of pre-
emption of land in Mississippi occupied and cultivated by her son,
CoL Chapman Levy. LCP.

148. [LYON, ABRAHAM,] 27th Congress, / 2d Session. / Rep. No. 257. /
Ho. of Reps. / Abraham Lyon. / February 26, 1842. / Read, and laid
upon the table. / Mr. Jones, of Maryland, from the Committee on
Invalid Pensions, submitted the following / Report: / . . . / [Washing-
ton: 1842.]

8vo, p. i. Turning down the petition of Abraham Lyon, of Spring-
field, Clark County, Ohio, for an increase of pension because of wounds
suffered in military service. LCP.

149. LYONS, MORDEGAI, and HART, THOMAS. Catalogue / of a Rare and
Valuable Collection / of fine modern and old / Engravings, / the
various masters of the celebrated / schools, / Rare Etchings & Original
Drawings, / and / Curious & Rare Old Works, Illustrated. / The
greater part of this collection has been / lately collected in Europe. /
Lyons & Hart, Auctioneers, / will sell on / Friday and Saturday
Evenings, Oct. 7th and 8th, / at seven o'clock, / at their / Public
Sale Rooms, / N. E. Corner of Chesnut and Fourth Streets. — Up
Stairs, / . . . / "United States" Job Printing Office, Ledger Bulling
[sic], Philad'a [1842].

8vo, pp. 24. LCP.

1 50. . Catalogue / of a / very valuable collection / of old line /

Engravings, Etchings, / Fac-similes, Mezzotintos, Drawings, / and /
Books on the Arts, / collected during many years, for the pleasure and /
improvement of the owner. / Lyons & Hart, Auctioneers, / will sell
on /Friday Evening, 3oth inst., & Saturday, Oct. ist, / at seven
o'clock, / at their / Public Sale Rooms, / N. E. Corner of Chesnut
226

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

and Fourth Streets. — Up Stairs. / . . . / "United States" Job Printing
Office, Ledger Builing [sic], Philad'a [1842].
8vo, pp. 16. LCP.

1843

151. BISHOP, MARGARET L. An Answer / to the / Prevalent Inquiry/
"What Strange Doctrine is This?" / In Three Chapters. / By Mar-
garet L. Bishop, / Native of Scotland. / Member of the Society sur-
named Israelites. / New York: / Printed at the Herald Printing
Establishment, 97 Nassau Street / 1843.

8vo, pp. 16. HUG.

i52a. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. A / Treatise / on the / Diseases of the Eye. /
By / W. Lawrence, F. R. S. / [four lines of titles] / From the last
London Edition, / with numerous additions, and / Sixty-Seven Illus-
trations. / By Isaac Hays, M.D., / Surgeon to Will's Hospital, Phy-
sician to the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum, / Member of the American
Philosophical Society, &c., &c., &c. / Philadelphia: / Lea & Blan-
chard. / 1843.

8vo, pp. 778. EW2.

152. PYKE, E. Scriptural Questions. / for the / Use of Sunday Schools /
for / the Instruction of Israelites. / Compiled / by E. Pyke. / Phila-
delphia: / Printed by L. R. Bailey, 26 North Fifth Street. / 1843.

I2mo, pp. 1 8. American Jewish Historical Society.

153. TENTLER, AARON A. A / New System / for / Measuring and
Gutting / Ladies' Dresses. / Cloaks, Collars, Capes, Yokes, &c. / with
an / Arithmetical Table, / For which the Author received a Patent
from the United States. / By Aaron A. Tentler. / New- York: / Robert
Craighead, Printer, 112 Fulton Street, / 1843.

I2mo, pp. 1 8. Copyrighted hi Philadelphia hi 1842. EW2.

1844

154. [CARDOZA, SARAH.] 28th Congress, / ist Session, / [Senate.] /
[327] / In Senate of the United States. / May 6, 1844. / Submitted,

227

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Bates made the following / Report: /
. . . [Washington, 1844.]

8vo, p. i . Denying the petition of Sarah Gardoza for the increase
of her pension. LCP.

155. GRESSON, WARDER. Jerusalem / the / Centre and Joy /of /The
Whole Earth / and / The Jew / The Recipient of the Glory of God /
[six lines of quotations] / By Warder Cresson / Philadelphia: /Jesper
Harding, Printer / 1844

I2mo, pp. in. Abraham Karp.

156. MORDEGAI, ALFRED, Third Report / of / Meteorological Observa-
tions, / made at / Frankford Arsenal, near Philadelphia. / By Captain
Alfred Mordecai, / of the United States Ordnance Department. / 1844,

4to, pp. 8. Copy formerly in possession of Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach,
now unlocated.

1845

157. AMERICAN JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY. Circular, / of the Amer-
ican Jewish Publication Society, to the Friends of Jewish Literature. /
. . . / Philadelphia, / Deer. 10, 1845. / Kislev 1 1, 5606. / Isaac Leeser, /
Corresponding Secretary of the American Jewish Publication Society.
[Philadelphia: 1845]

4to, broadside. Dropsie College.

158. . Constitution / and / By-Laws / of the / American Jew-
ish Publication / Society. / (Founded on the gth of Heshvan, 5606.) /
Adopted at Philadelphia, / on Sunday, November 30, 1845, Kislev i,
5606. / Philadelphia: / C. Sherman, Printer. / 5606 [1845].
i2mo, pp. ii. EW2.

159. CASTANIS, c. PLATO. A / Love Tale. / The / Jewish Maiden of
Scio's Citadel, / or / The Eastern Star, / and / The Albanian Chief. /
By / C. Plato Castanis, / of Scio, Greece. / Author of An Essay on
Ancient and Modern Greek Languages; / Interpretations of the
Attributes of the Principal Fabulous Deities, / and The Exile of
Scio. / Second Edition. / Copy-right secured. / Philergomathia: /
1845. / Price, 12^ Cents.
8vo, pp. 24, (i). HUG.

228

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

160. A / Compendium / of /Jewish History. / Boston: / A. Tompkins,
38 Cornhill. / 1845.

I2mo, pp. 50. HUG.

161. MORDECAI, ALFRED. Report / of / Experiments on Gunpowder, /
made at / Washington Arsenal, / in / 1843 and 1844. / By / Captain
Alfred Mordecai, / of the Ordnance Department. / Washington: /
Printed by J. and G. S. Gideon, / 1845.

8vo, pp. viii, 328, and six plates. EWa.

1846

162. [DE LEON, M. H.] 29th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / [236] /
In Senate of the United States. / March 18, 1846. / Submitted, and
ordered to be printed. / Mr. Ashley made the following / Report: /
• • • / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print. [1846]

8vo, p. i . Approving the memorial of M. H. De Leon, as executor of
Thomas Cooper, for reimbursement of a fine imposed under the
Sedition Act of 1798. LCP.

163. [ETTING, HENRY.] 2gth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
[110] /In Senate of the United States. / February 3, 1846. /Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Fairfield made the following /
Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print. [1846]

8vo, p. i. Approving claim of Henry Etting for legal expenses con-
nected with suit brought by him for damages incurred while he was
purser in the United States Navy at Pensacola in 1838. LCP,

164. HAYS, ISAAC, ed< A / Dictionary / of / Terms Used in Medicine /
and the Collateral Sciences. / By / Richard D. Hoblyn, A. M. Oxon. /
First American, from the Second London, Edition. / Revised, with
numerous additions, / By Isaac Hays, M.D., / Editor of the American
Journal of the Medical Sciences, / Philadelphia: / Lea & Blanchard. /

1846.

I2mo, pp. 402 [8]. University of Pennsylvania.

165. LEVIN, LEWIS CHARLES, 2gth Congress, / ist Session. / Rep. No.
253. / Ho. of Reps. / Dry Dock. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 2 16 .] /
February 12, 1846. / Mr. Levin, from the Committee on Commerce,

229

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss,
print. [1846].
8vo, pp. 4. LCP.

166. . Speech /of/ Hon. L. C. Levin, of Pennsylvania, / on

the / Oregon Question. / In the House of Representatives, January 9,
1846— . . . / [Washington, 1846]
8vo, pp. 8. LCP.

167. . Speech / of / Mr. L. C. Levin, of Pennsylvania, / on

the bill to raise / A Regiment of Mounted Riflemen. / Delivered in
the House of Representatives of the United States, April 7, 1846. /
Washington: / J. & G. S. Gideon, Printers. / 1846.
8vo, pp. 1 6. LCP.

1 68. NEW YORK, GEMILETH CHESED. State of New-York. / No. 62. /
In Assembly, /January 22, 1846. / Introduced on notice by Mr.
Stevenson, read twice, and referred to the / committee on charitable
and religious societies; reported from said committee, / and committed
to the committee of the whole. / An Act / To incorporate the Gemileth
Chesed or Hebrew Mu- / tual Benefit Society of the city of New-
York. / . . . / [Albany: 1846]
Folio, pp. 2. HUG.

169. , HEBREW ASSISTANCE SOCIETY. State of New-York. / No.

243. / In Assembly, / February 24, 1846. / Reported by Mr. Fleet,
from the committee on charitable and religious socie- / ties — read
twice, and committed to the committee of the whole. / An Act / For
the incorporation of the New-York Hebrew As- / sistance Society, for
the relief of Widows and Or- / phans, / . . . / [Albany: 1846.]
Folio, pp. 2. HUG.

170. [PAGE, BEN.] The /Doctrines /of / Spinoza and Swedenborg/
Identified; / so far as they claim a scientific ground. / In / four
letters. /By ***/ United States Army. /Boston: /Published by
Munroe and Francis. / New York: / Charles S. Francis & Co. /
1846.
8vo, pp. 36. HUG.

230

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 1851
171. PHILADELPHIA, GERMAN HEBREW FEMALE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.

Hebrew Ball, / in aid of the / German / Hebrew Female Benevolent
Society, / at the / Chinese Museum, Upper Saloon, / with Bazaar
Fixtures, / Wednesday Evening, January 28, 1846. / . . . [Philadel-
phia, 1846.]

8vo, broadside. Invitation, printed in gold. EWa.

172. RICHMOND, BETH SHALOME. "Dl^P H^ tPHp ^Plp" / To OUr Con-

tributor's and Israelitish Brethren of the State of Virginia: / Brethren: /
The period is near at hand when we shall be called upon to elect a /
Hazan of this Congregation, . . . /Jacob A. Levy, / Henry Hyman, /
Jacob Ezekiel. / Trustees. / Richmond, August loth, 1846. / Mena-
chem 1 8th, 5606. / [Richmond: 1846.]

4to, broadside. HUG (Ezekiel Scrapbook).

173. SUE, EUGENE. Der ewige Jude / von / Eugen Sue. / Erste ameri-
kanisch-deutsche Ausgabe. / [four-line quotation^ / Erster [-Zweiter]
Band. / Philadelphia, 1846. / Herausgegeben von L. A. Wollenweber
No. 277 Nord Dritte Strasse.

2 vols., 8vo, pp. v. 513; 576, (i). EW2.

174. YULEE, DAVID [LEVY], sgth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
[126] /In Senate of the United States. / February n, 1846. /Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 81.] /The Committee on Pri-
vate Land Claims, to whom was referred the peti- / tion of Benja-
min Ballard, report: / . . . / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print.
[1846]

8vo, p. i.LCP.

175- - • 2gth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / [240] / In Sen-
ate of the United States. / March 23, 1846. / Submitted, and ordered
to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following / Report: / [To ac-
company bill S. No. 129.] / The Committee on Private Land Claims,
to whom was referred the peti- / tion of Robert Barclay, of the
State of Missouri, report: / . . . [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print.
[1846]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

231

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

176. . agth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate] . / [328] / In Sen-
ate of the United States. / May 4, 1846. / Ordered to be 'printed. /
Mr. Yulee submitted the following / Report: / [To accompany bill S.
No. 173.] /The Committee on Private Land Claims, to whom was
referred the peti- / tion of William Pumphrey, report: / . . . / [Wash-
ington:] Ritchie & Heiss, printers. [1846]
8vo, pp. 5. LCP.

1847

177. [DE LEON, M. H.] 2gth Congress, / ad Session. / [Senate.] / [180] /
In Senate of the United States. / February 25, 1847. / Submitted,
and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Ashley made the following / Report: /
, . . / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print. [1847]

8vo, p. i . Concerning the memorial of M. H. De Leon. LCP,

178. HAMMOND, R. p. Head Quarters. / Tampico Troops. / Tampico,
Mexico, January ist. 1847. / Orders. N? 15. / 1. For the purpose of
regulating the collection and disbursement of the pu- / blic revenue
of Tampico, the following gentlemen to wit, Jose Maria Boeta, / Juan
Haro, Juan G. Castilla, Henry Levi and P. B. Taylor will constitute
a / municipal committee .../.,./ By order of Brig. Genl. Shields, /
R. P. Hammond. / Assist. Adjt. Genl. / . . . [Tampico, Mexico: 1847.]

Folio, pp. 2. With Spanish translation. HUG.

179. HAYS, ISAAC, ed. The Principles and Practice /of Ophthalmic
Medicine and Surgery. / By / T, Wharton Jones, FJR.S., / . . . with
one hundred and two illustrations. / Edited / By Isaac Hays, M.D., /
Surgeon to Wills Hospital, Etc. / Philadelphia: / Lea and Blanchard. /
1847.

i2mo, pp. xx, 509. MW.

1 80. . Report / Of the Committee appointed under the 6th

Resolution, adopted / by the National Medical Convention which
assembled hi New /York, in May, 1846. [cap. title] [Philadelphia,
1847.]

8vo, pp. 12. Isaac Hays was a member of this committee to draw
up a code of Medical Ethics. LCP.

232

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 1851

181. . A Treatise /on the /Diseases of the Eye. /By/ W.

Lawrence, F.R.S., / [four lines of titles] / A New Edition. / Edited with
Numerous Additions, and / One Hundred and Seventy-Six Illustra-
tions, / By Isaac Hays, M.D., / Surgeon to Wills' Hospital; Physician
to the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum; / Member of the American
Philosophical Society; Fellow of the / College of Physicians, etc. etc. /
Philadelphia: / Lea and Blanchard. / 1847.
8vo, pp. 859, 32. University of Pennsylvania.

182. TURNEY, HOPKINS L. Remarks / of / Hon. H. L. Turney, of Ten-
nessee, / on the resolutions to / Expel the Editors and Reporter of the
Washington / Union. / Delivered / In the Senate of the United States,
February 12, 1847. / Washington: / Printed at the Office of Blair and
Rives. / 1847.

8vo, pp. 8. The resolution had been offered by David Yulee. HUG.

183. YULEE, DAVID [LEVY]. 2Qth Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] /
[no] /Statement /of /Vessels in Distress at Key West, /from/
January i to December 31, 1846. / February 3, 1847. / Submitted to
the Senate by Mr, Yulee, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary,
and ordered / to be printed. . . . / Washington: / Ritchie & Heiss,
Printers. / 1847.

8vo, pp. 5. LCP.

184. . 2gth Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate]. / [140] / In Sen-
ate of the United States. / February 8, 1847. / Submitted, and ordered
to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following / Report: / [To ac-
company bill S. No. 153.] /The Committee on Naval Affairs, to
whom were referred the petition and / documents of the late Andrew
D. Crosby, a purser in the navy of the / United States, report: /
. . . / [Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, print. [1847]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

185. . 2gth Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / [141] / In Sen-
ate of the United States. / February 8, 1847. / Submitted, and or-
dered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following / Report: / [To
accompany bill S. No. 154.] / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to
whom were referred the petition and / documents of William A.

233

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Christian, a purser in the navy of the United / States, report: / . . . /
[Washington:] Ritchie & Heiss, printers. [1847]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

1848

1 86. BRUNETTI, . Description / of / the Model / of / Antient

Jerusalem, / Illustrative of / the Sacred Scriptures / and the / Writ-
ings of Josephus. / Boston: / N. Southard and Geo. Bliss. / 1848.

ismo, pp. 36, folding plate. AAS.

187. CORDOVA, JACOB DE. Houston, Texas, September 24, 1848. /
Sir: — / Many enquiries having been addressed to me within the
last six / months respecting Texas Lands and the liquidation of the /
Public Debt of Texas, .../.../ [Houston: 1848.]

8vo, pp. 15. LCP.

1 88. [HART, BENJAMIN F.] 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
Rep. Com., /No. 157. /In Senate of the United States. /May 18,
1848. / Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the
following / Report: / [To accompany S. No. 267.] / The Committee
on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the memo- / rial of the
representatives of Benjamin F. Hart, deceased, report: / . . . / [Wash-
ington: 1848.]

8vo, pp. 2. LCP,

189. [HAYS, ISAAC.] Code of Ethics / of the / American / Medical
Association. /Adopted May 1847. /Philadelphia: /T. K. and P. G.
Collins, Printers. / 1848.

8vo, pp. 30. Isaac Hays was chairman of the committee which
reported the code to the National Medical Convention. LCP (presenta-
tion copy from Hays to Dr. James Rush).

190. LEVIN, LEWIS CHARLES. Speech / of / Mr. L. C. Levin, of Penn., /
on / The Proposed Mission to Rome, / Delivered in the House of
Representatives of the United States, March 2, 1848. / . . . / [Washing-
ton:] J. & G. S. Gideon, Printers. [1848]

8vo. pp. 16. LCP.

234

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 1851

lglm m Thirtieth Congress — First Session. / Report No. 106. /

[To Accompany bill H. R. No. 96.] / House of Representatives. /
Floating Docks, Basin, and Railways. /January 19, 1848. / Mr. Levin,
from the Committee on Naval Affairs, made the fol- / lowing / Re-
port: / . . . / [Washington: 1848]
8vo, pp. 7. LCP.

192. [MORDECAI, M. c.] Thirtieth Congress — First Session. / Ex. Doc.
No. 51. / House of Representatives. / Mail from Charleston, Chagres,
&c. / Letter / from / The Postmaster General, / transmitting / A copy
of the contract made with M. C. Mordecai for taking the / United
States mail from Charleston to Havana, . . . / [Washington: 1848.]

8vo, pp. ii. Mordecai was resident in Charleston, S. C. LCP.

193. NEW YORK, GERMAN HEBREW BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. German

Hebrew Benev. Society. / Charity well applied, is a blessing as well to
him who bestows as to him / who receives. / . . . / Henry Kayser,
President, / Isaac Dittenhoefer, Vice-President, /Joseph Ochs, Treas-
urer, . . . / New York, October, 1848.

4to, broadside. Announcement of 5th anniversary dinner. Dropsie
College.

194. . Fifth / Anniversary Dinner, / of the German / Hebrew

Benevolent Society, /on Thursday Nov. gth, 1848 at the /Apollo
Saloons No. 410 B'way. / Dinner on Table at 6 o'clock.
i6mo, card. Dropsie College.

195. RICHMOND, HEBREW SCHOOL FUND. Second Annual / Hebrew
School Fund Ball, / in aid of the / Hebrew School Fund of the City
of Richmond. / The pleasure of your company is respectfully solicited /
at the Hebrew School Fund Ball, on Thursday Eve- / ning, February
loth, 1848, at the Exchange Hotel. / . . . / [Richmond: 1848.]

I2mo, p. i (invitation). HUG.

196. [RUSSELL, ESTHER.] Thirtieth Congress — First Session. / Report
No. 1 12. / (To accompany bill H. R. No. 101.) / House of Representa-
tives. / Esther Russell. /January 19, 1848. /Mr. Donnell, from the
Committee on Revolutionary Pensions, / made the following / Re-

235

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

port: / The Committee on Revolutionary Pensions, to whom was
referred / the petition of Esther Russell, praying for an increase of
pen- / sion, report: / . . . / (Washington: 1848.)

8vo, pp. 3. The Committee was willing to report a bill to increase
the pension of the widow of Philip M. Russell. LCP.

197. [SALOMON, HAYM M.] Thirtieth Congress — First Session, / Rep.
No. 504. / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 425.] / House of Representa-
tives. / H. M. Salomon. / April 26, 1848. / Mr. TaUmadge, from the
Committee on Revolutionary Claims, / made the following / Report: /
The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the /
memorial of Haym M. Salomon, legal representative of Haym/
Salomon, deceased, report: / . , . / [Washington: 1848.]

8vo, pp. 3. The Committee recommended the payment of Salomon's
claim by a grant of public lands. LCP.

!g8. . goth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 219. /In Senate of the United States. /July 28, 1848. /Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Bright made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was
referred the / memorial of H. M. Salomon, "for indemnification for
advances / of money made by his father during the revolutionary
war," have /had the same under consideration, and respectfully
report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, 1848.]

8vo, pp. 3, The Committee resolved that the claim was not sus-
tained for lack of evidence. LCP.

199. YULEE, DAVID [LEVY]. 3oth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
Miscellaneous. /No. 6. / In Senate of the United States. /January
12. 1848. /Read, and ordered to be printed. / Amendment. / Pro-
posed by Mr. Yulee to the resolutions submitted by Mr. Dickinson /
on the I4th December, 1847, viz: .../.../ [Washington:] Tippin &
Streeper, printers. [1848]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

200. . 3oth Congress, / xst Session. / [Senate.] / Miscellane-
ous. / No. 31. / In Senate of the United States. /January 18, 1848. /
Read, referred to the Committee on Finance, and ordered to be

236

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

printed. / Mr. Yulee submitted the following / Resolutions: / . . . /
[Washington:] Tippin & Streeper, printers. [1848].
8vo, p. i. LCP.

201. . 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 24. / In Senate of the United States. /January 12, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memo- / rial of William M. Glendy, respectfully report: / . . . / [Wash-
ington: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

202. . 3Oth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 146. /In Senate of the United States. / May 5, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred
the petition / of Francis Martin, report: / . , . / [Washington: Wendell
and Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

203. . 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 147. /In Senate of the United States. /May 5, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
me- / morial of John L. Worden, submit to the Senate the following
re- / port from the Fourth Auditor in regard to this claim, and ask to
be / discharged from its further consideration. / . . . / [Washington:
Wendell and Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, pp. 3. LCP.

204. . 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 148. /In Senate of the United States. / May 5, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
peti- / tion of John H. Williams, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell
and Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

237

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

205. , soth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 1 60. / In Senate of the United States. / May 29, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition / of John Baldwin, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and
Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, pp. 5. LCP.

206. . soth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 161. / In Senate of the United States. / May 29, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition / of John Ericsson, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and
Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, pp. 3. LCP.

207. . 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 162. / In Senate of the United States. / May 29, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition / of Ann Kelly, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and
Van Benthuysen, 1848,]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

208. . goth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 163. /In Senate of the United States. /May 29, 1848. /Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to which was referred
S> B. 214, / in addition to an act for the more equitable distribution
of the / navy pension fund, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and
Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

209. . 30th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 164. / In Senate of the United States. / May 29, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the

238

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

petition / of Abel Grigg, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and
Van Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

210. . soth Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 170. /In Senate of the United States. /June 14, 1848. /Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 10.] / The Committee on Naval
Affairs, to whom were referred the bill S. / 10, for the relief of John
R. Bryan, administrator of Isaac Gar- / retson, deceased, late a purser
in the United States navy, and the / petition of the administrator of
said Garretson, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and Van
Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, p, i. LCP.

2Ij4 . g0th Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 239. / In Senate of the United States. / August 10, 1848. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 348.] / The Committee on Naval
Affairs, to whom was referred the petition / of Joseph K. Boyd, one
of the petty officers of the ketch Intrepid, / under the command of
Captain Stephen Decatur, at the time of /the destruction of the
frigate Philadelphia, in the harbor of Tri- / poli, on the night of the
i6th February, 1804, report: / . . . / [Washington: Wendell and Van
Benthuysen, 1848.]
8vo, pp. 4. LCP.

1849

212. BUSGH, ISIDOR. Israels Herold. / Versuch / einer / Zeitschrift fur
Israeliten / in den / Vereinigten Staaten, / herausgegeben von / Isidor
Busch, / April, Mai, Juni 1849. / 5609. / New-York. / Gedruckt bei
J. Miihlhauser, 231 Division-Str. [1849]

8vo, pp. 96.

213. COHEN, B. w. Cohen's /New Orleans and Lafayette / Direc-
tory, / (Including Algiers, Gretna and McDonoghville), / for / 1849, /
Containing Twenty-one Thousand Names: /Also, /a Street and

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Levee Guide, / and Other Useful Information, / as will be seen by the
Table of Contents. / Price, Three Dollars / New Orleans: / Printed
by D. Davies & Son, / 60 Magazine Street. / 1849.
8vo, pp. 208, (7). AAS.

214. JUDAH, SAMUEL. The Vincennes University, /vs. /The State of
Indiana. / Brief / of / Mr. Samuel Judah, / for the University, / in
the / Supreme Court of Indiana, / in reply to the brief of Mr. Dunn,
&c., / November Term, 1849. / Indianapolis: / Printed by John D,
Defrees. / 1849.

8vo, pp. 13. Indiana State Library.

215. LEVIN, LEWIS CHARLES. Thirtieth Congress — Second Session./
Report No. 102. / [To accompany bill S. No. 348.] / House of Repre-
sentatives. / Mrs. Priscilla Decatur Twiggs. / February 14, 1849. /
Mr. Levin, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, made the fol- /
lowing / Report: / . . . / [Washington: 1849.]

8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

216. MONTAGUE, EDWARD p., ed. Narrative / of the late / Expedition to
the Dead Sea. / From a Diary / By one of the Party. / Edited by /
Edward P. Montague, / attached to the United States Expedition Ship
Supply. / With incidents and adventures from the time of the sailing /
of the expedition in November, 1847, ^11 the / return of the same in
December, 1848. / Illustrated with a Map of the Holy Land / hand-
somely colored. / Philadelphia: / Carey and Hart. / 1849.

I2mo, pp. xxiv, [i3]-336, folding map. EW2.

2i6a. MORDEGAI, ALFRED. Second Report / of / Experiments on Gun-
powder, / Made at / Washington Arsenal, / in / 1845, '47, and '48. /
By / Brevet Major Alfred Mordecai, / of the Ordnance Department. /
Washington: / Printed by J. and G. S. Gideon. / 1849.
8vo, pp. (4), 71, and two plates. EW2.

217. YULEE, DAVID [LEVY] . 3oth Congress, / sd Session. / [Senate.] /
Rep. Com., /No. 318. / In Senate of the United States. / February
22, 1849. / Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made
the following / Report: / [To accompany bill H. R. No. 507.] / The
Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the bill / (H. R.

240

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAIC A PRINTED BEFORE 185!

No. 507) for the relief of William Tee, of Portsmouth, / Virginia,
report: / . . . / [Washington: 1849,]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

218. . soth Congress, / ad Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 319. / In Senate of the United States. / February 22, 1849. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memo- / rial of the heirs of William Flannigan and William Parsons, /
respectfully report: / . . . / [Washington: 1849.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

219. , 3oth Congress, / 2d Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com., /

No. 320. / In Senate of the United States. / February 23, 1849.7
Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the follow-
ing / Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was re-
ferred the petition / of James Colburn, respectfully report: / . . . /
[Washington: 1849.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

1850

220. AGUILAR, GRACE. The Vale of Cedars; / or, / The Martyr. / By
Grace Aguilar, / Author of "Home Influence," "Woman's Friend-
ship," etc. / [two-line quotation from Byron] / New- York: / D. Appleton
& Company, 200 Broadway. / Philadelphia: / Geo. S. Appleton, 164
Chesnut-St. / 1850.

i2mo, pp. 256, (8). EW2.

221. CLEMEN, ROBERT. Geschichte / der / Inquisition in Spanien /
von / Robert Clemen. / Erster Band. / Columbus, Ohio. / Gedruckt
bei Scott u. Bascom. / 1850.

8vo, pp. xvi, 400. Three volumes in one, continuous pagination.
MW.

22 1 a. [HAYS, ISAAC.] Code of Ethics /of the / American / Medical
Association, / Adopted May, 1847. /Concord: /Printed by Asa
McFarland. / 1850.
I2mo, pp. 15. EW2.

241

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

222. LEVIN, LEWIS CHARLES. 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / Rep. No.
440. /Ho. of Reps. /Joseph Radcliff. / [To accompany bill H, R.
No. 3 70.] /August i, 1850. /Mr. Levin, from the Committee on
Naval Affairs, made the following / Report: / . . . / [Washington:
1850.]

8vo, pp. 4. LCP.

223. LIPMAN, HYMEN L. Catalogue / of the stock of fine / Stationery, /
&c., &c., / to be sold at public sale, / On Tuesday Morning, the
29th January, 1850, / at 10 o'clock precisely, / at the Store of Mr.
Hymen L. Lipman, / No. 139 Chesnut Street, /West of Delaware
Fourth St., Philadelphia / [seven lines] / C. J. Wolpert & Co., Auct'rs. /
Philadelphia: / United States Book and Job Printing Office, Ledger
Building. / 1850.

8vo, pp. 28. AAS.

224. [MORDECAI, ALFRED.] The / Ordnance Manual / for / The Use of
the Officers / of the / United States Army. / Second Edition. /
Washington: / Gideon & Co., Printers. / 1850.

8vo, pp. xxiv, 475, and 19 plates. Compiled by Captain Alfred
Mordecai. LCP.

225. NEW ORLEANS, NEFUTSOTH JEHUDAH. Order of Service / at the /
Consecration /of the / Synagogue Nefutsoth Jehudah / of / New-
Orleans, / on / Tuesday, May 1 4th, 1850. [5610] /New Orleans:/
Joseph Cohn, Printer, / 31 Poydras Street. / 1850.

I2mo, pp. 8. MW.

226. NEW YORK, HEBREW BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. New York, October

1 5th, 1850. / Sir, / We have the pleasure to inform you that agreeably
to the provisions of / our Constitution and By-Laws, our Society will
celebrate its Twenty-ninth / Anniversary, at the Chinese Rooms, on
Thursday Evening, November the 7th, / . . . / M. M. Noah, President,
109 Bank-st., /H. Aronson, Vice President, 79 William-st., / John
Levy, Treasurer, 134 William-st., / . . .

4to, broadside. Announcing plans for the establishment of a Jewish
Hospital. Dropsie College.

242

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

227. [SALOMON, HAYM M.] 3ist Congress-, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
Rep. Com. / No. 177. / In Senate of the United States. / August 9,
1850. / Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Walker made the
following / Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 310.] /The Com-
mittee on Revolutionary Claims, to whom was referred the me- /
morial of H. M. Salomon, for indemnification for advances of money /
made by his father during the revolutionary war ..../.../ [Wash-
ington: 1850.]

8vo, pp. 7. LCP.

228. YULEE, DAVID [LEVY.] 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] /
Rep. Com. / No. 18. / In Senate of the United States. /January 28,
1850. / Submitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the
following / Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was
referred the memorial of / George Harvy, report: / . . . / [Washington:
1850.]

8vo, p. i. LCP.

229. . 3 ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 54. / In Senate of the United States. / February 15, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed, / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 1 13.] / The Committee on Naval
Affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of /John Crosby, admin-
istrator of Andrew D. Crosby, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

230. . 3 ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 55. / In Senate of the United States. / February 15, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memorial of / William A, Christian, report: / . . . / [Washington:
1850.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

231. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 57. / In Senate of the United States. / February 18, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr, Yulee made the following /

243

EDWIN WOLF 2ND

Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memorial of /John Peirce, jr., report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

232. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 58. / In Senate of the United States. / February 18, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memorial of/ Charles Coburn, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, p. i. LCP.

233. . 31 st Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 59. / In Senate of the United States. / February 18, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition of/ Wm. D. Aiken and Julia his wife, report: / . . . / [Wash-
ington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 3. LCP.

234. . 3 ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 60. / In Senate of the United States. / February 18, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / [To accompany bill S. No. 1 18.] / The Committee on Naval
Affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of /James McMcIntosh
[sic], report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 5. LCP.

235- • 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 66. / In Senate of the United States. / February 21, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom were referred
the documents in / relation to the claim of Purser Francis B. Stockton
for the allowance / of expenses incurred in going to London by order
of his commanding / officer, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 4. LCP.

236. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 67. / In Senate of the United States. / February 21, 1850. / Sub-

244

UNRECORDED AMERICAN JUDAICA PRINTED BEFORE 185!

mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom were referred
certain docu- / ments, in relation to the claim of Purser Francis B.
Stockton for the / allowance of expenses of a ball given on board the
United States frigate / St. Lawrence, report: / . , . / [Washington:
1850.]
8vo, pp. 4. LCP.

237. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 68. / In Senate of the United States. / February 21, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition of / William H. Burns, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

238. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 69. / In Senate of the United States. / February 21, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
memorial of / Margaret Carmick, widow of Major Carmick, late of the
United States / marine corps, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, pp. 2. LCP.

239. . 3ist Congress, / ist Session. / [Senate.] / Rep. Com. /

No. 74. / In Senate of the United States. / February 25, 1850. / Sub-
mitted, and ordered to be printed. / Mr. Yulee made the following /
Report: / The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the
petition of /John S. Van Dyke, report: / . . . / [Washington: 1850.]
8vo, p. I. LCP.

245

The Motivation of the German Jewish
Emigration to America in
the Post-Mendelssohnian Era

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

X*EW are the sources in either German Jewish or
American Jewish historiography to explain why, during the
two decades following the Napoleonic wars, young Jews em-
igrated from Germany in considerable numbers, despite the
fact that for German Jewry these two decades constituted
a period of hitherto unprecedented spiritual, cultural, and
economic development. In its eagerness to throw light on the
problems of emancipation and assimilation characteristic of
that period, or to describe the conflict between Orthodoxy and
Reform, German Jewish historiography has paid scant attention
to the question of emigration. The emigrant undertone was
drowned out by the loud clamor of the speeches delivered at
that time in the assemblies (Standeversammlungeri) of the various
states or in the rabbinical synods.

The emigrants themselves, from whom we have an array of
autobiographies and memoirs, left only meager accounts of
their youth in Germany.1 Rarely did they go beyond a brief

Dr. Selma Stern-Taeubler, Archivist Emeritus of the American Jewish Archives,

is the most distinguished living historian of German Jewry and a novelist of sensitive

perception.

1 Jacob Rader Marcus, Memoirs of American Jews: 1775-1865, 3 vols. (Philadelphia,

1955).

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

description of their native town, their family life, their religious
and secular education, and their occupation. Moreover, they
wrote their memoirs when they were old men, completely
rooted in the New World. Filled with the desire to render to
themselves and their children an account of their eventful and
successful, often adventurous lives, they were too harassed by
the abundance of changing scenes to find time for critical
introspection and self-examination, or even to ponder what
spiritual and moral forces had at one time shaped them.

Only one man, the son of Herman Gone, the founder of the
Gone Mill in Greensboro, N. C., in a biography describing his
father's lifework, has spoken of the "vitalizing heritage" which
the elder Gone brought to America as an "intangible possession"
when, at the age of seventeen, he left his native Bavaria (1846). a
This spiritual heritage consisted of a single letter which a close
relative handed to the young emigrant. The letter exhorted
Herman to lead a pure and pious life in the foreign land — an
exhortation reminiscent of the moralistic tracts and ethical
wills of medieval sages, but written in a language that borrowed
its pathos from Schiller and its solemnity from Klopstock.

In view of this dearth of sources, we ourselves must attempt
to establish the links which connect North Carolina with
Bavaria, Pennsylvania with Hesse, California with Baden,
Mississippi with the Palatinate, and Maine with Posen, in
order to fathom the causes of emigration, and, simultaneously,
to discover that spiritual heritage which, as William Cone
maintained, decisively influenced the thoughts and actions of
his father.

At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
centuries, German Jewry had undergone an extreme political
and social revolution and a considerable change in its view of

• William Cone, "Biography of Herman Cone" (copy in the American Jewish
Archives).

248

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

the world. In the name of humanity, tolerance, and freedom of
thought and conscience, German Jewry had been promised the
restoration of its innate, inalienable, and sacred human rights.
In the name of reason and of the Enlightenment, the Jews had
been exposed to the spiritual ideas of their time, the most
brilliant and the richest which Germany ever produced. In
the name of the pedagogic gospel of Rousseau and Pestalozzi,
the portals of the secular schools and universities had been
opened to them. In the name of natural law, which had burst
the bounds of feudal society and dissolved the privileges of the
ruling classes, the cause of their civil improvement and the
termination of their separate existence had been espoused. 3

The French Revolution, which brought the ideas of the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment to their utmost culmination,
proclaimed as its fundamental principle the equality of all
men before the law. As a logical consequence, the Paris National
Assembly emancipated the Jews of France in September, 1791.
When the revolutionary armies included the areas on the left
bank of the Rhine as new departements in the new republic, and
when Napoleon founded the Confederation of the Rhine, the
Jews of these states, too, became citizens of the French Empire.
In the newly created Kingdom of Westphalia, their equality
was proclaimed; Frankfurt granted them civil rights in 1810;
the Hanseatic cities in 181 1 . 4 The Jews of the Grand Duchy of
Baden, also a member of the Confederation of the Rhine, were
similarly declared free hereditary citizens of the state (erbfreie

3 Wilhelm Dilthcy, "Das 18. Jahrhundert und die geschichtliche Welt," Gesammelte
Schriften, III (Leipzig, 1927); Friedrich Meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus

(Munich and Berlin, 1936); Karl Victor, Deutsches Dickten und Denken von der
Aufkldrung bis %um Realismus (Berlin, 1936).

*Ludwig Horwitz, Die Israeliten unter dem Konigreich WestfaUn (Berlin, 1900);
Felix Lazarus, Das koniglich-westfalische Konsistoriwn der Israeliten (Pressburg, 1914);
Adolf Kober, Cologne (Philadelphia, 1940); I. Kracauer, Geschickte der Juden in
Frankfurt a. Af. (Frankfurt, 1927), II.

249

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

Staatsburger); an edict of January 13, 1809, created the Supreme
Council of the Israelites (Oberrat der Israeliteri), whose task it
became to reform the education of youth, to guide its vocational
adjustment, and — by assimilating it with the surrounding
world culturally and spiritually — to prepare it for complete
civil equality. s

For the economically strongest and intellectually most en-
lightened Jews of all, those of Prussia, who had for years pas-
sionately fought for their civil improvement, the edict of 1812
removed the concept of protected Jewry (Schutqudenturri).
Foreigners and tolerated persons (GeduLdete) became natives
(Eirddnder) and citizens (Staatsburger). The burden of special
taxes and Jews' taxes (Judenabgaberi) was lifted, and the principle
was proclaimed that Jews should enjoy the same rights and
liberties as Christians, 6

The overthrow of Napoleon, the restoration of the old
"legitimate" regimes, the victory of the Holy Alliance, and
the tendencies of the Restoration resulted almost everywhere
in the cancellation of the civil rights which the Jews had been
granted. In Frankfurt, in Mainz, in the states of the Rhenish
Confederation, the last hope for the promised liberty and
equality disappeared with the re-establishment of the old order.
The ambiguous formula of the Congress of Vienna concerning
the future constitutional basis of the Jews in Germany was an
equally clear indication of the changed attitude of those in
power. This attitude was also evident in the twenty different
Judenverfassungen of the Prussian provinces — Verfassungen, con-
stitutions, which contained a multiplicity of restrictive clauses.

sBerthold Rosenthal, Heimatgeschichte der badischen Juden (Buhl, 1927); A. Lewin,
Geschichte der badischen Juden seit der Regierung Karl Friedrichs (Karlsruhe, 1909);
Selma Stern-Taeubler, "Die Emanzipation der Juden in Baden," Gedenkbuch zujn
125. Besteken des Oberrats der Israeliten Badens (Frankfurt, 1934),

6 Ismar Freund, Die Emancipation der Juden in Preussen (Berlin, 1912).
250

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

This was particularly true of the constitution of the province
of Posen, whose large Jewish population was divided into two
classes, "naturalized inhabitants and those who are not yet fit
to receive the rights of the projected naturalized class."

This change in the governmental policies towards the Jews
was not only a reaction against Jewish political and economic
emancipation, a reaction associated with the governmental
revolt against the Napoleonic innovations. A reaction no less
spiritual than political, it documented the profound change of
thought marking this period's transition from the cosmopolitan-
humanist attitude towards life which the eighteenth century
had evinced to the romantic-national world philosophy of the
nineteenth century. In contrast to the clear-minded Deism of
the Enlightenment and the serene Hellenistic life-ideal of the
classics, a religious hypertension arose. This hypertension, born
of the romantic spirit and nourished by the political upheavals
attendant on the wars of liberation, resulted in a mutual
impregnation and curious intermixture of primitive Christian
and Germanic notions, of Puritan and Teutonic ideas, of
nationalistic and pietistic-mystical beliefs. It was then that the
concept of the " Christian-Germanic" or "German-Christian"
state arose. 7

The men of the French Revolution had envisaged the state
as a purely rational instrument. But for the romanticists the
state was created not by men but by God himself. It was a
Christian monarchy in which the legal, constitutional, and
economic structure was grounded on the principles of Chris-

?H. von Sybel, "Die christlich-gcnnanischc Staatslehre," Kleine Sckriften, I
(Stuttgart, 1880-1891); E. Muesebeck, "Die ursprunglichen Grundlagen des
Liberalisraus und Konservatismus in Deutschland," Korrespondenzblatt des Gesamt-
vereins der deutschen Altertumsvercine, Jahrgang 63 (1915); R- Stammlcr, Lekrbuck
der Rechtsphilosophie (3rd ed.; Berlin, 1928); J. Baxa, Einfiihrung in die romantische
Staatswissenschqft (Jena, 1923).

251

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

tianity, and in which religion, people, and government were to
form a single unity.

The generation of the Enlightenment had been able to believe
in a synthesis of Germanism and Judaism because its broad
humanitarian ideal of culture coincided with the demand for
social and civil equality for the Jews. From their universalistic
standpoint, the question of emancipation had been not so much
a question of the Jews as a question of humanity. On the other
hand, for the generation of romanticism, a generation which
sought the emergence of the national spirit in legend and in
history and explored the manifestation of the singular and
peculiar, the essence of Judaism constituted an element scarcely
to be blended with the essence of Germanism. If one conceived
of the state as a community of those who lived, had lived, and
were still to live, with every hope for moral and religious;
development related to Christianity, there could be no place
for the Jews in this community.

A people could become an entity only through uniformity of
expression, thought, language, and faith, and through loyalty
to the governmental system, declared the famous Professor
Friedrich Ruehs of the University of Berlin, 8 at that time. A
stranger could not be denied admission into this ethnic unity,
but he should be granted it only if he surrendered himself to it
completely and became fused with it. But that condition did
not apply to German Jewry. By virtue of its descent, disposition,
faith, and language, it was more closely unified to the Jews
the world over than to the Germans, As long as the Jews per-
severed in their national and political particularism and refused
to yield the separate folk existence (Volkstumlichkeif) based on
their religion and their aristocratic constitutions, they had to
remain tolerated Schutz- und Schirmgenossen, separated by strict

8 fiber die Ansprtiche der Juden an das deutsche Burgerrecht (2nd printing; Berlin, 1816).
252

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

commercial regulations from the other subjects. Only if they
dejudaized themselves, that is to say, converted to Christianity,
could they be accepted as citizens of equal standing in the
state.

These "strict commercial regulations5' took the form of
earnest efforts by the governments of the individual states to
direct the large number of poorer Jews into new vocational and
economic areas; to deflect them from commerce, particularly
from dealing in second-hand goods and from pawnbroking; and
to channel them into agriculture and handicrafts. Even if the
intentions expressed in this program were justifiable and
educative, the national-economic doctrine of romanticism played
an important part. Commerce, as it was proclaimed here, was
essentially international, geared to economic gain, that is to
say, to profit and consumption. Industry, in turn, dependent
as it was on the ability of the individual entrepreneur, likewise
contradicted the romantic idea of the organic unity.

This vocational readjustment was pressed so thoroughly by
individual governments that, for instance, the Baden ministry
of the interior demanded 9 that Jewish journeymen be absolved,
for the period of their travelling apprenticeship, from observing
their religious laws, especially from observance of the Sabbath,
until such time as a larger number of Jewish artisans would be
accepted as masterworkmen in the land.

How did German Jewry react to the idea of the Christian
state? How did it reply to the changed position of the ruling
powers and of society and to the release of popular outburst
which found its most salient expression- in the anti-Jewish Hep!
Hep! movement of the year 1819?

Several possible solutions presented themselves, and all of

9 Schreiben des badischcn Innernninisteriums an den Oberrat der Israeliten. 12.
September, 1812. Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Ministerium des Inneren,
Judensachen, Zug 1900, Nr. 40, III.

253

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

them were attempted by the German Jews in those years. One
possibility was to recognize the dominant ideas, to affirm that
Christianity was the basis of German culture, and in the course
of assimilating to the German environment, to adopt Chris-
tianity. This was the solution attempted by the children of
Moses Mendelssohn, by Heinrich Heine, by Ludwig Borne,
Eduard Gans, Friedrich Julius Stahl, and Karl Marx, and
by innumerable others.

A second possibility lay in compromise. This compromise
took the form of surrendering one's own nationality in accord-
ance with the state's requirement, of negating Jewish people-
hood; it took the form of simplifying and adjusting all ritual
and ceremonial to the liturgical patterns of the environment,
of reducing religion — which had formerly dominated and
permeated the lives of one's forebears — to a personal creed,
an ethical Weltanschauung. Such was the solution attempted at
that time by the Jewish Reformers.

A third alternative was that of subjecting to scientific in-
vestigation the Jew's relationship to religion and society, state
and humanity, the past and the future, and simultaneously of
enlightening a hostile environment with respect to the religious
basis of Judaism — this Judaism which had been, at one time,
as revelatory of the Weltgeist as ever Hellenism and Christianity
were. Thus the world would be given the opportunity of forming
a better judgment as to the worthiness or unworthiness of the
Jews and their eligibility for emancipation and equal rights.
This was the approach adopted at that time by the Berlin
cultural organization known as the Verein fur Kultur und Wis-
senschajt des Judentums, founded in 1819.

However divided the German Jews were during these years,
one watchword still remained to unite all trends and opin-
ions, the Orthodox and the Reformers, the conservatives and
the liberals, the irresolute and the faithful, the indifferent

254

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

and the baptized: the watchword of political and civil eman-
cipation.

Strengthened in its self-respect and self-awareness by better
education and greater economic security, the whole of German
Jewry regarded its political degradation as an intolerable insult.
Just as the public opinion of those years saw the ultimate of
human happiness in the fulfillment of constitutional demands,
so, too, the Jews of that generation looked to political emancipa-
tion for redemption from their sad fate. Proceeding on the
assumption that the innate rights of human beings were not to
be diminished by any one, they defended their cause in political,
philosophical, and moral discussions before the entire German
nation. In as many petitions they accused the Stande-
versammlungen of the individual states — Baden, Bavaria, Han-
over, the Electorate of Hesse, Prussia, and Saxony — of violating
the spirit of the constitutions themselves and of the principle
of the equality of all persons before the law by barring Jews
from state offices and by denying them the right to be chosen as
representatives to the diets.

The most vehement struggle for equal rights was fought at
that time by the Bavarian Jews, whose legal position was the
most oppressive and insecure. I0 Not even the Napoleonic period
had essentially improved the position of the Jews in Bavaria.
They had been granted only the right to attend public schools
and the remission of the body-tax (Leibzolt), while the 1813
edict regulating their legal relationship to the Bavarian state
had prescribed, in its infamous twelfth paragraph, that "the
number of Jewish families in localities where there are some at
present should not, as a rule, be increased, but rather, if it be too
large, diminished'9 (die %ahl der Judenfamilien an den Orten, wo sie
dermalen bestehen, in der Regel nicht vermehrt, vielmehr, wenn sie zu gross

1 ° A. Eckstein, Der Kampfder Juden urn ikrf Eman&pation in Bayem (Furth i. B., 1905),

255

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

set, vermindert werden musse). If Jews wished to settle in townships
hitherto judenfrei, they were obliged to secure the permission
of the Landesherr, the manoral lord. Such permission was, in
general, to be granted only to manufacturers, artisans, and
agricultural workers.

What this regulation meant in practice was that only an
eldest son would be authorized to settle by virtue of his father's
letter of protection (Schutzbrief). Otherwise, in order to gain
the right of settlement, one had to await the death of a childless
owner of a registration certificate (Matrikelbesitzer) and, in
addition, had frequently to pay the huge sum of 1,000 gulden
for that right. In a petition of May, 1831, to the diet (Stande-
kammer), the Jews of Bavaria demanded that this degrading
regulation be repealed by the government.

It is an inalienable, inviolable human right to have a fatherland,
to use one's mental and physical powers freely, to own property, to
settle and marry, in wedlock to beget and educate children, and to
leave to them a fatherland, their own hearth, and secure possession
and enjoyment of their human rights.

But where they are commanded to diminish the number of their
families, where their increase is prohibited, and where their settlement
is confined to a certain number and to a few places, but otherwise
forbidden, there our children have no fatherland, no property, no
livelihood; there they are condemned to remain unmarried, to re-
nounce their paternal and human rights, and to perish physically
and morally.

Still more movingly did the communities of Ansbach and
Fiirth appeal to the king in a memorial in 1837. They pointed
out that their children had indeed gained admission to all
institutions of higher learning, but found no opportunity to
put their theoretical training into practice. Should their well-
founded grievances not be rectified, they would be forced

to surrender one of the most cherished possessions of every feeling
man — their hereditary homeland. . . . Already we are aware of a

256

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

phenomenon which has not hitherto been known. Already we see
the desire to emigrate taking root also among the Israelites of Bavaria;
for the past few years, at the coming of each spring, a not unsubstantial
number of Israelite coreligionists have been leaving Bavaria, hitherto
their fatherland, to move to distant parts of the world.

These are not adventurers; these are by no means the scum of civil
society. These are strong young men, professionals and solid business-
men, who for years applied for settlement, but thereby wasted money
and time, simply because there was no vacancy in the registration
list, or because their religion prevented them. . . . Every year the
number of Israelite emigrants increases, and these are no longer
confined to unmarried individuals, but comprise established families,

Bavarian Jewry itself specified in these petitions the main
reasons which compelled Jewish youth to emigrate: the prohibi-
tion against second, third, or even fourth children settling in
the land, and the difficulties encountered in the practice of the
academic professions. It is, therefore, no coincidence that most
of the German memoir-writers mention Bavaria as their native
land. Sigmund and Leopold Wassermann, who landed in Amer-
ica at the beginning of the eighteen forties, * x also hailed from
Bavaria, as did Herman Cone and Leo Merzbacher. x 2

It would be wrong, nevertheless, to simplify the problems
and to reduce the motives to a common denominator. Two
memorialists, William Frank and Louis Stix,13 report, for
instance, that they had learned a trade: Frank had learned
weaving, and Stix had learned glazing. Frank worked for
three years as an apprentice in Schweinfurt; then, under
Christian masterworkmen, he followed his trade in almost all
the larger cities of Bavaria, as well as in Frankfurt, Mainz,
Worms, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Landau, Speyer,

* * Guido Kisch, "Two American Jewish Pioneers in New Haven," Historia Judaica,
IV (1942).

™ Eric E. Hirshler, Jews from Germany in the United States (New York, 1955).

* * Jacob Rader Marcus, Memoirs, L

257

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

and many smaller places. He appears to have found work easily
and was satisfied with his earnings. Frank must, therefore,
have had reasons other than poverty, the prohibition of settle-
ment, and state and municipal restrictions, for deciding, never-
theless, to emigrate to "blessed America."

As we saw, the learning of a trade was forced upon the Jews
by the governments. They yielded to this decree hesitantly
and unwillingly. Frank reports that the police arrested him at
the age of fourteen and that, living on bread and water, he had
to spend three days in prison because he had not begun to
learn a trade. His first period of apprenticeship to a cobbler
was torture, and he ran away after two weeks because he could
not stand the smell of the "stinking shoes" he had to repair.

The Baden minister of the interior, von Berckheim, wrote to
the Frankfurt ambassador, von Blittersdorf, in 1828, 14 that the
Jews found their vocational readjustment difficult and that
their "absorption into the civic order" had not met with the
desired success. They did not take agriculture and the trades
very seriously because they chose only those vocations which
required little effort — vocations such as tailoring, shoemaking,
and bookbinding — or which had some connection with com-
merce — butchering, soap manufacturing, and hatmaking. Most
of them soon resigned their trades in favor of commerce. There
was this added factor: that the Jews were inevitably drawn to
commerce by virtue of that superiority which they had acquired
in all branches of trade through their early development of an
almost instinctive taste for speculation and through the connec-
tions they had with their people in all parts of the world. It was
this inclination to commerce which impelled them in that
direction.

We may assume, therefore, that the enterprising Frank, who

14 Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Judenrechte, Pars II, I.
258

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

became an important glass manufacturer in America, and the
generous and honorable Stix, who died a millionaire, both
sought a way to freedom in order to burst the bonds of narrow-
minded, compulsory guild order.

In the possession of the American Jewish Archives is the
"Mailert Family Correspondence, " a comprehensive collection
permitting a more profound insight into the soul of an emigrant
than do the short sketches of the memoir-writers. The letters
were written by Charles Lucius Mailert during the years 1833-
1851 to his brother August, who emigrated to the United States
at the beginning of the 1830*3. Charles Lucius Mailert was a
Jewish teacher and director of a private school in Kassel. He
himself was about to emigrate to America. Only consideration
of his aged mother, whom he did not wish to leave behind alone,
and later a serious illness which brought about his early death,
prevented the execution of his plan.

These are the letters of a well-educated, very sensitive, and
receptive young man who was familiar with the condition of
the Jews as well as with the general political situation in Ger-
many. This enlightened, forthright educator was in a position
to pen his moods, intentions, and feelings in well-chosen lan-
guage. Although he was a Jewish teacher and edited a "Hebrew
Bible," the Jewish problem did not play a decisive role in his
case. This was not because the condition of the Jews was consid-
erably better in the Electorate of Hesse (where, in the main,
the reforms of the Westphalian period were kept intact) than
in Bavaria and many other states. It was because Charles
Lucius Mailerfs interest was directed not so much to the
liberation of his fellow Jews as to the political and civil eman-
cipation of German society, to whose emancipation he believed
the emancipation of the Jews was intimately related.

What stirred him deeply was his enormous urge for freedom,
an irresistible aversion to conditions in

259

SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER

antiquated, tyrannized Europe, where at every step an eavesdropper
sneaks up or a gaudy mercenary reminds one of brutalities, where
new laws are made daily in order to impose new fines, where the
word of a thinking man brings about penal servitude; in short, where
they let people live only for the fun of grinding them. Europe sprouted
a shoot of liberty some years ago, but it withered and deprived the
whole tree of whatever strength there still remained. IS

When his brother warned him not to make a hasty decision
and told him about the privations and the hard life of the
immigrant, Charles replied:

Whatever you and many others may say about America, you do not
know European slavery, German oppression, and Hessian taxes. There
is only one land of liberty which is ruled according to natural, reason-
able laws, and that is the Union. Freedom is the greatest possession;
in the Old World freedom lies in chains, and her defenders have to
mount the scaffold. You say in America it is "make money," but here
it is "give money as taxes." Which is better?16

"I am happy and confident, when I think about America,'*
he declares in another letter. x 7

I still live and strive in and for America — without imagining it to
be a fool's paradise. Freedom! Freedom of life and of the soul! The
advantages which you ascribe to Europe are very dubious. Everything
has come about through the blood and sweat of the poor subjects.18

In a later letter he confesses to his brother:

America still keeps me going somewhat. If this thought, too, proves
deceptive; if one may not or cannot be a human being there, either,
then my life would be unbearable — perhaps then I might be able to
throw it away. x 9

*s Letter dated March 14, 1835.
16 Letter dated March 19, 1835.
1 ' Letter dated October 22, 1835.
18 Letter dated February 1 8, 1836.
J» Letter dated April 26, 1837.
260

THE MOTIVATION OF THE GERMAN JEWISH EMIGRATION

Similar, purely idealistic reasons motivated Sigmund and
Leopold Wassermann, the sons of well-to-do and educated
parents, when they decided to take up a life of privation rather
than to live in "hatred and shame." Both of them were high-
minded, sensitive, and profound souls, whose dispositions had
been molded by classical and romantic literature. Their dis-
appointed and rejected love of their — despite everything —
"oh,, so dear fatherland" prompted them to write sad elegies in
which they conjured up the millennial grief and sang of the
"sweet liberty" which they hoped to find on "America's happy
shores."

How these hopes were fulfilled, how the emigrants from
Germany found their way in the New World, how they guarded
the heritage which they brought with them, and what strength
they derived from it — these things have been told to us by
the historian to whom this Festschrift is dedicated.

261

The Economic Life of the American Jew
in the Middle Nineteenth Century

ALLAN TARSHISH

WHEN the Jew began to leave Germanic lands in
the middle of the nineteenth century he was, in the main,
well-fitted for the type of economic activity generally prevailing
in the United States. The discovery of gold in California in
1848, the Westward Movement, the Homestead Act of 1862,
followed by the joining of the West Coast with the East by
railroad, the expansion of industry, the growth of the cities,
the rich rewards for the venturesome — all provided an excellent
opportunity for daring, courage, personal ingenuity, and in-
dividual exploitation.

German economic life had not fully evolved to the point of
mass industrialism; it was still basically the age of the individual
and the middle man, enabling many German Jews to be active
in various areas. * The American scene beckoned to those who
were eager to work, to take a chance, to venture into new fields
and to explore the potentialities of the economic frontier. One
historian has called this the age of revolution in manufacturing,

Rabbi Alia" Tarshish is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Elohim, Charleston,.
S. C.

1 For instance, the Jews of Silesia -were often employed by large landowners as
financial and commercial agents and as lessees of their breweries and farms:
Selma Stern-Taeubler, "Problems of American and German Jewish Historiog-
raphy," in Eric E. Hirshler, ed., Jews from Germany in the United States (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Gudahy, 1955), p. 12.

263

ALLAN TARSHISH

transportation, mining, and communication.3 And, as in any
revolution, new figures found their opportunity.

The majority of the Jews who came to this country at this
time were not rich, and few had sufficient capital to start a
business. 3 Thus many of them became peddlers. In 1 850 there
were some 10,000 peddlers in the United States, and in 1860
more than 16,000, most of whom were Jewish. 4 According to a
humorous Jew of Syracuse, New York, who described the various
categories, the bottom of the economic ladder was occupied by
the basket peddler.

One day, when Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise was traveling on
the boat from New York to Albany, he saw such a basket
peddler walking around the boat, wringing his hands in agony.
Wise asked if he had lost anything. The peddler responded in
German: "Have I lost anything? . . . Bewonos [God help me!],
I have lost everything! I have. lost my English language." The
rabbi could not understand. "You do not understand? Neither
do I, and therein lies my misfortune. I arrived at New York,
and after I had paid my debts I had twenty dollars and three
shillings left. So they said to me, 'Cohen, you must buy a basket
for six shillings, and twenty dollars' worth of kuddel muddel,
what we call in German meshowes (notions), and then you must
go peddling in the country.'

"I cry out, cThe country speaks English, and I do not. How

9 Arthur M. Schlesingcr, Political and Social History of the United States, 1829-192$
(New York: Macmillan, 1928), p. 280.

* Allgemeine %dtung des Judentwns, XIII (1849), 649; Mark Stone, Historical Sketch
and By-Laws of Ohabei Shalom, Boston (Boston: Daniels Printing Co., 1907); Seventy-
Fifth Anniversary Booklet of Congregation B*nai B'rith, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 2840-1924;
Herman Eliassoff, "German American Jews," reprint from Publications of the
German American Historical Society of Illinois (1915), pp. 33, 43; Simon Glazer, Jews
of Iowa (Des Moines, Iowa, 1904), p. 196.

4 Rudolph Glanz, "Notes on Early Jewish Peddling in America," Jewish Social
Studies, VII (1945), 120.

264

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

in the world can I get along?' 'That makes no difference/
they told me; cwe will write everything down for you.' Well,
they gave me the basket filled with kuddel muddel, and wrote
down for me the English language on a piece of paper, and
sent me to Hudson. Now I have lost the English language, and
am perfectly helpless." Wise comforted the distracted peddler,
had him write in German the sentences which he needed, and
translated them into English. Even then the immigrant had his
difficulties and persisted in saying, "You fant to puy somdink?
Can I shtay mit you all nacht?" s

The next higher rank among the peddlers was the trunk
carrier who knew a little English. On the next rung above was
the pack carrier who shouldered 150 pounds of merchandise
and looked forward to the time when he would become a
businessman. These were the plebeians. But there was also an
aristocracy among the peddlers: either a wagon baron who
peddled with a horse and wagon; or a jewelry count who carried
stocks of watches and jewelry in a small trunk and was consid-
ered a rich man by his friends. On the top rung was the store
prince who had succeeded in establishing a shop, usually a
clothing store. 6

This humorous description was acted out in many a life —
and sometimes not so humorously. The life stories of individual
immigrants are very often replete with vicissitudes. 7 Some were
tragic indeed, as is disclosed by a short account in the New
York Sun of May 7, 1849: "The body of a German named
Marcus Cohen was found in a remote part of Greenwood
Cemetery on Friday last. It seems that on Wednesday last, in a

* Isaac Mayer Wise, Reminiscences (Cincinnati; Leo Wise and Co., 1901), p. 31.
« Ibid., p. 37.

1 1bid., p. 47; Jacob R. Marcus, Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-186? (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955), 3 vols.

365

ALLAN TARSHISH

fit of desperation on account of pecuniary embarrassments, he,
with a hair trigger pistol, terminated his existence. He was a
carpenter by trade. . . ." 8

Living conditions, especially in the big cities, were often
most difficult. Samuel Gompers, who came to New York in
1 863 at the age of thirteen, later described the tenement in which
his family lived. "Our apartment in Sheriff Street,55 Gompers
recalled, "was a typical three room home. The largest, the
front room, was a combined kitchen, dining room, and sitting
room, with two front windows. There were two small bed rooms
back, which had windows opening into the hall. We got water
from a common hydrant in the yard and carried it upstairs.
The toilet was in the yard also.5'9 And this was better than
many,

Anti-Jewish prejudice often added to the hardships. One
non-Jewish peddler commented that one day he sold some
goods in a tavern in a small town in Delaware and was ap-
prehended by a local official who thought he was a Jew. When,
however, he showed his passport and proved that he was not a
Jew, the official said: "As I see that you5re an honest Protestant,
I'll let you go, though it's costing me $25. Pm no friend of the
Jews and if you were one . . . you would have been fined $50
or gone to jail, and I would have got half of the cash for my
pains. . . ." r °

It is true that Jews were not the only targets of prejudice.
They were often victims of the general attitude of anti-foreign
and anti-German prejudice, as revealed in the following
doggerel:

8 Morris U. Schappes, A Documentary History of the Jews of the United States, i6$4-
i%7$ (New York: Citadel Press, 1950), p. 287.

» Robert Ernst, Immigrant Life in New Tork City, 1822-1863 (New York: King's
Crown Press, Columbia University, 1949), p. 51,

1 ° Glanz, p. 127.
266

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

O, Germany, Germany, land of fiddlers,

Of mad musicians, cabbages and "sour-krout" ;

Filled with base barons and with Jewish peddlers. . . . x I

The religious activities of these Jews also were commentaries
upon their early struggles. Funds were meager, and most of
the existing congregations held services in rented rooms. z 2 The
iirst constitution of Congregation Adath Israel of Louisville,
-organized in 1842, stipulated that whenever the treasurer had
the sum of $50, the whole congregation had to be convened to
decide what to do with the money.13 Rodeph Shalom Con-
gregation of Philadelphia, in 1849, fifty-four years after its
founding, still depended upon the rental of the cellar of the
synagogue as a storage place for beer, although this practice
Avas soon to be discontinued. I4 The now wealthy Congregation
Emanu-El of New York could raise only $28.25 from its members
;at its first meeting in 1845. IS

Businesses were often begun very humbly. One traveler in
•California stated that "the Jewish shops were generally rattle-
trap erections about the size of a bathing machine, so small
that one half of the stock had to be displayed suspended from
projecting sticks outside. . . ." 1<s

Dr. Jacob R. Marcus calls Henry Seessel the typical German
Jewish immigrant. Having migrated to New Orleans about

11 Ibid., pp. 130 ff.

13 Stella Obst, The Story of Adath Israel, Boston, Mass. (Boston, 1917); "Outline of
the History of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel," Tear Book of Reform Con"
gregation Keneseth Israel, Philadelphia, Pa. (Philadelphia, 1889-1892), I-III.

x* Charles Goldsmith, Congregation Adath Israel, Louisville, Kentucky (Louisville, 1906).

** Minute Book of Congregation Rodeph Shalom of Philadelphia, 1847-1851,
December 9, 1849.

Js Myer Stern, History of Temple Emanu-El of New Tork (New York, 1895), excerpts
from the first meeting, April 16, 1845, and following; Trustees Minutes of Temple
Emanu-El, New York, book 1862-1876, October 7, 1866 — May I, 1869.

16 Glanz, p. 123.

267

ALLAN TARSHISH

1843, Seessel was for years an itinerant merchant, peddling
clothes and jewelry. In turn he became a trunkmaker, store-
keeper, stock raiser, saloonkeeper, and butcher. He had many
family problems. Yet eventually he did make a modest success. * r

Others did better. Daniel Frohman, noted theatrical producer,
recalled that his father, Henry Frohman, came to New York
in 1845 from Darmstadt, Germany, and for a while was a pack
peddler in the upper Hudson Valley. Later he prospered and
bought a wagon with which he could purchase clothing whole-
sale, a practice which eventually led to much greater success. * 8

Louis Stix, who came to Cincinnati in 1841, also began as a
pack peddler, and, likewise, soon owned a horse and wagon.
A few years later he was able to open a little store with some
partners, some of whom continued to peddle. A few years before
the Civil War, the firm of Louis Stix and Co. was founded and
became one of the best-known dry goods firms in the Middle
West.19 Others had similar fortunate experiences;20 most of
the famed Seligman brothers, for example, began as peddlers. 2I
William Frank, originally a weaver in the old country, began
his career as a peddler in Eastern Pennsylvania, selling dry
goods, and eventually becoming a prosperous glass manufac-
turer. In 1846 he moved to Pittsburgh, and was one of the
men who founded the Jewish community of that city. a a

So it was for many. The merchandise of the peddler was sold
for a profit, small reserves were accumulated, greater economic

1 1 Marcus, I, 353-67.
*8 Glanz, p. 125.
x* Marcus, 1,311-42.
90 Glanz, pp. 124, 127.

al Marcus, I, 343; In Memoriam Jesse Seligman (New York: Privately printed, 1894).
" Marcus, I, 302-8.
268

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

opportunities were sought out, a store was rented, real estate
was purchased, and new ventures were explored. Partnerships
were formed, small businesses expanded, and often the profits
were invested in the development of railroads, coal, quarries,
lumbering, oil, or factories. 2 3 The little Baltimore meat market
of John M. Dyer became one of the large packing houses of the
country.24 The dry goods store of Simon Fleisher led first to
the manufacture of braids, then of woolen yarns, and finally
grew into the national firm of Fleisher Yarns. a s A little retail
store begun by Julius Rosenwald in Springfield, Illinois, provided
the means for purchasing into and expanding the mail order
house of Sears, Roebuck and Co. 2 6

After a successful peddling career, Lazarus Straus established
himself in business in Talbotton, Georgia. Then he moved to
New York, and with his sons, Isidor and Nathan, opened a
crockery and glassware store in 1866. A few years later they
began to operate the china and silverware departments in the
basement of R. H. Macy and Go. Eventually Isidor and Nathan
became partners in the store itself and ultimately its owners. a 7
Isidor, the oldest son and the guiding force in founding the
great Straus family fortunes, was a most resourceful person.
His memoirs record that on the day of his entrance into the
Georgia Military Academy at Marietta, Georgia, he was so
repelled by the hazing in that institution that he refused to

3 3 Ely E. Pilchik, "Economic Life of American Jewry, 1860-1875" (Prize Essay,
Hebrew Union College Library), pp. 4-7.

*4Adolph Guttmacher, History of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation^ 1830-190$
(Baltimore, 1905).

*s Henry Samuel Morais, The Jews of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Levytype Co.,
1894), p. 263.

36 H. Elliot Snyder, History of Congregation Brith Shalom of Springfield, Illinois (7Oth
Anniversary).

a* Pilchik, p. 13.

269

ALLAN TARSHISH

become a student, and the next morning he determined, instead,
to make a career for himself in business. He states:

... I hired a buggy with a driver and visited a mill which was situated
a few miles away and made a contract for the delivery to me of some
of the mill's product, on which I made a very good turn, and thus
became embarked on a mercantile career, which has been my occupa-
tion ever since. To the best of my recollection, I went to Atlanta the
following day, sold for future delivery what I had contracted for at
the factory the previous day, and embarked in other transactions.
So that, when I returned to Talbotton, after an absence of probably
two weeks, and related my experiences, the surprising turn of events
with their successful results in a measure appeased the disappoint-
ment which an utter failure of the purpose of my trip would have
caused.

Thus, though Isidor had set out from home to become a
scholar, he returned as a successful, embryonic businessman.
He seemed to have the knack for making the best of difficult
situations. In the summer of 1863, at the age of twenty, he set
out for Europe to help a blockade-running firm purchase goods
for the South through the sale of Southern cotton. He reached
his destination safely after a dangerous sea voyage. Although
this particular mission proved unsuccessful, this young, enter-
prising businessman returned to the United States two years
later, with $10,000 in gold which he had earned in other
ventures. 3 8

Of course, all the German Jews were not so ingenious, daring,
and resourceful as Isidor Straus, and all of them did not become
wealthy; but many did prosper. The business directories in most
cities indicate the increase in Jewish business concerns. From
1865 to 1875, the number of Jewish business firms in Baltimore
more than doubled; in Cincinnati, from 1860 to 1880, the
number more than tripled; and in Cleveland, from 1863 to 1880,
it quadrupled. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee,

a* Marcus, II, 301-16.
270

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW,

St. Louis, and other cities showed increases in similar propor-
tions.29 This increase in the number of Jewish firms does not
necessarily imply that each particular business grew in size
and wealth, but certainly new business firms would not have
been established if the others had not succeeded.

An additional confirmation of this increasing prosperity was
the fact that many new synagogue buildings were erected, some
of them costing as much as $300,000. 3° In 1850 the United
States Census valued Jewish church property at one half million
dollars. In 1860 this had doubled, and by 1873 such property
was valued at over five million dollars. 3 x Educational institu-
tions and philanthropic societies also were the beneficiaries of
this increase in wealth. It was reported, in 1881, that a single
charity Purim Ball in New York netted $22,000. 3a The homes,
clothing, entertainment, and travels of the Jews of this period
all evidenced the growing prosperity.

This is the general story. Was it different from the norm of
American economic life of the time? Were the Jews active in all
phases or only in certain aspects of business life? Did they engage
in agriculture? Were they prominent in the laboring and

a» Pilchik, pp. 29, 48, 51; Pilchik, "Economic Life of American Jewry, 1875-
1880" (Prize Essay, H. U. C. Library), pp. 6-7, 9-10, 17-18, 21.

s ° Trustees Minutes of Temple Emanu-El, New York, book 1862-1876, October 7,
1866 — May I, 1869; Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, XXXVI (1872), 355; Jewish
Chronicle (London), XXX (1873), 509; Israelitische Wochenschrift jur die Religiosen
und Sodden Interessen des Judentums (Breslau, Germany), VII (1876), 433; Isaac M.
Wise and Max B. May, The History of the K. K. Bene Teshurun, of Cincinnati, Ohio,
from the Date of Organization (Cincinnati, 1892).

3* Arthur J. Lelyveld, "Economic Life of American Jewry, 1860-1877" (Prize
Essay, Hebrew Union College Library), pp. 163 ff. For greater detail, see Allan
Tarshish, "The Rise of American Judaism" (Doctoral thesis, Hebrew Union
College Library), note 127.

3 * Israelitische Wochenschrift, XII (1881), 162; Archives Israelites (Paris), XXV
(1864), 498.

27!

ALLAN TARSHISH

capitalistic groups? Were they pioneers or followers? Did they
contribute significantly to American economic development?
We turn now to a consideration of these questions.

JEWISH ECONOMIC LIFE AS COMPARED TO GENERAL
AMERICAN ECONOMIC LIFE

Jewish economic activity did not exist in a vacuum, nor were
Jews business geniuses whose talents defied the laws of the
economic order in which they lived. They may have been
strengthened on the anvil of centuries of persecution; being
compelled to live on the periphery of medieval society, they
may have learned how to take advantage of any slight op-
portunity; they may have been sharpened by talmudic study
and vitalized by Jewish education; but, for the most part, their
success could be attributed to the remarkable expansion and
development of the United States at that time. They, too, were
affected whenever and wherever there were economic disloca-
tions and recessions.

When the country was expanding slowly, between 1840 and
1860, Jewish economic development was gradual. With the
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the whole country suffered a
temporary depression due to the sudden loss of Southern
accounts, the cancellation of many Southern debts, and the
uncertainty of events. Jewish business was affected propor-
tionately. The depression was, however, of short duration,
lasting only about a year, and ended when the government
began to place orders for various goods. Then Civil War business
boomed, especially in the North, and many Jews prospered
with the rest of the business community.

The wholesale clothing business as it is now known had its
beginnings during the Civil War years. The government's
demand for uniforms required an unusually large production

272

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

of clothing, and by reason of their long association with the
needle trade in Europe, Jews were particularly equipped to
provide this need. The mass production of clothing became
largely a Jewish enterprise. Jews exercised their ingenuity to
provide acceptable clothing at low prices, first for government
needs, and then for people of modest means. Thus Jews brought
democracy by clothing all men, more or less alike. 3 3

The boom lasted until 1873, during which time the great
Westward Movement and the full economic revolution came
into being. The depression, setting in in that year, lasted until
1879 and was responsible for some 52,000 business failures.
Although many Jews were involved in the catastrophe, it was
reported that not one Jewish banking house suspended payment.
On the whole, Jewish business was solid. 34

The epic adventures of Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash of the
first Russian American Jewish congregation of New York are
illustrative. The business opportunities of the Civil War caused
him to leave the rabbinate for the hoop skirt industry, in which
he made nearly $10,000. Becoming a lay leader of the con-
gregation, Ash supported it generously until the panic of 1873
caused his business to fail and he returned to the rabbinate.
After three years he decided that business was on the upswing
and tried again. His optimism was premature inasmuch as the
depression lasted six years, and again he failed. This time Ash
definitely decided that he was not a business genius and returned
permanently to the rabbinate. 3S

33 Judith Grecnfdd, "The Role of the Jews in the Development of the Clothing
Industry in the United States," TWO Annual of Jewish Social Science (New York,
1947-1948), II-III, 180-204.

34Lelyveld, pp. 3-9; Israelitische Wochenschrift, XI (1880), 176; Jewish World
(London), October 31, 1873; Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentoms, XXXVII (1873), 808.

3s J. D. Eisenstein, "The History of the First Russian-American Jewish Con-
gregation," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society [PAJHS\, IX (1901),

ALLAN TARSHISH

Still, in the main, this was a period of expansion and
prosperity. From 1860 to 1880, the population of the nation
increased from thirty-one million to fifty million; the value of
farm property from eight billion to twelve billion dollars; the
value of domestic manufactures from two billion to more than
five billion dollars; the number of patents issued from five
thousand to fourteen thousand; railroad mileage from thirty
thousand to ninety-three thousand; tons of coal mined from
thirteen million to sixty-three million; gallons of petroleum
produced from twenty-one million to more than one billion;
and tons of steel produced from practically nothing to more
than one million.36 These figures tell the story of the basic
economic expansion of the country and give the fundamental
reason for the general prosperity of the Jew at that time.

IN VARIOUS LOCALITIES

Economic activity varied in different parts of the country, and
Jewish economic life generally followed the pattern of each
region.

New England, which had prospered greatly in colonial times,
slowed down in the middle of the nineteenth century. Many of
her former settlers, tired of wrestling with her stony ground,
followed the covered wagon across the plains of the Middle
West and became pioneers of westward expansion. Since new
immigrants were not attracted to a region which was more
or less static, New England's Jewish population did not greatly
increase; Jewish business establishments in Boston, for instance,
multiplied very slowly during the middle of the nineteenth
century.37

3«Schlesinger, p. 276.

37Tarshish, "The Rise of American Judaism," Appendix A and B; Pilchik,
"Economic Life, 1875-1880," pp. 5-6.

274

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

Despite the general westward movement, the cities of the
Middle Eastern Seaboard, which had become highly indus-
trialized, grew considerably during this period. Large groups
of immigrants poured into the ports of the Middle Atlantic
Coast. Aided earlier by the opening of the Erie Canal, New
York, as the major seaport and port of entry, expanded phenom-
enally in this period, and Jewish economic enterprises more
than tripled. The same situation prevailed in other cities of the
Middle Atlantic section. 3 8

Even before the Civil War, the slavery system had discouraged
Southern industrialization, and as a whole this region did not
share proportionately in the general expansion. Most of the
new immigrants chose to settle elsewhere. The destruction
wrought by the Civil War with its subsequent dislocations,
together with the harsh reconstruction methods of the North,
so crippled the South that for many years she was unable to
partake of the favorable economic trend. The Jews of the South
suffered with their neighbors. Jewish business in Savannah,
Georgia, increased only slightly in this period. Business firms
in Charleston, South Carolina, once one of the great Jewish
centers of the nation, showed very little expansion. Although
some sections of the South prospered, for the most part the
region was fairly static. 3 9

The Middle West also prospered greatly during this period,
and so did many of the Jews who lived there. Cincinnati became
known as "the Queen City of the West" and also as "Porkopolis"
because of its large meat packing industry. Cincinnati's Jewish
population, at this time of the city's greatest development, was

a* Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," p. 27; Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1875-
1880," pp. 6-7.

a 9 Barnett A. Elzas, The Jews of South Carolina (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott,
1905), pp. 260-61; Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," p. 34; Pilchik, "Economic
Life, 1875-1880," pp. I3-I5-

ALLAN TARSHISH

the largest and richest west of the Atlantic Seaboard. Thus it
was not surprising that Isaac Mayer Wise, one of the great
American Jewish leaders of the time, should have been one of
Cincinnati's rabbis, and that the first permanent rabbinical
seminary as well as the first successful religious union of con-
gregations should have originated there.40

The picture was similar in Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis,
Milwaukee, and other teeming cities of the Middle West. The
great expansion of cities like Chicago and Cleveland took place
in the latter part of the nineteenth century and in the years
which followed, and it was then that they far outdistanced
Cincinnati in Jewish population and wealth.41

The Far West was the scene of unusual growth. The gold
mines of California, the Great Plains west of the Mississippi,
the transcontinental railroads, all contributed to an expansion
of wealth unique in the annals of human history. Jews went
with the other pioneers into mining camps and into agricultural
towns and cities. Jewish clothing stores were established in the
outposts; banking houses in the metropolitan centers. It has
been reported that the standard equipment of many of these
Jews was a shovel and a gun: a shovel with which to dig their
way out of the snow if necessary, and a gun for protection in
the many lawless sections of this new region. From the begin-
ning, Jews were found in San Francisco, the nerve center of
the Far West, and they prospered with it. 4*

*° Die Neu&it (Vienna, Austria), XIV (1874).

4* Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," pp. 48, 51-52; Pilchik, "Economic Life,
1875-1880," pp. 17-18, 20-21; The Israelite (Cincinnati), I (1854), 8; ibid., IV
(1857), 396; ibid., VII (1860), January 6; Alexander Goodkowitz [Alexander D.
Goode], "History of Jewish Economic Life in the United States, 1830-1860"
(Prize Essay, Hebrew Union College Library, 1933); The Occident and American
Jewish Advocate (Philadelphia), X (No. i), 41; Archives Israelites, XVIII (1857), 59.

4» Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," p. 56; Albert M. Friedenberg, "Letters
of a California Pioneer," PAJHS, XXXI (1928), 135-71 (twenty-seven letters
written by Alexander Mayer of California to relatives in 1850).

276

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

SPECIFIC JEWISH ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Did Jews participate in all phases of economic life? Did they
figure proportionately with the rest of the population in industry,
farming, mining, merchandising, the professions, and the like?
Or did they bulk large in only a few of these?

As we study the business directories, the advertisements in
newspapers, the records of congregations, communities, and
individuals, and even the hospital statistics, we learn that Jews
engaged in practically every endeavor possible on this broad
and varied continent. They were in every type of mercantile
pursuit; they were dentists, doctors, teachers, and lawyers; they
were musicians, magicians, and opticians; they were miners
and gold refiners; they were harness makers and locksmiths;
they sold oil and patent medicines; they were barbers, bar-
keepers, marble cutters, waiters, and weavers.43

In the upper levels of economic life they were grain kings,
engineers, steel producers, clothing manufacturers, railroad
financiers, and large realty brokers.44 Abraham Hart was a
well-known publisher at the beginning of this period; Lorenz
Brentano began to loom large toward the latter part of the
nineteenth century.45 John M. Dyer of Baltimore made a
fortune in the packing business by 1847, and Nelson Morris

43 The Asmonean (New York), I (1849), 7-8, 63; ibid., Ill (1851), 112, 176, 183-84;
ibid., IV (1852), 91, 108, 115, 138, 141, 147, 151, 162-63, 170, 183, 187, 196,
198; ibid., V (1853), 73, 97; ibid., VI (1854), no, 176; ibid., VII (1855), 3, 37,
119, 301; The Occident, X (1852-53), 41; The Hebrew (San Francisco), I, December
18, 1863, April 8, 1864; The Weekly Gleaner (San Francisco), I (1857), 328; ibid.,
Ill, March II, 1859; The Israelite, III (1856), 108; ibid., VII (1860), 198; ibid., XI
(1864), No. i; ibid., XIX, July 5, 1872; ibid., XXVIII (1881), No. 26; The Annual
Reports of Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, 1857-1872, reports of 1861 and 1871.

44 Paul Masserman and Max Baker, The Jews Come to America (New York: Bloch,
1932), pp. 136-64; George Cohen, The Jews in the Making of America (Boston:
Stratford Co., 1924), p. 224.

45 Masserman and Baker, pp. 212 ff.

277

ALLAN TARSHISH

did the same in Chicago after the Civil War.46 There were
many Jews in the rising insurance business. 4 7 The Aliens of
Philadelphia and Joseph Stettheimer and Daniel Bettman of
New York were among the earliest dealers in petroleum.48
Jews owned large quarries in Virginia, and were important
cotton brokers. 4 9

Colonel Samuel S. Myers pioneered in manufacturing illu-
minating gas in Richmond, and Joshua Lazarus introduced
it into the city of Charleston, South Carolina. s ° Moritz Fried-
lander amassed wealth from grain in Chicago, and Michael
Reese prospered from Chicago real estate. The Sutro tunnel
was named for Adolph Sutro, its engineer. John Rosenfelt
helped to develop the coal fields of Canada, and the Hendricks
family of New York was prominent in the metal business.51
Julius Bien pioneered in lithographing, and Bernard Solomon
was the first to introduce colored leather into the United States. s *
Swiss-born Meyer Guggenheim came to the United States in
1847, at the age of nineteen. Eventually he entered the smelting
business and became one of the great industrial tycoons of
the age.53

Jews were prominent in the fur trade, and in the clothing,
tobacco, and dry goods businesses in San Francisco, and soon

«6 Ibid.t pp. 136-64.

4?Morais, pp. 184-87, 271; Henry Cohen, "Settlement of the Jews in Texas,"
PAJHS, II (1894), 139-56.

*8 Morals, pp. 241-45.

49 Herbert T. Ezekiel and Gaston Liechtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond,
1369-1917 (Richmond: Herbert T. Ezekiel, 1917), pp. l6off.; Morais, p. 250.

s° Ezekiel and Liechtenstein, p. 140; Elzas, p. 192.

s* Masserman and Baker, pp. 139 ff.

«3 Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," pp. 13-14.

^ Dictionary of American Biography, VIII, 38; Stewart H. Holbrook, The Age of the
Moguls (New York: Doubleday, 1953), p. 277.

278

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

became actively interested in the development of Alaska. They
gave Senator Cornelius Cole of California valuable information
which he transmitted to Secretary of State William Henry
Seward, enabling him to make the decision to purchase the
territory of Alaska from Russia. Some Jews settled in Alaska,
and as early as 1869 a San Francisco Jewish paper reported
that there were fourteen Jewish residents in Sitka. They even
planned to organize a congregation there, but this did not
eventuate. They retained their interest in American Jewish
affairs, and one of them, A. Levy, wrote a letter protesting the
1869 Philadelphia conference of Reform rabbis. S4

We have mentioned but a fraction of the innumerable
activities of Jews. In the main, however, Jewish economic life
fell into certain specific patterns. A rough tabulation of the
number of business firms in existence in 1880 discloses that
about 2 per cent were in finance, 4 per cent in jewelry, 6 per cent
in tobacco, and approximately 50 per cent were in clothing and
allied occupations. The rest were in miscellaneous businesses. s s

Clothing was easily the principal Jewish business activity on
the East Coast, in the South, in the Middle West, and in the
Far West. 5 6 The production of men's ready-made clothes had
begun in the iSao's, and by 1840 this industry was considered
of some significance in the economy of New York City. Between
1830 and 1860 most of the ready-made clothing was of the
cheap variety for sailors, coal miners, and the poor. Better
clothes were still being made to order. Until about 1850 most

54 Rudolph Glanz, The Jews in American Alaska, 1867-1880 (New York, 1953),

PP- 4-43.

ss Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1875-1880," p. 24; for a detailed listing, see Tarshish,

"The Rise of American Judaism," note 170.

s« Minute Book, Register of Marriages of Temple Emanu-El of New York, 1845-

1897; Goode, "Jewish Economic Life, 1830-1860"; Glazer, pp. 196 ff.; Snyder,

History of Congregation Brith Sholom of Springfield, Illinois.

279

ALLAN TARSHISH

of the tailors were English or native Americans. Then many of
the new Irish immigrants entered the industry, to be followed
by the Germans who soon began to dominate it.

The introduction of the sewing machine in 1850 did much
to stimulate the expansion of the industry. Efficiency was greatly
increased, and mass production was begun by the Germans,
who introduced the division of labor. Separate workers were
used for operating the machines, basting, finishing, etc. Then
came the Civil War which, as we have seen, created a tremen-
dous demand for ready-made clothing.

Thus the industry came into its own, and the following
statistics reveal the story. In 1850 there were some 4,200 shops
with a capital investment of $12,500,000 producing $48,000,000
worth of products with 96,000 workers. By 1860 there were
fewer shops (the shops had become larger), some 4,000 of them,
but the capital investment had more than doubled: $27,000,000.
Production, too, had almost doubled and could now be estimated
as worth about $80,000,000. The workers had increased, but
not nearly proportionately; there were some 115,000. In 1870
there were some 8,000 concerns, about twice as many as there
had been in 1860, but capital investment was almost $150,-
000,000, approximately six times what it had been in 1860.
Because of the introduction of machinery, however, the number
of workers actually dropped to 108,000. By 1880 the number of
firms had decreased to some 6,000, but, having more machinery,
these larger concerns were able to manufacture clothing worth
$209, 000,000. S7

Jewish success in the clothing industry resulted not only
from mass production, but also from the innovations of such
new methods as small profits, reduced prices, direct selling, the
use of specialized clothing stores, and the like. The number of

"Judith Grcenfdd, #&, II-III, 180-204.
280

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

Jewish clothing houses throughout the country was legion.
Practically every large city had some important clothing man-
ufacturer. The firm of Hart, Schaffner and Marx of Chicago
was probably the most famous. s 8 In New York City, 80 per cent
of all retail, and 90 per cent of all wholesale clothing firms,
were owned by Jews. In the rest of the country, 75 per cent of
the clothing companies were Jewish, and most of them were
controlled by Jews.59 The department store, the eventual
outgrowth of the clothing store, appeared in almost every city
throughout the country, most of them owned by Jews. Macy's,
Saks's, Gimbel's, Lifs, Snellenburg's, and Bamberger's are
only a few of the numerous department stores which spread
throughout the land and provided efficient buying for millions
of Americans.

Jews became prominent in the shoe industry and were leaders
in the field for a number of years, with Cincinnati and Chicago
as the principal centers. Probably the most famous firm was
that of the Florsheim Shoe Company of Chicago. €o The junk
business had its beginning in this period and gradually became
controlled by Jews. A number of steel companies, though not
the largest ones, grew from some of these businesses, among
which were the Inland Steel Company of Chicago, the Pollak
Steel Company of Cincinnati, and the Schonthal Steel Com-
pany of Columbus, Ohio. 6 J

Although only 2 per cent of Jewish business was in finance,
banking, and brokerage, this proportion was greater than that
of the general population. Jews were instrumental in the
development of railroads, in the underwriting of United States

s« Klchik, "Economic Life, 1875-1880," pp. 1-3.
**Ibid.9 pp. 6-7.
60 Ibid., pp. 1-3.
6l/&ttf., pp. 9-10.

ALLAN TARSHISH

bonds, and in the expansion of many new industries. The great
New York firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company played an impor-
tant part in the expansion of the "iron horse/' especially under
the leadership of Jacob H. Schiff, who came to the United
States in 1865. 62

The Seligman brothers also engaged in financing Western
railroads and provided subscribers for the $200,000,000 loan
which Jay Cooke floated for the United States Government
during the Civil War. Associated with them was August Belmont,
who, as the American representative of the Rothschilds, became
one of the richest Jews in the United States. The Dictionary of
American Biography estimates that Belmont's most valuable service
for the North during the Civil War was perhaps "a constant cor-
respondence with influential friends in Europe, the Rothschilds
and others, in which he set forth forcibly the Northern side in
the great conflict .... His influence upon public opinion in
financial and political circles, both in England and throughout
Continental Europe, was of value to Lincoln and his advisors."
Belmont's wife was a non-Jewess, a daughter of Commodore
Matthew C. Perry, and he showed very little interest in Jewish
affairs. His descendants are all Christians. 6 3

The Lehmans, Emanuel and Mayer, amassed wealth as
cotton brokers, then went into the banking business, and
became directors of many banks, railroads, and cotton mills.
When the State of Alabama, in 1873, had difficulty in selling a
large issue of bonds, the Lehmans took over the whole issue.64
Other Jews active in the expansion of railroads were William
Solomon Rayner of Baltimore; Charles Hallgarten and Com-
pany of Chicago; Philip Heidelbach, who founded the Cincinnati

6a Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875,*' pp. 14-16; Burton J. Hendrick, Tfa
Jews in America (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1923), pp. 19 ff.

*s Schappes, pp. 451 ff.

** Pilule, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," p, 37.
282

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

firm of Seasongood and Company, promoted the Cincinnati
Southern Railroad, and was a director of the Little Miami
Railroad; and Moritz Kopperl, who made his wealth as a coffee
importer and then became head of the National Bank of Texas
and president of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad.65

There were a number of other leading Jewish bankers through-
out the country in both large and small cities. 6 6 The banking
and commercial interests of Ligonier, Indiana, were for a time
so exclusively in the hands of the Straus brothers that the town
was often jokingly called Strausville. 6 7 When the Open Board
of Stockbrokers was organized in 1851 in New York City, five
Jewish stockbrokers were among the charter members: George
Henriques, Emanuel B. Hart, Charles G. Allen, S. M. Schafer,
and Simon Schafer. 6 8 Albert Speyer was the broker for Jay
Gould and James Fisk when they tried to corner the gold
market in 1 869. When the attempt failed, they repudiated their
obligations, but Speyer did not, and died a poor man. 6 9

Approximately 34 per cent of all Jews were in commerce,
manufacturing, and finance, the majority being in commerce. In
the small communities this percentage was even higher. In the
larger communities many more were employees. 7 ° Proportion-
ately, this percentage was much higher than that of the general
population, most of whom were laborers, farmers, or craftsmen.

65 Isidor Blum, The Jews of Baltimore from Early Days to 1910 (Baltimore: Historical
Review Publishing Co., 1910), p. xi; Goode, "Jewish Economic Life, 1830-1860";
Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1875-1880,'* pp. 21-22.

66 Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1860-1875," P- 32> note 173; Pilchik, "Economic
Life, 1875-1880,'* pp. IO-I2.

*? Ibid., p. 1 8.

68 Lelyveld, p. 141.

69 Samuel Walker McCall, The Patriotism of the American Jew (New York: Plymouth
Press, 1924), p. 190.

?a Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1875-1880," pp. 24-26.

283

ALLAN TARSHISH

For centimes, of course, the only opportunity permitted Jews
in economic life was that of the middleman. When they came
to the United States they naturally went first into those fields
which they knew and understood. Jewish leaders exhorted them
to follow the normal proportions of economic life. But they
were not interested in proportions; they were more interested
in using their abilities to make the most of the opportunities
which the country opened before them. 7 x

This disproportion in the commercial field aroused criticism.
An article in the Cincinnati Presbyterian in 1863 charged that
the commercial character of the Jews was one reason why they
were despised.72 In 1855 the Philadelphia Reporter claimed that
the Jews oppressed the working people, but another Philadelphia
paper, The Ledger, pointed out that Jews paid their employees
higher wages than Christians. 73 In 1857, claiming that Catholic
workers were not well treated by Jews, the Archbishop of
Cincinnati forbade Catholics to work for them. Rabbi Max
Lilienthal disputed the charge and threatened to urge a Jewish
boycott of Catholic business firms. When the Catholic banker
who had presented the charges to the archbishop absconded
with the savings of widows and orphans, his followers were
extremely embarrassed. 74

Undoubtedly, some Jewish employers did take advantage of
their employees, but, unfortunately, so did many others. The
rise of the labor unions and the development of enlightened
public opinion modified this situation as time went on.

f1 Circular of the Hebrew Agricultural Society, December, 1856, in the files of
the Hebrew Agricultural Society among the records of the B'nai B'rith; The
Israelite, I (1854), 44; ibid., IX (1863), 388; The Occident, XVIII (1860), 143.

»» The Israelite, IX (1863), 388.
™ The Occident, XIII (1855-56), 124 ff.
»« Ibid., XVIII (i860), 23.
284

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

LABOR AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

Although unusual opportunities for prosperity prevailed in this
period, America was no Shangri-la. Poverty still existed in the
United States. Every man did not leap from rags to riches, and
many abuses were rampant in this period of laissezjaire.

Labor unions began in the United States in 1829, but did not
at first coalesce into large-scale organizations. In addition to
seeking better working conditions and wages, they also ex-
pressed a deep interest in free education and were instrumental
in its incorporation as an integral part of the American tradition.
The labor movement in the United States and the idea of the
class struggle were continually nourished from Europe. Sporadic
strikes were attempted from time to time, although very few
were really effective. Perhaps the most far-reaching strike of
the early period was that of the tailors in 1850. It was not
entirely successful, but it did help to cement relations between
tailors of different nationalities and it did result in the formation
of a union consisting of 2,000 members. The depression of
1854-1855 and the panic of 1857, however, broke up most of the
unions. But again, by 1863-1864, a number of strikes for higher
wages and other benefits initiated a new effort to form labor
unions, most of them also short-lived.

New York was the center of the early German labor movement
in America, but it spread elsewhere wherever German labor
settled — Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and,
to a minor degree, Chicago and Milwaukee. In the twenty
years before the Civil War, German workers played a significant
role wherever labor battled with capital. They also organized
social clubs and mutual aid societies which frequently developed
into unions. These groups were constantly influenced by new
refugees from abroad who had often been active in secret
communistic societies and had been harried out of their native

285

ALLAN TARSHISH

countries. Short-lived papers were published from time to time.
One of these, called the Republik der Arbeiter (Republic of the
Workers), was published by an Arbeiterbund (Workers3 League)
dedicated to founding and supporting a communist colony in
Wisconsin. This paper appeared as a monthly in January, 1850,
became a weekly from April, 1851, to December, 1854, and
then reverted to a monthly until its discontinuance in July,

1855-
While the intellectuals influenced the workers, their attitude,

in turn, was modified by American workers who were not
interested in the destruction of American political institutions,
but sought, rather, economic improvement and reform within
the existing political framework. 7S Even though small groups of
intellectuals were convinced that the only solution for economic
problems lay in some Utopian project, and though they did form
small colonies with the purpose of putting into practice the ideal
of a completely equal and free society, these experiments were
all short-lived. It was hard, moreover, for such ideas to take
root in an America where, for example, it could be reported in
1849 that on the West Coast carpenters received $16 a day, and
common laborers $10 a day. ?6

Nevertheless, after the Civil War, branches of the Inter-
national Workingman's Association, established first in Europe
in 1 864, were organized in some of the industrial centers of the
United States, first only among German immigrants and then
among some native Americans. The first number of the weekly
Arbezter-£eitung (Workers' Newspaper) was issued in 1873. A
Social Democratic Party was organized by German immigrants
in 1874, but its meetings were raided by the police and by

75 Ernst, pp. 109-14.

7* Frederika Brenner, America of the Fifties ("Scandinavian Classics," Vol. XXIII
[New York: The American Scandinavian Foundation, 1924]).

286

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

outraged citizens.77 Socialism had little appeal in a country
where the opportunities of private wealth were greater than the
dreams of the socialistic state.

Labor groups not interested in theories and Utopias but in
wages and hours of work had slightly more success. In 1866 the
National Labor Movement, the first general organization, was
formed, but lasted only four years. As the country became more
industrialized, however, the demand for an organized labor
group became more insistent. In 1879 a national union, the
Knights of Labor, was organized with the purpose of uniting all
labor — white and negro, male and female. It departed from
the old type of craft union based on the medieval guild because
it was felt that the industrial conditions of the time required
more complete unionization than the crafts could achieve. It
was, however, ahead of the times. The rapidly changing social
and economic situation, the incompetence of some of its leaders,
and the illiteracy of many of its members led to its dissolution.

It was not until 1881 that the first labor union destined to
occupy a permanent and important place in American life came
into being. The American Federation of Labor was organized
by Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers, the latter an English
Jew. A federation of craft unions, it was more efficient and
realistic in its goals than the Knights of Labor. Its real power,
however, was not achieved until the twentieth century. 7 8

The majority of the people at that time were not interested
in labor unions, and many violently opposed them as hindrances
to their aspirations towards prosperity. The great West, stretch-
ing from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, with its cheap
farms, its great mineral deposits, and its growing towns, served

1 1 Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (New York: Macmillan,
1936), II, 249-52.
i*Ibid.y pp. 211-22.

287

ALLAN TARSHISH

as a safety valve for the East. The slogan "Go West, young
man" was more effective than the cry of the class struggle.
Even in the East, expansion and opportunity, surpassing any
in the history of the world, provided sufficient vistas and actual
improvement for the majority of the people. Most of the Jews
of the period showed little interest in labor unions or in plans
for changing society. Compared to the restrictions of their
former homes, the American scene offered wide freedom and
hope. Instead of being concerned with changing society, they
were more interested in changing and adjusting themselves to
take advantage of what lay before them.

The problem of labor and capital appeared to many only a
temporary matter. Most workers in garment factories had high
hopes of becoming employers themselves, and it must be
remembered that the majority of Jews of that period were
engaged in small businesses and individualized occupations.
To them, the basic problem was simply to make the most of the
opportunities offered them.

JEWS IN THE PROFESSIONS

Some Jews did enter the professions. In Cincinnati, in 1867,
there were four doctors, six lawyers, fourteen teachers, one
chemist, and one engineer in a Jewish population of some
12,000. In 1874, with approximately the same population,
there were eight doctors, fourteen lawyers, fourteen teachers,
and others in various professional vocations. A similar per-
centage was found in New York and other cities. 79 These ratios
were small compared with the present, for the mid-nineteenth
century saw only the beginning of the rise of a substantial

7» Blum, pp. 149 ff.; Allgemeine J&tfong des Judentums, XXXIII (1869), 53; Die
Ncuzfiti XIV (1874); Israditische Wochensckrift, VI (1875), 421; Pilchik, ''Economic
Life, 1860-1875," pp. 34, 37, and other directories in his two essays.

288

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

Jewish professional class. The great majority of the Jews were
new to the country. Professional pursuits had been forbidden
to them in Europe, and not enough time had elapsed for them
to receive the necessary education in the United States. It is
true that a number of the earlier Jewish settlers were engaged
in professions, but business offered the newly arrived Jew the
quickest avenue for advancement.

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture was one of the hotly debated subjects of Jewish
life at this time, but there was more debate about it than action.
Many Jewish leaders believed that more Jews should engage in
agriculture to produce a more normal distribution of occupa-
tions and to demonstrate a more permanent rootage in America.
The Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the Alliance
Israelite Universelle, the B'nai B'rith, the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, and other organizations planned to
settle Jews upon farms.

In the early part of that period very little was accomplished
along these lines, but in 1881 the New York branch of the
Alliance Israelite Universelle joined with the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations in a project to settle East European
Jews on farms in Louisiana. The governor of that state had
offered 160 acres of fertile ground in Catahoula Parish to any
family desiring to settle there. One hundred and seventy-three
Russian Jews accepted the offer, but the plan proved a failure.
The men found the weather too hot, many contracted malaria,
the Mississippi River flooded the land, and they missed their
wives and families. Eventually they all abandoned the project.

Solomon Franklin of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, tried to settle 200
East European Jews on his farmland, but nothing came of this
venture either. Nevertheless, a few colonies of Jewish fanners

289

ALLAN TARSHISH

were established in California; Louisiana; Long Island, New
York; as well as near St. Louis, Missouri, and Pine Bluff,
Arkansas. The Baron Maurice de Hirsch philanthropies were
partially successful in settling a group of Jewish farmers in New
Jersey in the 1890*8. Individually, there were a number of Jews
who became active in farming in various sections of the country.
A Jewish traveler reported that he had found a number of
Jewish sheepherders in California, one of them owning 30,000
sheep.80 But the percentage of Jewish farmers remained small.
The long centuries of European persecution and the legal
restrictions against Jews' owning land had had their effect. The
Jews of this era were not conditioned in mind or habit to go
onto the land. As time went on, however, more Jews did become
farmers.

80 The Asmonean, IV (1851), 15,* ibid., XII (1855), 20; The Occident, XVII (1860),
295; Morals, chapter XXXV; Max Heller, Jubilee Souvenir of Temple Sinai, New
Orleans, 1872-1922 (New Orleans, 1922), wherein is described an attempt on the
part of the New York branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations, with the cooperation of the governor of
Louisiana, to settle Jews in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, in 1881; Proceedings of the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Cincinnati: Bloch), I (1873-79), 282;
Allgemeine %eitung des Judentums, XIX (1855), 565, describes the organization of an
Agricultural Society in New York in 1855; ibid., XXI (1857), 132, describes the
organization in New York of the American Jewish Agricultural Society; ibid.,
XXIV (1860), 653, reports the efforts of Myer Friede, president of Congregation
Bene El of St. Louis, with the assistance of a member of the Missouri Legislature,
to give free land to German Jewish settlers,- ibid.9 XXXVI (1872), 854, reports
another plan for settlement near Pine Bluff, Arkansas; American Jewish Historical
Society (AJHS), letter 3O7b, Alliance Israelite Universelle to the Board of Delegates
of American Israelites, July 12, 1872; AJHS, letter 3070, the Board of Delegates of
American Israelites to Rev. M. Fluegel, Pine Bluff, Ark., August 21, 1872; AJHS,
letter 3070; AJHS, letter 225, Simon Bennann, New York, to the Board of Delegates
of American Israelites, May 23, 1860; Minute Book of the Executive Committee of
the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, June 6, 1860; Proceedings of the
Board of Delegates of American Israelites, 1877; I. J. Benjamin, Drei Jakre in
Amerika, 1^-62 (Hanover, Germany, 1862), pp. 234 ff.; Allgemeine %eitung des
Judentums, XXXVIII (1874), 612.

290

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

DAVID LUBIN

There was in the United States a Jew who, though not a farmer,
contributed greatly to farming and agriculture. David Lubin
was born in Poland in 1849. He settled in California, went
into the dry goods business, introduced the one-price system,
and became popular throughout the region because of his
honesty and kindness. He became interested in agriculture as
the farmers, who were his customers, discussed their problems
with him. At first he felt that local groups of farmers should
unite for co-operative action. Then he realized the need for
association on a state-wide basis and, finally, the necessity of
national and international organization. He came to the conclu-
sion that an International Institute of Agriculture was vital for
the well-being of farmers throughout the world.

Retiring from business, Lubin devoted all his energies toward
fulfilling such a plan. Unable to convince the authorities in
Washington, he went to Europe and visited one capital after
another. Eventually he persuaded Victor Emmanuel III, the
king of Italy, to sponsor the International Institute of Agricul-
ture, which was first convoked in 1905. The king donated a
building, a permanent Institute was established, and David
Lubin became the United States representative, serving until
his death. Later this Institute was merged with the League of
Nations, and now is part of the United Nations. 8 x

SUMMARY

Was the Jew a follower or a leader in business? Did he pioneer
in forming new economic patterns, or did he simply accept the
situations which he found? The Jew did pioneer in the clothing

81 George Cohen, The Jews in the Making of America (Boston: Stratford Co., 1924),
P- 134-

291

ALLAN TARSHISH

business; he developed it on the basis of mass production, and
brought about democracy in men's attire. In this field he took
the lead in initiating the practice of smaller profits and lower
prices. He helped to create the department store as a normal
part of the American scene.

During the Civil War, many Jewish bankers were able,
through their European connections, to tap for the United
States Government sources of funds not available to others.
Individual Jewish bankers helped to develop the railroad
industry in various parts of the country. Jewish businessmen in
many towns were leaders in the growth of their communities.
Joseph Pulitzer was an outstanding personality in the newspaper
field. As individuals, a number of Jews pioneered in many areas.

It must be remembered that Jews constituted a small minority
and did not control any field except clothing. As a group, they
usually followed the patterns set before them, though individ-
ually many exercised leadership and ingenuity. Small Jewish
bankers in the outposts took risks and displayed daring in many
business operations. It can be said generally that in the fields
in which they were interested they contributed much in leader-
ship, courage, ingenuity, and foresight. Proportionately, more
Jews were employers than other Americans. In the smaller
centers, their ratio as businessmen was sometimes as high as
85 per cent or 90 per cent. In the larger centers less than one-
third of the Jews were heads of businesses, and a little more
than two- thirds were employees.82 Since 75 per cent of the
Jews lived in the larger cities, it is obvious that the majority of
them were employees. 8 3 Many Jews became prosperous but,
in the main, they did not approach the imperial wealth of the

Sa Pilchik, "Economic Life, 1875-1880," pp. 5-6.

*s A summary of the activities and business interests of Jews in various parts of
the country in the period between 1870 and 1880 is given in Tarshish, "The Rise
of American Judaism," note 207.

392

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE AMERICAN JEW

Morgans, Drexels, Hills, Rockefellers, and the other great
•economic tycoons of this period.

It can be said, in summation, that, though Jews figured in
most enterprises as individuals, they were chiefly concentrated
in the mercantile pursuits, especially clothing. There were only
a few Jewish farmers and a sprinkling of professionals. The Jew
tended to be an independent merchant. He engaged in many
risk activities. He was helpful, in greater proportion than his
numbers, in the expansion and development of the country.
He was not so poor as the poorest, but not so rich as the richest.
He bulked large in the middle class.

293

A Retrospective View of Isaac Leaser's
Biblical Work

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

A. LITTLE over a hundred years ago a memorable
event occurred in American Jewish history: the publication of
Isaac Leeser's English translation of the Hebrew Bible. T With
this translation Leeser gave to the American Jews what was to
become perhaps their most important book for two generations
of Jews fully or partially absorbed into American society and
culture. He gave them the version of the Bible which they were
to use in synagogues, schools, and homes until 1917, when it
was replaced by a newer translation issued by the Jewish
Publication Society of America.

The centennial of Leeser's translation was duly marked in
1 953 by Anita L. Lebeson, * who noted the laudatory remarks
of such historians and literary critics as Moshe Davis, Max L.
Margolis and Alexander Marx, and Meyer Waxman. Yet, to
the knowledge of this writer, no detailed appreciation of the

Dr. Matitiahu Tsevat is Assistant Professor of Bible and Special Librarian of the
Semitics Collection at the Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion in
Cincinnati.

I cordially thank my friends Maxwell Whiteman and Stanley F. Chyet for their
manifold assistance in the preparation of this article.

1 The book was published in December, 1853, but was unavailable to the public
until January, 1854.

3 Congress Weekly, XX (No. 37; December 28, 1953), 11-13.

295

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

translation has been attempted. It should be put off no longer.
Time has granted our generation the aloofness from an un-
warranted praise and blame which cannot be expected from
the readers and scholars to whom Leeser's Bible was a steady
and personal experience,3 and the prediction, made in 1920,
that "we shall soon be thinking of putting Isaac Leeser's memory
in a museum of Jewish antiquities as a specimen of a lost type,"
has become true. The prognosis is the concluding sentence of
Israel Abrahams* fine essay, "Leeser's Bible." 4 Abrahams con-
cerned himself mainly with the English style of the translation,
a style which he deemed so poor that he believed that this was
the main reason why English Jews did not accept Leeser's
version.5 This writer will, therefore, pay no attention to its
English garb, and will refer the reader to the discussion by
Abrahams.

Leeser's work on the Bible was not limited to the 1853 transla-
tion. In 1845 he had published an edition of the Pentateuch in
Hebrew and English and, in 1848, a Hebrew Bible. The latter6

s The discussion on the translation was opened by Isidor Kalisch soon after its
publication (The Israelite, I [1854], 21 f., 59, 170). Kalisch reviewed Genesis, the
beginning of Exodus, and a few verses from Isaiah 53. Some of his strictures are
right, some wrong, some petty, some nasty. A rejoinder by Isaac Mayer appeared
in The Occident, XII (1854), 358-64, to which the translator himself added some
remarks.

* Israel Abrahams, By-Paths in Hebraic Bookland (Philadelphia, 1920), pp. 254-59.
s Ibid., p. 257.

6 Rosenbach, in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society -, XXX (1926),
431, No. 625, records the edition as follows:

DW33 rmn, seu Biblia Hebraica secundum editiones Jos. Athiae,
Joannis Leusden, Jo. Simonis aliorumque, mprimis Everardi van der Hooght,
D. Henrici opitii, et Wolfii Heidenham, cum additionibus clavique masoretica
et rabbinica Augusti Hahn. Nunc denuo et emandata [emendata?] ab Isaaco
Leeser, V.D.M. Synagogae Mikve Israel, Phila. et Josepho Jaquett, V.D.M.
Presbyter Prot. Epis. Ecclesiae, U.S. Editio stereotypa. Novi Eboraci: Sump-
tibus Joannis Wiley, 161 Broadway; et Londini, 13 Paternoster Row. Phila-
delphia: J. W. Moore typis L. Johnson et soc. Phila. 1848.

296

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESER3S BIBLICAL WORK

is a fine piece of printing as well as a careful edition of the text.
Leeser gives due credit to earlier editions of which he made full
use, particularly the edition issued by August Hahn, whose
three prefaces and lists he incorporated into his own edition.
Those lists include two tables of the haftarot (readings from the
Prophets), one in the order of the weekly portions, the other in
the order of the biblical books from which they are taken;
and an alphabetical index of the Hebrew and Aramaic Masoretic
terms used in the footnotes, with translations, explanations, and
examples. All prefatory matter and lists, with the exception of
the first, are in Latin.

In his own preface, Leeser correctly says that this is the
first vocalized Bible printed in America. This statement implic-
itly takes cognizance of the publication of another, yet un-
vocalized edition of the Bible on this side of the Atlantic. This
is the edition prepared anonymously by Jonas (Jonathan)
Horwitz, and published by Thomas Dobson in Philadelphia in
i8i4.7 Leeser performed a philological and practical service
when he published a complete Masoretic Bible, i. e., one with
vowel signs and accents. At the same time, the publication of
the vocalized text could be, and probably was to be, understood
as a silent protest against certain anti-Jewish prejudices which
had been voiced on the occasion of the publication of the 1814
Bible when the vowel points "were spoken of by local the-
ologians as a Jewish scheme to make the acquisition of Hebrew
difficult/'8

Jaquett*s contribution consists of a comparison of the collections of various readings
of Benjamin Kennicott and Giovanni Bernardo de Rossi and also certain earlier
editions.

» Edwin Wolf 2nd and Maxwell Whiteman, The History of the Jews in Philadelphia
from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson (Philadelphia, 1957), pp. 308-11.

8 The Quarterly Theological Magazine* III (1814), 168, cited in Wolf and Whiteman,
p. 310. This argument is a latter-day link in the chain of Christian accusations,

297

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

Another passage in Leeser's preface sheds some light on his
philosophy. After saying that he was compelled to make a very
limited selection among various available readings, he gives the
principles of his selection: Manuscriptuum bonorum possessio facile
hoc pension [scil. seligendi] fecisset; sed his non presentibus, reflectio
religiose et typographiarum variorum comparatio vices ex necessitate
suppeditavissent.9 To the modern reader, this statement of
principles comes as a surprise. Not only is the reader unwilling
a priori to allow any religious considerations to influence the
reconstruction of a text, but he is doubtful as to how considera-
tions of this order can solve strictly technical questions, partic-
ularly since the variants from which the scholar has to make
his selection concern only the tiniest minutiae and in no way
touch on the contents of Scripture, much less on articles of
faith. Deferring to the end of this article an attempt at a fuller

beginning with the Church Fathers, that the Jews manipulated the biblical text
in order to buttress their position in Christian-Jewish theological disputes. It is
needless to stress that it was not Horwitz's intention to clear access to the Hebrew
Bible by removing vicious Masoretic roadblocks. Rather, the reason is plainly
expressed in an announcement of the new publisher, Dobson, who says that "this
edition will be unencumbered with the Masoretical points now generally exploded
by the best scholarship in the Hebrew language" (Wolf and Whiteman, p. 310).
Dobson's statement is quite unexceptional if read in the broader context of certain
trends within eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century biblical philology espe-
cially in France (cf. the second part, pp. xix-xxvii, of L. F. Lalande's preface to
the fourth edition [1781] of F. Masclef, Grammatica Hebraica punctis massoreticis
libera) and England (mentioned in Wilhelm Gesenius, Geschickte der hebraischen
Sprache und Sckrift . . . [1815], p. 209, notes). The Syriac Bible did not fare better.
When Samuel Lee published a new edition for the British Bible Society in 1823
(1824), his only "contribution" to Syriac philology was the omission of the vowel
signs from the text of Bryan Walton's and Edmund Castellus* polyglot of 1654-
1657, which he otherwise reproduced faithfully. At the time it was thought that by
omitting something one made a contribution.

» "Good manuscripts would render this task [of selecting] easy; in their absence,
religious consideration [s] and comparison of various printed books had alternately
to suffice."

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESERJS BIBLICAL WORK

discussion of Leaser's approach, I do nothing more than mention
these problems here.

It is convenient, in what follows, to treat Leeser's edition of
the Pentateuch and his later translation of the whole Bible as
one. In 1845 he published the Pentateuch in Hebrew and
English complete with hqftarot,** a work of which he says with
some reason: "I doubt whether the precious word of God ever
appeared among us [Jews] in a more beautiful form than the
volumes ... of which the present is the first." * x This is, remark-
ably enough, the only instance in which he speaks of his biblical
work in terms other than modesty and humility. The Pentateuch
is, of course, not merely the first and most important part of
the Bible, but also the center of the Sabbath and festival services,
and it is for this reason that Leeser must have been particularly
anxious to see a Hebrew and English edition of it in the hands
of his fellow Jews.

But the Pentateuch was only preparatory to his 1853 transla-
tion of the Bible.12 Engaged in this translation since 1838, 13
Leeser thus realized "a desire [which he had] entertained for
more than a quarter of a century." I4 He incorporated his earlier
pentateuchal translation into his later work, but revised it by

n»:n K'D^HK^B HB .iry^» f| h'\ m« p pnr japn vmo rmn .D»nVa mm
TWO lA mx n-iifi nwa T-TDDTT nixaa JDIP i:up TMI hv. The Law of God. Edited,
with Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised, by Isaac Leeser (Philadelphia:
G. Sherman, 5605 [1844-1845]).

1 x Preface, p. vii. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century editions, which many would
indeed find more beautiful, were probably unknown to Leeser.

1 a D'airwi 0 W33 mm The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures: Carefully Translated
According to the Massoretic Text, on the Basis of the English Version, after the Best Jewish
Authorities; and Supplied with Short Explanatory Notes (Philadelphia, 5614 [1853-1854]).

** Pentateuch, Preface, p. 5; Bible, Preface, at the end.
x< Bible, Preface, at the beginning.

299

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

carefully changing the wording on almost every page z s and by
providing it with notes that were more copious. x 6

In his prefaces to the translations, Leeser explained his
purpose: to present them "to the Jewish public,"17 "to his
fellow-Israelites."18 Their usefulness to the Gentiles, Leeser
proposed, lay in the fact that they embodied the Jewish under-
standing of the Bible as enshrined in an age-old tradition.1*
This Jewish understanding was not, however, to be regarded on
the same plane with other understandings. It was, Leeser
declared, the true understanding because it comes closest to the

1 s As an example of relatively far-reaching changes, we give in juxtaposition three
verses from Genesis 49, a chapter which hardly anyone will ever translate to his
own satisfaction. In the case of passages of lesser difficulty, Leeser naturally had
less occasion to make changes.

Pentateuch Bible

4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not Unstable as water, thou shalt not have

excel . . . then defiledst thou my couch, the excellence . . . then defiledst thou

which I was wont to ascend. the one who ascended my couch.

' A lion's whelp thou art, Judah, when Like a lion's whelp, O Judah, from the
from the prey, my son, thou risest. . . prey, my son, thou risest. . .

x* Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of Zebulun shall dwell at the margin of

the sea; and he shall be at the haven of the seas; and he shall be at the haven

ships; and his border shall be unto of ships; and his border shall be near

Zidon. Zidon.

With respect to verse 13 in the translation of 1853, Leeser was concerned with
English style and translated the same Hebrew word (*]in) by two English words
("margin" and "haven"). Thus he surrendered his faithful adherence to the
Hebrew diction which is found in the translation of 1845, and which is a paramount
principle in the translation of the Bible. Gf. Franz Rosenzweig, "Die Schrift und
Luther," in Martin Buber und Franz Rosenzweig, Die Schrift und ikre Verdeiitsckung
(1936), pp. n6f.

1 * About a sixth of the book (Preface, at the end). In the preface to the Pentateuch,
p. x, he regrets that he could not provide more notes to that work.

1 7 Pentateuch, Preface, at the beginning.

18 Bible, Preface, at the beginning.
*9 Ibid., p. iv, at the top.

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESERJS BIBLICAL WORK

intentions of the biblical authors. To show this, one had only to
render a faithful translation into a modern language. Leeser,
therefore, "endeavored to make [the translation] as literal as
possible."20 He had "translated the text before him without
regard to the result thence arising for his creed/321 and had
"discarded every preconceived opinion."22 "But," he goes on,
"no perversion or forced rendering of any text was needed to
bear out his opinions or those of Israelites in general." Judaism
did not require "the distortion of the sacred text." 2 3 If it had,
Leeser asserted, he would still not have deviated from rendering
the text verbally.24

One need not be a student of the Bible or of Jewish tradition
and history to realize that Leeser wanted the impossible.
Centuries of growth and development left their indelible impres-
sions on the Bible. The even greater changes of post-biblical
times have continuously remolded Judaism, and with it its
ideal foundation: its continuous interpretation of the Bible.
The established, hence static, biblical text and its dynamic
reinterpretation thus became two entities. Objectively, each was
autonomous and self-contained, the common element being the
identity of written matter — a chapter, a word, a letter —
there text, here proof text. Subjectively, they were — and
are — a unity wherever it has been felt that the permanence
and identity of Judaism are preserved despite the changes and
vicissitudes of Jewish history. Yet the subjective cannot be made
objective. A translator of the Bible who makes a forced attempt
to objectify the subjective brushes aside the essence either of

ao Pentateuch, Preface, p. vii,

ai Bible, p. iii, at the bottom.

« Ibid.

a3 Pentateuch, ibid.

*< Ibid.

SOI

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

Jewish tradition or of philology whenever the two entities
conflict. As translator and annotator, Leeser did the latter.

With these remarks we have indicated in which aspect of
Leeser's translation we are interested: his attempt to carry out
the program which he laid down in his prefaces. Other aspects
are of little concern. It would be neither fair nor intelligent to
select knotty verses and then draw up a questionnaire and
present it to the examinee, Isaac Leeser. Not only has biblical
science progressed during the last hundred years; its methods
and results are better known to, and more readily accepted by,
the educated public today than they were in the middle of the
nineteenth century. Throughout the millennia, moreover, prom-
inent versions of the Bible have often been distinguished or
properly appraised not by the linguistic accuracy with which
they rendered difficult passages, but by their achievement of a
specific synthesis between the ancient book and the genius of
their times.

As to Leeser, the translator, his Hebrew knowledge cannot be
questioned too seriously, despite some contemporary attacks. 2 s
Although he modestly disclaimed advanced Hebrew learning,
he was sufficiently equipped linguistically to handle his task. 2 6
Translations and commentaries were at his disposal, and he
fully acknowledged his indebtedness to them, specifically to the
King James Version, to the German Jewish translations from
Moses Mendelssohn to Ludwig Philippson and Leopold Zunz, 2 7
and to the medieval Jewish commentators.

a« See note 3, above,

36 Harry M. Orlinsky says with even greater affirmation: "... the scholarship
[of Leeser's translation] in general was on a consistently high level" (Jewish Quarterly
Review, New Series, XLV [1954-1955], 380).

3 1 1n several hundred notes, found in the margins of most pages, as well as in the
preface (p. iii), explicit credit is given to Philippson. If any adverse criticism be
called for, it would rather be the reverse, viz., that Leeser referred to Philippson

302

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAG LEESER*S BIBLICAL WORK

The course of our study is thus further charted: we will, as a
rule, compare his translation and notes with his immediate
sources. To trace the more remote sources is beyond the scope
of an investigation which is not concerned with the history of
biblical interpretation, e. g., the talmudic origin and the
subsequent transformation of expositions and concepts em-
bodied in medieval comments which Leeser quotes. Zunz's
translation is cited by the name of its editor, Zunz, and not by
the names of the translators of the several books. Nor are the
individual contributors to the Biur** recognized here. For
comparison with Philippson's translation only the revised edition
of 1865 could be used.29 We now proceed to discuss Leeser's
rendering of selected passages.

Exodus 21:6, at the end. The Authorized (or King James)
Version and Zunz: ". . . and he [i. e., the servant] shall serve
him forever." Leeser5 s 1853 biblical translation: ". . . and he
shall serve him till the jubilee/5 with the note: "Lit. efor ever3;
but servitude is hereafter (Leviticus 25:10) limited to the

jubilee ** In his 1845 pentateuchal translation, Leeser thought

that this note, which follows the traditional explanation, was
dispensable, and thus he left the reader with the impression
that DVttrt> means "till the jubilee."

and Zunz more than was necessary in an edition for popular and liturgical use.
After all, the translation and interpretation of the* greatest part of the Bible are
common property, or at least shared by several scholars. Yet Isaac M. Wise wrote
in his obituary of Leeser that he had to convince Leeser, when the latter was prepar-
ing his translation, to use Philippson's work, since Leeser had at first been unwilling
to consult a "reformer." Wise continues: "With admirable skill, he used
Phplippson, subsequent to the conversation] without betraying with one word
that this was his main authority, in the notes especially" (The Israelite^ XIV [No.
32; February 14, 1868]).

a8 Prague, 1833-1837.

*» Since deviations from Philippson's earlier translation are indicated in the
footnotes of the later edition, the earlier text can be reconstructed with fair certainty.

303

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

Ezekiel 20:25 f. reads in the Authorized Version:

[25] Wherefore30 I gave them also statutes that were not good and
judgments whereby they should31 not live; [26] and I polluted them
in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through (the fire) 3 2 all
that openeth the womb. . . .

This translation reproduces in the main what is written in the
original Hebrew text.33 The idea that God deliberately gave
Israel bad and harmful laws has baffled readers and com-
mentators throughout the ages. Leeser surmounts the obstacle
by expurgating the text in his translation:

[25] And also I let them follow statutes that were not good. . . . [26]
And I let them be defiled through their gifts, in that they caused to
pass (through the fire) all that openeth the womb. . . .

The towering conception of God's plans for man leading Him
to pervert His Law, as once He had perverted His prophecy
(I Kings 22:21 f.), is reduced to a pedestrian restatement of
man's free choice. The translation is then amplified by the note:

Rashi, after Jonathan; meaning, as they had wilfully rebelled, God
permitted them to follow their evil inclinations, till the measure of
their sin was completed, and their destruction followed, as told in
our history. Zunz and Philippson take it in the light that to the sinners
the law is a means of punishment, as its transgression brings painful
consequences [this is not their understanding, as the subsequent quota-
tion clearly shows] ; wherefore [?] the translation of Dr. P. is as follows:
"And I also gave them laws which were injurious (to them), and
ordinances through which they did not live; and I made them unclean
through their gifts, when they set apart all that opened the womb,"
and so forth: talcing Taym "as setting aside," not "as causing to pass
(through the fire)," as given by Rashi.

3° The Revised Standard Version [RSV] correctly reads "moreover3' instead, and
deletes the following "also.**

3 ' RSV better: "could."

* 3 RSV preferably: "in making them offer by fire."

« The improvements of the RSV bring out the meaning more clearly, but it is
all there in the Authorized Version, also.

304

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESERJS BIBLICAL WORK

He then concludes the note with a somersault: "But both
constructions, though apparently so different, have at last the
same bearing, since to the pious the law of God brings happiness
and life, not evil and death."

Ecclesiastes 3:21. "Who knows whether the spirit of man
goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the nether-
world." This translation of "the moderns," including Zunz, 34
is explicitly rejected by Leeser in a note in favor of the following
("after the Massorah"): "Who knoweth the spirit of the sons
of man that ascendeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that
descendeth downward to the earth?" It is indeed possible, but
by no means certain, that such is the intention of the Masoretic
vocalization. 3 s In any event, the doctrine of immortality is only

s 4 Philippson similarly, though less accurately.

s s it is possible, for the pointings n^j70 and nil* ft are the regular vocalizations
of the article, serving here as a relative pronoun. This explanation is supported
by some midrashic explanations; particularly telling is the faulty quotation of
the biblical passage hi Tanhuma (Buber), Berakah, p. 56: mirn »'rr norurr nm,
Y~\vb n»o!? [instead of the actual: N»n mTn], "and it is the spirit of the beast that
goes down to the netherworld," which goes a long way towards eliminating an em-
barrassing biblical statement which questions the doctrine of the hereafter. On the
other hand, it is not certain that such was the intention of the Masoretes. n^J/tf
and n-j^n may simply be less common forms of the interrogative n; cf. a number
of examples listed by Alexander Sperber in Journal of Biblical Literature, LXII
(1943), 228-30. Nor does this alternative lack midrashic attestation: nioV Tny 'a»
H»n rrtnyn DTK »n nn jnv ^D "ID«W pD p«V DN D'apV DM rpVirr WBI p*n!? VTT »r«i
'in rbyv1?, "I [Moses] am going to die not knowing where my soul will go, to the
heaven or to the netherworld, as it is said: *Who knows whether the spirit of man
goes upward, etc.' " (Debarim Rabba, Ha'azinu, at the end).

Incidentally, Leeser sometimes uses the term "Massorah" hi a loose sense. In a
note to the end of Exodus 7:25 he says: "The English version ends here the seventh
chapter, but the Massoretic text commences chap, viii only with the fifth verse
of the common version." It would have come as a slight shock, had he been told
that the Jews had adopted for the Hebrew Bible the chapter division of the Vulgate
in order to facilitate reference to biblical passages in Christian-Jewish disputations,
since the Christians were wont to quote by chapters. The division of the Vulgate
into chapters was made, in all probability, by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, hi the early thirteenth century. For the whole question, see Shmuel
Hakohen Weingarten's recent article, "o»pns!? minn npiVn", iSftuzz, XLII (1957-

305

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

imperfectly salvaged, for Leeser translated verse 19: ". .
[man and beast] have all one kind of spirit; so that the pre-
eminence of man above the beast is nought." But the rules of
Hebrew grammar — of any grammar — are violated, for the
two nominative pronouns — K^n — in their function as subjects
of the simple clauses, do not admit other subjects — Leeser's
5 and -H — in the same clauses.

I Samuel 3:3. Leeser's translation: ". . . while Samuel was
lying down in (the hall of) the temple of the Lord, where the
ark of God was." The words in parentheses are not in the text;
Zunz and Philippson do not supply them. Leeser inserts them,
with no note of justification, in order to comply with the Jewish
tradition,36 to which the Authorized Version accedes, that it is
disrespectful to lie down in the temple proper.

Ezekiel 44:2S>b. "They [the priests] shall not marry a
widow . . . but a widow who is the widow of a priest they may
marry/5 This is the translation by the Biur, Zunz, and Philippson.
Leeser mentions it in a note, but rejects it in favor of the fol-
lowing: "And a widow . . . shall they not take to themselves as
wives . . . but whatever widow it may be, the (common) priests
may take." It does not trouble him that his version lacks any
textual support. He is anxious only to harmonize Ezekiel with
Leviticus 21:7, i3f., which forbids the marriage of a widow
to a high priest alone and thus permits ordinary priests to marry
any widow. But while he eliminates one conflict with faraway
Leviticus, he creates another with the protasis of the very verse
which he is translating: "and a widow . . . shall they not take,"
which refers to all priests, for the antecedent of "they" is "anyone

1958), 281-93. In the division of the seventh and eighth chapters of Exodus, the
Authorized Version follows not the Vulgate, but the Masoretic, i. e., the received
Jewish, tradition (petufiak, after verse 25 and no paragraph after verse 29).

*d Babylonian Kiddushin 7$b.
306

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESER5S BIBLICAL WORK

of the priests'5 (verse 21). With this "translation55 Leeser follows
the traditional explanation to the point of rejecting the first of
two interpretations by David Kimchi (1160-1235), an inter-
pretation which preserves biblical harmony without violating
the Hebrew language. In these chapters of Ezekiel envisaging
the coming aeon, the prophet, according to Kimchi, sets higher
standards of holiness than Moses did in the Pentateuch, whose
laws apply to the present age; accordingly, the marriage of a
widow will be forbidden to all priests, not only to the high
priest. In this manner, Kimchi explains other troublesome
passages in these paragraphs, but for Leeser these explanations
apparently are not orthodox enough.

Ezekiel 44:26. The Hebrew text says: "After he [a priest who
defiled himself for a deceased relative] is cleansed, one shall
count for him seven days" before he may enter the sanctuary.
Again Leeser's rendering is forced: he takes the apodosis
("one . . . days") out of the sentence by putting it within
dashes, and makes verse 27 the apodosis instead. In so doing,
Leeser follows Zunz and Philippson, but not the Biur, in order
to avert a possible difference with Numbers 19:1 1, which knows
nothing of an additional seven days of waiting. Kimchi gives
two explanations, just as he does for 44:22, but Leeser takes no
notice of them.

At times Leeser translates correctly and then gives his opinion
of the passage in a note. In such cases, the note has not the
function of clarifying an opaque sentence, but rather of telling
the reader that the meaning is not what he might gather from
the plain English of the translation.

Jeremiah 7:22 f. Leeser, like Zunz and Philippson:

[22] For I spoke not with your fathers, and I commanded them not
on the day of my bringing them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt-offering or sacrifice; [23] But this thing did I command them,
saying, Hearken to my voice. . . .

307

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

As this word of Jeremiah contradicts the whole sacrificial
legislation of the Pentateuch, Leeser cushions it with the fol-
lowing footnote which he has translated from Rashi: "The first
condition was only, clf you will hearken to my voice and keep
my covenant, then shall you be to me a peculiar treasure*
(Exodus 19:5)." Leeser neglects, however, to furnish the preced-
ing verse (Jeremiah 7:21), unintelligible to the lay reader though
it is, with some short comment which would render it
meaningful.37

Psalm 78:39. "And he [God] remembered that they [the
Israelites] are but flesh; a spirit that passeth away, and returneth
not again." To this translation Leeser adds the note: "When
death takes place, the spirit leaves the body and returns not to
it in the course of nature; and death would be final unless the
Creator himself gave new life." This is clearly the very opposite
of what the text and its context say, but the plain meaning of
the text cannot be accepted, OTnan n"nra mw p man OKEM*
(Rashi, ad locum}.

Ecclesiastes 11:9. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy child-
hood . . . and walk firmly in the ways of thy heart, and in (the
direction which) thy eyes see; but know thou that concerning all
these things God will bring thee into judgment." This translation
is supplemented by the footnote: "Both Rashi and Aben Ezra
interpret this verse in this way: 'See what the end will be, if
thou follow the inclination of the heart; since punishment will
thence result.5 " Not content with this usable and dogmatically
unassailable comment, Leeser goes on: "Otherwise it may mean,
that man should well take heed to regulate his conduct by the
divine will, and not follow blindly his heart and eyes (Numbers

* 7 E. g,, Mct&dat David, ad locum.

*8 "Because if you do so [i. e., explain the passage literally] you deny the resur-
rection of the dead,"

308

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESER*S BIBLICAL WORK

15:39); as otherwise he will meet the punishment due to trans-
gression." Basically this is the same as the previous explanation
by Rashi and Ibn Ezra — an explanation based in turn on the
Midrash; the words, "otherwise it may mean/' are, therefore,
ill-chosen. And yet, there is a difference. The older commentators
kept the idea of the verse veiled in the warning: "If you do this,
then. . ., therefore remember what is good for you." This
admonition is now crudely dragged into the open, lest anybody
be scandalized by the clash with the verse from Numbers: "Do
not follow after your own heart and after your own eyes which
you are inclined to go after a whoring." The overcautious
Leeser did not acquiesce in the Midrash's removal of the
skandalon as long ago as 1,500 years.39

Of the ancient versions, the Targum, which is in fact as much
a commentary as it is a translation (into Aramaic), is referred
to frequently. References to the Septuagint are, however, rare.
For his translation of Exodus 24:10, "... and the place under
his feet . . .," Leeser adduces Zunz and the Septuagint, which
he cites in Greek. The last word of Ecclesiastes 2:25, ^&&,
Leeser translates, according to the Hebrew text, as "more than
I," but he mentions in a note an alternative translation, "from
him," i. e., from God, which is based on the Septuagint, whose
Vorlage he correctly gives as "tt&&." It is possible that he got
this from Philippson, who refers to Georg Heinrich August
Ewald. To Philippson, "after the Septuagint," he gives credit
for the alternative translation of 0^2 WVX, "cakes of raisins"
(Hosea 3:1, note). 4° The Targum is also quoted as an authority

3 s Shemucl bar Yitzhak, quoted in several Midrashun. For the authenticity of the
saying, see Solomon Buber, Pestfda de Rob Kakana, leaf 68b, n. 5.

*° Preferable to "flagons of wine" of the body of the translation. Leeser could have
avoided getting the proof of the correct translation from the Greek version by
referring to mishnaic Hebrew n»'»«, "anything made compact and substantial by
pressing, cake" (Jastrow, s. ».).

309

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

for an emendation of a word in Psalm 54:5. The translation
"strangers'3 renders the text ant; a note says: "[Targum]
Jonathan reads O^IT, cthe presumptuous.5 "

To the uncritical reader of the foregoing analysis, Leeser's
translation may appear in quite an unfavorable light. The
reader may get the impression that there is a man who plays
fast and loose with a text, a man who — although expected to
transmit the exact meaning of this text to a public which, for
the most part, is not in a position to check the accuracy of the
transmission — fails not infrequently to adhere to such standards
of accuracy as today are synonymous with decency and truth-
fulness. This impression is strengthened when the analysis is
read against the background of Leeser's own programmatic
statements, quoted above from his prefaces, that he translated
"as literalfly] as possible," that he undertook this work "without
regard to the result thence arising for his creed," and that he
abhorred "perversion or forced rendering of any text" as
neither admissible nor necessary. For the analysis has shown,
among other things, that the meanings of common vocables
which were accepted and made good sense hundreds of times,
or simple grammatical rules which were constituent to tens of
thousands of sentences, are dispensed with in precisely those
cases where the translator's "creed" is at stake.

Now the objections of "the uncritical reader of the foregoing
analysis," whom we have introduced in the preceding paragraph,
can be disposed of quickly and easily. He is guilty of exactly
that for which he blames Leeser: lack of historical understanding.
The history of institutional religion and of the canons of religious
literature is the history of attempted harmonizations. The
beginning of periods of rationalism and enlightenment and
times of religious reorganization often are not marked by any
relaxation of these attempts, but, on the contrary, by invigorated
harmonizing: man is endowed with reason and he is duty-bound
310

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESER'S BIBLICAL WORK

to use it for higher purposes. Leeser stood at such a point in
the history of the Jews in America. His was a twofold credo:
traditionalism and rationalism. His translation mirrors these
principles in a peculiar mutual relation. They are not engaged
in a dualistic conflict; they dwell together in monistic harmony.
Leeser, lacking an understanding of their heterogeneous char-
acter and of the essential difference between the corresponding
activities of the mind and lacking also a grasp of historic cat-
egories, truly believed in this harmony. This belief shaped his
translation. It made his entire biblical work a clear case of
grammatica ancilla theologiae, not in the Kantian sense41 that
linguistics is the handmaid bearing the torch before theology,
but in the scholastic sense that it is the handmaid bearing the
train behind the mistress.42 But if traditionalism diminished
Leeser' s grasp of modern logical cognition, rationalism precluded
his acceptance of the eminently historical insight of the second-
century rabbi into the relationship of Jewish tradition to the
Bible: nna m nn irmsD poa ovinan WIK mirr "V* (Tosefta
Megillah at the end; Babylonian Kiddushin 4ga). Rather than
follow such a precept, Leeser would probably have preferred to
abstain from translating. Nor did his confident rationalism
agree with another talmudic approach: when several rabbis ol
the second and third centuries were confronted with contradic-
tions between certain passages in Ezekiel 44 f. and related
pentateuchal material, similar to that mentioned above,44 they
said of the Ezekiel passages: JWTrV T»fiSJ W^K IT JTCnfc4*

4* Streit der Fakultaten, I. Abschnitt, I, 2.

4' The belief that religious consideration helps in selecting the best textual variant
(see above, p. 298) may also be related to this principle.

43 "Rabbi Jehuda says: He who translates a biblical verse literally is a liar.'*

44 Pp. 306-7.

45 "[The prophet] Elijah will explain this paragraph."

MATITIAHU TSEVAT

(Babylonian Menahot 45a). Leeser was not willing to wait for
the prophet, although he might well have left those verses
unexplained in an edition in which explanatory notes are
sprinkled sparingly and almost at random.

These considerations will help us to gain a just appreciation
of Leeser in his role as translator of the Bible. In the absence of
criticism and of historical understanding, conceptions altogether
alien to the original are bound to creep into translation and
commentary. But lack of criticism and of historical under-
standing does not constitute dishonesty. Leeser's translation
betrays his uprightness and sincerity throughout. It cannot be
emphasized too strongly that his personal integrity is beyond
doubt.

Leeser published all three editions of the Bible in less than
nine years, between 1845 (^ translation of the Pentateuch)
and 1853-1854 (his translation of the entire Hebrew Bible).
With the exception of the comparatively minor assistance of
Joseph Jaquett/6 he accomplished his task singlehandedly.
Even the technical achievement was no mean feat. In the
preparation of the manuscript, the supervision of the printing,
and the process of proofreading Leeser employed no assistance,
and "Jewish [which apparently means adequate] compositors"
were not available.47 Yet Leeser could use only a fraction of
his time for translating, editing, and printing these works; his
other literary, publishing, organizational, political, congrega-
tional, and educational activities claimed the best of him. His
work on the Bible was only one aspect of his large scheme of
strengthening and bettering Judaism and the Jews in America.
Seen as a phase in his master plan, rather than as a work of
philology, his biblical work cannot but elicit our greatest respect.

4 6 See note 6, above.
47 Pentateuch, Preface, p. vL
312

A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ISAAC LEESER5S BIBLICAL WORK

Though, as a scientific work, Leaser's translation is antiquated
today, as it was even at the time of its publication, its significance
as a historical and human document can be better appreciated
now than it was a century ago. Time has not lessened that
historical and human significance.

David Einhorn:

Some Aspects of His Thinking

BERNHARD N. COHN

JVLucH has been said about David Einhorn. Not
enough has been written, however, to appraise his genius or to
study his influence on American Reform. This paper attempts
to bring additional historical light to bear upon Einhorn's
thinking through a closer analysis of one of his most important
literary and intellectual legacies: his monthly German-language
journal, Sinai — A Voice for the Understanding and Refinement of
Judaism. Einhorn began publishing Sinai within a year after his
arrival in Baltimore in 1855. He continued its publication until
January, 1862, eight months after his hasty removal from
Baltimore to Philadelphia. The introduction to the first volume
states that the general purpose of his publication was "the
preservation and glorification of Judaism through its living,
God-Spirit reflecting institutions, as well as through the removal
of everything that has become extinct in it." x

But Einhorn also had a personal purpose in publishing Sinai.
Isaac Leeser's Occident and Isaac M. Wise's Israelite were already
on the American Jewish scene. Both Leeser and Wise, however,
represented interpretations of Judaism with which Einhorn saw
himself in essential conflict. He felt that he, too, had to make

Rabbi Bernhard N. Cohn is the spiritual leader of The Suburban Temple in
Wantagh, New York,

1 David Einhorn, Sinai — A Voice for the Understanding and Refinement of Judaism, I, I.

315

BERNHARD N. COHN

his views known in order to contribute to "the development of
American congregational life."2 He had left a controversial
ministry in Germany and Hungary behind, and arrived in
America as a mature individual with a profound knowledge of
Judaism and general philosophy and with a set of ideas and
attitudes that had already become an integral part of his
personality. His ideas ran counter to certain current American
Jewish congregational and rabbinic practices and attitudes. It
was in these areas of disagreement that Einhorn hoped to
influence Jewish life in this country.

THE NATURE OF JUDAISM

Einhom's Judaism is almost pure humanism. "Judaism is
humanism." 3 "In its essence, Judaism is older than the Israelitish
tribe. As pure humanity, as the emanation of the inborn divine
spirit, it is as old as mankind." 4 As distinct from Orthodoxy,
which traces the origins of Judaism back to Abraham and Moses,
Einhorn dates the origin of divine instruction from Adam.s
Adam is humanity personified. Abraham and Moses are the
personifications of the Jewish people in the restricted, partic-
ularistic, nationalistic sense, which Einhorn ultimately rejects.
Judaism "is rooted in Adam and reaches its apex in the Messianic
and perfected humanity."6 The beginning and end of Judaism
is humanism.

The path that connects the Adam-ideal and the humanistic,
messianic kingdom is one of man's growing awareness of the

a ibid., vil, 319-20.

3 Ibid., I, 293.

Ibid., VII, 320.
*., II, 539.
316

DAVID EINHORN: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS THINKING

divine within him. This divine spark is reason, the breath of
God in man. 7 The equation that to reason is to exercise one's
divinity is the basic axiom underlying Einhorn's thinking. Reason
is the sole organ of divine revelation8 and the one essential
attribute of the human spirit. "The human spirit is the son of
God, and consequently the only mediator between God and
man, the sole bearer of divine testimony. Christianity teaches:
the word is become flesh. Judaism teaches: the word is become
spirit." The revelation of this reasoning spirit is as divine and
holy as the actual voice of God. 9

Revelation through reason, however, does not impose itself
from without. Man must constantly seek it. God is man's
possession, unlike the unreasoning animal which belongs to
God. x ° To seek God, then, is to deepen one's spiritual, rational
powers and to apply them to life.

Under the impact of this thought, all belief in the immu-
tability of external revelation must give way. Particularly the
Ceremonial Law is subject to rational investigation. Einhorn
finds a spiritual predecessor in Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, who
taught that "one should investigate the foundation of the Divine
Law" (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 68b). In his opinion, this
view "shook the very foundation of the Orthodox system. Once
we give to reason the right to inquire after the foundation of
the Divine Law we deny, from the outset, the basic principle
that the Law, by virtue of its divine origin, possesses an absolute
worth. Those divine ordinances which do not find their justifica-
tion in themselves have, therefore, only a relative worth." x *

? Ibid., II, 401.

• ibid., n, 401.

9 Ibid., II, 410.

**Ilrid.9 II, 510-11.

*J Ibid*) I, 369; see also II, 474.

317

BERNHARD N. COHN

The Moral Law alone has absolute worth and is unchangeable.
It has been constant since the beginning of time even though we
find that the Bible seems to condone its transgression by men
like Abraham and Jacob. The Bible's apparent moral permis-
siveness is, however, to be understood in its proper perspective.
Taking the unethical practices of polygamy and slavery as
examples, Einhorn explains that their ethical counterparts
already existed in Abraham's time. If Abraham transgressed
the Moral Law, it was not because he lacked character, but
because he lacked sufficient insight into ethical reality. The
point is that, while the Moral Law is eternal, man's awareness
of it grows. Such awareness appears as change. The change,
however, is not in the Moral Law, but in man. r 2

THE CEREMONIAL LAW

The same principle is made to apply to the Ceremonial Law as
well. Einhorn points to biblical evidence for change in the
Ceremonial Law. These changes, however, do not reflect a
change in the Law itself, but a change in man's ceremonial
needs.13 Man's moral needs, on the other hand, remain un-
changing in character.

It is this difference that gives rise to the distinction between
the "essence" and the "form" of Judaism. Its essence consists
of its eternal ethical truths and the Moral Law based upon them.
The form of Judaism is its Ceremonial Law, the binding char-
acter of which Einhorn emphatically denies.14 At the same
time, however, Einhorn does not deny the possibility that the
Ceremonial Law, too, is of divine origin. Differing with Isaac

" Ibid., II, 575-76.
'* Ibid., II, 575-76.
X4 JWrf., VII, 320-21.

318

DAVID EINHORN: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS THINKING

M. Wise, who held that all laws of the Bible, including the
sacrificial laws, which are bound by historical time and need,
are not the word of God, Einhorn holds that even the sacrificial
cult "with its wealth of ideas53 was carried by the divine spirit. J 5
"It is quite possible to believe in the divine origin of the Cer-
emonial Law, and yet, at the same time, be convinced that as
God had ordained this law for the education of a certain people,
so he ordained it also for a certain time and locale." l6

If one looks upon divine revelation as an external act, any
breach of its law, Ceremonial or Moral, from the side of man,
must be considered a sin. If, however, the rational human spirit
is the sole agent of divine revelation, then that spirit is also in a
position to justify by reason changes in the divinely revealed
law. At the same time, the difference between the Ethical and
the Ceremonial Law is to be found in the fact that "the Ethical
Law contains its rational justification within itself; while in the
case of the Ceremonial Law this justification is to be found
entirely outside of the law itself."17 Einhorn considers both
the Ceremonial and the Moral Law of divine origin, but only the
former as subject to change by reasoning man.

In the end, it is man's relative maturity which determines
first, his awareness of the Moral Law, and second, his need for
religious ceremony. As man's maturity — that is, his rational
capacity — increases, one notes a growth in ethical insight and
a corresponding decline in ceremonial need. Einhorn certainly
was convinced that morality was on the march and that man's
ethical conscience was nearing perfection. This perfection would
then obviate all ceremonial needs and herald the arrival of
messianic times, when Judaism, having fulfilled its ethical,

x* Ibid.9 IV, 284-85, and note.
'• ZM*, HI, 79^-97.

BERNHARD N. COHN

humanizing mission, would lose its historical character and
become "the common possession of all peoples." l8

THE SABBATH

The significance that Einhorn attached to the Sabbath, the
observance of which he strongly advocated,19 is closely linked
to the Moral Law and its superiority over the Ceremonial Law,
Einhorn noted that while the Bible ordained the commemoration
of the events leading up to the creation of the Priest-People at
Passover, it failed to command the remembrance of the giving
of the Law, although this event stands supreme among the
experiences of Israel. The reason for this is that, unlike the
exodus from Egypt, the origin of the Divine Law predates
history and therefore cannot be commemorated as a historical
event.20 The giving of the Moral Law did not "happen"; it
existed, in all its eternal and universally binding character,
from creation. This would not have been so had God created
the world in a state less than perfect. The meaning of the
Sabbath, therefore, goes far beyond the fact that on that day
God rested from His labors. It was not meant merely to prove
God's creation of the world, but to attest to the "consummation
and perfection of the divine handiwork." God ceased creating
because He had finished His task to His own complete satisfac-
tion, fulfilling all the needs of His Universal Kingdom.21

Since the Sabbath attests to the perfection of God's creative
endeavors at the beginning of time, it must necessarily involve a
denial of qualitative differences between man and nations. If all
men are created in the image of God, they are created on the

'« Ibid., IV, 137.

, IV, 289-91.

id., 11,540.
320

DAVID EINHORN: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS THINKING

same moral plane. Thus, as far as Judaism is concerned, the
Sabbath "does not only involve a testimony to man's dignity
as the highest attainment of creation, but also a definite protest
against the absolute (divine) preference for Israel over the
other nations."22 Israel never represented a higher type of
human being than any other peoples.23 True, Israel was the
first to discover God's Law. However, anyone who claims that
because of this discovery Israel has a monopoly on religious
truth might as well insist that the brightness of the planet belongs
exclusively to the astronomer who first saw it.24 God's Law
belongs to all men even though it was discovered by Israel.

From this Einhorn concludes that the importance of the
Sabbath exceeds the specific limits of the Jewish people. In fact,
by virtue of its universal implications the Sabbath was meant
to be a guardian against the ossification of the particularistic
elements in Judaism which find expression in the formal Cer-
emonial Law. Thus the observance of the Sabbath is designed
to preserve the Moral Law of mankind against the corroding
influences of Jewish particularism which only serves as a tem-
porary vehicle by which God's original revelation to mankind
will eventually be fulfilled. 2S

TALMUD AND PEOPLEHOOD

Israel is the Priest-People, whose mission in the world is to
"lead all rational beings to the same level of holiness." 2 6 Its
purpose is to re-create the condition of original perfection with

" Ibid., II, 540-41.

»3 ibid., II, 540-41.

*4 Ibid., VII, 325.
2* Ibid., II, 540-41.
*« Ibid., VII, 325.

321

BERNHARD N. COHN

which the universe and mankind were created. Israel's calling
may require certain "exclusive religious signs, but its eternal
truths and moral laws . . . shall and will become the common
possession of all peoples." 2 7 Using a talmudic tradition as his
inspiration, Einhorn instituted a thanksgiving celebration on
the ninth day of the Jewish month of Ab (the traditional date
of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, observed as a
day of fasting by Orthodox Jewry) to commemorate the day on
which Israel was sent among the nations as the bearer of
God's word. The day marked for him the birthday of the
Messiah, the beginning of Israel's mission to the peoples of
the world.28

In order that Judaism might run its destined course to human
perfection, nothing that stood in the way of this development
could be tolerated. The moral ascendancy of man could not be
hindered by a rigid and particularistic ceremonial drag which
slowed down, and even prevented, ethical growth. As far as
Einhorn was concerned, the greatest obstacle in the way of
the moral progress of Judaism was the Talmud.

Not that the Talmud played a minor role in the historical
development of Judaism. On the contrary, "no one will nor can
deny that the Talmud forms one of the high points in the
development of Judaism; that it led Judaism through the most
fateful years of its history; and that in many respects it has
enriched it. Indeed, one must ascribe to the Talmud this great
merit: that it broke through the inflexibility of the biblical
letter, and that unconsciously it reformed the Mosaic Law in
accordance with the spiritual and practical needs of the times." *9
The objectionable character of the Talmud derives from its

*ilbid., VII, 325.
**Ibid., VI, 240.
**Ibid.3 I, i.

322

DAVID EINHORN: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS THINKING

clear intent to tie Jewish religion to Jewish national life and
peoplehood. Einhorn felt that any effort to invoke talmudic
authority in Jewish life was clearly an attempt to impose upon
Judaism a particularism which was foreign to its essential nature.
In the Mosaic tradition the Jewish people was merely "an
example of fulfilled and redeemed humanity." Jewish partic-
ularism was "no more than a lever of an unbounded univer-
salism."30 "Spiritually the Mosaic Law stands sublimely above
all national limitations. But it was in need of Jewish nationhood
as an educational device for its world-embracing ideas."31
"Jewish religion was only temporarily dressed in Jewish na-
tionality. In reality it was ordained to step from behind these
restricting barriers so as gradually to become the world religion.
Thus, if according to the talmudic viewpoint, it was a major
concern to erect fences between Israel and the nations, then,
according to Reform it is an essential life task — to tear these
down."32

Furthermore, to suggest that the Talmud should govern formal
Jewish life was proof that the modern advocates of such a course
of action misunderstood the nature of the Talmud itself. Einhorn
saw in the Oral Law, as embodied in the Talmud, proof for his
belief that Judaism had always made formal allowances for the
diminishing ceremonial needs of man. "Side by side with the
eternal and unchangeable Divine (Moral) Law, there exists a
changeable and fluid element. This element is the naked reli-
gious form which is motivated by the eternal, living, driving
force — the changeless spirit of the Law." This changeless,
divine spirit has as its task "the freeing of the religious form
from the chains of immutability." Thus, the eternal Divine Law

^ Ibid., I, 293.

*Z/*&,II,4XI.
bid.9 IV, 166.

323

BERNHARD N. COHN

is in reality the inspiration behind formal religious change.33
To assign to the Oral Law, and with it to the Talmud, the
element of immutability is, therefore, to interfere with the
essential departicularizing and humanizing tendency in Judaism.
Only through the eventual elimination of all particularistic
attributes can Israel's divine mission to the world be accom-
plished, so that, in the end, the Priest-People, having fulfilled
its task, can retire from the scene and "blend with the nations
among whom it lived in dispersion." 34

Einhorn's view of Judaism may be described as a social
gospel, the main feature of which is an unqualified attempt to
equate the progress of Judaism with the progress of humanity
towards its universalistic, humanistic goal. Once this goal is
achieved, Judaism as a particular faith will disappear, and so,
presumably, will all other group identities. Judaism, however,
can hasten this end by living the essentially Jewish life, that is,
the life of the eternal Moral Law which is its heart and soul.
All rituals, ceremonials, and nationalistic accouterments of
Judaism are merely educational devices designed at various
moments in history as means of conveying the essence of the
eternal and perfect Moral Law to a maturing but as yet spir-
itually imperfect Jewish people. These educational devices,
having been handed down from ancient times, must be elim-
inated as they come to be of increasing spiritual uselessness to a
developing Jewish religion. In that way, Judaism becomes an
ever-present example of a morally self-perfecting humanity.
Consequently, any attempt to perpetuate the old expressions of
Jewish particularism in a modern world striving toward an
all-embracing humanism runs counter to the essential meaning
and raison fttn of Judaism.

33 ibid., I, 2.
3 4 ibid., IV, 137.

324

Isaac Mayer Wise's "Jesus Himself55

SAMUEL SANDMEL

ISAAC MAYER WISE, the founder of the Hebrew
Union College, is quoted only rarely in the scholarly books
which deal with the question of Christian origins. The occasional
quotations are almost exclusively from a rather long book,
published by Wise in 1868 and called The Origins of Christianity
and a Commentary to the Acts of the Apostles. In Gosta Lindeskog's
Die Jesusfrage im neuzeitlichen Judentum (Uppsala, 1938), this
largest of Wise's writings passes unlisted, although three minor
items of Wise are mentioned. While Lindeskog paraphrases
many of the Jewish writers on Jesus, he limits his treatment of
Wise to the mere listing of the titles.

In addition to The Origins, Isaac Mayer Wise penned other
works relating to Christianity. The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth:
a Historic-Critical Treatise on the Last Chapters of the Gospel appeared
in 1874. Two works appeared in 1883 — Three Lectures on the
Origin of Christianity and Judaism and Christianity y Their Agreements
and Disagreements. A fourth appeared in 1889 — A Defense of
Judaism versus Proselytizing Christianity. To my mind, however,
the most interesting and noteworthy of his writings relating to
Christianity never appeared in book form. It is a series of
chapters entitled "Jesus Himself." The first of these chapters
appeared in Wise's weekly newspaper, The Israelite, on July 9,

Dr. Samuel Sandmel, Provost of the Hebrew Union College - Je\vish Institute of
Religion, is also Professor of Bible and Hellenistic Literature at the Cincinnati
School.

325

SAMUEL SANDMEL

1869. The tenth chapter, which appeared on April i, 1870,
carries at its end the legend: "To be continued."

It was never continued. That the work was never finished is
likely the reason why "Jesus Himself3 never appeared in book
form.

Equally as interesting as "Jesus Himself' is a series of chapters,
translated from the German by Wise and published in The
Israelite. Written by Gustav Adolf Wislicenus, this work has a
title which in English would be The Bible Considered for Thinking
Readers. The Old Testament part appeared in 1863; the New
Testament section, in the following year. There seems to be a
dearth of information on Wislicenus, for he was a man of no
great importance. We know, however, that he was born in
Germany in 1805 and that he studied for the ministry. He
participated in some revolutionary movements, for which he was
jailed (possibly around 1848). Thereafter, he fled to America,
but later returned to Europe and settled in Switzerland.

Wislicenus was a popularizer of the scholarship of his time,
especially of the iconoclastic and shocking variety. His preface
tells us:

Though earlier the Bible was considered exceptional compared with
other books, it is now aligned with others as something which appeared
in history, as an attestation of the human spirit, and as an organ in
the development of the species. Great and wondrous toil has been
brought to bear in the field of Bible study, so that now a clear light
has been shed over it, despite efforts to becloud clear sight and to
revert to earlier presentations.

The portion of Wislicenus which Wise translated and pub-
lished in his newspaper was only a segment of the New Testament
section, that dealing with the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul.
Wise did not translate, or at least did not publish, the Old
Testament portion. I doubt that this was an accident, for
although Wislicenus was quite as radical in his approach to the
Old as to the New, Wise was not similarly inclined.
326

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS C6JESUS HIMSELF55

In his survey of the life and teachings of Jesus, Wislicenus
expresses doubts about the reliability of the supposition that
everything which the Gospels attribute to Jesus is really from
him or about him. Indeed, Wislicenus is a fairly good reflection
of the skepticism which in radical form was expressed by David
Friedrich Strauss and in a more moderate — I cannot withhold
the modern word: schmaltzy — way by Ernest Renan.

Wise not only translates Wislicenus, but also annotates him.
The author and his annotator, however, are separated by a
notable gap: while in a good many places Wislicenus doubts
that such and such a statement was really made by Jesus, Wise
goes beyond him to doubt that Jesus ever lived. (See The
Israelite, July 7, 1865, p. 428.) Again, for example, Wislicenus
makes the statement that the four Gospels were "written in
Greek, because Christianity, although originating among the
Hebrews, soon stepped beyond those limits, and Greek was
then the universal language of the East." To this Wise comments
in a footnote: "It is by no means certain that Christianity
originated among the Hebrews. Its Alexandrian origin has been
maintained by many. See Diegeses [sic] by R. Taylor, p. 136."

Who was Taylor, and what was this business of Alexandrian
origin? Robert Taylor (i 784-1844) was a former Anglican priest
who, after a checkered career, embraced Deism and wrote a
number of books attacking Christianity from the Deist point of
view. Diegesis, A Discovery of the Origin of Christianity, was pub-
lished in Boston in 1832. Since I have not been able to procure a
copy of the book, I can judge its tone only on the basis of the
illuminating chapter on the Deists5 attitude to problems of the
New Testament which F. C. Conybeare summarizes in Chapter
Three of his History of New Testament Criticism (1910). * On the

1 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, ignores the Deists in general,
and the British Deists in particular. See Maurice Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene, Myth
or History > English translation (1926), p. 2, note 4.

327

SAMUEL SANDMEL

negative side, the Deists either emphasized the discrepancies or
what seemed to them incredibilities in the text; on the other
hand, they offered explanations supposedly more reasonable
and cogent. It is to be presumed — for the matter is scarcely
important enough to justify research — that among the explana-
tions offered about the "real" origins was the theory that
Christianity really emerged somewhere in the Greek world.
What place was better for this suppositions origin than
Alexandria? In a Deistic-like book, Christian Theology and Modern
Skepticism (1872), the Duke of Somerset writes (p. 70):

Some ingenious writers have endeavored to trace the source of Chris-
tianity to the schools and synagogues of Alexandria. They would even
interpret the prophecy, "Out of Egypt have I called my son (Mt.
2.15)5" in a mystic sense.

The Deistic explanations of various and sundry items in the
New Testament exhibit what I would call a notable lack of
self-criticism and restraint. Indeed, just as the pious imagination
of the faithful managed to expand the sense of the passage in
Matthew into a stipulation of how long Jesus sojourned in
Egypt, and exactly where, so the imagination of the skeptical
opponents soared far above texts and above sobriety. We shall
come to see, I believe, that Wise himself absorbed from the
Deists both their attitude and their manner.

We must conclude, therefore, that the Deists did not offer
their theories in any direct and vivid relationship to the text
or its meaning. Or, to put the matter in a way which risks the
charge of condescension, the Deists were dabblers. The source of
the Alexandrian emphasis is probably August Friedrich Gfroerer
(1803-1861), a responsible scholar who could scarcely foresee
how the irresponsible would abuse his erudition. A long series
of books under the general title Geschichte des Urchristentums
appeared from 1831 to 1838. The first part, in two volumes,

328

ISAAC MAYER WISE'S "jESUS HIMSELF*'

was on Philo (20 B. C.-4O A. D.) and Alexandrian theosophy.
Gfroerer believed that Alexandrian theosophy was very old
and that it came to be transplanted in Palestine. That Gfroerer
was not on solid ground is not to be taken as indicative of
limited or poor scholarship, but rather as the consequence of
his having created and defended an idiosyncratic theory.

It chances that another German, Bruno Bauer, a vicious
anti-Semite, also came to a judgment about Alexandria and its
significance in Christian origins. To Bauer, a thoroughly trained
and competent scholar, Schweitzer devotes chapter XI of The
Quest of the Historical Jesus. Bauer began as a skeptical critic,
but he had no great doubts initially as to the historicity of
Jesus; later, in a two-volume work published in 1850-1851, he
arrived at the conclusion that Jesus had never lived. Not until
1874 did Bauer publish a succinct account of his view. This he
set forth in a little book — I found it caustic and entertaining —
which he called Philo, Strauss, Renan und das Urchristentum. Bauer
contended that the efforts of Jesus* two "biographers" to separate
the legendary and mythical from actual history were misguided.
They had supposed that the Gospels exhibited the growth of a
man through legend into divinity. To the contrary, Bauer held
that Jesus was the result of making into a human being certain
metaphysical concepts which are found in the writings of
Philo.

As noted above, Bauer and Gfroerer were, in every technical
sense of the word, thoroughgoing scholars. The Deists were
rather dilettantes. I have found in Wise no indication of his
having read Bauer. I rather imagine that he obtained his ma-
terial from such people as Robert Taylor.

One observes that, in summoning the support of Taylor to
refute Wislicenus, Wise was smiting a broken reed with an
equally broken reed. One wonders if he was as critical in his
reading of Taylor as he was in his examination of Wislicenus.

3*9

SAMUEL SANDMEL

We do not know. What we can be sure about is that in 1865
Wise was confident that there had never been a Jesus. 2

Four years later Wise began the task of writing a biography
of Jesus. I do not know what brought about the change of heart.
Perhaps it was due to his reading Abraham Geiger. This great
German Jewish scholar had published a book of lectures in
1864; the book was translated into English as Judaism and its
History (New York, 1866). Three of the lectures (IX-XI) were
on Christianity. Geiger contended that Jesus "was a Jew, a
Pharisean Jew with Galilean coloring." Perhaps this affirmation

a Wise's skepticism at that time (1865) extended to the question of "Jewish-
Christianity" : "If the cradle of Christianity was in Alexandria, the Jewish-Christians
were proselytes of a later date" (The Israelite, XII [July 7, 1865], p. 12). Commenting
in the same issue on Wislicenus' discussion of the genealogy of Jesus, Wise says:

It is strange that after the admission that we know of Jesus only what we
learn from the Gospels, which are as good as no source, the author should
maintain to know anything sure regarding Jesus. Nothing is sure, not even
that he existed. Jesus might have been a dramatical fiction, invented for
religious mysteries.

Where Wislicenus denies that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, declaring that
"it was historically known and could not be denied that Jesus was from Nazareth,"
Wise comments: "Nothing could be historically known concerning Jesus, as nothing
is historically known about him today" (ibid.9 August 4, 1865, p. 36).

Wise was prepared at that time to extend his skepticism to the point of denying
that John the Baptist had ever lived. Wise, discussing the baptism of Jesus, comments
on the mention of John in Josephus:

It (the baptism) might be a historical fact, if the following doubts did not
exist, ist. Did Jesus exist, or is he a dramatical fiction, invented for religious
mysteries of days long before Paul? 2nd. Did John exist? The passages re-
garding him in Josephus are spurious. If John and Jesus were real per-
sonages . . . then there is no evidence of their having had any acquaintance
with each other, outside of the New Testament, and this can not be used as a
historical source at all (ibid.9 August n, 1865, p. 45).

As to the words which the Gospels attribute to Jesus, Wise says:

There is not the slightest evidence in record that he existed, much less that he
made a speech. Nothing is more common to ancient chronographers than to
invent speeches for their favorite heroes and put them conveniently in their
mouths (ibid., October 27, 1865. See items in a similar vein in the issues of
November 3rd, 1 7th, and 24th of the same year).

330

ISAAC MAYER WISE'S "jESUS HIMSELF"

by a great Jewish scholar, following as it did the affirmation
(1856) by Heinrich Graetz, exercised some influence on Wise.
Yet my reading of Wise keeps persuading me of the relative
independence of his mind, both where independence was a
virtue and where it was not necessarily so.

If it was not the reading of Geiger which changed Wise's
mind, then I confess to not knowing what it was.

It is reckless to make too great an inference from a small
matter. In 1866, Wise commented on Wislicenus5 account of
Jesus' activities in Jerusalem. Wislicenus had remarked that the
"cursing of the fig-tree" (Mark 11:12-14) is the sole miracle
attributed to the Jerusalem period. Concerning this Wise
comments: "It is not at all wonderful that Jesus wrought no
miracles in Jerusalem ... it is only remarkable that the evan-
gelists invented none for him" (The Israelite, March 12, 1866,
p. 293). It is to be noted that here we no longer deal with an
outright denial of the existence of Jesus, but with the beginning
of the separation in Wise's mind of Jesus from those who wrote
about him. Here the dichotomy is only hinted at; three years
later the distinction blossomed. We move from denial in 1865,
to a grudging and vague acceptance of historicity in 1866, to an
effort at biography in 1869.

Though I cannot explain what made Wise change his mind,
to speculate about it is harmless. Indeed, from something which
Wise says in his very first chapter, I suspect that Wise, on mulling
over Wislicenus and others, noted what so many modern Jews
have been quick to see: that items in the Gospels impinge on
materials found in the rabbis, and what is rare, or rather, was
rare, is that this impingement was either not noticed or else
not handled with accuracy and authority. Wise wrote:

Besides Lightfoot's and Isidor Kalisch's fragmentary essays, no book
or essay in the English language has become known to us, which
treats on the Ancient Rabbinical Literature in connection with, and

331

SAMUEL SANDMEL

in comparison to, the New Testament, to illustrate the circumstances
which must be fully understood, in order to form a correct conception
of the person, events, and lessons described by the authors of that
collection.

Wise undoubtedly thought that through the use of rabbinic
literature he could do a much better job than his predecessors
had done. It is my conjecture that through his sense of com-
petency in rabbinics he became confident of his ability to surpass
these others. This newly found understanding, I believe, led
him out of his skepticism about Jesus and into an avowal that
Jesus had really lived.

Isidor Kalisch, referred to above, was born in Krotoschin in
1816; he came to the United States in 1849, anc* died in Newark
in 1 886. So numerous are his essays — unhappily, never gathered
into a book, but scattered throughout The Israelite, The Occident,
and the London Jewish Chronicle — that I have not been able to
determine exactly which essay Wise had in mind. As to Light-
foot, there is this quandary. There was a British bishop, Joseph
Barber Lightfoot, who was born in 1828 and who was a great
New Testament scholar. Wise might possibly be referring to
him, but I think that this is unlikely, for his literary activity
seems to have begun just about the time that Wise himself was
writing.

What is more reasonable is to understand the reference as
being to John Lightfoot (1602-1675), who became quite a
notable Talmudist. His Home Hebraicae et Talmudicae, composed
in Latin between 1658 and 1674, gave Talmudic parallels to
much (though not all) of the New Testament. The Horae was
published in an English translation in 1859. Lightfoot wrote a
good many essays, one edition of which was published in 1822-
1825. Jt is likely, then, that it is John Lightfoot whom Wise
means; but I am unable to say which is the particular essay to
which he refers.

332

ISAAC MAYER WISE5S "jESUS HIMSELF"

In his first chapter. Wise outlines for his readers what his
procedure will be:

The authors of the New Testament maintain that they have described
the words and actions of Jesus. Their books must be considered the
primary source to this work. This standpoint suggests a number of
inquiries. By what means did those authors obtain possession of the
matter they communicate? Were they eye-witnesses of the events
which they describe; did they borrow them from written records, or
from traditions; or, did they invent them? Were they able to write
the full truth, and was it their intention to do so, or merely to write
in defense of preconceived doctrines? Which is fact and which embel-
lishment? Have we the means of distinguishing the fact from the
embellishment? Are we, at this distance of time, able to understand
those authors correctly? Can we tell with certainty when, where, by
whom, and in what language those books were written?

Wise proceeds to discuss the Jewish backgrounds, making the
usual mention of the Essenes (Wise takes his stand with others
who believe that the word is corrupted from the word Hasidim),
the Sadducees (the aristocrats), and the Pharisees (the democrats) .

As to the Gospels themselves (which Wise discusses in The
Israelite of July 23, 1869), Wise makes a number of statements
which are both interesting and also regrettably less than com-
pletely clear. One of his first is a tiny misstatement of no great
significance, except possibly to alert us to the frequency with
which unimportant misstatements appear in these chapters. The
four Gospels, he says, are called canonical, "in contradistinction
of the Apocryphal Gospels which were rejected by the Council
of Nice3 (325 A. C.) as fraudulent productions." He goes on to
explain what is meant by the italicized words "according to"
in such titles as the Gospel according to Mark or according to Luke:
the names are not the names of the authors of the Gospels, but
these men "taught Christianity to these respective congregations

3 Sec Caspar Ren6 Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, p. 262: "The
Council of Nice in 325 does not appear to have determined anything about
Scripture."

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SAMUEL SANDMEL

out of which the ultimate authors of the written Gospels arose.9*
This explanation is quite ingenious; thus far I have not met
it anywhere else. It is the reverse of a frequent and familiar
explanation of the phenomenon. Most scholars who see growth
in the process of Gospel formation would regard "Matthew"
or "Luke" as the final step in the procedure by which oral
materials or rudimentary written sources become transmuted
into Gospels; with Wise, however, "Matthew" and "Luke"
supply the original impetus, and only thereafter does a Gospel
ultimately achieve its present form.

Wise was certain that none of the Gospels in existence today
"existed in the first century" (The Israelite, XVI, July 23, 1869,
p. 9). While most scholars of today would undoubtedly differ
with Wise, he was in his own time not too far removed from the
dates which some Protestant scholars were assigning to the
Gospels. 4

That the Gospels were relatively late literary products meant
to him that their reliability was thereby impugned; "Their
statements rest upon no known authority. Nobody can tell who
made those statements, when or where they were made. There-
fore nobody can reasonably vouch for the veracity of those
authors . . ." (ibid.).

Yet the nature of the content of the Gospels prompts Wise
to make a distinction which for him (and for our understanding
of him) is of great significance.

The pages . . . are adorned with accounts of miracles, exorcism,
thaumaturgy, the words and deeds of angels, demons and Satan
himself. ... In vain are all the attempts of rationalistic expounders to
allegorize, or explain away otherwise, the extraordinary performances
and preternatural phenomena. . . . Those superstitions weaken the
authority of the Gospels. . . . There is no connection between the
doctrine or fact and the miracle wrought to prove the former. The

4 See the convenient table in James Mofiatt, An Introduction to the Literature of
the New Testament, p. 213.

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ISAAC MAYER WISE*S "jESUS HIMSELF5'

written miracle is perfectly useless. We have before us a doctrine and a
miracle. If the understanding declared the doctrine true, the miracle
is superfluous, as the doctrine can be no better or more true. If the
understanding doubts, the miracle can not improve the case. For we
must first believe the miracle on the authority of the witness or of
the writer, which has no affinity with the understanding, in order to
believe also the doctrine which anyhow must offer some affinity with
the understanding. . . . Doctrines surpassing the universal understand-
ing of man are absurdities which no miracle can change into legitimate
propositions. . . . All the miracles can not improve a fact, or make it
one, if it is not . . . (ibid., July 23, 1869).

The distinction which Wise draws is that only that material
in the Gospels which is totally devoid of the miraculous is
worthy of being regarded as historically reliable. The initial
test for historical reliability, then, will be the "naturalistic"
content of the Gospels. One by-product was Wise's ability,
after this decision, to bypass almost all the chapters in the
Gospels which deal with the career of Jesus prior to his entry
into Jerusalem.

But even before he can proceed to matters of substance, Wise
has more words of introduction. Not only do the Gospels
contain the "preternatural," but as literary documents their
relationships with each other need to be defined, for they cover
the same material about Jesus, often with divergencies, but
often, too, with similarities and near-identities. While by Wise's
time the so-called "two-source theory" (that Luke and Matthew
independently used as sources Mark and a body of "teachings"
known as Q,, Quelle, "source") had been articulated and was
on the way to becoming a cornerstone of Gospel study, Wise
cites no scholars as authority, but instead offers his own
judgment:

Mark may have seen Matthew's book, or vice versa. Luke must have
seen Matthew's and Mark's Gospels, and John knew the three Synoptic
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Nevertheless they disregarded
and contradicted one another, not only in the particulars of the story,

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SAMUEL SANDMEL

but also in the speeches and the parables ascribed to Jesus. . . . The
evangelists did not consider one another reliable authorities, and
each of them took the liberty to change, amend, omit, and add. . .
(ibid., July 30, 1869),

This statement addresses itself, of course, to the divergencies
in the Gospels. But Wise was equally under obligation to account
for the similarities:

They could not have copied from one another the passages which
they have, literally alike, unless they were in possession of a fixed
standard, by which they judged that certain passages were genuine,
and others were not. This consideration naturally leads to the hypoth-
esis, the passages, literally alike in the Gospels, must have been copies
from an old work of this kind.

Wise was neither the first nor the last to suppose that some
primitive Gospel underlay the four which came to be canonical;
scholarship today still deals, though passingly, with a by now
old theory concerning an "Ur-Markus," a primitive version of
Mark out of which the present Mark was composed. For my
own understanding, I find the theory of an Ur-Markus an
inescapable necessity; but I should not dream of supposing that
this Ur-Markus was a standard to which all the evangelists
adhered. Yet this is Wise's supposition, at least at this point in
his writings; elsewhere he seems to me at times to hold related
but slightly different views.

Having supposed that there was at one time a primitive
Gospel, Wise goes on to identify it for us. He finds it in a Gospel
known in quotation from the Church Fathers as the Gospel of
the Hebrews. Wise is aware, of course, that modern scholars5
consider the fragmentary Gospel of the Hebrews to have been
derived from the canonical Gospels, especially from Matthew;
yet Wise believes, to the contrary, that the true source of the

s See Adam Fyfe Findlay, "Jewish Christian Gospels,*9 in his Byways in Early
Christian Literature, pp. 33-78.

336

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS "jESUS HIMSELF9'

acknowledgedly spurious Gospel of the Hebrews was an earlier
Gospel. Wise implies that others have considered a primitive
Gospel in Hebrew or in Aramaic to be merely a hypothesis.
"With us, this is no hypothesis. We can produce positive evidence
that a Gospel existed in the apostolic age, and that Gospel was
either in Hebrew or in Aramaic."

Wise's proof leads him through what he himself calls a "chain
of rabbinic reasoning." He uses oft-cited passages in Tosefta
Yadaim II, 5 (and in Shabbat n6a, restored from the excisions
by medieval Christian censors) which state that certain "scrolls"
(gilyonim) were not worthy of being rescued from a conflagration
on the Sabbath. Two rabbis, Meir and Johanan, punned on
the word gilyonim, yielding the equivalent of evangelyonim, that is,
Gospels. A huge literature exists on these passages.

Wise has an ingenious, although improbable, interpretation
of his own to add to the rabbinic passages. He is not content
for them to be second-century statements alluding to a Hebrew
or Aramaic Gospel, but he finds some need (which eludes me)
to derive the word evangelion from the Hebrew root GLH, "to
reveal," rather than, as gilyon would be derived, from the root
meaning "to roll" (as in a scroll). The Greek, of course, is a
compound of eu and angelion, "good" and "tiding." But were
Wise to have conceded that the rabbinic pun rested on a Greek
word, his case for a primitive Gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic
would have been weakened, or even shattered. By means of
the Hebraic etymology, Wise was able to persuade himself that
Jewish Christians had a Hebrew or Aramaic sacred book, for
"the primitive Christians . . . when still included in the commu-
nity of Israel, had sacred books which they considered equally
holy with the Bible. Those books must have been Hebrew or
Aramaic, as translations of the Bible itself were not included in
the Sabbath statute."

But Wise has not yet finished his proof. In this additional

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SAMUEL SANDMEL

item, he goes lamentably astray. The Palestinian Talmud records
that one Ben Stada brought necromancy from Egypt (and now
note the key words) "in this same kind of writing." The context
of this passage in the Talmud did not excite Wise's attention;
it is likely that he knew it from memory and desisted from
checking on it. Let us suppose, for a moment, that the Talmud
does relate that one Ben Stada brought some kind of writing
from Egypt. It is a hoary matter that Ben Stada and Jesus were
identified with each other in Jewish tradition. 6 At first glance,
following Wise, it would appear that Ben-Stada-Jesus brought
some kind of writing from Egypt, and this would give us an
Alexandrian origin. The fact is, however, that in its own context
in the Talmud the kind of writing under discussion does not
refer to the scroll form, or the papyrus form, but to writing on
one's own skin! The correct rendering of the passage would
omit the words "in this same kind of writing," and read instead:
"Did not Ben Stada bring necromancy out of Egypt in the same
kind of way [on his own skin]?"

As noted above, Wise went astray as an autodidact often
goes astray, through lack of some measure of self-restraint. I
have reproduced this item, not out of the wish to disparage a
man whom I truly admire and whose memory I truly reverence*
but only out of honesty and out of the conviction that the minor
error is too petty to require forgiveness. Men, trained more
rigorously than Wise ever had the opportunity to be, have in
the last decade written things about the Dead Sea Scrolls
infinitely more startling than this divagation of Wise's.

Let us now return to Wise's main line of argument. One may
cast aside the miraculous in the Gospels. But the Gospels, espe-
cially the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), do have a
large measure of agreement with each other, and this agreement.

6 See Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Rabbinic Essays, pp. 514-30.

338

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS "jESUS HIMSELF*'

Wise states, results from the common use of the original Aramaic
or Hebrew Gospel. In such agreement in the Synoptic Gospels,
Wise says, there are historically reliable elements. 7

This preface over, Wise is now ready for the substance of his
study. His first problem is the date of the birth of Jesus. Wise,
like Protestant scholars, tries his hand at reconciling the material
in Matthew, Luke, and Josephus. Stated briefly, Matthew 2:1
offers the datum that Jesus was born in the time of Herod, who
died in 4 B. C. Luke identifies the time of the birth with a census
which is either now totally unknown, or is possibly to be iden-
tified with a census, not the world-wide one of Luke, but one
known to us from Josephus as a strictly local one which took
place in 6 C. E.8 Luke 3:23 relates that Jesus, at the height of
his career, was thirty years old; John 8:57 seems to suggest that
Jesus was then "nearly" fifty. According to Wise, one needs
then to determine Jesus' age as between John and Luke, and the
year of his birth as between Matthew (4 B. G.) and Luke
(6 G. E.). Wise notes that some manuscripts of John read
"nearly forty33 and he adopts the latter reading as correct.
(Modern scholars consider it a deliberate change so as to avoid
the sharp conflict between Luke and John, for thirty and "nearly
forty3' are not quite so far apart as thirty and nearly fifty.) As
to choosing between Matthew and Luke, for Wise this is easy.

The infant stories of Matthew are manifest inventions. No critic will
attempt to save them. The massacre of the babes at Bethlehem is an

7 "John's Gospel <•*?*» hardly be counted in this direction. He is a dogmatic writer
and no biographer. He shaped the biography of Jesus, and wrote speeches for
him, to express John's dogma of Alexandrian Cfliristianity, as it originated [note

here the change in Wise's viewpoint] in the second century We know of those

corresponding passages, that they were copied and translated from a Hebrew or
Aramaic work, which existed in the second half of the first century** (The Israelite,
July 30, 1869).

8 On this hoary problem, see Charles A. H. Guignebert, Jesus (English translation
by S. H. Hooke), pp. 96-104.

339

SAMUEL SANDMEL

imitation of the passage in Exodus narrating the birth of Moses and
the babes drowned in the Nile by command of Pharaoh. Also the
astrologers and the star are taken from rabbinical legends on the birth
of Moses. 9 Like Luke, so nobody now, outside of the church, believes
Matthew's infant stories. ... In the following book we treat of the
year 36, A. C., which is the year of the national career and death of
Jesus of Nazareth (ibid., August 6, 1869).

Wise moves promptly, as I have intimated above, from the
establishment of this chronology of the birth of Jesus to the end
of his career in Jerusalem. The Galilean period, the journey to
Jerusalem, with all the various and sundry details, seem brushed
aside, for they contain miracles, but the period in Jerusalem
does not, and Wise without delay brings Jesus to the Holy City.

Prior to recounting the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, Wise
presents a character analysis. The Herodians were wicked
persecutors.

Persecution invariably contributes to the elevation of the victim. . , .
The persecution of Herod attracted the masses to Jesus of Nazareth,
the meek and unpretending teacher of a small circle of disciples from the
humble and neglected class of society. The keen eye of public in-
quisitiveness discovered the hiding places of Jesus upon the shores of
the Sea of Galilee. . . . Friends and opponents congregated around
him, to listen to his lessons, or to oppose his doctrines. . . .

Resistance and success . . . developed in Jesus the desire to become
the savior of his people, whose misery then must have touched the
heart of every patriot. His name, Jesus, which signifies savior, un-
doubtedly contributed to the birth of this idea in him, which the
combination of circumstances ripened to solid resolution.

A great design, once conceived rand embraced, changes the entire
character of the man. . . . The same was the case with Jesus. Having
resolved upon becoming the savior of his people, the simple enthusiast
under the very eye of his disciples, as it were, was transformed into a
being of higher powers. This is the sense of the transfiguration legend
which is copied almost literally from Plato's Phaedon. z °

9 Wise here has a footnote: "See Rashi to Exodus 1:16."

10 One needs to say that Wise's interpretation of the transfiguration, Mark 9:2-13,
is as extreme an example of "rationalistic" interpretation as that which he himself

340

ISAAC MAYER WISE*S "jESUS HIMSELF*'

In the account, as Wise rewrites it, there is a culprit — but
It is not Jesus. True, Jesus had the intention of becoming the
savior of his people. But

Peter suggested the idea, how to rouse and captivate popular enthu-
siasm in favor of the master and his designs. The messianic mania
had taken hold of the Hebrews, in a most deplorable manner. . . .
Peter suggested the idea — "Thou art Christ," the Messiah. Jesus,
fully aware of the dangers connected with that position, was startled
by the novel idea, and prohibited his disciples to publish it. But the
word was spoken, the spark had fallen on combustibles. The mission
of the master had assumed shape and form in that popular word. . . .
Jesus expostulated with Peter, pointing out clearly the perilous condi-
tion in which the Son of Man was placed. Peter attempted to overcome
the master's apprehensions, and succeeded in obtaining the tacit
consent of Jesus to this hazardous enterprise. Jesus never claimed
the messianic dignity. His disciples, on the suggestion of Peter, claimed
it for him (ibid., August 13, 1869, p. 9).

It is worthwhile here to interrupt Wise's account in order to
notice how close he came, in different though overlapping
terms, to a somewhat related theory in Das Messiasgeheimnis in
den Evangelien (1901), by William Wrede. Both Wise and Wrede
notice the phenomenon in Mark that Jesus never makes a clear
claim to Messiahship; for both, some secrecy seems to shroud it.
Wrede explains the motif by asserting that the affirmation of
Jesus' Messiahship arose only after the belief in the resurrection
from death had gripped his followers, and that Jesus in his
lifetime never claimed to be the Messiah. The German title of
the book by Albert Schweitzer known as The Quest of the Historical
Jesus is Von Reimarus zu Wrede — the same Wrede. Since the turn
of the century there has been under Wrede's influence a host of
writings which echo the assertion that Jesus did not claim the
Messiahship; many writers seem bent on protecting Jesus from

had scorned. The dependency of the passage in Mark on the Phaedon is new to me;
David Friedrich Strauss, Life of Jesus (English translation), pp. 545~46, note 19,
finds a similarity in Plato's Symposium, 523 B ff., suggestive.

341

SAMUEL SANDMEL

the supposed arrogance implicit in such a Messianic claim. I
might add that neither Wrede, with all his subsequent influence,
nor Wise, with all his obscurity in this area, appears to me to
have recognized what the Gospel of Mark is really saying,
namely, that despite all the miracles which Jesus accomplished,
his foes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, did not believe him,
and his own followers did not understand him.11 Mark, in
short, is not stressing Jesus' silence, but rather the opaqueness
of the disciples who see but do not understand Jesus5 miracles.

To move on, Wise notices that for the journey to Jerusalem
from Galilee Mark and Matthew set a route that leads eastward
across the Jordan, southward to Jericho, and then a recrossing
of the Jordan and a westward trip to Jerusalem, while Luke has
Jesus remain always west of the Jordan, thereby obligating
Jesus, in his account, to pass through Samaria. The difference,
Wise suggests, "is somewhat obscure."

As to the entry into Jerusalem, Wise notices that Mark and
Luke suggest that Jesus entered on one ass, while Matthew
suggests two animals (for Matthew misunderstood the proof-text
from Zechariah 9:9 which he quoted). Wise, however, gives
his attention primarily to explaining why an ass was needed:
without it

the Messiah could not possibly have come to the satisfaction of the
masses. . . . Popular superstition would have the Messiah to come
riding on an ass, and Jesus had to submit to it. ... Although the story
of the ass, as before us in the Synoptics, bears the stamp of fiction,
nevertheless, from the concurrence of the Evangelists, it appears
certain that Jesus was persuaded to enter Jerusalem riding on an ass,
in order to comply with a popular superstition (ibid., August 13, 1869).

As to the journey, the entry, and the reception of Jesus, it is
irrelevant here to reproduce Wise's struggle with the Gospel
accounts. We can turn directly to his summary:

1 x I discuss this in my The Genius of Paul, published by Farrar, Straus & Gudahy
(New York, 1958).

342

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS "jESXJS HIMSELF"

The facts in the case appear to have been these: Jesus at Caesarea
Philippi having consented to play the messianic role, he went with
his disciples on by-ways, always evading the authority of Herod, down
to the line [Wise means the boundary] of Judea, crossing and re-
crossing the Jordan until he reached Jericho, from whence they
traveled fast to reach Jerusalem unmolested. Here the brilliant feat
was to be rapidly carried out, Jesus proclaimed the Messiah, to rouse
the popular enthusiasm, the people thus won and amazed, to be relied
upon in case of an interference by the government, and the whole
affair to be accomplished by one brilliant and rapid movement ....

That Jesus found many and ardent friends and admirers among the
multitudes in Jerusalem, can hardly be doubted. But they were not
as numerous nor as enthusiastic as the disciples expected from the
messianic appeal to the masses. Little regard was paid to the Messiah,
although considerable attention was bestowed on the words and
lessons of Jesus, who had laid aside altogether the messianic character,
and appeared as the young sage of Nazareth, expounding his scheme
of salvation. This gained him friends and admirers, while the messianic
pretensions of his disciples made him ridiculous with the learned,
obnoxious to the Roman authorities, and drove thousands of peaceable
citizens from him; because they knew from sad experience that almost
any pretext sufficed Pilate for massacre and pillage. So Jesus, who
had been a persecuted fugitive in Galilee, entered now upon his
national career under the worst auspices. He stood upon a threatening
volcano, and he knew it well (ibid., August 20, 1869).

The incident of the "cleansing of the Temple" provides Wise
with an opportunity to distinguish between a historical item
and a legend. The texts of the Synoptics (Mark 11:17; Matthew
21:13; and Luke 19:46) accompany the cleansing with a quota-
tion by Jesus from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11, "My house
shall be called a house of prayer for all people but you have
made it a den of robbers." The "turning over the tables of the
money changers," Wise asserts, is not historical, but rather the
application to Jesus of a biblical passage, such application of
Scripture being frequent in the Gospels. The verse in question
is the very last verse in Zechariah which, translated variously
(for one word in it means both Canaanite and also trader),
runs as follows: "There will be no trader [Canaanite] in the

343

SAMUEL SANDMEL

house of the Lord of Hosts on that day." The cleansing, derived
as it is from a biblical passage, is pure legend in Wise's eyes.

But the citation from Isaiah is, according to Wise, "a mem-
orandum of the first part of the speech which Jesus made in
Jerusalem, a memorandum written exactly in the style of that
age — O'pnD wi." "

Wise believes that this speech of Jesus was a full and un-
relenting attack on the system of priests with their sacrifices.
He would have Jesus emphasize that it is prayer which the
Temple should foster, not sacrifice.

With Jesus striking at the very root of their existence, the chief priests
must naturally have felt alarmed. The larger the number of his
admirers was, the more cause of apprehension existed. The brief
memorandum of that speech gave rise to the unskillful expulsion
story which is incompatible to the general character and behavior of
Jesus, and bears in itself characteristics of improbability (ibid., August
27, 1869, p. 9).

Wise then proceeds to give a full account of the priestly system,
both in extent and in history. A part of this is truly amazing.
In the first place, Wise asserts, the laws relating to sacrifices
in the Pentateuch are inconsistent and replete with conflict.
How to account for this? Wise finds the answer in Exodus 20:24,
which prescribes an altar of stone where one, to paraphrase
Wise with my italics, "might, if he wanted to" offer sacrifices.
That is, Moses initially wanted sacrifices to be voluntary, but
after the incident of the golden calf,

Moses realized that many of his people were not sufficiently free of
Egyptian superstition to adhere to the pure worship of the one and
invisible God, without the aid of external means to which they had
been used.

Therefore Levitical institutions were added, the purpose of
which was

""Chapter headings!'*
344

ISAAC MAYER WISE5S "jESUS HIMSELF"

to prevent the relapse into idolatry, and to educate the people gradually
to the pure knowledge and worship of God. Had Moses intended the
Levitical system [my italics:] for all eternity . . . the first passage . . .
[would] have been entirely omitted in the Bible as being of no force
and no value. . . . Psalmists and Prophets, Essenes and Pharisees, at
times when idolatry had been effectively overcome, opposed the
Levitical laws and institutions. . . .

It appears ... to have been an acknowledged fact among the ancient
Hebrews, as it is among modern critics, that Ezra was the final compiler
of the Pentateuch. In the holy archives, rescued out of the destroyed
Temple, he must have found two kinds of ancient documents, the
Prophetical and Levitical. . . . Among the Prophetical scriptures,
Ezra found the laws and speeches of Moses. Among the Levitical
scriptures he found the Levitical laws, also ascribed to Moses. He
compiled and harmonized both as best he could.

Against the Levitical institutions, we have on record an almost
uninterrupted line of opposition throughout the Bible, and down to
the Essenes and Pharisees, without any evidence that they, or a large
portion of them, originated with Moses. . . . Jesus coincided with that
party in Israel, which opposed the Levitical institutions. . . .

.... The Essenes and Pharisees offered theoretical opposition only,
which did not directly interfere with the priestly immunities and
prerogatives. But Jesus had come with the avowed intention to do it. ...
Therefore the chief priests must have hated and opposed him with all
the power at their command (ibid., September 10, 1869, pp. 8-9).

Behind the story of the cursing of the fig tree in Mark n,
Wise finds the second part of Jesus5 sermon. The story itself is,
Wise assures us, absurd:

No figs on any tree are edible in Palestine about Passover time. . . .
It involves a wickedness to destroy a tree which God has intended to
grow, when the Law prohibits the wanton destruction of fruit trees
even in the time of war. It involves a rashness on the part of Jesus . . .
which . . . cannot be harmonized with his general character. But the
purpose of the incident is to let Jesus speak on the power of prayer
(for so the incident concludes in both Mark and in Matthew).

Wise digresses momentarily to assert that Jesus never taught
the Lord's prayer, for it was common knowledge among Jews,
and then he returns to his point In the first part of his sermon,

345

SAMUEL SANDMEL

Jesus had argued in favor of abolishing the sacrificial system;
"he dwells in the second part of his speech on the power of
prayer in general and the forgiveness of sins in particular, as
the mode of worship to supercede [sic] the sacrificial polity."

These sentiments of Jesus were not, Wise assures us, new.
But his sentiments "alarmed the chief priests." They knew
"how popular and deep-seated the anti-Levitical theories were,
and felt the magnitude of the threatened danger."

Jesus' demand that the form of worship be changed from
sacrifice to prayer was. Wise tells us, "a main feature in the
Messianic scheme of redemption and which Jesus attempted at
Jerusalem. This explains . . . the charges against Jesus . . . that
he could destroy and rebuild the Temple in three days, which
refers only and exclusively to the radical change in the form of
worship" (ibid., September 17, 1869).

Wise proceeds to the next point in the Gospel narrative, the
conflict over the question of authority. Jesus, it will be recalled,
is asked (Mark 1 1 127 ff. and parallels) by what authority he is
acting. He is reported to counter with the offer to answer the
question if first his questioners will tell him whether the baptism
of John was from heaven or from man. When the questioners
evaded responding, Jesus in turn refused to answer them. What
did Wise make of all this?

Wise contends that in Hebrew history the issue of authority
had never been fully resolved. It lay partly in priests, partly in
prophets. In Jesus3 time the Pharisees inherited the prophetic
mantle, but authority had at that juncture been usurped by the
priests. Now, if Jesus had claimed prophetic authority in the
controversy, he would have been asked for credentials which
could not be forthcoming and consequently he would have been
ridiculed; we recall that, according to Wise, Jesus did not work a
miracle in Jerusalem.

And even if Jesus were truly the Messiah, Wise argues, he

346

ISAAC MAYER WISE'S "jESUS HIMSELF9*

could scarcely maintain that the Messiah had the power to
abrogate laws which had been in existence for 1,500 years!
Could Jesus confront the guardians of the sacrificial system with
a contention that he had been granted the authority to abrogate
that which they were dedicated to maintain? (ibid., September
24, 1869, pp. 8-9).

The nature of Jesus3 reply — that of a simple Galilean now
confronted by brilliant and educated minds and thereby choosing
a counterquestion — must not be misconstrued as an unseemly
dodging of the issue. Unable to point to a prophetic or messianic
authority, Jesus

pointed to the authority of John who had baptized and appointed
him as one of the anti-Levitical and theocratic teachers in Israel, as a
representative man of those who demanded the abrogation of the
Levitical institutions and priesthood. . . . He spoke in the name and
the authority of the laws and the people from the standpoint of a
Pharisean associate, which he considered 'better than the authority
of the king and the prophet . . . (ibid., September 24, October i
and 8, 1869).

Jesus3 view of "Pharisean5' authority is discernible, according
to Wise, in the parable (Mark 12:1-12 and parallels) of the
vineyard owner who sends a series of servants to obtain fruit
from his tenants; the tenants not only beat the servants, but
finally they kill the owner's son and heir. Wise requires three
issues of The Israelite to arrive at his explanation of the parable,
for he digresses to discuss both John the Baptist and Jewish
baptism.

The "parable" is not a parable, modern scholars tell us, but a
loosely-knit group of symbolic events. The tenants are Israel;
the owner is God. The "collectors" are the prophets; the son is
Jesus. In the view of virtually all modern scholars, the "parable"
arose long after Jesus' time. But, after asserting that Jesus would
not skip about from subject to subject, Wise tells us what the
parable means.

347

SAMUEL SANDMEL

In Wise's explanation, it is John the Baptist who is the son,
the temple is the vineyard, and the tenants are the priests.

If our suggestions are correct, the parable is genuine, and the reply of
Jesus is complete. . . . God . . . entrusted this national sanctuary to
the priests [tenants], who for centuries have been rebuked by the
prophets [the servants], whom they have abused and scorned. Now
the lord of the vineyard sent his son, John, who preached repentence
[sic] and remission of sin; but he was killed [by Herod].

Wise, as though not quite sure that his interpretation is
correct, spends several paragraphs defending its tenability. And
having thereby protected Jesus from the possible charge of being
evasive, he speaks warmly on "how Jesus confronted his powerful
opponents. He did it nobly, boldly, and admirably, worthy of a
great cause and a good man.3'

Wise interrupts his eulogistic summary:

We hope to defend Jesus of Nazareth against his adversaries and to-
save him from his friends. If the reader will patiently follow us through
the labyrinth of researches which we must pass on account of the
entirely new path we have to level, he shall finally have a full and
correct image of Jesus himself, the historical man as he lived, taught,.
acted and suffered (ibid., October 15, 1869, pp. 8-9).

Wise turns now to what he terms in his chapter heading "The
Positive Element in the System of Jesus." Wise contends that
Jesus espoused Jewish theocracy to the point of being unwilling
to handle or even look at a Roman coin bearing an effigy of
Caesar.

Therefore, in strict conformity with the law of the land, he decided
that every coin bearing the effigy of Caesar should not be turned to
any earthly use, but returned to Caesar. This decision was not only
satisfactory to Pharisean law, and the Pharisean contempt of wealth
and luxury; it was a capital hit on those who loved the Roman coins
too well, better even than their laws and their country (ibid., October
29 and November 5, 1869).

A long essay (in the issue of November 12, 1869) sets forth
the view that "there is, indeed, ample material on record, to

348

ISAAC MAYER WISE'S "jESUS HIMSELF"

prove that Jesus respected the law, and considered salvation an
obedience to it." A week later, Wise gives first a definition of
the Kingdom of God, and then his opinion of Jesus' view. The
definition which Wise gives he labels in very many places in his
writings as "theocracy." The kingdom of God signifies "the
unlimited dominion of God on earth as in heaven, and the
connection of all men with him by the holy ties of supreme
love. . . . The kingdom of heaven is in time and eternity, above
and below, in this and every other world, in life and in death,
unlimited, immutable, eternal and universal. . . ." The com-
mentators, however, says Wise, make of the kingdom of heaven
"a mystic phantom beyond the stars for some ascetic, weeping
and praying misanthropes." Jesus wanted to abolish Levitical
laws and to usher in the kingdom of heaven; he was opposed to
human kings, whether a Jewish Herodian or a Roman Caesar.
Jesus

had come ... to deface the Levitical priests, to make an end of corrup-
tion in high places, to return the Roman money to Rome, to restore
the dominion of justice and love, to reconstruct the kingdom of
heaven. . . .

Did Jesus preach this gospel to Jews alone, or was it intended for
the whole world? Like the prophets of old, he must have believed in the
final triumph of truth, the redemption and fraternization of the human
family in justice, freedom and peace. . . , All pious Israelites believed
it, and repeated it thrice every day in their prayers. But Jesus knew
this was not the mission of one man or any one age. . . . Our age is
not ripe for the consummation of that divine purpose, how much less
was the age of Jesus; and he must have known it. He considered it his
mission to restore the kingdom of heaven in Israel. "I am not sent but
to the lost sheep of Israel," if not his words, expressed certainly his
sentiment (ibid., November 19, 1869, PP-

In several succeeding issues of The Israelite, Wise discusses the
relationship of Jesus to Jewish law. As before, he again asserts
that Jesus advocated "theocracy." Wise then states that, when
Jesus' teaching of the law of love evoked the observation that

349

SAMUEL SANDMEL

"no man thereafter durst ask him any question35 (Mark 12:34),
it meant that there was satisfaction among most of the Jews
with his viewpoint and that "the triumph of Jesus with that class
of Pharisees was complete" (ibid., November 26, 1869). Wise
goes on to concede that this latter conclusion is discernible
only in Mark and in Luke.

The proof which Wise offers is the passage in which Jesus is
asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" In Mark, Jesus
replies: " 'The first is, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God,
the Lord is one." The second is this, "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater
than these.' " Matthew and Luke, however, lack the citation of
the "Hear, O Israel." Wise goes astray here, attributing the
lack only to Matthew, and mistakenly asserting that Luke, like
Mark, contains it. He would have been on sounder ground to
have contrasted Mark with both Luke and Matthew, rather
than Mark and Luke with Matthew. Having made the error,
Wise goes on to state that Jesus' triumph with the Pharisees
was complete, but "Matthew, whose anti-Pharisean [sic] tend-
encies we will discuss in another chapter, turns the statement of
the two other Evangelists, to convey the direct contrary (XXII,
46)." It is nevertheless clear, says Wise, that "had Jesus enter-
tained the remotest idea of abrogating the law, this question
and the subsequent reply [which we find in Mark] would appear
simply absurd. . . ." But why the different reply in Matthew,
where the "Hear, O Israel" is omitted? Rather laconically,
Wise gives an answer, and we must supply some words which
Wise lacks. Mark (and in his mistaken view, Luke) is a strict
Unitarian; "it appears that 'God is One' was [an obstacle]
in Matthew's way, who was acquainted with Paul's son of
God."

Yet, despite the differences in the Gospel accounts, there is a
basic agreement in the matter of the question and the answer,

350

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS " JESUS HIMSELF9'

says Wise, to show that the love of God "is an integral part of
Jesus5 scheme of salvation.5'

Wise now proceeds to set forth at some length a distinction
between "Love35 and "Gnosis.55 Love was for Jesus, as for Moses,
the "Postulate of Ethics.55 To hold such a view was "in strict
compliance with one class of Pharisees.55 The "gnostics55 (not
to be confused, says Wise, with the heretics of Christian history)
were those who emphasized study and contemplation. They
included the Essenes and the Therapeutae of Egypt, as well as
those rabbis who expressed scorn for the 'Am Hcfaretz (the
untutored). The principal exponent of such gnosticism was
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, upon whom the anti-gnostic
Pharisees imposed a ban shortly after the fall of Jerusalem.
From this latter incident it is clear, says Wise, that Pharisees
"as a class were not responsible for this peculiar gnosticism.
They held views entirely contrary. . . ." Passages in Aboth, such
as "knowledge (research) is not the main thing, deeds are,53
represent the Pharisean school of love. The Levitical laws gave
rise to Gnosis; the Mosaic, to Love. "Jesus advanced the law of
love as the criterion by which to recognize the eternal and
unalterable laws, the only infallible guides to happiness. . . ,55 13

The agreement of Jesus with the Pharisees was not only in
the "Postulate of Ethics53; it was also in what Wise terms "the
Postulate of Hermeneutics.55 This latter, according to Wise, is
expressed in the following passage: " 'Thou shalt love thy
neighbor like thyself,5 says Rabbi Akiba, cis the cardinal principle
of the law.5 Ben Azai [sic] said, c "This is the book of the gen-
ealogy of man55 is a principle superior to the above.5 55 In a

13 Wise continues: "If Jesus had been asked the question of crusades against
infidels, pyres for heretics [sic] and unbelievers, persecution and torture for
schismatics and Jews, exceptional laws and oppression for dissenters and heathens,
inquisitions and auto-da-fees [sic] in the name of the church; he would have
turned aside with a shudder in his veins and exclaimed, * Ye are ripe for the kingdom
of Satan* " (ibid., December 3, 1869).

351

SAMUEL SANDMEL

footnote Wise supplies the Hebrew and his source, "Yalkut 613
from Saphira." A few paragraphs later, Wise cites Hillel's
formulation of the Golden Rule as still another example of
the Law of Love.

We need not linger on Wise's extended remarks on tangential
issues. After several such pages, he proceeds to what he calls
"A Review": . . .

Jesus expected to save the people of Israel, to restore the kingdom of
heaven. It was wise, sublime, thoroughly Jewish and worthy of a
pious, enlightened and enthusiastic patriot. . . . The scheme was
eminently religious and eminently impractical. Rome would not
favor any policy or tolerate any popular movement which might
have rescued Israel from the doom of destruction . . . great souls feel
common disappointments much deeper than vulgar ones do. . . . Jesus
standing upon the ruins of his hope of hopes . . . must indeed have
exclaimed, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

What office, asks Wise, did Jesus fill?

Peter's Messiah, a Jewish phantomism; Paul's Son of God, a Pagan
vision from Olympus; and John's Logos, a purely Alexandrian product
of speculation, are ideas as widely different from one another, as all of
them are from the Godhead Jesus of trinitarian orthodoxy. They were
three distinct epochs in the origin of Christianity. None of these titles
does Jesus use or claim in the Gospels (ibid., December 31, 1869).

Jesus himself never made the claim to Davidic descent (ibid.,
January 7, 1870). Rather, there is evidence "from fragments in
the Gospels on the dissensions among the disciples about rank
and precedence in the kingdom of heaven" that some of the
disciples "must have speculated for Jesus on some kind of
spiritual governorship in the reconstructed Theocracy" (ibid.,
January 14, 1870). The office of Jesus, in his own eyes, was
"Son of Man." This "was the title of the prophets in and after
the Babylonian exile." Indeed,

the prophet was to be the chief man in the Theocracy. This is the
position which Jesus expected in the reconstructed kingdom of heaven.

35*

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS "jESUS HIMSELF"

It was not an office with emoluments. ... It was simply and exclusively
a moral position. . . .

Had Jesus actually restored and maintained the Theocracy he would
have been its prophet. . . . Had his disciples not committed the
unpardonable blunder of proclaiming him the Messiah, he might have
escaped crucifixion But yielding to the ambition and false calcula-
tion of his disciples, he sealed his death warrant (ibid., January
28, 1870).

Next Wise turns to a problem: "Jesus of Nazareth was a
Pharisean doctor. He coincided with that party in every point
of Theocracy." Then why, asks Wise, do New Testament
writings attack the Pharisees and distort what they were? In
answer, Wise combs rabbinic literature so as to be able to assess
the Pharisees justly; and such quotations he balances by the
assertion that "The anti-Pharisean passages of the gospels were
written long after the death of Jesus . . ., when the Jewish sects
besides the Pharisees and Christians almost disappeared, and
Pharisaism and Judaism had become synonymous; and still
later, in the second century, when Judaism and Christianity
had become two distinct religions" (ibid., March 4, 1870).

In the next issue (March n, 1870) Wise studies the anti-
Pharisaic elements common to all three gospels (and thus, in
his view, part of the aboriginal Gospel), sifting them so that they
emerge no longer as anti-Pharisaic, but only as a denunciation of
"hypocrisy, avarice and morbid ambition." The same pursuit
occupies him in the following issue (March 18, 1870). He pro-
longs the study still one more issue; therein he aligns Hillel with
exponents of the Law of Love, and Shammai with the Gnostics.
On this basis he is ready (ibid., April i, 1870) to conclude that
Jesus "clung most tenaciously to the genuine Hillelites."

Wise proceeds in the same issue to try to distinguish between
the genuine aphorisms of Jesus and the spurious. Those aph-
orisms which agree with the rabbis, and especially with the
Hillelites, are genuine; the others are not.

353

SAMUEL SANDMEL

For perhaps the twentieth time Wise repeats that Jesus was a
"Pharisean doctor of the Hillel school." He ends the segment
of his essay with these words: "He spoke of his people with
respect. He said to the Samaritan woman, cYe worship ye
know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of
the Jew5 (John IV, 22)."

In capital letters there appear the words, "to be continued."
Nevertheless, this was the end.

Why did Wise not continue? Why did he not finish? We do
not know. Perhaps his reason was profound; perhaps he simply
ran out of time. Indeed, it may have been that he had said all
that he wanted to say.

If it should be suggested that he abstained from finishing
because he had little confidence in the reliability of what he
had written, then it can be reported that, in those instances
where his subsequent writings touch on the contents of "Jesus
Himself," the basic viewpoint and even specific details remain
virtually unaltered. While I have not encountered a second
mention of an aboriginal Gospel which served all three or four,
or a clear repetition of his division of Pentateuchal religion
into the Mosaic and the Levitic, yet overtones of both reappear,
for example, in the material on Jesus in History of the Hebrews'
Second Commonwealth (1880), pp. 255-68. Moreover, his portrait
of Jesus recurs without change in a work, originally published
in 1874, which enjoyed three printings, the last in 1888; I refer
to The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth which I mentioned earlier.
The Jesus who walked in the pages of "Jesus Himself' walks
these pages, too. Indeed, The Martyrdom is in a sense the conclu-
sion to the unfinished "Jesus Himself," for in The Martyrdom
Wise takes up the account virtually where it left off.

Wise is not to be classified as a scholar in the same sense in
which we rank David Friedrich Strauss, or Ferdinand Christian
Baur, or Oskar Holtzmann, or others of his time. Scholarly,

354

ISAAC MAYER WISEJS "jESUS HIMSELF"

perhaps, but a scholar of New Testament he is assuredly not.
His writings in this area are devoid of any lasting scientific value;
he was essentially a shrewd, self-taught homiletician who wrote
farfetched things. But here is a matter always to be remembered:
Bible, whether Old or New Testament, has always attracted the
mind that is capricious and cavalier. Wise was doing the same
kind of thing that many second-rate Protestant scholars were
doing. He is more farfetched only when we isolate single
instances; in the totality of the effect, one need only peruse those
who have summarized the overabundant books called "The
Life of Jesus" to see that Wise was in the main stream of the
imaginative Protestant dilettantes.

But when one assesses the total man — a very busy rabbi,
the editor of both an English and a German weekly, a traveler,
a novelist (sometimes he had two novels running serially at the
same time), and the compiler of a prayer book — and when one
remembers that he fathered the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, the Hebrew Union College, and the Central
Conference of American Rabbis, then one wonders how he had
the time to devise and record his ingenious theories, and the
tenacity to stick to them. He had neither the training nor the
discipline for exact and lasting scholarship.

Yet his writings on Jesus in general, and the incomplete
"book" which we have surveyed in particular, have an impor-
tance which transcends by far their lack of permanent academic
merit. Wise began by doubting that Jesus ever lived; then, as
we saw, he began to write his biography.

Nineteenth-century New Testament scholarship among Prot-
estants was aimed, both consciously and unconsciously, at
recovering the Jesus of history and at placing him in his Jewish
setting. To accomplish this meant to Wise's Gentile contem-
poraries exactly what it meant to Wise: to peel off layers of
legend and theology and to restore the man. Except among those

355

SAMUEL SANDMEL

Christians and Jews who made a Gentile out of Jesus, such a
reconstituted man was plainly and simply a Jew. It seems to
me justified to suggest that, at the time Wise was denying that
Jesus ever lived, he was negating a "Christian" Jesus. Once the
thought came to him that Jesus was a Jew, Wise not only
affirmed his existence, but made him the protagonist, indeed
the hero, of his account.

Truly, for Wise, Jesus was a noble Jew whose only mis-
demeanor was his mistake in yielding to the importunings of
Peter and the other disciples. It is they who are the villains to
Wise — except that he finds an even greater archvillain when
he deals with the apostolic age and directs his attention to Paul.

Wise, however, falls short of something which later Jewish
writers, both scholars and dilettantes alike, endeavor to do. In
Wise there is an effort merely to restore the Jewishness of Jesus;
in later writers the quest extends to reclaiming Jesus for Judaism.
Joseph Klausner, in Jesus of Nazareth (1922), English translation,
p. 414, does some reclaiming:

. . . Jesus is, for the Jewish nation, a great teacher of morality and an artist
in parable. ... If ... this ethical code be stripped of its wrappings of
miracles and mysticism, the Book of the Ethics of Jesus will be one
of the choicest treasures in the literature of Israel for all time. I4

If the distinction which I intend between restoring and
reclaiming Jesus is clear — the distinction is one of degree and
thereby almost one of kind — then the significance of Wise's
writings begins to emerge. The age-old antipathy, as reflected
in the travesties on Jesus, as in Toledot Teshu, was inconsistent
with an age of enlightenment and broad horizons. Moreover,
there was no spiritual or physical ghetto in the United States,
and Jews and Christians lived side by side in a relatively high

x* Klausncr was taken to task by Armancl Kaminka (pnn, August, 1922) for the
sentiments quoted. A partial translation of Kaminka's sharp criticism is to be
found in Harvard Theological Review (January, 1923, pp. 100—3).

356

ISAAC MAYER WISE'S " JESUS HIMSELF"

state of harmony and good will. Christianity inevitably intruded
into the consciousness of Jews, and so did Jesus.

Wise wrote as he did because he was Wise; he was moved so
to write because no Jew breathing the free air of America could
refrain from coming to grips in some way with Christianity and
with Jesus. Indifference and total lack of contact were possible
only in ghettos where medievalism had survived. Wise wrote
because he had to write; he could not be the leader of an
American Jewish community and not do so. In 1876, Max
Schlesinger, a rabbi in Albany, published The Historical Jesus of
Nazareth\ in the same year, Frederic de Sola Mendes published
Defence, not Defiance: A Hebrew* s Reply to the Missionaries.

I have spoken above of a distinguished work by the Swedish
scholar Gosta Lindeskog, Die Jesusfrage im neuzeitlichen Judentum
("The Question of Jesus in Recent Judaism")- It is an excellent
summary of books by Jews on Jesus, as well as of articles appear-
ing in scientific journals. If there is any weakness in the book,
it is the understandable failure to include the sermons and the
small tracts which American rabbis produced in some number.
When Klausner's book first appeared in its English translation,
another Wise, Stephen S. Wise, reviewed the book from his
pulpit (December, 1925). The press accounts disclose that the
sermon was a "reclamation" of Jesus, and a historic storm broke
over the head of Stephen Wise. * s It is this kind of incident and
writing which is lacking in Lindeskog.

Joseph Bonsirven, a French priest whose book Les Jtdfs et
J&sus was published in 1937, addresses himself in quite good
measure to the sermons and tracts of American rabbis; in fact,
he asks whimsically if it is the usual practice among American

xs I record my thanks to Rabbi Albert G. Minda for giving me his file on this
affair. It is a good collection of clippings from the days and weeks after Wise's
sermon. An account of the matter can be found in the Review of Reviews, LXXIII,
203, and in the Christian Century, XLIII, 26.

357

SAMUEL SANDMEL

rabbis to publish their sermons. He mentions the Stephen Wise
matter several times. Bonsirven records with acknowledged
pleasure that the Jewish attitude towards Jesus has undergone
the notable change from disparagement to reclamation. He
says somewhat plaintively (p. 213): "J6sus, ils entendent de
tirer chez eux, ils ne veulent pas venir chez lui" (The Jews mean
to draw Jesus to themselves, they do not want to come to him).
The impression which one gets from Bonsirven is that the
reclamation of Jesus is, or has been, a matter of the twenties
and thirties of this century. The rabbis whom he cites include
Hyman G. Enelow, Abraham J. Feldman, G. George Fox,
Solomon B. Freehof, Ephraim Frisch, Emil G. Hirsch, Ferdinand
M. Isserman, Joseph Krauskopf, Louis I. Newman, Abram
Simon, Ernest Trattner, and Stephen Wise. The book, then, is
weighted towards Bonsirven's own day and ours.

The fact is, however, that restoration, or even reclamation,
began a full half century before the period which Bonsirven
discusses. No one has yet studied in detail the Jewish "reclama-
tion" of Jesus. It could well make a fascinating subject, espe-
cially if one went away from the highroads which Lindeskog
maps out and into the earlier bypaths of the American con-
gregational rabbis and their minor publications.

Such a study would give us a fuller perspective on Isaac
Mayer Wise and his approach to Jesus. He marks a significant
chapter, if not in the "reclamation" of Jesus, at least in his
"restoration."

358

The Temple Emanu-El Theological
Seminary of New York City

BERTRAM W, KORN

It is with a feeling of profound affection and gratitude
that I share in this academic tribute to the American
Jewish Archives, and to its founder and director. Pro-
fessor Jacob R. Marcus. The Archives has grown, in the
brief span of ten years, to a position of prestige and
usefulness among American historical resources, pri-
marily through the imagination, skill, and inspiration of
its Director. With single-minded devotion he has created
a climate of enthusiasm for the collection of source mate-
rials in the field of Jewish Americana, for the study and
publication of the results of research, and for the assess-
ment of the experiences of the Jews and of their heritage
in this land. May the Archives continue to expand and
prosper under the aegis of its creative Director, my
teacher and friend, to whose guidance I owe the stimula-
tion and development of my own concern with research
in American Jewish themes.

J.HE FORTUNATE discovery of the minute book of
the Emanu-El Theological Seminary Society of New York City
(now safely deposited in the American Jewish Archives) makes
it possible, with far more accuracy than before,1 to describe
the early history of the first effort to create a Reform theological
seminary in the United States.

Dr. Bertram Wallace Korn is the spiritual leader of Reform Congregation Keneseth
Israel, Philadelphia, Pa.

1 Bertram W. Korn, Eventful Tears and Experiences (Cincinnati, 1954), 160-61.

359

BERTRAM W. KORN

American Jewish leaders had early felt the necessity of creating
a Jewish theological seminary in America, where young men,
born in this country, might be trained for the rabbinate. Jewish
congregational officers were distressed by the shortage of able
rabbis, and even the few capable men who came here from
abroad with the requisite knowledge and background were at
an obvious disadvantage in seeking to meet the needs of con-
gregations in this country. Language barriers and strange new
customs were difficult obstacles to overcome. Only one effort
to establish an American Jewish institution of higher learning
was made before the Civil War; Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of
Cincinnati founded Zion College in 1855. It functioned for two
years as a school for the study of the humanities, and included a
department of Hebrew and Jewish learning. Wise envisioned its
future as a total university complex, with a theological seminary
at its center. Unfortunately, Zion College survived for only
two years. Geographic jealousies and ineptitudes in leadership
militated against its success.

After the Civil War, however, when civilian energies might
once again be directed towards peaceful pursuits, and after
Jews in the North had gained a heightened feeling of at-homeness
in America, a number of practical attempts were made to
establish a rabbinical school. One was the Philadelphia plan,
suggested by leaders of the local Jewish community and sup-
ported by the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, which
eventuated in the opening of Maimonides College in Phila-
delphia in 1867; a second was the scheme for the creation of a
seminary under the auspices of the Independent Order of B'nai
B'rith, which was abandoned after a year of acrimonious discus-
sion; the third was the Emanu-El proposal. 2

Isaac Mayer Wise's Zion College had been envisioned, like

a For a fuller description of the early history of the seminary movement and of
the activity of Maimonides College, see Korn, op. cit., 151-213.

360

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

his Cleveland Conference of Rabbis, as a common meeting-
ground for traditionalists and Reformers; Maimonides College
leaned towards the traditional, but two of its three graduates
became Reform rabbis; the B'nai B'rith seminary, which was
to become the core of an eventual Jewish University, was also
conceived of as a compromise between traditionalism and
liberalism. But the Temple Emanu-El seminary, characteris-
tically, was designed to train only Reform rabbis, under the
auspices of the most radical of the Reform congregations in
America.

Broached first at a meeting of the ritual committee of Temple
Emanu-El on May 5, 1865, and recommended as an expression
of "thankfulness to the Almighty53 for the cessation of war,3
the new seminary was not suggested as an answer to the needs
of the total Jewish community, but rather as an avenue for the
extension of Reform Judaism. In a communication sent to the
members of Congregation Emanu-El summoning them to a
meeting on June 18, 1865, to discuss the proposal, Rabbi Samuel
Adler urged the creation of a seminary for the training of rabbis
who would carry out the work of Reform:

He that is a Jew, not merely in name but from conviction and with
all his heart, must feel deeply interested in having our pure religion
freed from the alloy which the dark ages of the past and especially
the terrible fate of our ancestors have mingled with it so that this
purified faith may extend to larger circles and be transmitted to our
children and to coming generations. In this land of liberty we ought
not only to enjoy our liberty in trade and commerce, but also to
retrieve our most sacred professions, our religious confession and our
religious life from the various disfigurations and defects which are
the sad inheritance of still sadder times. Here in this country with no
interference on the part of the government it is our most sacred duty
to cause Judaism to be universally respected and to justify the predic-
tion that "our religion is our wisdom and our understanding in the
eyes of the nations."

a Minute Book, i.

361

BERTRAM W. K.ORN

But in order to bring about this desirable state of things we need men
endowed with thorough knowledge and inspired with a glowing zeal
for their calling, men who have devoted their lives to the study and
the spreading of the law . . . theological orators who can preach in the
English tongue, who can be heard and understood by the rising
generation. . . .4

Adler said, in his letter, that no tremendous sum of money
would be needed to create the new seminary, for no young
men were available to enter immediately upon theological
studies. The only pressing requirement was the creation of a
preparatory class or department; a small sum of money would
guarantee the establishment of such a school. Only after a
number of years would it be necessary to create a full seminary
for graduate instruction.

At the first public meeting of the new organization, called
the Emanu-El Theological Seminary Society, on June 18, 1865,
twenty- three gentlemen joined as life members at an individual
cost of $100, and seventy-five agreed to contribute $10 a year
as annual members. A board of seven members was elected
to carry on the work of the Society, and a set of bylaws was
adopted. The preamble to the latter indicated the awareness
of the framers that the founding of "a fully endowed Jewish
Theological Seminary" would take a long time; for the present
they would be content with "the assisting ... of such Jewish
youths as wish to study Jewish Theology.35 The bylaws included
a number of significant provisions: "The object of this Institution
shall be the education of Jewish youth, on the basis of reform . . .
a majority of the board shall at all times be members of the

Emanu-El Congregation of the City of New York The

minister of the Temple Emanu-El be at all times ex Officio a
member of the Board of Trustees but not to have a vote." The
limited character of the Society was established from the first.
»

« Ibid., 2-4.

362

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

Not only was its objective restricted to service to the Reform
movement, but its control was to be vested in the hands of one
Reform congregation. s

It is doubtful that the small number of radical Reform con-
gregations at the time could have mustered enough energy
and enthusiasm to support a full-fledged seminary of their
own; certainly no single congregation, whatever its enthusiasm
or substance, could succeed in carrying out so ambitious a
project. Although the membership solicitation proceeded sat-
isfactorily, to the extent that thirty-nine life members and
one hundred and twenty annual members had been enrolled
by the time of the first annual meeting on October 8, i865,6
the Emanu-El seminary remained a paper organization. Public
reaction to its creation was altogether wanting; no pupils had
responded to the advertisements offering scholarships, and cir-
culars which appealed to other Reform congregations throughout
the country for financial support and for recommendations of
students drew no replies.7 There was no planned academic
program; no faculty members had been appointed; no one
person, neither Moses Schloss, the president, nor any board
member, nor Rabbi Adler himself, gave any indication of that
kind of devotion and consecration which alone would serve to
attract students to a non-existent institution.

In the fall of 1866, two students, William Rosenblatt of
Hartford, and Michael Gohn of New York City, matriculated
at Columbia College at the expense of the Emanu-El Society,
and studied Hebrew with Isaac Adler, son of Rabbi Adler,
but both, for unexplained reasons, abandoned their purpose
within a year. 8

* Ibid., 5-12.

6 Ibid., 13,
^ Ibid., 13-14.

* Ibid., 25-26, 34.

363

BERTRAM W. KORN

Meanwhile, it was beginning to dawn upon the leaders of
the Society that other Reform congregations would give no
support to an institution named for and dominated by one
congregation. Rabbi David Einhorn, who had just come to
New York from Philadelphia, was, therefore, invited to become
an honorary member of the board. No sooner was he elected
than he became an outspoken leader of the effort to broaden
the base of the Society. He spoke at length at the annual meeting
on October 21, 1866. Although he agreed that membership
should be limited to Reform Jews, he insisted that the inclusion
of the name of Temple Emanu-El in the title of the Society, and
the restriction that a majority of board members be affiliated
with that congregation, would weaken the Society's efforts. He
spared no words in his frank appraisal of the failure of the
Society:

. . . Your institution exists only in the imagination; you have a
pretty large number of members, an excellent Board of trustees,
annual meetings, but only one thing is wanting — the Seminary;
you have everything, but neither teachers nor pupils. We have just
heard of the existence of two pupils, but these are waiting for a Sem-
inary as for the Messiah. Where is their professor? Dr. Adler, this I
know, does not instruct them. Your Seminary is a still-born child,
because the noble mother that bore it was pleased to wear a too tightly-
laced corset. . . . 9

Einhorn's plea, coupled with the obvious disappointment of
other leaders at the moribund state of the Society's affairs,
created enough momentum for the annual meeting to authorize
a change of name. At a meeting held on November 15, 1866,
the board approved a new name, The American Hebrew College
of the City of New York. Thereafter memberships were solicited
and obtained from members of other Reform congregations in
the city. As evidence of the high hopes of the board at this

» Ibid., 17-19; Hebrew Leader (New York), October 26, 1866, 4.
364

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

time, it is instructive to note the refusal of the board to grant a
stipend to a young Hartford boy who was studying at the
seminary in Breslau, because "we intend to build a College
here."10

But prospects did not improve. Although the new name was
adopted at the annual meeting of 1867, and Rabbis Adler and
Einhorn were authorized to engage "a Professor of the Hebrew
Language" at a cost of not more than $150 a year, there were
still no definite plans, no regular courses of proposed study, and
no students.11 A Mr. Schnabel was engaged as instructor in
Hebrew in November, 1867, 12 but the minutes fail to indicate
that any pupils enrolled for his course. By May, 1868, the fate
of the seminary appeared so dismal that one member of the
board offered this pessimistic resolution:

Whereas, It is the opinion of this Board that the welfare of this society
can only be promoted by undaunted exertion on our part, and

Whereas, From the experience the Board has had for the past two
years, we find that there are at present, no young men in the country
who will devote themselves to the Jewish Ministry, therefore

Resolved, That two candidates of the Jewish Theology shall be
procured either from Europe or any part of the United States, for
the purpose of perfecting themselves in their theological studies,
combined with the English language and literature. . . . I3

So quickly had the members of the Board changed their minds
about the prospects of the seminary that they gave up all hope
of creating a school, or of assembling classes of students, and
now would be content to find two candidates anywhere in the

"Ibid., 25.
11 Ibid., 26, 28.
Ia Ibid., 29.
* s Ibid., 32.

365

BERTRAM W. KORN

world who had already begun to study for the rabbinate and
would be willing to come to New York City. Advertisements
were inserted in Jewish papers in the United States and Europe
"advising all persons who have already laid the foundation to a
course of study in Jewish Theology, that upon application to
the Hebrew Theological Seminary of New York, they will be
transported here, at the cost of the Society, and may continue
to complete their studies under the auspices of this Society,
whose object shall also be to procure proper situations for such
candidates on completion of their course of study." I4

Again an application for a stipend for European study was
rejected; on October 12, 1868, the board refused such a request
by Isaac Schoenberg of Mainz.15 The members of the board
stood firm in their determination to prepare rabbis for the
American ministry in the United States, rather than in Europe.
But the advertisements achieved no result. And now, apparently,
recriminations began. The secretary gives no hint of the reason,
but the Society was formally dissolved on November 10, 1869,
after another year of failure, and reorganized a month later,
once again under the aegis of Temple Emanu-EL x 6 The con-
tributions which had been made by members of other Reform
congregations were returned to them, at their request, ag-
gregating a total of $1,560. There had probably been no single
cause disrupting The American Hebrew College of the City
of New York, but a combination of causes: disappointment
among the Emanu-El leaders that there had not been an
enthusiastic influx of other Reform Jews into the Society,
disagreement among the various rabbis over suggested proposals
for action, disillusionment of non-members of Emanu-El at the

33.
34.

366

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

continuing domination of the board by leaders of Emanu-El,
and despair of any practical results by most of the members.

The new Society, returned to the matrix of Congregation
Emanu-El, failed to accomplish anything remarkable. An effort
was made in 1870 to establish branch societies in various
cities, but only two congregations responded, and the idea was
dropped. z 7 The Society's funds were, in a moment of caution,
transferred to the treasury of the congregation. Finally, at a
meeting on July 6, 1871, the board adopted the concept which
it had resisted since 1865: the financial maintenance of American
students at European seminaries.18 One hundred and fifty
dollars a year was voted to Henry Cohn in 1871; $350 a year
was awarded to Emil G. Hirsch in i873;19 ^d $J5° a Year to
Samuel Sale in i874-20 (The larger amount to Hirsch is ex-
plained probably by the close personal relationship which
existed between Rabbi Adler and Emil's father, Rabbi Samuel
Hirsch of Philadelphia.) Other applications for stipends were
considered; some were rejected because of lack of fitness on the
part of students; others were approved as the years went by. 2I
The seminary of Temple Emanu-El, during this period, never
really functioned as a school. It was not until about 1877, under
the vigorous leadership of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Samuel
Adler's colleague and eventual successor in the Emanu-El
pulpit, that the Society actually created a preparatory rabbinical
seminary. For about ten years, this school gave preparatory
training to rabbinical students, and then sent them for further
education to Europe or to the Hebrew Union College in

" ibid., 38, 41, 43.

**Ibid., 44.
1 9 Ibid., 49.
10 Ibid.> 50, 52.
» IML9 53-54.

367

BERTRAM W. KORN

Cincinnati. The story of these years is detailed in Richard
GottheiPs biography of his father. a 2

But by 1877, when Temple Emanu-El established a genuine
preparatory school, the forces of moderate Reform, led by Rabbi
Isaac Mayer Wise, had already succeeded in creating the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations and its proteg6, the Hebrew
Union College. Too late — on October 26, 1875, to be exact —
some three weeks after the Hebrew Union College opened its
doors in Cincinnati, Rabbi Samuel Adler realized that the only
way to establish a viable seminary would be through joint,
completely cooperative action by a group of congregations
working together in harmonious and idealistic fashion. His
recommendation that Temple Emanu-El take the lead in
organizing a new union of Reform congregations, primarily
for the purpose of establishing a seminary, had been too long in
coming.23 Isaac Mayer Wise had already done this, and in
such a way as to gain the support not only of the moderate
Reformers, but also of liberal traditionalists.

It was, in part, this organizational problem which had
defeated Temple Emanu-El. The pioneering task of creating
an American Jewish seminary was too big for any one con-
gregation. Many congregations, with all the imaginative leader-
ship which they could muster, would be needed to support
such an institution morally and spiritually, as well as financially.
Of even greater significance was the lack of a single visionary
mind at the helm, to grapple with the realistic problems of
curriculum, faculty, students, books, and the hundred and one
other difficulties which assail the leader of an educational
undertaking. Isaac Leeser had played such a role at the inception

" Richard Gottheil, The Life of Gustav Gottheil. Memoir of a Priest in Israel (Wil-
liamsport, Pa., 1936), 48-59.

as Minute Book, 54.

368

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

of Maimonides College; his death soon afterwards doomed
Maimonides College to eventual failure. Isaac Mayer Wise was
this single-minded leader in Cincinnati; the success of the
Hebrew Union College was in direct proportion to his own
tremendous labors. The Temple Emanu-El people, however,
sought to establish a seminary through the (at best) halfhearted
efforts of laymen. It is doubtful if Rabbi Samuel Adler had the
temperament, the vigor, and the imagination to carry out the
heavy responsibilities of creating a new seminary — but he was
never even given the chance ! His name was added to the board
of the Emanu-El Society as an afterthought, and then as an
ex-officio member without the right to vote.

But the fundamental occasion (if not the reason) for the
failure of all of the earliest ventures in the creation of an Amer-
ican Jewish seminary was the difficulty of attracting young
American boys to rabbinic careers. Zion College, Maimonides
College, and the Emanu-El seminary collapsed so easily and so
quickly because there was no demand for the sort of educational
opportunity which they offered. It required a tremendously
effective and idealistic leader to wheedle, cajole, and persuade
boys to undertake the arduous studies which would prepare
them to assume the burdens of a ministry which was, at this
particular juncture of American Jewish life, especially onerous
and difficult. A genuinely able president or dean would have
inspired young men with a vision of the dramatic opportunity
which was theirs to serve their people, their faith, and their God
through the ministry. Such an educator would have been able
to rescue from despondency a young man like Henry Cohn, who
had the integrity to write this pathetic letter to the Emanu-El
Society after a year in Berlin as the first Emanu-El scholar to be
sent abroad:

369

BERTRAM W. KORN

Berlin, Dec[em]b[e]r 3rd, 1872,
Moses Schloss, Esq.
New York

Dear Sir:

Being more than a year in this country for the purpose of preparing
myself for the Jewish ministry and having been sent there for that
object by "The Emanu-El Theological Semfinary] Ass[ociatio]n," I
consider it my duty to acquaint you with the present state of my
studies.

Before my departure for Europe I was well aware of the great
difficulties connected with the study of the Talmud and the Rabbinical
Literature. I was convinced that these studies were in some respects
more difficult than those of any other of the learned professions. But,
notwithstanding these obstacles, I thought that with the proper
perseverance and diligence I would be able to attain my object. You
have received the reports of my instructors respecting my progress
during the ist term. Encouraged by the labor which I had expended
on my studies, they believed themselves justified in advising me to
proceed. These testimonials gave me stronger hopes. I began the
work of the following term with renewed vigor, yes, I can say I worked
even more diligently than during the first session. But I must confess,
to my sorrow that my labor was not crowned with that success which
should encourage me to continue the study of Jewish theology any
longer. Now at the end of a year on looking back at the way I have
passed over I find that my progress was unhappily transient, that
the results gained are small and the obstacles to be overcome [are]
stupendous, I have therefore on serious consultation with my instructors
and friends come to the conclusion that it is impossible for me to
attain the object desired.

I regret very much that I must come to this conclusion, but accord-
ing to my view of the case it is my duty to sacrifice all personal consid-
erations for the sake of our sacred cause. It is not enough that the
ministers in Israel be enthusiastic, they must also be men of superior
mental endowments, men who are at all times able to grapple with
the great religious and social questions of the age. In America espe-
cially, where there are ministers who are by no means fit for their
calling, such men as I have before mentioned are now absolutely
necessary. I feel that I have not these endowments, and my experience
in Germany has convinced me beyond all doubt that diligence alone

370

TEMPLE EMANU-EL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF NEW YORK

is not sufficient. For these reasons therefore, I have come to the
conclusion that I would serve the interests of Judaism better, if I do
not become a minister.

I hope that you and all the members of the Association will after
these statements not consider me as one who has become tired of the
hard work and consequently gives it up, but as one whom duty and
circumstances over which he has no control compel to sever himself
from that which is dearest to his heart. Before closing my letter I
must thank you and all the officers and members of the society for
the aid granted, and wish from the bottom of my heart that very
soon such Jewish youth will be found who are in all respects fitted
to be the mental and religious guides of American Judaism. May the
pain which I experience myself in leaving these pursuits atone in
some measure for your disappointed hopes.

I remain,

Yours very respectfully,

HENRY CoHN24

All this is not to say that the Emanu-El project was a complete
and total failure. The recognition of the need for an American
seminary which impelled the leaders of the Temple to create
their Society was a positive achievement; the collection of funds
which, eventually, were used to endow scholarships which
enabled American Jewish boys to study at European seminaries
was a positive achievement; the gradual awakening of public
opinion throughout the country for the support of rabbinic
training, to which the Emanu-El Society contributed, was a
positive achievement; the subsidization of the rabbinic education
of superior leaders like Emil G. Hirsch and Samuel Sale was a
positive achievement — indeed, the funds of the Emanu-El
Seminary have been used to this very day to subvention the
rabbinic education of young men at the Hebrew Union College -
Jewish Institute of Religion — surely a lasting contribution.

3 < 47-49. The letter closed with a postscript promising to repay the funds granted
to him and requesting a further loan, which, however, was refused.

371

The Semikah

of the Rev. Dr. Kaufmann Kohler

JOSHUA BLOCH

AHE Rev. Dr. Kaufmann Kohler (1843-1926) was
me of the great American Jewish scholars called upon to
preside over the affairs of the Hebrew Union College* A prodi-
gious and prolific scholar, he was steeped in the learning and
ore of his people, and was fully at home in the literatures and
philosophies of the Western world, ancient and modern. When,
n 1903, he assumed the presidency of the Hebrew Union
Hollege, he brought to his task also the practical knowledge
md experience which he had gained through a long career in
he American rabbinate. Under his guidance, the educational
md administrative practices of the oldest American training
chool for rabbis, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, underwent
nanifold changes. The eighteen and a half years of his admin-
stration comprise in the history of that institution a period
narked by notable achievements, all of them tending to raise
he standing of the College, in the world of Jewish and the-
Jogical scholarship, and to elevate the position which it occupied
imong American institutions of higher learning.

Under Kaufmann Kohler' s administration, the Hebrew Union
College transferred its location from its modest building on
^Vest Sixth Street to the imposing structures reared on the
leights (Clifton Avenue), in close proximity to the University

)r. Joshua Bloch, former librarian, chief of the Jewish Division of the New York
>ublic Library, passed away on September 26, 1957.

373

JU&.

of Cincinnati. Kohler encouraged the growth and development
of the College library, whose resources are comparable to some of
the best collections of Jewish and related literatures anywhere
else. All this was not attained without a determined and success-
ful effort to gain munificent-minded friends for the institution
and to effect exacting changes in the administrative practices
and procedures, especially those which governed the admission
of students and the raising of the requirements for graduation*
He raised the academic standards of the College by systematizing
its curriculum, by introducing into it a number of new courses,
he himself taking charge of some of them, and by lengthening
its course of study from eight to nine years, the first four of
which were spent in its Preparatory Department, followed by
another four years in its Collegiate Department. The ninth
was to be devoted exclusively to post-graduate studies.

Moreover, Kohler also proceeded to strengthen the faculty
of the Hebrew Union College by augmenting its ranks with
men whose fame in the world of scholarship was already well-
established. In the course of time he added several younger
men, graduates of the College. The first of them was Julian
Morgenstern, and the last of his appointees was Jacob Rader
Marcus. Both of these men, native sons of this blessed land,
have attained positions of well-merited recognition as com-
petent scholars — each in his chosen field of learning — and
able administrators. As Dr. Kohler's successor in the presidency
of the Hebrew Union College, Dr. Morgenstern served with
distinction from 1921 to 1947. He, too, drew from the ranks of
the graduates of the College other learned men who have like-
wise served on the faculty of the Hebrew Union College with
notable success.

Dr. Jacob R. Marcus has achieved wide recognition as an
expert in American Jewish history, a considerably neglected
field in Jewish historiography. As the energetic founder and

374

THE SEMIKAH OF THE REV. DR. KAUFMANN KOHLER

director of the American Jewish Archives, he has created an
institution which has already become a remarkably rich repos-
itory of papers and documents whose historical value cannot be
overestimated. It is virtually impossible to undertake the success-
ful pursuit of research, leading to the historical presentation of
any aspect of American Jewish experience, without access to
the resources of that remarkable institution.

It is in tribute to Dr. Marcus that the present writer offers
for publication the text, with facsimile of the original document,
of the semikah, the rabbinical diploma, which Dr. Kohler
received at the hands of Dr. Joseph Aub, eminent rabbi of
Berlin. The use of this document, in an effort to honor Dr.
Marcus, is indeed appropriate, for he represents the last of the
group of scholars who was called by Dr. Kohler to serve on
the faculty of the Hebrew Union College and, incidentally, the
only one of those whom Kohler called out of the ranks of those
Hebrew Union College graduates whom he had himself
ordained. Dr. Marcus carries in himself much of the spirit and
zeal for the advancement of Jewish learning which characterized
Dr. Kohler's career as scholar, teacher, preacher, and admin-
istrator.

In his student days, when Dr. Kohler lived in Berlin, he
found Jewish life there to be "frosty and uncongenial." x Under
the circumstances, it was natural that he should have turned
to the home of Dr. Joseph Aub, who, like himself, had come to
the great northern metropolis from his native Bavaria. Though
they were distantly connected, Dr. Kohler's uncle having
married a cousin of Dr. Aub, Kohler complained that Aub
"never made me feel at home in his house." 2 Apparently, the

1 See Kaufmann Kohler, Studies, Addresses and Personal Papers (New York, 1931),
P. 477-
3 Ibid.

375

JOSHUA BLOCK

then "frosty and uncongenial" atmosphere of Berlin was not
very friendly to Dr. Aub himself. His Bavarian accent and
other considerations contributed to the fact that "he was no
success in the pulpit" of Berlin. Dr. Aub thought that he had
come there to pave the way for Dr. Abraham Geiger; in his
witty way, Aub told Kohler, "I have been called hither as the
Moshiach ben Joseph to prepare the way for Dr. Geiger, the
real Moshiach.'5

Almost as a matter of course, Kohler, the young Bavarian
student, presented himself to the Bavarian Rabbi Aub for
examination with a view to qualifying for a career in the rab-
binate. When Kohler left Berlin, in 1869, he carried with him
the semikah) the rabbinical diploma, which he had obtained that
year from Dr. Aub. The eminent Berlin rabbi was well-satisfied,
as the document testifies, with the results of the examination to
which he had subjected his Bavarian coreligionist. These in-
cluded satisfactory answers to fourteen ritual questions which
had been submitted to Kohler. "These are your first sheelot"
Dr. Aub is reported to have said, jokingly, to Kohler, "and
probably also the last you will have to answer." 3

Text of the Semikah Conferred upon Dr. Kohler
by Dr. Aub, Eminent Berlin Rabbi

,crif?x:j ^n nwvV os&n TOK taa mra ,onD omaa
*o nt px jnrwn sraa warn asnx axa tf?o rrhm* itom >n to VTO
atom inx viwa wn .-warn srraai a»»m isix ITS ,Dvrt»Kn n^a DK
ntoip ^vina ny^n^p nvb •'an nann p n^va ^3*1 Tarom Tp1

pa 16 ara ora TO inny n»a *»D

3 Rid., p. 1/8.

376

THE SEMIKAH OF THE REV. DR. KAUFMANN KOHLER

Facsimile of the Original Semikah

/f A 0 V ~^ rl * t

<o* C.-M ^i« /^»-it «*f«%A ^<<7«« V/^ <^W» /^4tM/ -"f£>i ">?«» XH** *w^ I**'1*

A7 ^' 4»jr/2«^ ^/</.A /-M -»^ ?i^ <wiC< iJt^ O.. A« CJ

377

JOSHUA BLOCK

nra na* parf? ,na:>nn Vip VK ^Dttrf? itm nnsn irtn ,pwaa nsnai
>n nw trip ntp fan» rmsn isaa ran rfn ,anrm CNDM

nra snn firaan naiai nipaa m^a nap nasn nap ^^sn K^a sna

,aioa mnai ma owa msn^ *inaanV nanp iK»n
nm ,*]T ^?a noiaa parmVi njmn as^a mmn

na^na i1* ^ trn lanaV pa ]an Vr rawn TO *?s?i

n^iaa onai a^n1? sni11 ,iV an
Kin *n*n 'pK'i^a D^^ nxn .TO na&aa ^ nnattn na*rV mns
^ .naanai n*nna o^awam n^aiaan D^a^n ^KI nK
^v min nna pjn r^yaa ai» snaa ^nVa^ orrnirrnKa
n« KnpV .nnssn^i rhnrh iatr?V Tiaa nnV n^Vn^p tfwa n 7nan

n»a *an nnnn )a o^t^a ^nn in imia BW ^rwa

n» ^K^^ *»aa la^nK riK nmn1? ^ pK ••wrnn m ^n^nnn T» ,T^
mar Vy larti o^np JKS nr") nrn1? iniK nna*» OK WK ,na
o^aann !?aa tmo pT1 pT
'n HKT t^ian ^»a ^a roia

HOD

na-r .

ns>

*»m

rron

wnwi

p >JOT»
trann anaa

378

Bernhard Felsenthal's Letters to Osias Schorr

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

-f\MONG the many interesting items in the Felsenthal
Collection of the American Jewish Historical Society is the
correspondence between Bernhard Felsenthal (1822-1908), the
German-born Chicago Reform Rabbi, and Osias Schorr (1814?-
1895), tbe great Galician Jewish scholar.1 The correspondence
was evidently initiated by Felsenthal2 in 1875 and continued
intermittently until 1890. It consists of thirty letters, twenty- two
by Schorr3 and eight by Felsenthal.4 We must also note that
Felsenthal did not preserve all his correspondence with Schorr.
For example, on the margin of a letter from Schorr dated May 8,
1890, he merely noted in German that the above letter had
been answered on June 19, i8go.s We present herewith, in an

Dr. Ezra Spicehandler is Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew
Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati,

Rabbi Theodore Wiener is in charge of acquiring and cataloging Hebrew books at
the Hebrew Union College Library in Cincinnati.

1 For an analysis of the significance of the Felsenthal collection, see Adolf Kober,
"Jewish Religious and Cultural Life in America as Reflected in the Felsenthal
Collection," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, XLV (1955),
93-127. The problem of the exact date of Schorr's birth is discussed in letter G,
note 52. In 1897 Felsenthal sent a copy of his correspondence to Nehemiah S.
Libowitz, who planned to write a book on Schorr. This set is now hi the possession
of the Jewish section of the New York Public Library.

* The first letter in the present collection is by Schorr, but he refers to a previous
letter which was sent by Felsenthal and which dealt with Schorr's article on the
derivation of the names of rabbis, Hechalutz IX (1873), Part I, 1-83.

s The Schorr letters, in Hebrew, are in the Hebrew Union College Annual, XXVIII
(1957), cited hereafter as HUCA.

4 Not 7 as Kober implies.

s See also Manuscript No. 29 and the Schorr letters in HUCA, XXVIIL Schorr
in his correspondence alludes to the following letters which are lost: August II,

379

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

English translation, the major portions of FelsenthaPs eight
letters to Schorr.

Osias (Joshua Heschel) Schorr, a leading figure in the second
generation of the Galician Haskalah^ was associated with
distinguished Jewish scholars like Isaac Erter, Samuel David
Luzzatto, Abraham Geiger, Nachman Krochmal, Leopold Zunz,
Marcus Jost, and Moritz Steinschneider. He was the editor of a
radical Reformist Hebrew annual, Hechalutz, which appeared
irregularly from 1851 to 1888. Among the contributors to the
early volumes of Hechalutz were Abraham Geiger, Isaac Erter,
Moritz Steinschneider, and Nachman KrochmaPs son, Abraham.
The Reformist ideas of these early volumes influenced many
Eastern European maskilim and had a decided effect upon the
religious views of men like Moses Loeb Lilienblum and Judah
Loeb Gordon.

The fact that Hechalutz was circulated in the United States
among a number of leading Reform rabbis is most significant.
Eastern European Reformist ideas had a share in the shaping
of American Reform Judaism, and Hechalutz was one of the
many links with the Eastern European Reformism. Felsenthal
acted as Schorr's distributor in the United States. We know
that Samuel Adler, Benjamin Szold, and Kaufmann Kohler
subscribed to Hechalutz, as did a number of other rabbis.6a

1875; May 15, 1878; November 17, 1878; Purim 1880 and 18 Adar, 1880; February
14, 1884; April 22, 1884; September 8, 1886; and September n, 1887.

6 See Joseph Klausner, Hafdstoria Shel Hasifrut Haivrit Hahadasha (2nd ed.; Tel Aviv,
1953), IV, 56-57.

6a A list of rabbis in Felsenthal's band appears on the bottom of a postal card
which Schorr sent to him on August 20, 1879. In all likelihood, it is a list of actual
or potential subscribers to Hechalvtz, since Schorr specifically requests that Felsenthal
inform him as to the number of copies of Volume XI which he requires. The names
listed are:

Sonneschein [Solomon; see note 39], Gersoni [Henry (1844-1897), Jewish
Encyclopedia, V, 641], Adler [Liebmann; see note 41], Eliassof [Herman (1849-1918),
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, IV, 69], Felsenthal [Bernhard], Spitz [Moritz; see

380

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL'S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

Adolf Kober has published the most interesting excerpts of
one of the Felsenthal letters (Letter E) in the original German. 7
Kober's transcription, however, contains a few errors, which
for the most part may be attributed to FelsenthaPs unclear
German hand. Felsenthal's comments on the American Jewish
scene and his evaluation of his colleagues give us a picture of the
contemporary rabbinic world.

Much of the correspondence discusses the problem as to
whether male proselytes should be circumcised. This was a
major problem then confronting the American rabbinate. At
the Philadelphia Conference of Reform rabbis in 1869, a
lengthy debate ensued on this subject. Isaac M. Wise and
Samuel Hirsch took the radical position that circumcision was
not required, while Kaufmann Kohler and David Einhorn
upheld a more traditional point of view. No final decision was
made. Although Felsenthal participated in the Philadelphia
Conference, his opinion on this subject is not recorded. 8 In
1878, however, Felsenthal was deeply engaged with this prob-
lem. Contending that circumcision of proselytes was not re-
quired, he wrote a pamphlet and three articles on the subject. 9
He sent the pamphlet to Schorr, and an exchange of letters on
circumcision followed. Schorr published one of his letters to

note 40], J.[ames] K.[oppel] Gutheim [(1817-1886), Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,
V, 134], Hahn [Aaron, Jewish Encyclopedia, IV, 118], Hirsch [Samuel; see note
32], Jastrow [Marcus; see note 33], Szold [Benjamin; see note 26], Hiibsch [Adolph;
see note 23], Gottheil [Gustav; see note 30], S.[amuel] Adler [see note 22], [Max]
Schlesinger [of Albany], Mayer [Lippman (1841-1904), Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,
VII, 424] (of Pittsburgh), Morais [Sabato (1823-1897), Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,
VII, 638], A.[bram] S.[amuel] Isaacs [(1852-1920), Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,
V, 5951.
i Kober, 123-26.

* Protokolle der Rabbiner Conferenz abgehalten zu Philadelphia (New York, 1870),
pp. 39-41, 61-63.

* See the bibliography in F,mma Felsenthal, Bernhard Felsenthal, Teacher in Israel
(New York, 1924), pp. 310-11.

381

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

Felsenthal as an article in Hechalutz (XI [1880], 67-74). At
the second meeting of the Central Conference of American
Rabbis, in Baltimore (1891), I0 this question was again discussed
in great detail. A long paper by Felsenthal was included in the
minutes of the Conference. J I

In presenting the Felsenthal-Schorr correspondence we have
omitted one letter, the last (dated June 6, 1887), because it
has no historical significance. We have also taken the liberty of
deleting or abridging many of the parallelisms and euphuisms
of the flowing Haskalah Hebrew. These appear today to be
equally outlandish in English and in Hebrew. We express our
deep thanks to the American Jewish Historical Society, partic-
ularly Rabbi Isidore S. Meyer, for the many courtesies extended
to us and for releasing these letters for publication.

LETTER A
(Hebrew)

With God's help, Monday, 20 Elul, 5635, according to the
Jewish Calendar.

Here in Chicago, September 20, 1875.
Salutations x 2

Believe me when I say that for many years my ears have been
opened to hear the words of wisdom and understanding which
you have published. As an unabashed disciple, I declare publicly
that your words are torah and I needs must study them. I
earnestly pray that you will continue to publish your great and

10 Centred Conference of American Rabbis Tear Book, II (1892), 66-128.
**Ibid., pp. 86-95.

" This word will henceforth signify the deletion of the lengthy, euphuistic greetings
which opened the Hebrew letters of the period.

382

BERNHARD FELSENTHAI/S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

important works of scholarship which are spiritually delighting.
May He who dwells on high lengthen your days and fill them
with goodness and well-being, and may He strengthen your
hands so that you may guard the vineyard of Jewish knowledge,
plow it, stone it, plant it with good grapes and cause them to
ripen therein, as Scripture says: "And He shall renew thy
youth as an eagle." May you broaden Jewish scholarship and
deepen the knowledge of the Torah so that the glory of Jeshurun
be made great and mighty in the eyes of our people.

I was not aware, sir, that the scholar Kirchheim had published
a criticism of your article in Hechdutz concerning Talmudic
names. x 3 Where does it appear? I was likewise unaware until
now that you had published a supplement to Vol. IX as a
part of Hechalutz. Please do not withhold this supplement from
me I4

You have informed me that you are busy at present composing
the articles intended for the tenth volume.15 What good news!
I hope that we shall soon rejoice at the sight of these new articles
by the wise chalutz [pioneer]16 to whom no contemporary
scholar in Israel is equal. Indeed, who can be compared to
him and who can penetrate so profoundly the depths of the
Talmud and make its hidden and difficult passages so clear?
Who is like unto him, who knows how to remove the false and
mendacious mask from the face of flatterers and to reveal to
the lovers of true wisdom how mean and despicable is the
proffered wisdom of those whom the unenlightened and the

J3 Schorr's article appeared in Hechalutz IX (1873), Part 1, 1-83, and was reviewed
by Raphael Kirchheim (1804-1889), the German Jewish scholar, in Hashachar, V
(1874), 104-109. For biographical data on Kirchheim, see Encyclopaedia Judaica,
X, 10.

1 4 Further entreaties are deleted.

15 The reference is to Hechalutz.

16 I. e., Schorr.

383

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

uneducated consider to be scholars. Who can bring glory to
himself by proclaiming bravely within the camp of Israel:
"My people, your trusted ones mislead you, and your pious
men destroy your paths and cause you to stumble"?

Before concluding, may I ask one more favor of you, honored
sir, namely, please send the undersigned without delay whatever
books you shall henceforth publish, via the post. I shall not, of
course, delay paying you for them by postal check or in some
other manner.

I am your servant, who admires and honors you for your
great merit and who beseeches the Almighty to inscribe you in
the book of good life ----

LETTER B

(Hebrew)

Chicago, 26 February, 1878.
Greetings to you and to all in your company, honored sir.

May the work of your hands be blessed with success. You de-
lighted me with your dear letter of February 5th, which reached
me today. I therefore shall not delay my answer even one day,
but thank you for the mark of honor which your letter signifies.
I was especially happy when I read your lines and learned that
the small brochure which I sent you (small in size and in
quality) I7 found favor in your eyes. And now, sir, if you say at
the opening of the letter which you sent me, "I shall not deny
that you have not told me anything new," be assured that I
was aware of this fact even before sending my article to you.

Who am I to pretend that I am able to say anything new in
Jewish scholarship to a personage as important and as exalted

brochure to which Felsenthal refers is %ur Proselytenjrage im Judentkum
(Chicago, 1878).

384

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL>S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

as yourself? Indeed, for many years I have well known that the
author of Hechalutz (may the Lord preserve and lengthen his
days and prosper his ways) is in our time the greatest of giants,
a veritable Sinai and uprooter of mountains. The light of his
honor shines as the brightness of the firmament, reveals the
hidden treasures of the sages (may their memories be blessed),
and casts light on the dark places in the Talmudim [traditional
expositions of Jewish civil and religious laws] and Midrashim
[traditional homiletical exegesis of the Bible], Behold, I stand
before you as a disciple who drinks in your words thirstily. But
God forbid that I should ever presume to be able to teach you.
If I sent you a copy of my article immediately after it came off
the press, I did so, not as a teacher who reveals new facts to
you, but rather as a pupil who wishes to show his teacher how
honored and exalted he is in his eyes.

I read your comments on my article over and over again,
and I am grateful to you with all my soul for correcting, out of
the goodness of your heart, a number of errors and for filling in
certain omissions in my small brochure. I quoted the baraitha
concerning "A proselyte who was circumcised but not immersed
etc.,35 as I found it in our Talmud (Tevamoth 46). I confess
unabashedly that I was unaware until now of the fact that the
version in the Babylonian Talmud is corrupt, and that the
correct version appears in the Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin. I
also confess that the other corrections which you made are right
and correct. And now I have one request to make of you, and I
pray you not to refuse it, namely, study my article which
I published not long ago and, in the eleventh volume oiHechalutz,
render a just opinion as to its value. Correct whatever is distorted
in my brochure. Fill in the omissions and straighten it out as
you see fit, for at least the subject about which I spoke is of
utmost importance. Let there be criticism; whatever you say
critically, whether in chastisement or in mercy, shall be for me

385

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

words of pleasure and delight. All your readers will rejoice in
them as one rejoices over a great find.

About two weeks ago I sent Professor Graetz in Breslau a
short note on my article so that he might print the note in his
journal.18 I must admit that Graetz does not find favor in my
eyes because he seems to prefer to accept the impossible and
reject the possible. He inclines to distort what is straight and
never ceases heaping distorted conjectures pile upon pile,
conjectures which flounder wildly in the air and have no
basis whatever. Nevertheless, what could I do? I wanted to
place before the European scholars the problem of accepting
proselytes into Judaism, and where can one do that? Geiger is
no more. Low is no more. There is hardly a single straight-
forward man among all the rabbis of Germany who has no
particular ax to grind. Few are the men of attainments, the men
of truth. We sorely miss those that are gone ! May the Blessed
One preserve the lives of those people who still walk the honest
paths and mount the heights of truth and righteousness.

And now, I should like to take up another matter. The dear
present which you sent to me in October, 1875, namely, An
Answer to the Criticism of Rabbi Kirchheim> * 9 I received, and I
immediately wrote to you, dear sir, informing you that the
book arrived and offering you my thanks. From your last letter,
however, it appears that this letter did not reach you. I regret
this very much, and I am saddened by the thought that perhaps
the honored gentleman J. H. S.*° in Brody, who has done me
the honor of sending me this book, would suspect me of bad
manners and of evilheartedness because I was silent. Please do

1 8 Monatssckrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums (Krotoschin, 1878),
XXVII, 236-40.

x» The answer is to part II of Vol. IX (1873) of Heckalutz.
ao Joshua Heschel Schorr.
386

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL'S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

not think so, dear sir. Believe me if I assure you that at that
time I hastened to answer your letter and often wondered why
I did not hear from you any more, why even a few lines from
you no longer reached me. I, on my part, shall willingly
approach you at any time and shall not neglect to send you a
letter if I have reason to do so.

In your last letter you also informed me that the tenth volume
of Hechalutz has already been published. This was news to me,
and it was pleasant to hear it. Do not delay sending me a copy,
sir; I will pay whatever price you specify and shall also distribute
copies among my acquaintances, selling them to whoever would
wish to bring such delicacies into their home. Please send me
six copies, and I shall certainly sell them in my town without
too much difficulty. I shall do so with a willing heart. If you
wish, send me ten or twelve copies and I will do whatever I can
to sell them for you. If you wonder what is the most secure
method to send the magazines, I really do not know the proper
answer. Perhaps it is best to send them via the post.

Hurry, dear sir, and honor me with your answer and fulfill
my desire with reference to my request concerning the new
issue of Hechalutz. I fondly hope that you will find these words
sent by an unimportant man such as myself, who dwells in a
distant land on the shore of Lake Michigan in the land of
America, acceptable. Indeed, distance does not prevent me
from being close to you in ideas and thoughts.

I am your servant, who honors you and is honored
with your friendship. . . .

This issue*1 also testifies that you still know how to take up
the whip of satire as you did in earlier years, and to lift it up

« Of Hechalutz.

387

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

against your opponents in such a wonderful way. Who can
stand before you when you go forth to the battle of Torah and
wisdom, magnificently clad in the garment of the spirit of satire
and armed with your sharpened spirit? Who can stand before
you when you go forth to tread upon the hypocrites, the pietists,
and the unlearned?

P. S. You have remarked, sir, that according to the version
of the bardtha in the Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin III 114,
"Rabbi Joshua says: cEven immersion prevents.5 " I do not have
a copy of the Jerusalem Talmud and therefore, for the time
being, I do not know if I can base my words on those of Rabbi
Joshua when I say: "A proselyte who was immersed but was
not circumcised is nevertheless a proselyte." Is it true that this
basis is now destroyed? But two generations after R. Joshua,
Rabbi Judah bar Ilai comes and disputes R. Jose bar Chalafta
who said: "We require two things, circumcision and immersion.
But he, R. Judah, requires either one or the other.3' He said, in
definite and clearly understood words: "One is sufficient"
(Tevamoth 46b). And now, if R. Judah has decided and said
that one is sufficient, why shall we now say that even according
to R. Joshua one is sufficient? Be it as it may, the matter does
not depend upon the words of any of the Talmudic sages. If
it is good and useful to receive proselytes without placing the
sign of the covenant on their flesh, then the enlightened men of
our day will propose a new halachah [a traditional law] and
will carry it out, even if the sages of days gone by have unan-
imously affirmed: "He cannot be a proselyte unless he is cir-
cumcised and immersed."

388

BERNHARD FELSENTHAI/S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

LETTER G
(German)

Chicago, March 19, 1878.
Mr. O. H. Schorr in Brody.

Dear Sir:

You probably have received my letter addressed to you about
three weeks ago. In the meantime, I have written to a number
of friends and colleagues in different parts of the Union, asking
them whether they would not like to own Volume 10 ofHechalutz.
So far I have received twelve orders. One of my colleagues,
Dr. S. Adler22 of New York, who owns the first eight volumes
of your journal, would like me to order the ninth volume, too.
Three other gentlemen requested me to ask you whether all
earlier volumes of Hechalutz were still available, and if so, how
much they would cost.

I ask you therefore to send me very soon thirteen copies of
Volume 10 and one copy of Volume 9 of your Hechalutz. I
would be only too happy to forward the ordered volumes to
these gentlemen, also to collect the money and send it on to you
by bill of exchange. I leave it up to you whether you would
trust me with three copies each of the earlier volumes for resale.
I think they will be sold soon if the price is not too high.

And now permit me, dear sir, to come back once more to the
controversy between Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Eliezer with
reference to the acceptance of proselytes. Very recently I had
the opportunity to examine the relevant passages in Jerusalem
Talmud] Kiddushin (3, 14), also in Gerim (i, 6), and to compare
them with the baraitha [non-Mishnaic tannaitic tradition] in

*a Samuel Adler (1809-1891), rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, New York, father
of Felix Adler.

389

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

Bab[ylonian Talmud] Yevamoth 46. You, dear sir, make order
out of chaos, since you hold the account in the Babyloniaa
Talmud to be completely corrupted and accept the reading-
of the Jerusalem [Talmud] as the correct one. But according
to my humble opinion there are a few objections against this
supposition, too. It is plainly apparent, to be sure, that Rabbi
Eliezer requires circumcision and only circumcision as an in-
dispensable initiatory rite for the proselyte. His utterances
referring to this have been handed down to us in three versions:

a) If he was circumcised but did not immerse himself, then
behold he is a proselyte (Yevamoth 46a).

b) A proselyte who was circumcised but did not immerse,
he is a proper proselyte (ibid., 71 a).

c) Jerushalmi Kiddushin III, 14: A proselyte who was circum-
cised but was not immersed, or immersed but not circum-
cised. The law is determined by the fact of circumcision.

The only dissonance in this account is the passage in Babylonian
Yevamoth 46b:

In the case that he was immersed but not circumcised,
Rabbi Eliezer does not challenge the fact that the conver-
sion is not valid.

How the editor could make such a remark, or what he thought
about it, I cannot understand.

Now let us return to Rabbi Joshua. In Babylonian Yevamoth,
the following sentence is ascribed to him: "If he immersed but
was not circumcised, behold he is a proselyte." According to
the explanation of the Gemara [traditional exposition of the
Mishna] there, he regards immersion as definitely necessary
for the proselyte: "Immersion is indispensable." Now let us
compare the Jerushalmi: Rabbi Joshua said: "Even immersion is
indispensable."

The particle "even," however, means that according to Rabbi

390

BERNHARD FELSENTHALJS LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

Joshua both acts, circumcision as well as immersion, are necessary
prerequisites for the acceptance of proselytes. But how does
Rabbi Joshua differ with the third party to the controversy,
the sages, mentioned in Babylonian Tevamoth? And did not
Rabbi Judah bar Ilai declare himself completely satisfied with
either circumcision or immersion more than half a century later
(Tevamoth, ibid.}'? Furthermore, we must take into account that
Rabbi Joshua was much more easygoing in his practice than
the more rigorous Rabbi Eliezer, and often accepted into the
[Jewish] community proselytes who had been harshly rejected
by Rabbi Eliezer. And how should one assume that he would
present harder conditions to the proselyte for his acceptance
than Rabbi Eliezer?

All these difficulties could be solved easily if one could assume
that there was a corrupted passage in the Jerushalmi and one
would emend: "Rabbi Joshua said: 'Only immersion is in-
dispensable.3 " That would be in complete harmony with:
"Immersion and not circumcision is necessary for the pros-
elyte," and with the still later saying: "One of them would be
sufficient," as well as with the otherwise well-known character
of Rabbi Joshua.

Of course, the substitution of the word only for even (or even
the meaningless p K, which appears in Massechet Gerim) would
only be a conjectural emendation, and it should first have to be
supported by manuscripts or otherwise. But could we hope that
one might still find somewhere manuscripts of the Jerusalem
Talmud, except for the well-known one in Leyden? Perhaps,
if we are lucky, somewhere in a corner of Asia.

A totally unsuccessful attempt to clear up this matter was
made by Jac. Naumburg in his Nahalat Taakov on Gerim I3 6.

Perhaps, dear sir, you will undertake sometime to transmit
to the readers of Hechalutz the thread of Ariadne, which leads;
with certainty out of the labyrinthian confusion. . . .

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

LETTER D
(Hebrew)

With God's help, Chicago, May 20, 1878, according to the
secular calendar.

Greetings, dear sir, and a thousand thanks for the letter which
you sent me on April i4th. I am grateful to you for this state-
ment, for it enlightens me very much. I consumed the scroll,
and it was as sweet honey to my mouth. Now I wish to present
you with certain comments and notes upon your statement.
There are many deterrents, however, which are all about me
these days. Various duties have been placed on my shoulders
and bear heavily upon me; therefore, I am compelled to write
briefly today. Nevertheless, I hope that in the near future I will
find time to present before you certain comments which I
developed as I read your learned article. I have already informed
you that I have received nine copies of Hechalutz, Vol. 10, not
ten copies, and today I wish to urge you to send me without
delay another four copies of Volume 10 and also four copies
of Vol. 9 via the post, if you have not done so before this postal
card reaches you. A number of our country's rabbis have
informed me that they have great difficulty in acquiring Hechalutz
either through a bookstore or direct from you, dear sir. Rabbi
Dr. Adler," who at the moment lives in New York City, was
formerly a rabbi in the city of Alzey, in the state of Rheinhessen.
Even though he erred when he wrote on R. Eleazar the Greater
and R. Jose the Minor and Choni Hameaggel (see1 part 10,
page 2), he is, nevertheless, one of the few men in our country
who is really well learned in Torah and in the knowledge of
Hebrew literature. Among the other learned men are Dr.
Hubsch in New York, who was the preacher and the spiritual
leader of the people of Prague in years gone by and who pub-

392

BERNHARD FELSENTHALJS LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

lished in the year 1866 "the five scrolls" [Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther] with the Syrian Targum
[translation of biblical books] written in Hebrew script. 2 3 He,
too, may be considered as one of the superior men in our country.
Dr. Kohler,24 about whom you ask me, is a preacher in one of
the congregations here in Chicago, and he is the author of a
brochure on the Blessing of Jacob. (This brochure is full of
many conjectures which flounder wildly in the air and have no
basis whatsoever.) a s I have no space left and the hour is late,
and therefore shall conclude. God willing, I shall write a long
letter to you in the near future. May you receive a blessing as
you desire and as I, your servant, who am honored by your
friendship, desire. . . .

LETTER E
(German)

Chicago, July 24, 1878.

Dear Mr. Schorr:

The books announced in your good letter of the i6th of last
month, I received about two weeks ago and immediately sent
them on. Still I have not collected all the money for them;
almost a third is still outstanding. I will, however, no longer
delay sending you the amount due you. The prices for 13 copies
of Hechalutz, X, at Thaler r.6 gr. (total Thaler 15.18 gr.), and
4 copies of Hechalutz, IX, at Thaler 1.22 gr. (total Thaler 7),
add up to Thaler 22.18 gr. or about 68 Mark. I am sending

*s Adolph Hubsch (1830-1884). The title of his book is Die Junf Megilloih nebst
dem Syriscken Targum etc. (Prague, 1 866).

« 4 Kaufmann Kohler (1843-1926).
4 s Der Segcn Jacobs, etc. (Berlin, 1867).

393

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

you 75 Mark in order to reimburse you for postage, etc. I was
unable and unwilling to charge more than $i for Hechalutz, X,
and $1.50 for Hechalutz, IX.

Now, please send "[the] Rev. Dr. B. Szold, Baltimore, Md." a6
who received Hechalutz, IX and X, through me, the earlier
volumes of Hechalutz (up to and including Vol. 8), or as many
as you have on hand. Mr. Szold wrote me repeatedly about it.
I would suggest to you to convey the books directly to Mr. Sz.,
who is an absolutely trustworthy man, and he will certainly let
you have the amount owed without hesitation. Through this
direct delivery, unnecessary effort and postage will be saved.
Should you wish that / collect the money for you, I would be
happy to do this, too.

In one of your worthy letters you expressed the wish to learn
something about local Jewish conditions from me. As far as
religious life is concerned, the ceremonial practice of our fore-
fathers has fallen into oblivion completely, especially among the
younger generation. You meet thousands of young men and
women who grew up in this country, who do not know what
tefillin [phylacteries], t&t&t [the fringes of the prayer shawl],
trefut [ritually forbidden food], shehitah [ritual slaughtering of
animals], and the like are, and to whom these matters are as
strange as the customs of the Mohammedans or the Parsees.
Even those who immigrated at an advanced age soon break
with the "yoke of the commandments," and those coming from
Polish lands, some of whom try to hold on to the Shulchan Aruch
[ritual and legal code of Rabbinic Judaism, dating from the
sixteenth century G. E.] in practice, are without any influence
because they completely lack general education. They pass on
without leaving a trace. Insofar as Jewish life manifests itself
before the world in temples and synagogues, it is, as you may

a* Benjamin Szold (1829-1902), rabbi at Oheb Shalom Congregation, Baltimore,
father of Henrietta Szold.

394

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL'S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

well imagine, decidedly reformist. One knows nothing any more
about Kohanim [priests] and their privileges. Men sit together
with their wives and children in the synagogue, and with un-
covered heads. The new prayer books have eliminated every-
thing referring to sacrifices, Messiah, resurrection, and the
ingathering of the exiles. A large portion of the prayers is recited
in either German or English (depending on the circumstances oi
the individual congregation), etc., etc. In wedding ceremonies,
also, Reform has spoken its deciding word. Of the five or six
different new prayer books that have appeared in our country,
those edited by Einhorn and Jastrow are the best. The latter is
more traditional in its form; the former (Einhorn' s) has broken
decisively with tradition, both in its external make-up and
because it is predominantly German.

It cannot be denied that Reform has called forth a spirit
which may be very destructive to American Israel, if it is not
opposed consciously. I am not speaking about the efforts of a
small but active party which wants to move the Sabbath to
Sunday and the like. (As a calm and objective observer of the
•dominant trends, I foresee that after a few decades it will come
to this point, for the Sabbath has been completely lost to our
American contemporaries, absorbed as they are in business,
and it is hardly to be hoped that one can reconquer it.) But I
am afraid that mixed marriages also will increase, that the
resultant progeny will be lost to us and will be absorbed as
single atoms by the Christians sects. For in the intellectual
world, too, the physical law applies, that larger bodies exert a
stronger attraction than smaller ones. Just because of higher
conservative considerations (conservative not in the sense that
one keeps up individual old customs and usages, but that one
tries to maintain the House of Israel in its integrity) — just
because of higher conservative considerations, it is imperative
to be "lenient" in the acceptance of proselytes in the way I

395

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

have suggested, or to be ready to officiate at mixed marriages, if
the bridal couple promise to raise their children in the religion
of Judaism. These two measures should present themselves soon
as compelling to every thinking observer of the life flowing
about us.

Scientific accomplishment in the field of Judaism can hardly
be expected from America at this time. There is no lack of
textbooks (catechisms. Biblical histories, and the like). But I
am speaking about truly valuable literary achievements orig-
inating on American soil. Dr. Einhorn,27 who officiated in a
Jewish Reform congregation in [Buda] Pesth [Hungary] at the
beginning of the fifties, and who has been in America since
1855, and for the last ten years with a congregation in New
York, stands out because of his homiletic achievements. His
sermons, which unfortunately have not been collected, but are
scattered in pamphlets and in magazines, breathe Isaianic fire
and are of truly gripping force. E. is not a preacher of nonsense.
Beside Einhorn, Adler28 and Hiibsch29 are in New York; about
them I wrote you earlier already; furthermore, Gottheil, 3°
former assistant to Holdheim31 in Berlin and later in Man-
chester, England; furthermore, a few younger people, unknown
in wider circles, and a few old ones — ignoramuses. Dr. S.
Hirsch, formerly of Luxemburg, officiates in Philadelphia. It
is he who published nearly forty years ago a huge volume about
the religious philosophy of Judaism;32 furthermore, Jastrow,35

3 7 David Einhorn (1809-1879), rabbi in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.

3 8 See Note 22 above.

3 » See Note 23.

3° Gustav Gottheil (1827-1903).

31 Samuel Holdheim (1806-1860), rabbi of the Reform congregation in Berlin.

3* Samuel Hirsch (1815-1889), father of Emil G. Hirsch. The title of the book
is Die ReligionsphilosopkU der Juden, etc. (Leipzig, 1842).

33 Marcus Jastrow (1829-1903).
396

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL'S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

once a preacher in Warsaw, then in Worms and Mannheim;
and, finally, an Italian, S. Morais, 34 at the Portuguese con-
gregation. If we go on to Baltimore, we could mention Szold,
a good man, not without theological knowledge.35 In Boston,
Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and other places the congregations
are led by men who in part are quite honorable and well-
meaning, 3fi but in part must be described as absolute zeros.
Many younger preachers and rabbis will work themselves up
to a glorious reputation, I hope. In Cincinnati lives and officiates
Lilienthal37 (the Munich cataloguer, mentioned so often by
Zunz and Steinschneider), who in the beginning of the forties
played an important role in Russia and was driven from there
to America; furthermore, Wise (Weiss,38 born in Bohemia),
in America since 1845 [1846]. The latter is uncommonly fond
of writing. For twenty-five years he has published a weekly
(The Israelite) and has published other things in English, espe-
cially about New Testament history. Unfortunately, the man
has no ideas of sound criticism. Among other things, he has had
the curious idea that Elisha ben Abuya was identical with Paul.
As ridiculous as this hypothesis is, Wise holds fast to it and
reverts to it all the time. I might also mention Dr. Sonneschein 3 9

3<Sabato Morais (1823-1897), one of the founders of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.

as "... nicht ohne theologische Kenntnisse. . . ." Kober, op. cit., p. 125, has
"der ohne theologische Kenntnisse ist." I believe that our copy (American Jewish
Historical Society) of the manuscript is more accurate, thus obviating Note 89
in Kober.

3 6 "... die teilweise recht ehrbar und wohlmeinend sind." Kober, p. 125, has *enicht
ehrbar und wohlmeinend," obviously misleading.

3 7 Max Lilienthal (1815-1882); his bibliographical notes on the manuscript in
the Munich library, published in the Allgemeine %eitomg des Judentkums, had been
severely criticized by Zunz and Steinschneider.

«8 Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900).

3 9 Solomon H. Sonneschein (1839-1908). Kober, p. 126, has *eBuchheim," a

397

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

in St. Louis, editor of the Deborah, a German supplement to
The Israelite. This Mr. S. came over from Prague, where he
was preacher of a local congregation for a time. Spitz40 in
Milwaukee, about whom you asked me, came to America from
Hungary as a young man ten or twelve years ago.

Here in Chicago, L.[iebmann] Adler41 officiates. He is a dear
old colleague with good theological and sound, clear judgment;
furthermore, Kohler, 42 a veritable stormer of heaven, who came
into our cisatlantic world from the university in 1869. You
know his Blessing of Jacob. A few weeks ago he published The
Song of Songs, a New Translation with Commentary, a brochure of
twenty-eight pages, very remarkable because of its daring
textual corrections, completely arbitrarily taken out of the air.
K. puts A. Krochmal,43 Hitzig,44 Schrader,45 etc., in the
deepest shade. He outdoes them all. Perhaps I shall succeed in
getting a copy for you.

The American rabbis have in part very good positions and
enjoy in part very fat perquisites. Others live in more straitened
circumstances. To the latter class the writer of these lines
belongs. I can truly say that I am frugal and contented, and
my heart does not crave riches. But I am very sorry that I have
to restrict myself in my literary inclinations to an extraordinary
extent and can acquaint myself with the literary products of

mistake in reading, as there was no Rabbi Buchheim in St. Louis, as far as we
know, and Sonneschein was the editor of the Deborah.

4° Moritz Spitz (1848-1920), later rabbi in St. Louis.
4* Liebmann Adler (1812-1892).

4* See Note 8 above. The books referred to are Der Segen Jacobs, etc. (Berlin, 1867)
and Das Hohe Lied, etc. (New York, 1878).

43 Abraham Krochmal (1823-1888), a modern Hebrew writer, the son of Nachman
Krochmal.

44 Ferdinand Hitzig (1807-1875), a German Protestant Bible scholar.

45 Eberhard Schrader (1836-1908), a German Semitic scholar.

398

BERNHARD FELSENTHAI/S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

the present time only very sparingly. But I try to help myself
as best I can.

Now let me say another word about your highly interesting
article which you sent me about the attitude of the tannaim
[mishnaic sages], Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua, on the
question of the acceptance of proselytes. I cannot — I do not
wish to oppose you, the master, with my insignificant remarks.
What I would have to say would be nothing more than pedantry.
But I do not want to conceal the general impression which the
reading of your excellent article made on me. You have made a
highly ingenious discovery, and you carry on highly ingenious
researches in detail. But since Rabbi Eliezer is known to us as
an enemy of the idolaters, Rabbi Joshua, however, as a much
more tolerant and a milder personality, could it be psycholog-
ically justified and assumed that Rabbi Eliezer should have
been more lenient in the acceptance of proselytes than Rabbi
Joshua?

I hope, by the way, that your article will be presented to the
world of learning completed and supplemented in the eleventh
volume of Hechdutz. (For you write in your last letter that you
could add a good deal.)

And when (as I hope, very soon) Hechalutz XI will have
appeared, would you not take care that your friends hear
something about it by announcements to bookdealers or other-
wise that a new issue has appeared? If I had not sent you a
copy of my brochure as a sign of respect last January, I might
not know even now that a tenth volume of your work is already
printed.

I would like to have your permission to translate your article,
mentioned above, and to publish it in an American journal in
which such an article would be welcome and appropriate. Only
the most meaningless twaddle and the most vulgar gossip are
published in our Jewish papers. And I hardly believe that any

399

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

editor would have been ready to offer space to an article in
his journal which would be completely unenjoyable for the
bulk of his readers.

I still must allow myself a few remarks about Hechalutz X.
It is already a few months since I have read this volume, and at
that time I noted on a small piece of paper something that
struck me. Now I can not find this piece of paper and, as I
take up the book again, I can discover only very little, by
cursory examination, against which I have any objections to
raise. Only your rare learning, your incisive critique, your new,
nearly always correct enrichments of Jewish science and dis-
covery in its field are worthy of the fullest recognition.

In your article "Balaam, the Evil One, and His Disciples3' it
seems to me that you carry the idea to the extreme that behind
the numerical values of the names Balaam, Doeg, Ahithophel,
other names have been hidden intentionally from the begin-
ning.46 When I read this, I remembered how Rappoport,47
because of his "gematriot" [cryptographs, usually dealing with
numerical values of words], eliminated the name of Rabbi
Eleazar Ha-Kallir from nearly all hispiyjwtim [liturgical poems],
and how he experienced bitter criticism for it from Eliakim
Mehlsack48 in his Sefer Rabiyah. It is true, already in Jesus5
time the play with gematriot and the like was known, and you
are right in your astonishment (p. 95) that Geiger denied this.
The Bible already knows something similar! Jeremiah, by the
application of Era n^K, 49 hides, as is well known, the name Babel

*6 Hechalutz X (1877), 32-46. According to Schorr, Balaam means Jesus; Doeg,
Peter; AMthophel^ James; and Geka&3 Paul.

41 Solomon Judah L6b Rappoport (1790-1867), a Haskalak scholar.

*8 Eliakim Mehlsack (A. G. Samiler) (1780-1854), a Russian Talmudist.

4* A cryptographic system by which the first letter of the alphabet is replaced by
the last, and vice versa; the second by the next to the last, and vice versa, etc.
In this way the words "Babel" and "Kasdim" are substituted by "Sheshach" and
"Leb-Kamai," respectively, in Jeremiah 25:26; 51:1; and 51:41.

400

BERNHARD FELSENTHAI/S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

behind the name Sheshach and the name Kasdim behind the
name Leb-Kamai. But it is hardly likely that already in
Talmudic times childish tricks going to such extremes would
have been performed as in the Middle Ages when, to cite only
one example among hundreds, one discovered by subtle analysis
that Ben Sirach had the same numerical value as Jeremiah, the
name of his supposed father and grandfather (Maharil, begin-
ning of his Likkutim, and in other places).

After you (p. 101) give the undoubtedly correct explanation of
the well-known proverbial application of the name "Shelumiel"
from Sanhedrin 82b, you quote another explanation given by
Low for this popular epithet which has become proverbial.
Against this the following objections may be raised. In the first
place, Low does not say that the Schlemihl [fool] in the time of
Meir of Rothenburg was called "Shelumiel." He quotes
(Lebensalter, p. 376, note 58) Responsum No. 25 to the Hilchoth
Ishuth of Maimonides, but if one checks the source, one finds
that the husband's name was Isaac. In the second place, Low
says in reference to Maharil that Shelumiel lived in Enns in
the fourteenth century. Low erred. The man he really means
was called Solomon; "Shelumiel35 does not occur as a proper
name in post-Biblical times. The source which Low uses is
found in a Maharil edition accessible to me, Frankfort, 1687,
p. 6ib (in Hilchoth Tom Tov), and there it says: "Rabbi Shlomel
from the city of Enns went once, etc.," that is, Rabbi Shalom
from Austria, a teacher of Maharil, and so Maharil attests. The
name "Shlomel" is, however, not identical with Shelumiel, but
is the old Shelomoh with the usual German diminutive ending
-£/, as one finds such formation of names countless times, but
especially frequently with Maharil, for instance, Hershel, Berel,
Leibel, Hirschel, etc. Repeatedly Shlomel is also found in
Maharil, ed. Frankfort, i58b (in Hilchoth Purirri), also Moshel
(derived from Moshe), ibid., last page, etc.

401

EZRA SPICEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

Thirdly, Low claims to have discovered a man by the name
of Shelumiel, who lived in Safed in the seventeenth century.
But if one checks more carefully, this man also was called
Shlomel, from Shelomoh. If I am not mistaken, this man is
first mentioned in Delmedigo's Ma&ef Lehochmah. This book is
not available to me. But Hayyim Joseph David Azulai quotes
it in Shem Hagedolim (ed. Wilna), II, 4, in No. 57, and Azulai
writes "Shlomoh Shlimel." Furthermore, Leon Modena, in
the Art Nohem, p. 8 (ed. Furst, Leipzig, 1840), draws upon this
same source uncovered by Delmedigo. If he has the reading
Shelumiel, the reason for it may be seen apparently in the fact
that the Italian did not understand the German form of the
name Shlomel or Shlimel and corrected it wrongly into
Shelumiel. . . .

LETTER F
(Hebrew)

Chicago, December 2, 1878.

To the great scholar whose name is renowned in all the ends of
the earth, my teacher and master, J. H. S.,ao peace and blessings.

Your dear letter dated the i3th of last month reached me
today, and immediately it came to my hand I hurried and
wrote to Rabbi B. Szold,26 who dwells in B., informing him
that the letter which he sent to you, dear sir, and the postal
check which was enclosed in it, as well as the books which he
sent you via the post, were not delivered to you nor seen by
you, and that, therefore, he should be good enough to send you
without delay a duplicate check, etc., etc. This was the content
of my letter to the aforementioned Rabbi S., which I wrote
and mailed this day. He will undoubtedly rush to do what
402

BERNHARD FELSENTHAI/S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

I advised and requested. Rabbi S. is an honorable man, and I
am sure that he sent the price of [the copies of] Hechalutz to you.
Perhaps this letter and the books were lost en route, or per-
haps. . . . Certainly they were lost, and the sender is innocent
of any ugly or despicable act. We must not even suspect him.
I am sure that in a few days you will receive another letter from
the aforementioned rabbi, and everything will be set aright.
This year's calendar, which you received from New York, was
mailed to you by the publisher on my order. My article50
which appears in it is full of corruptions and printer's errors.
Do not blame me for this, for I was unable to correct these
errors since the publisher did not send me the page proofs
in time.

Recently I received the November issue of Graetz's monthly
[Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschqft des Judentums], and I
found in it an article by one of the American rabbis, Rabbi S.
Adler. 22 In this article the aforementioned rabbi presents us
with a new explanation of the words mimochorat hashabat
(Leviticus 23:n).SI The following is Rabbi Samuel Adler's
opinion: The commandment to bring the omer [sheaf] was a
separate commandment and was not at all connected with the
Passover holiday. Whoever believes that this commandment
was connected with Passover is mistaken. The real explanation
is as follows: After the barley was ready to be reaped, whenever
it happened, at that point the harvest time (mimochorat hashabat}
began — that is to say, the first day of labor. Throughout the
country, at the beginning of the harvest, the children of Israel
brought the first omer of the harvest to the priest, etc. Fifty days
after the bringing of the omer they would celebrate the holiday

s° We are unable to locate this article.

s x "Pharisaismus und Sadduc&ismus und ihre differierende Auslegung des mochorat
hashabat," Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judcnthums, XXVII
(1878), 522-28.

403

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

of Shovuoth [Pentecost], This is the explanation of Rabbi
Samuel Adler. So far I have read the first part of his article
only, which shall be continued in the following issues. What is
your opinion, sir, of this explanation? According to my humble
judgment, one might plausibly accept this opinion or at least
test it and separate the truth in it from those portions which are
unsubstantiated.

Above, I designated this interpretation as a "new explana-
tion,53 but after further examination I find that it is not a new
explanation at all. One of the early Karaites whose name is
Bachtan presented this interpretation concerning the time of
the harvest to his contemporaries, namely, that if it be reaped
before the Passover they should count the days from that point.
His words are quoted in the Sefer Heasor of Rabbi Jacob ben
Reuben, the Karaite, and also in the Otzar Nechmad of Rabbi
Jeshuah according to the testimony of the author of the Aderet
(see the Likkute Kadmoniot of Rabbi Solomon Pinsker, Appendix,
p. 85). Perhaps even Rabbi Abraham ben Ezra is inclined to
this opinion and believes it to be the correct one when he
alludes to the "secret/5 according to his well-known manner.
These are his words in his comment on Leviticus 23:11: "Behold,
I will tell you a secret, that all the holidays depend upon a
specific day of the month, and because of the Sefirah [counting],
which is a commandment, no fixed day for Shovuoth was stated."
Thus far his words.

I do not know whether another of our sages has interpreted
the above-mentioned verses in this manner and not according
to the halachah.

My words are many. Forgive me, sir, for having written so
much. I am your servant, who honors you with all my heart
and soul. . . .

404

BERNHARD FELSENTHAL5S LETTERS TO OSIAS SCHORR

LETTER G
(Hebrew)

Chicago, 10 September, 1879.
Salutations:12

For some time I have been meaning to write to you and to
inquire as to your health. I was prevented from doing so by
the thought that I should not disturb the great scholar J. H. S.
with my superfluous words and my meager gifts. I resolved,
nevertheless, that when the New Year arrived I would greet,
as my custom has been for many years, my famous and scholarly
friend who lives in Brody, and would then inform him that I
pray for him to the Dweller on High and wish him a happy,
successful, and prosperous New Year. May he enjoy long years
of health and peace. Amen.

And now that the New Year is approaching, I fulfill my
resolution. I greet you from the bottom of my heart. Let this
greeting be a sign of my deep love toward you, a love which is
disinterested and which is as strong as it always has been and
always shall be. . . .

Not only do I greet you at the approach of the New Year,
but I do so for another reason. ... I have discovered that you
will shortly reach your sixty-third year. My source is the great
Catalogue of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, edited by the
scholar Moses [Moritz] Steinschneider. s 2 There I read that
you were born on the 8th of Tishri, 5677, according to the
Jewish calendar, or September 30, 1816, according to the Gentile
count. On the occasion of your birthday I express my thoughts
to you, O king who rules over all the great scholars of Israel.

*a Catalogus Librorvm Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 2573/7146. Scholars
disagree as to the date of Schorr's birth. For a discussion of the problem see
Spicehandlcr*s article on Schorr, HUCA, XXVIII, note 2 to letter 16.

405

EZRA SPIGEHANDLER AND THEODORE WIENER

Would that God grant you to see this day many times, and
that as you grow old your mind shall grow even more lucid
and stronger to increase the glory and the might of Israel's
wisdom.

You have informed me, dear friend, that Volume XI of
Hechalutz is at the printer's and will soon appear. I yearn to
drink of your wisdom, for whatever you write is useful and
correct. I thank you very much for offering me a free copy as a
token of your esteem.

I believe that I am able to distribute twelve-fifteen copies of
Volume XI of Hechalutz, and to sell them at this fixed price.
Send them to me and I will endeavor to distribute them among
men who understand and enjoy them. It is self-understood that I
shall hasten to fulfill your wishes willingly and faithfully. . . .

I close this letter with a greeting of peace to him who is
distant and is at the same time near, distant in geography but
near in thought.

I am honored and proud of your friendship. . . .

406

Rabbi Sabato Morals' Report

on the Hebrew Education Society
of Philadelphia

MENAHEM G. GLENN

JLHE FOLLOWING is a copy of an original document,
a manuscript written by Rabbi Sabato Morais, in the possession
of Dropsie College, in Philadelphia. Photostats of the manu-
script were supplied to me by the American Jewish Archives in
Cincinnati. The report on the Hebrew Education Society of
Philadelphia comprises pages 33 through 37 in a collection of
eighty-three pages written by Sabato Morais in an Italian-
Sephardi Hebrew script which is rather difficult to read. Many
of the papers are Morais* own letterheads from Livorno.

The report is the first authentic history of the Philadelphia
Hebrew Education Society. It is presented as if written by Moses
Aaron Dropsie, with an addendum by David Sulzberger, but
there can be no question that the author was Rabbi Morais.

It was written in Hebrew, some time between 1889 and 1892.

* *s j

In editing the report, I have given a faithful copy of it, and I
call attention to the following:

Words letter-spaced and underscored appear in the original
manuscript above the written line; words letter-spaced within
parentheses appear this way in the original; words within paren-

Dr. Menahem G, Glenn is senior editor on the staff of Maurice Jacobs, Inc.,
of Philadelphia, the noted Hebrew printing firm, and is a member of the faculty
of Gratz College.

407

MEN AHEM G. GLENN

theses indicate that the author had them crossed out; a question
mark shows that the editor doubts his reading, while words or
phrases within brackets are the editor's suggested readings for
lacunae. Ellipses indicate missing words or letters; letter-spaced
words or phrases indicate that the author had them underlined.
Words partially vocalized are reproduced as in the original
manuscript.

ma» r»» TIB^ man nrrtin 11227
mzwai

^a p B'aiaai anrpa ama *»T V» V*rw m rr^ naaaa "pis [Page 1]

aaV *?» iav TOK pna nai n^n ,tnsa -HM p«ft na^a ja
ama •« ^?» an1? n^apa nn-»n n» pt^*? wn11 a^a&Va
ax -»D avia rn xV D»si7 an^Vrim anV»n
x1?'! aria p aa rrn an^rs iDen -ra1?1? an^

n*in» nDK^aa piart nan wann nt *na»a taman
jninn nTisaai ^rsa p«^a ns^n map1? amaVnn i^Dr itVi
oa iKnp"» nt^K o^nsoa man manon naxsan TI» maun

TIT s V ix a •• a T n ^fc^^xl? OK nanaa *IU?K na^Vn
mwa a^inipn a1? nK mp^nna rn niavrina nsp ^ ,ann anaan
]a :onnana la^awi na ntr^K ansnan n*r VK ma-npai laan

aa iTn pi nap a<iwan i»a at nc a^aaiwa ia»» aipa -na^a asa »aa ?ra

nrr mpaian i*?«n manaa na^nn "?a asa p

no*1 [nsn] ns7T ^a aan^ I'm •'a ^» TX piVna *?xw *»*& aa1?
nsnn n^na^» nenn xi2a^ anavn la^nK wpa KI^I n^mpim
K&nai nai^K K2J»a ^K lanima^ a^ana «r»K ap maa pra
ava nK A'waa ptr?Knn -pia av nK*»i ana xnpa nra^ pas1* atr?a

1 This is the way Morais spells United States in Hebrew letters. The Hebrew is of
peculiar usage. See Note 21, below.

408

MORAIS' REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

awn to» nsan waai lain 2(?> n^i^n aanw? nm aaarca nam

WK Vaa irvr aa a^aitaa r»a pnaaVi lampa imaya ma pp anrfr

Tnn ise1*1? pas* :-mriK lap ntpa a^tmn ^DJD p m IIVP 'Van ,wfcnp

mrmn minn rra;a rpna^ anas warna nt^K
nTirr ''n1? n»*?^ nV»nr»?iw iVan WSIK VDI nmwnn nn*»n mnan •
*»D »pm» TVian DK mn nwV osnn ^n a^n
naa ^ KfaaMin) laVa ama^n nVnnn

mnaon ns?7 ann

c? a^nnDia-] annaia a^a ^SD a^ttnia •'naa anaVan
mov «(?) rann* ansian pawift tyst^xa tnnV n
••na MK» naaon n^» nana 1?t»nsK «rm^ n»awa mmm natpai nnann

nasona :jraiVw» nanaa

-»a p aa TO^ Va» ania&pa anrarr ^an1? -na^ ir»a TO1*1? Ta^a nan*»a
n*»a Axwa nmin •ma anvn^ an^aVnn HK -paaVi VITA
)pnai anaoaV K^annK ^nait ttmft wawa nnca a^aapV
an Tia^a ^V^Di anaon :(p •» V a i &) ea^an *?v na^n ^na V

anpn ptt?? irra

[Judah Touro: see the translation, below] nais rma11 yannK nava
aann ttfrrrma a^iit^ii «]Vn onwy 10 pars; rraa
•» i K i *i a * & trnrf? awana

* Wherever a question mark is placed near a word, it indicates that that word is
smudged and illegible, and that the reading thereof has been conjectured by the
sense of the text.

3 This phrase is based upon the Mishnaic statement: l^n UK n»nn osn
(Tamid $2a; cf. Aboth 2:13), "Who is \vise? He who can foresee that which will
be born (i. e., the result of an act)."

•* This is the way the text of the document spells the word "rudiments."

s The year 1847 (if my reading is correct despite the smudge). It is of interest that
Morais uses the Hebrew letters to designate the general date.

6 The writer of this document uses the word D'm hi the sense in which it is used in
the Mishnaic and rabbinic phrase n»ann man, i. e., "public" or "public place."
That is, the word o»3"i, "many," "majority," is taken to mean "public," hence the
phrase D»ai V&> ne^rr n»a means a public school.

409

MENAHEM G, GLENN

anav oral ^m^xp aiaiV *pao wsrawi aima psaa aspa
rra invrf? pan pin Y'annx *» x a snaV

*?ma ronnx n * a *> a p i K ttrraV onvsn aaiat&a [Page 2]
:VT a^aana pnatf? '"uwa vna rra* inpaa «ma rraa
p nspi atr»n abo nnavn aawa irra1?^ rvnin1? an^a iri^^a
maaaa VD aa^an TiaVna ^?*n jnpaa Vx maViiwi ,n^x mana
a^rftpwa aaam nmaoir naaai TW1^ 9QDnn ntta o^a^a
••aa TO*? p2$na aVapna onVwci oana av "raVV ans; «w[i»hpi»
iai an^na nwiDi TwrVa n»na mnaa mienaa na»
•» w a K in^Daa IPK »]ODai niw ^D^nx^sa tr>a»

rra ane laa1? am^ ^i nyaa x1?

D to tD11:^ arx itwa *naK naoa
••aaa n^p ^ *JK ,aanaaw anaaiaa p mnfi<» K^» ian^
p lan^&na ^^at^a ^ aiaxa ia loxa ^rra^a aaa o^asa p*n

n^a Vx onaanaa ja*naa ra anaVaa p nsp naa IK a1* a41
mtn pa11 K^ ^a onaxa rV» oaVab na« n»t3 iiraa K i a a

aa D^im ox ^"DX ftia ^xa) a^an ^v Vnxi na^a nn *?x

61 pa p^baifi) wa^ai *m -na^V ••na n^n pntr? *»a&a DV

^a ^as1? a»pa assia TX :aa?7 xa1?

aa "^an » naa '•M nmaa tma^ D^a oito1? am?

7 Morals treats aim, which is masculine, as if it were in the feminine gender. His
treatment may have been influenced by the fact that *estreet" is feminine in many
European languages.

* The editor of this document has placed in parentheses those words which the
writer crossed out.

9 osnn here is used in the sense of "the Reverend Mr."

10 1BHR1 instead of ianpj» or iPHpS "dedicate," or "devote," seems to have been
preferred by Morais, although the hiphil form, WHp', would be far more justifiable.

1 r The money promised by the people of New York never did arrive.
14 See Note 6, above.
410

MORAIS5 REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

a*np lorwh ET law] law v oyrapam "ins tia1*1? rv»a

w nsa lattrwi K^OII manaa n&oa ^a as> i
iaai DTK na aaw iai TOK maipaa aipaa rrn pirn fn«ta TOT
wan awia via ia «saa tf?i ,inyn *(?) vsaKa pm »am p^a
VDV Vita ^ ,^iaK mn^ Tisnrw na nom mpan n^n s;n
«o mann sna«D txinn aipaa wtnjri iina pVi a^ao iVian n*»a
^ Vr Dn:nini D^ nwVa DA opso m^a1? nass? ni^n irn«
trsmn* nt»aat»on=) i^a^oM win*? anwsn naiawa noiai pK

nt a^Diao a^na nw^w n a w aerial n^a) nnap »(rmr«)
)D m armirf? xVx iaVa Dma*»Va nn»an iin1? K1? iia^1? •'na mo;

|K pna IT» Vapnw nVmn nnann t

nunp Ta1?^ Viaai pin n^ owm Waa answn "pa^n airs?^ nmaia nt
m»T««am la^ipa TMUH "IWK wn pw*?a ni ^ a a wn*»&i na»
mann mo; DKTH anoan VK sraaV :^V own ara UTiiaK1? diV) WTK

iptaa p n» niax^a Twrt ^ ,nKta i^a a^w maipaa na^ ^na aw^w
ran ,i:ra^ ns atmy ma DM m^V "mra ^iss 7i$a 7 a r

rasa nnnrt? •'aiiT isa *JK oipa iV nna I1* roK*?a -na^ wmaaa aai»ma
nna: D^W D^aciKa nmar aa las; nw^ naK ara jara ,-naaa
is; wawi ( t? a •"•7'»o *»")&) pWKia onca urn1? a/7onnx
maim xvaa n» TI» nnwV vans iman* K*? »piaa imxa
n^ai »i^ ^a ^j^a »joaa ,a^*n *pVa aa^a anana TK
a^a xf? nar pw1? na1^ aViK ,D^?wai an ^^?aa D^Tia^V

anana iw fra rf?y

13 D*")|, "strangers,5* or "sojourners," used by Morals for "immigrants."

1 4 In the text: na'rnn mnnn, \vith a sign for the transposition of the words, made by
the author.

15 p"l$, "a season," "a time," or "a period," is used here to make a play on
words with 1p"]$V» "to remove B*; t^16 burden]."

16 The money is gone! But this phrase is coined on the pattern of iV "]Vn »|Vn D»art,
"the rain is over and gone" (Song of Songs 2;n).

411

MENAHEM G. GLENN

nnn IPK tram iteo "msm niai rvm a"£>nnK natpa [Page 3]

*?!> lan?1! DPS!!1? 8(aw») 103 B^ffl IWn 8f) *? P a fr

nrnVi rfasa iinozai nona xraaV terra -pi arra^D latzn amVia aipa&

Vin niaa-n a'a^K nan KiaV TO won BKia nnx vm t

»,jrat»6po mmxa amrr rasaa (?) nininnn nnrn

arm onjn :ni*iDV in^i cnwa aa K*?K /Rn»i

mVnpn iVin^n ns ^ K^nK1?^^ Timai ftw OT&
:^an^Daa nniK nnTttn nnin nK mawV maaVn ^nirnn^i nnV
wmi •TOD Vs? jwwan n» vssn mfn* ir^K o^an nnn tmrrcr

a rrVn pr DI»T K*? anan IWK fixn ••owai
^nna o&ia ^ns ^57 on^nK n*»&pn WK nnx ID ^y
rrrr1 nna 7n« tei an^an «<am&a) wv pa^ aniwa *»sns to
nan ^D ,nD^ «in n^ao -JD to n^s?1* anan -)£>oa ^ la^ai K1? aVi»a :pKrt
tea WP np^awv amn^n n^Dn n^x *i»^ aanrr
arnp pnv ra n^a amrrn pawu :nV«n anaia vonnn

^^a// ainaV t^oin nasan imitan t^n i w & a
narraa

1 7 Based upon a portion of the verse Deuteronomy 31:17, nnsn nun mjn
*eand many evils and troubles shall come upon them."

18 Selaoama**ihc Slavic countries.

** Here Morais employs a phrase which is based upon Numbers 25:18, D'Tll* »3
on'^DH DD^ on, "for they harass you, by their wiles." He takes the word Q'l^,
"enemies," to be the Russian czars by similarity of sound: tsar = ^x. The dots over
the word nnxn are in the text of the document.

is an Anglicism: "to feel" = "to mind," that is, "to take care," "to pay
attention to," "to minister to."

3 x The Leeser reference is from a book by I. Daniel Rupp, History of All the Religious
Denominations in the United States (Harrisburg, Pa., 1848). It may be that Leeser took
his reference from the first edition of the book, published in 1844. This first edition,
with a different title, is described in A. S. W. Roscnbach, An American Bibliography,
etc. (Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. XXX), p. 397, No. 549.
There may have been later editions, possibly one for the year 1866.

412

MORAIS9 REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

vam a*&VK *w «rn 22*7ir» Tripaiaa Tnanaa I^D VKW as? to Teoa araa
awi aatp TOK a^wi a^aa* lamajaa awaH pawm •»» wasn ,niK»
*jVK awiKa atoraft isoaa aVy ^IDI apron mianai irftapa

n*w T^aa UDina ia«r"Tia nV« VD ijntfrpo nianxa rrVu

Vn rnian ^ a^oia a^anaa aa^anan aaw
ant ^••r nt^K nan a^asna DDK nrra arra ^a nx laaiDn^ ana
^ lanima laa1? aa«r» K^a :anan^ ^tmrf

awaxa nx 2sa-its;a rnmn TIKI wanVKa ^pn n« anaw
aanan Vx ]n» wHipM ^n«r» nina trwa :anw&aa ]n DD-UQ ]n
orna la^an^ an naa mw^ K^X ons ^apV ma ^» K1

iiT»a as> a^aaiwa anA snn 26/^nK n^nn iis?
v nri at or ixsaa nniaK WTBK OKI pir ran naa ns naaa
pai ra^iK iiaarwn1? D^IDO oneo pa iKaa11 arm :arrra

^n1?^ ^w naa f •» n a o in a i T a i p •» o
ara naaa -jina taa^ aaip Vw aaoai naias
crw nnaa ma; ntrK THK wi /smwa pt^Ki ara nnVn anV1 ia
mi»aV *ra% taK iisn ) •» a in a T» T a •» p atra anpam ax/snnx
man n^a^D a^s; iaia7 *>wn na^n n^a nnaa nawa nan 'ri^^a

:ara

aa Peculiar, literal Hebrew for "the states which are joined together" [United
States]; see above, Note I.

*3 A phrase found in Isaiah 46:6, DTJD anr D'Vrn, "that lavish gold out of the bag."

a* This was the way in which Morais avoided writing the Holy Name Q'n^K:
instead of mutilating it by writing D'p!?«, he cleverly used the letter 1 for the n,
merely omitting the tiny left-hand stroke.

a s The word hi the document has a double r?, one of which was crossed out by the
author.

36 This word was shortened: 'irm instead of mn», a usual rabbinic way of writing*

»7 The original ]'^»» ipy nymw n i « o »V» seems to be an obvious lapsus calami.
It is possible that m«» was written for m»K, "cubits," "yards," or perhaps 1 » J?
and n l N o are superfluous. It cannot be 314 miles I It may simply mean an area
of between three and four square miles, which is more likely.

413

MENAHEM G. GLENN

T»an ^OIITW isoa1? mpaa -is *»D D*i&xa D'annatf tf * tf?ix [Page 4]
vrxa sp * T •» v *nxn nx aas*?i scpT x*? paVo nmatom waVi

run ana&n nana :onn na^a *naa n t n i p a a a'atpva nx owaaa

vr i&a WK •nrac pVi ,maraa aiana rnsra&xa ox ^ in;
na :ait?n tnsi p^en1? pn wi1? maanV nsnna rw mro nnx *]tyaa n
••iw na^a inan^ n>?na moan ^K yxh rra mro^ its?£>5 ^?aa a«n
mwinnv iaw ^ vto ipVm «OT3fl naxn) r»n nap p^i la
mpcon nnr ^ >sncn VK aatwran irsinV na»aan

am *naa mpa mann n«sa rm&m ^a»n *IHK :ian i&o oaipa
mpna :nn»n nn»a ni^a ram ^K oa awr1? Dmn:«^a rma
n™ nan usa1* iai nnaon 'Tia VDI -na^n ^na *?s isoK1*

ia -raV1? onua ^a oipa mi a^ana D» rmVi an&o ia f a p *?
f man n^a irm iKa Tisan nai usa11 a^i ^mapa1? jn anatV )n T»
maKten na^ mbiaa a^nnn1? irn imma :D^aK^ fnian n^ai
2«. . * ,ni«nVi ania mw^ na ni^snn nan^a paa mapa^

larran "nan T^n ^r naiaaa aina^ Vt^a -JIT

nr :nra

nanaaia *?a ,11^73 ftmpa nna^an niaxb'an Vy ^^oinV ^aia c n •» »
nx onn1? ^tmn nrin mViaa nannn anr ntpx pa
ia parr1 nt^K pa 07^ lanaaa :pna '•nnTK^ iaT»v is;

rmn ^n ia*?a mi»ni|i ia3ip3 nt^K nan "msn* ia
laanpa nt^x nan :vVr »«naa aioa
pa maan1? xin jam *»n ^ *?D pv1? nxn?
swr1? T-nn iniiDa naa1' "itz^x plan :nxtn mxisan x
WT n^Di o^xan nnn1? oVis? nar1? ijw» |rrV» urai nt^x maion

a * It seems to mean ''tailoring."

a» Only the letters 1 3 ' o are recognizable; they seem to stand for iro'a, "in our
days" or "in our times," i. e., "modem."

nsn for n'«na« nyx
414

MORAIS' REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

ran nxy* Vxntp a#a *WK tzrx aVa miftp «(mi&:s)

namru minn nisa na*a

pn« in

rrriiT ia in ritca sniso xa ptwnn tfnan ariD» *poa [Page 5]
maw cnn nt^s; a^aw *|»aa ntt?wty na mann Vv Kinn iDion Taa ia
ainna paan ^Daa I^K nmt ••a nttiKi ,n^ann '•wit irr isoxn: ntz^K ptra
nn^m an^n ^n1? at? rr?w n^V n^a pnsnn n^^awi
oan nan»a is?o^ QDHH man nt^K an&on "o nm ,in« mpa
IK Ttt&nn Vy IK n^snn V» in nwim Vs; DK aa^ na

nnrj a^&Va rrn ntz?K 32taia ^im ^w parra ^D nsn ,pasn pa» to
•01 .anrV iV vii *»osn7 pna* na nt^a T *?« xain nta pan ianp
•01 ^n^Vn D^S^K nntyr DST^D mmvn aima pian *ID»D)? n^ap.
^w pnart pw ra^nV nw tea ]n^a nnifrit n^an wan ^t

arrnnw mjj1 pa1?
iaoa ^DI .mj?11 isa^iara puiia "isff arai

ainia

31 -USD, "a tale," used by Morals for a secretary's ("ISID) report.

^ 3 Daniel Cans was a member of the clothing firm of Cans, Lebennan & Co.,
of Third and Market Sts., Philadelphia, and was very active in Jewish communal
affairs. See Henry S. Morais, The Jews of Philadelphia (1894), pp. 268, 312.

3 3 Thus far I have been unable to identify these two children. Were they, too, of
the Gans family?

34 For the identification of Morris Newburger, see Morais, op. cit., pp. 178, 191,
290-91.

3 s Here the page, which is much shorter *ha" the other four in the number of its
written lines, is very defective, and breaks off at the beginning of the word tit?
(Lo), evidently standing for "Locust Street."

415

MEN AHEM G. GLENN

[Page i]

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE HEBREW

EDUCATION SOCIETY AND ITS AIMS

AND ACTIVITIES

The necessity of training Jewish children through teachers
competent and well-versed in general studies, and particularly in
teaching the Hebrew tongue, was an urgent matter to which the
members of our congregations had long paid close attention. In
the past, however, a knowledge of the Hebrew tongue used to be
gained, for the most part, from teachers who would come into
private homes to instruct the children, while the pupils them-
selves understood very little of what [their teachers] had to
teach them; and the teachers5 pay for their work was also very
little, insufficient to support them. Consequently, [the teachers]
had to engage in other work in order to support themselves,
and the pupils were [, therefore,] unable to acquire a proper
knowledge of the Hebrew tongue and of the commandments of
the Torah. In addition to all that has been said above, there were
many faults to be found with the books which the children
studied in the public schools, whether those books had been
composed as textbooks or for private purposes [i. e., literary
works]; for some of the ideas [found in those books] estranged
their readers from the Mosaic Law and brought them nearer to
the Christian religion in which their authors believed.

This was precisely the status of education among our people
who lived here about fifty years ago, and a similar condition pre-
vailed among all our brethren in the United States. The Jews at
that time complained because their children were growing up
ignorant of the foundations of the divine religion and its laws,
and vainly did our Jewish brethren seek a remedy for this evil.
At that time, however, there arose a man among men to show
us how we could find healing and a remedy. That man, Isaac
416

MORAIS' REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

Leeser, is suitably and properly to be called the first guide,
leading the people in the path of righteousness. With a great love
that was dependent on no [financial] consideration, and with a
willing spirit, he labored, more than all his predecessors and
even more perhaps than all his successors, to strengthen the
Hebrew religion in our midst and to uphold the hands of its
adherents. Isaac Leeser untied a tightly bound knot which
others had despaired of loosing, when he organized the above-
mentioned society, which seems to have been the very first in
the whole United States to undertake the instruction of Jewish
children in the knowledge of the commandments of the living
God, The Reverend Mr. Leeser saw, long beforehand, what
the future would bring; for, regarding it as insufficient for
our children to have only a rudimentary knowledge [of Jewish
subjects], he determined to add to those studies some knowledge
of literature, philosophy, and [other] secular subjects which are
taught in the schools according to required and fixed rules.

On March 7, 1847, the [Hebrew Education] Society was
founded, and on April 7th of the following year a charter was
granted to it by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. That
charter authorized the establishment not only of a school to
educate children who were minors, but also of a college to ordain
students as rabbis in Israel. The first school for small children
was opened on April 7, 1851, and was organized like all the
public schools. The books and the methods of instruction were
the equivalents [of those of the public schools], although in our
school the holy tongue [Hebrew] was to be taught, as well as
Latin, French, and German.

In the year 1853, Judah Zuntz [Judah Zuntz died in 1829;
Morals must have meant Judah Touro, who died in January,
1854. — Ed.]) having been prevailed upon by the Reverend Mr,
Leeser, left a bequest of $20,000 to aid the good work. This
money was received on February 5, 1854, and was used to

MEN AHEM G. GLENN

purchase the building on Seventh Street near Callowhill Street.
By May 28, 1854, the building was ready for use as a school.

[Page 2]

On October 28, 1867, studies were commenced in the academy
called Maimonides College in memory of the RaMBaM, may his
memory be a blessing. Its aim was to offer its students good
instruction in the entire Hebrew language and, to some extent,
in the languages cognate thereto; and combined with [instruction
in] Bible and Talmud were to be all the branches of learning nec-
essary for modern rabbis. The Reverend Mr. Leeser, the Rever-
end Mr. [Marcus] Jastrow, the Reverend Mr. [Aaron S.] Bettel-
heim, and Sabato Morais devoted their time to teaching there,
gratis, and their labors were gladly accepted by their people. The
expenses incurred from the studies and from the students5 main-
tenance were, however, more than our brethren in Philadelphia
could bear. Also, the money which the people of New York
had promised to send us was never forthcoming and, conse-
quently, to our sorrow, the college closed after a few years.
The children's school, to be sure, maintained its vigor and did
not fall short of the best [schools] in the state, despite the fact
that some of our people who were held to be wise, but were wise
only in their own estimate, despised it and argued that on its
account we had been set apart from the general community
and were considered a sect in ourselves. The truth was, however,
that the school was open to all, Jews and non-Jews alike, and
that some of its teachers were non-Jews. Those who opposed the
school adduced another reason in its disfavor and claimed that,
despite their suitable preparation, the pupils would be denied
permission to proceed from there to the public high schools,
since only public school students would be admitted there.
A petition was then presented to the Pennsylvania Legislature,
and permission to place our school on the same level as the public
418

MORAIS5 REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

schools was granted. [Since that was] something not granted to
any other school, the opposition was effectively silenced.

About the year 1877, a large number of people from the
Russian lands came here and settled in the northeastern side of
this city. The site was far from the sections where most people
lived, and some three and a quarter miles from the center of
the city. Nor were any residences and business places of our
brethren to be found there. The neighborhood was in poor
condition and lacked decent living facilities, but since it was
possible to rent a house cheaply in the area, the immigrants
chose to live there. When the Society heard that our brethren
had settled there, it assumed the obligation of supplying their
educational needs and of helping them to adjust to their new
social and cultural conditions. On December 28, 1879, **
acquired three adjacent houses in the neighborhood and there
established schools not only to educate the children academically,
but also to teach them such manual trades as sewing and
weaving [embroidery?], etc., for girls, and cigar making and
carpentry, etc., for boys. The Society had hoped to obtain out-
side help, but the frustration of its hopes obliged it to forego
general education for the children, and to confine itself to the
teaching of Hebrew reading, of translation into the vernacular,
and of the history of our ancestors from the time they became a
nation. In order to achieve this aim, the Society established three
schools in different sections of this city, but the vocational
training school, which has remained in the northeastern part
of our city, is still active and "yields fruit after its kind/' The
Society, moreover, extended [its program of] vocational training
by setting up a place for it on the south side of our city. In the
meantime, the Society's director, after conducting its activities
in various capacities, was elected its first president in the year
1862, and served until 1871. At that time his own personal
needs no longer allowed him to bear that burden, and he was

MENAHEM G. GLENN

forced to remove it from his shoulders. Then the Society became
increasingly impoverished. Its funds were depleted, and the
school for the general education of children was closed down.
The teaching of the Hebrew language, however, did not cease,
and was not to be suspended, as long as the Society existed.

[Page 3]

In the year 1882, our brethren who were subject to the
Russian government suffered many evils and troubles. Thou-
sands [of them] fled (from there) for their lives and abandoned
all their possessions or they were expelled from their birth-
places and directed their steps towards our country to find
shelter and a refuge, and to be free under its protection. And it
happened, after their arrival, that thousands and tens of thou-
sands continued to come here, and their numbers increased until
Jews from the Slavic lands — that is, from Russia, Roumania,
and Hungary — were to be found in growing numbers not only
in the large cities but in the smaller towns as well. Those immi-
grants were received with friendliness, especially in Philadelphia,
for here the congregations strove to treat them kindly and to
encourage people to hate the enemies who were oppressing
them with their wiles. The number of these Jews who came to
us in their poverty imposed a heavier burden on their brethren
who were already settled here. For the latter had to give the
newcomers proper guidance in study and in the social mores of
the country with which, having been born among inane and
unstable peoples, the immigrants were unfamiliar. After attend-
ing, therefore, to [the immigrants'] physical needs, their brethren
assumed the responsibility of ministering also to their spiritual
needs, so that they might achieve their goal (purpose), and so
that each one of them might become like the native-born. We
never imagined that the number of the immigrants would grow
to what it is now, for the Reverend Mr. Leeser, who was better
420

MORAIS* REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

acquainted than anyone else with the Jews in America, wrote
as follows in an article in the year 1844 or 1848: "The Jews in
New York City number about 10,000 souls." In the same article,
he added that "in Philadelphia there are three congregations
amounting to fifteen or eighteen hundred [persons]." It seems
to us that the entire Jewish population in America at that time
numbered twenty-five hundred [?]; 3<s but now, according to our
reckoning, counting men and women whose names were re-
corded in the congregations, charitable organizations, etc., the
number in Philadelphia alone would actually exceed 40,000,
half of them born in the Slavic lands. All these have settled
among us during the past twelve years, and their increased
needs have to be supplied by the educational and charitable
societies. Even if some of them are self-supporting, there are few
who open their purses to help others !

Our hearts rejoice, indeed, to see that the Jewish congrega-
tions observe God's statutes and His Torah by helping the needy
and by showing kindness to the immigrants, both physically
and spiritually. Jewish women devoted their time for this pur-
pose, not for the sake of receiving a reward, but to gratify our
Creator by befriending His creatures. Yet another benefit is
conferred on the immigrants who reside here in our city, because
they do not find it necessary to crowd themselves into a narrow
district, as [is the case] in New York; for, though there are many
groups [of immigrants], there is still [sufficient] space between
them. Most of them are to be found between Spruce Street and
Washington Avenue and between Second and Broad Streets,
a district of three hundred fourteen miles from north to south
and a mile from east to west [sic I]. Within this district there are

afi Morals' figure of 2,500 Jews for the year 1866 is absurdly low. According to
The American Jewish Tear Book: 5665 (Philadelphia, 1904), p. 306, M. A. Berk
•estimated the Jewish population of the United States at 50,000 in 1848. In 1866,
it must have been much more. In all probability the author meant 250,000.

421

MENAHEM G. GLENN

to be found Sunday schools for boys and girls, another [school]
founded by the Women's Society [Young Women's Union] in
the year 1885 and called the Kindergarten, and still another
[school] to teach girls baking and cooking under the supervision
of the Education Society, which we have often mentioned in this
report.

[Page 4]

Some, however, complain[ed] that the place [was] too crowded
for the constantly increasing numbers and for the needs of the
students who attend[ed] those schools and who might be harmed
by the air which, with its poisonous gases, afflicts the inhab-
itants of that area. The writer of this report sought aid, but
found it only through the above-mentioned Society. Conse-
quently, after he had withdrawn from [his office in] it for eleven
years, he was willing to be re-elected president, [if] only to
demonstrate his good will. What he desired to do with all his
heart in order to reach [his] goal seemed impossible of achieve-
ment to his associates, and so his friends rose up in opposition
to him because they were convinced that the expenses necessarily
attendant on his plan would prevent its execution. Now, how-
ever, all the doubts which they harbored have totally ceased.
After [much] toil and trouble, the Society has found a decent
location, spacious in area, brightly lit, and comprising many
rooms with a seating capacity of fifteen hundred boys and girls.
All the classes and reading rooms are to be gathered together in
those quarters, and there is also to be a special section for a
library and a public lecture hall, as well as a large place to
teach both men and women the manual trades. There will be
something else there that is very necessary — a bathhouse for
women and a bathhouse for men. It is our intention to expand
the scope of the vocational training [program], especially for
women; for example, a course in sewing for the designing and . . .
422

MORAIS5 REPORT ON THE HEBREW EDUCATION SOCIETY

making of clothing, and also [courses in] various occupations
invented in our times on the subject of writing, for example,
typing, stenography, etc. By the use of steam, moreover, we
shall be able to add to the trades already taught. Our aim, in
short, is to establish a building which will extend the limits of
human knowledge, raising the immigrants from their low
estate so that they may become the equals of the native-born
of the country. Our aim is to erect a structure in which the
immigrant in our midst may take pleasure and pride and by
which he may be inspired to thank God, may He be blessed,
and his Hebrew brethren for the abundance of goodness show-
ered upon him. The immigrant in our midst will be willing, and
will desire, to be improved and to show to all that he deserves
to be numbered among free men, born in this glorious republic.
By paving the way to the achievement of the benefits which we
have mentioned, the building to be erected will remain as an
everlasting reminder to coming generations, and all of them will
know and believe that love of one's fellow men lies in the heart
of every man called a Jew, and that in truth he fulfills the
commandment of the Torah, "And thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself."

MOSES BAR AARON DROPSIE
Chief Director of the Society.

[Page 5]

At the conclusion of the Chief Director's report, there is an
additional report by David bar Judah Sulzberger, in which that
secretary of the Society gives an account of what was done during
the twelve months which elapsed since the [last] time the mem-
bers met. He [Sulzberger] relates that after the building on
Seventh Street was sold, the school which had been housed
there for the education of boys and girls in Hebrew was removed
elsewhere. Also that the books bequeathed as a gift by the

423

MEN AHEM G. GLENN

Reverend Mr. Leeser were properly arranged according to their
subject matter, Bible or prayers or Talmud or history, and a list
of the number of books on each subject was prepared. Also, that
the bequest of Daniel Gans, which had been held in trust by his.
relative Aaron Gans, was turned over to Moses bar Aaron,
Dropsie, who became its trustee. And that the Society received
almost Si 0,000 from the sale of the building on Seventh Street,
and that the five-dollar award given annually to a competent
student in memory of two deceased children, Norman and
Courtney, was given as usual. Also, that Morris Newburger
donated $100 so that from the interest thereof an award should
be purchased for the Kindergarten, to be called the Morton
Newburger Award. And that the number of boys and girls in
the three Hebrew schools exceeds one hundred, and that in the
vocational training school which is on Lo.fcust] Street . . .

424

The Role of Wolf Schur

as Hebraist and Zionist

JACOB KABAKOFF

I. IN THE NEW WORLD

IKE coming of Wolf [Zev] Schur to the United
States in 1888 presaged a period of growth and development
on the American Hebrew literary scene. After the modest
activity of the 1870*8, there followed some years of decline and
standstill. Schur was followed here by Ephraim Deinard and
Michael L. Rodkinson, who also were active in behalf of Hebrew
letters. The close of the i88o's, therefore, marks a turning point
in the formative period of American Hebrew writing.

Schur, who was born in the 1 840*8 in Lithuania,1 played a
special role as a pioneer of the American Hebrew press. He was
an ardent propagandist on behalf of the Hibbat Zion ["Love of
Zion"] movement and, with the advent of Theodor Herzl,
of political Zionism as well. His writing was characterized by a
zeal for the cause of the East European immigrant, whom he
sought to aid and defend against his detractors. He championed
his views with fervor in his weekly publications, Ha-Pisgah and

Rabbi Jacob Kabakoff is Dean of the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Bureau of
Jewish Education in Cleveland, Ohio.

* According to most biographical sources, Schur was born in Outian, near Kovno,
Lithuania, in 1840. In The American Jewish Tear Book: 5665 (1904-1905), p. 183,
however, Schur's birth date is given as October 27, 1844. See A. R. Malachi's
introduction to the section of Schur's letters in his Igrot Sofrim (1932), pp. 84-87,
and B. Z. Eisenstadt's Hakhmt Tisrael ba'Amerika (1903), pp. 103-4.

425

JACOB KABAKOFF

Ha-Tehiyah, which he maintained at great personal sacrifice,
and gave literary form to his ideas in his volume, Nezah Tisrael
("The Eternity of Israel," 1896).

Schur achieved a position of some stature in this country
because he already had a considerable reputation when he
appeared on the literary scene. He had been a regular contrib-
utor to Peretz Smolenskin's Ha-Shahar and Judah Loeb Kantor's
Ha-Tom, to Ha-Melitz, and to other publications. His book,
Mahazot Ha-Hqyim ("Scenes of Life," 1884), describing his
travels in the Orient, had been favorably received. He had also
edited the volume, Massaot Shlomo ("Travels of Solomon,"
1887), by Solomon Rinman. Despite these successes, Schur was
constantly in financial straits. In 1882 he moved to Vienna,
where he tried to make a living by writing. 2 Later he sought
to go to Palestine as the secretary of Kalman Zev Wissotzky,
but when this plan fell through he decided to emigrate to this
country.

In New York Schur obtained some support among the group
of maskilim. Westernized East European Jewish intellectuals,
who were largely members of the lower and middle classes.
He found a circle of readers who followed the European Hebrew
press, and to them he dedicated his Hebrew weekly, Ha-Pisgah.
Happy that Schur had come, the mashilim rallied around his
journal, which carried the English masthead: "The Summit,
the only Hebrew literary weekly in America for the purpose of
promoting the knowledge of the ancient Hebrew language
among the Jews." 3

* See Schur's letters to J. J. Weisberg, published by Malachi in Igrot So/rim, pp.
88-100, and to Srnolenskin and Kantor, published by Baruch Rubinstein in his
article, "L'Zikhro Shel Zev Wolf Schur," Bitzaron, IV (1953), 437-41. Schur
informed Weisberg as early as March 1 1, 1886, of his intention of going to America.

3 Hillel Malachovrsky, who had preceded Schur to America, writes in his memoirs:
"How happy I was . . . when I heard that a group of Hebrew writers had arrived
in New York — my friend Wolf Schur, Ephraim Deinard and Michael Rodkinson,

426

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

In his initial editorial in the opening issue of Ha-Pisgah, which
appeared in New York on September 14, 1888, Schur stated
that he wished to unite the various groups in American Jewry
through the medium of the Hebrew language. He spoke also of
the need to "arouse the national feeling" and remained faithful
to the spirit of Hibbat Zion. But his hope of finding enough
support to continue the regular publication of his journal was
shattered, and he had to cease publication after the thirteenth
number.

In the twelfth issue of Ha-Pisgah, dated December 21, 1888,
Schur announced the formation of a committee to aid his
journal. Among the members were some of the leading rabbis
and maskilim in New York, men like Alexander Kohut, Bernard
Drachman, Leopold Zinsler, Pinkhos Minkovsky, Judah David
Eisenstein, H. Pereira Mendes, and others. Despite this imposing
list, Schur was able to publish only one additional issue during
the first year. 4

In the first volume of Ha-Pisgah a number of Schur's central
ideas were underscored. He dwelt on the neglect to which the
East European immigrants had been abandoned and on the
need for improving their lot. He stressed the importance of
fostering the Hebrew language and establishing "Hebrew lan-
guage societies/* which should include also laborers. In Zionist
activity he saw a means of combating assimilation and Reform,
which he attacked at every opportunity.

and each with the ambition to be a Hebrew editor. Wolf Schur was the first with
Ha-Pisgah, and I immediately sent him an article which was printed in the second
issue." See KitoS Hillel ben %ev Mdachowsky, II (1940), 60-61.

4 Attempts to issue journals were made at that time also by Deinard and Rod-
kinson. Deinard started his weekly, Ha-Leumi, on December 14, 1888, and pub-
lished twenty-three numbers. Rodkinson started his Ha-Kol even later, on February
9, 1899, first as a biweekly and then as a weekly, and published nineteen numbers.
Both attempts failed for lack of support. Their literary level was inferior to that of
Ha-Pisgah , whose editor was by far the best of the group.

427

JACOB KABAKOFF

Despite his unsuccessful effort and the short-lived journalistic
attempts of Deinard and Rodkinson which followed, Schur did
not abandon the idea of renewing his publication. He traveled
to various cities in order to muster the support of the Hebrew
readers. In a letter to Hillel Malachowsky, from St. Louis on
April 10, 1889, Schur informed him of his intention of settling
in Cincinnati, where he felt that there were prospects for pub-
lishing his paper. s

Finally, however, Schur returned to New York where, on
March 21, 1890, more than a year after his first effort, he
began to issue the second volume of his journal. In the leading
article he pleaded with his readers to spread the knowledge of
Hebrew, for "if the young generation will not understand at
least what is written in our Scriptures, then our people and
Judaism will surely fall.55 He castigated those who said: "What
need have we at the end of the nineteenth century for the dead
Hebrew language, especially in America? In crossing the great
ocean which divides the old and new worlds, we have shaken
off all the preconceived ideas which we acquired there." Schur
appealed to his readers to answer his call and pay in advance
the subscription fee of sixty-five cents for a quarter of a year,
so that he could continue publishing his journal. 6

During the years 1890 to 1892, Ha-Pisgah was practically the
only Hebrew periodical in America, and thus it achieved some
measure of success. 7 Nevertheless, the editor often had to leave

5 Igrot Sofrim, p. 103.

6 Even so staunch a supporter of Schur as Moshe Falk Mervis of Baltimore voiced
his skepticism in Ha^Melit^ No. 72 (1890), as to the prospects of Schur's success.
He wrote: "I doubt if in our city two or three people have fulfilled his request to
send him hi advance the subscription fee of sixty-five cents for a quarter of a year,
even though we did all we could for him."

7 In 1891, Rodkinson issued his Ha-Sanegor, first as a biweekly and then as a
weekly. Nine numbers appeared. The weekly Ha-Ibri did not appear until April
II, 1892.

428

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

New York on trips to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Pittsburgh in order to obtain subscriptions for his journal. In
the hope that he could strengthen his publication, Schur entered
into a partnership with Kasriel Zvi Sarasohn, publisher of the
Tidishe Ga&tn. The partnership, however, lasted only nine
weeks. Schur published his journal for another two months
but found it necessary to move to Baltimore where, beginning
with the thirty-eighth issue, dated January i, 1891, he continued
publication. For a time he edited the Yiddish weekly Der
Israelit, which he also dedicated to the Zionist idea.

Following a difference of opinion with his printer, Moshe
Silberman, who published also Der Israeli^ Schur obtained
Hebrew type from New York, with the help of the Hovev6
Zion ["Lovers of Zion"] Society, and started his own printing
shop. He began issuing Ha-Pisgah on his own, on August 12,
1892, in a double format of eight pages, instead of four, as
heretofore. He set the type himself, and with the aid of his wife
dispatched the weekly issues to his subscribers. It was a constant
struggle to keep the publication going because the approximately
one thousand subscribers were never punctual in paying for
their subscriptions.

Schur made an effort not only to rally the Hovevg Zion
groups in America around his journal, but also to maintain
contact with the European societies. In his pamphlet, Sefer
^ikhronot %ion (Baltimore, 1893, pp. 15-16), David Panitz, who
was then still in London, tells how he helped obtain subscriptions
for Ha-Pisgah) after Schur had written to him complaining of
the lack of support in America. Panitz reprinted Schur's letters
containing appeals for help, stating that about forty copies were
circulated weekly, thus "helping the Palestine idea in some
measure."

The publication of Ha-Pisgah became even more difficult for
Schur when he began to feel the pinch of competition from the

429

JACOB KABAKOFF

weekly Ha-Ibri, published by Sarasohn and edited by Gerson
Rosenzweig. In an unpublished letter to Deinard, dated October
5, 1892, Schur suggested a plan for joint action to finance the
publication of a Zionist periodical in Hebrew and in Yiddish.8
He felt that if they could obtain the backing of the Hovev6 Zion
societies and of various individuals, sufficient funds might be
raised for this purpose. The editing, Schur thought, could be
done by Deinard and himself, with the help of the poet,
Menahem Mendel Dolitzky.

After publishing in Baltimore for almost two years, Schur
moved to Boston where, on January 22, 1893, ke resumed
publication of Ha-Pisgah. Only six issues had appeared when
the periodical was again suspended. It was not until 1897 that
publication was again resumed in Chicago. Writing to
Ha-Melitz on May 31, 1893, Schur expressed regret over the
cessation of his periodical, and stated that he hoped not only
to resume publication soon, but also perhaps to publish a
Yiddish weekly in order to spread the Zionist idea. From
Boston, Schur moved to St. Louis, where he set up a printing
shop and began his activities as the corresponding secretary of
the Zionist group, Agudat Achim. In 1895, he published a
pamphlet containing a Yiddish address, entitled Tisha V Ab
(bearing also the English title: "The Mourning Day of Israel"),
which he had delivered before that group.

Finally, Schur settled in Chicago, the last stop in his life of
travail and wandering. During the years 1896-1897, his reports
from America on events of both general and Jewish interest
appeared in Ha-Melitz and in Ha-£efirah. In Chicago, where he
maintained his own printing shop, he completed the writing of
his book, Nezah Yisrael, which appeared under his own imprint.

8 I have made use of nine unpublished Hebrew letters, written by Schur to Deinard
during the years 1891 to 1901, from the collection of the Library of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, New York.

430

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

Schur never ceased to seek an opportunity to renew his
journal. In his letters to Moshe Falk Mervis during 1896-1 897,*
and to Hillel Malachowsky and Zvi Hirsch Masliansky during
1897, 10 he constantly referred to his plans for Ha-Pisgak. After
the publication of his book, Schur traveled to various cities in
order to sell it and to get support for his journal. Some of the
maskilim, particularly Masliansky, wanted Schur to join forces
with Rosenzweig, the editor of Ha-Ibri, but because of his long-
standing feud with Sarasohn, the publisher, Schur refused to
consider any such rapprochement.

After much indecision, Schur, on August 5, 1897, informed
Malachowsky that he would renew publication in Chicago. He
was counting not only on the support of readers in various
cities, but also on that of prominent European Hebrew writers
who had promised contributions to his journal. For want of
any other means of support, Schur began the publication of the
fifth volume of Ha-Pisgah on October 22, 1897, after an interval
of four and a half years.

During the days of the augmented Zionist activity that
followed the First Zionist Congress, Schur made his journal a
forum for the new Zionism. He was still unable, however, to
eke out a living from his journal. He continued to seek support
from Europe, and got a number of noted writers to contribute.
Among them were: Micah Joseph Berdichewsky, Joseph
Klausner, Elhanan Loeb Levinsky, and Judah Loeb Levine
(Yehalel). Among the earlier contributors there had been
Reuben Brainin and Saul Tchernichowsky, whose first pub-
lished poem, entitled Ba-Halomi, appeared in Ha-Pisgah on
December 9, 1892.

9 Moshe Falk Mervis, "Mikhtev6 Zev Wolf Schur/' Ha-Olam (1936), pp. 363-64,
415-16.

10 Igrot Sofrim, pp, 107-8, 121-22,

431

JACOB KABAKOFF

Schur was always careful not to arouse the ire of the Russian
censor so that he could continue to send his journal overseas.
Because Ha-Pisgah had been banned, Schur, in order to cir-
cumvent the censor, changed the name of his journal after the
close of the sixth volume to Ha-Tehiyah and was careful not to
mention the old name. An unpublished letter to Deinard, dated
January 3, 1898, makes it clear that even earlier Schur had
printed about 150 copies of his journal under the new name for
circulation in Russia. Ha-Tehiyah appeared from October 20,
1899, to November 2, 1900, for fifty-three consecutive issues.

In the summer of 1900, Schur became paralyzed after his
return from the Fourth Zionist Congress which he had attended
as a delegate. Forced to cease publication and to suspend his
literary and Zionist activities, he remained a lonely and forlorn
figure during his last years. We get a glimpse of his condition
from an unpublished note to Deinard, dated February 23, 1901,
which was apparently written for him. The note says:

It is more than four months since I have been stricken by paralysis.

I am unable to write a single word or letter, and all my writing is
done by others. I therefore had to cease publishing Ha-Tehiyah, and
this is also the reason why I did not reply to your letter.

Few people remembered the role that Schur had played in
furthering Zionism and Hebraism in America. The members of
the Hebrew Ohal'e Shem ["Tents of Shem"] Society collected a
few dollars for him at the instance of Philip Turberg, secretary
of the group, who had also been among the contributors to
Ha-Tehiyah.** The Chicago Hebraists tried to raise a fund in
order to set up a business which could support Schur. x a

II See the report of the Ohal6 Shem Society, Ha-Modia La-Hodashimy I (1901), I2O.

13 See Gerson Rosenzweig, "Hashkafah Klalit," Ha-Ibri, IX (1901), issue of June 7.
Masliansky wrote in his memoirs that Bernhard Felsenthal had been in touch with
him several times concerning Schur. See Kitvt Masliansky, III (1929), 175.

432

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

The Hebrew press disclosed little information concerning
Schur's last years. Berdichewsky, who had contributed to
Ha-Pisgah, was the only one to complain in Ha-^efirah (1904)
that Schur had been forgotten. I3 Schur suffered for nine years,
and died on January 10, 1910, from blood poisoning after an
operation. In America he was eulogized only by Joseph Selig
Click of Pittsburgh in his Yiddish weekly, Folksfreind.*4 A
necrology filled with bitterness against the Chicago Hebraists
for neglecting Schur was published by Isaac Suwalsky in his
London weekly, Ha-Tehudi.*5 Funeral arrangements for Schur
were made by his friend Moshe Newman, who also composed
the verses which appear on his tombstone.16 Thus ended the
life and struggles of one of the remarkable pioneers of Zionism
and Hebraism in America.

II. NEZAH YISRAEL

One of the few books of the i Sgo's that has a place in the history
of American Hebrew letters and that is largely the product of
its time and place is Schur's Nezah Tisrael (Chicago, 1896).
The aim of the author was to prove that "the Jewish people
is an eternal people by virtue of its Torah, which is eternal
because its source is divine and is based on understanding,
happiness, and justice." He set out to combat the danger of
missionary activity from without, and, from within, the danger
of socialists, anarchists, and Reform Rabbis whom he looked
upon as assimilationists.

*a His article, which was entitled "Zikhron 1'Rishonim/* was reprinted in his
Bisdch Sefer, I (1921), 28-29.

1 * Joseph Selig Click's Hebrew dirge is reprinted in his volume, Omer PTe&g
(Pittsburgh, 1914), p. 8.

Js Ha-Yehudi, XIV (1910), issue of February 14.

16 "L'Zekher Zev Wolf Schur," Hadoar, XV (1935), issue of December 6.

433

JACOB KABAKOFF

The book is largely devoted to an exposition of Judaism and
of its superiority over Christianity and the other religions. In
the final chapters the author turns his attention to internal
problems, including anti-Semitism, Reform, and Zionism, and
expounds his views in a nationalistic vein which clearly bears
the influence of Peretz Smolenskin. There is, moreover, some
similarity between Schur's views and those of Asher Ginzberg
(Ahad Ha-am), even though Schur and Ginzberg are not
always in agreement. In his Zionist thinking Schur became an
avid disciple of Herzl and, with minor exceptions, a firm believer
in the views expressed in HerzPs Jewish State.

Schur informed his readers in the opening issue of the second
volume of Ha-Pisgah that he intended to publish his book on
Judaism. In a leading article, dated May 19, 1890, he stated
that he had revived his journal in order to answer effectively
the arguments of the assimilationists. At the same time, he
stressed that this could not be fully done within the confines
of a periodical and that a more systematic exposition in book
form was required. In a footnote he added: "I have such a
book in manuscript, and it is entitled Nezah Tisrael. In our next
issue I will inform the readers of its contents, and I hope that it
will soon go to press."

Schur did not return to the subject of his book until a later
date. In an editorial in the issue of July 25, 1890, he gave his
impressions of a trip to various communities and recounted with
horror his meetings in Rochester with maskilim who had taken
up socialist and anarchist ideas and who negated religion and
Jewish nationalism. In order to demonstrate that their anti-
religious arguments were groundless, Schur began the publica-
tion of a chapter entitled "The Torah of Moses and the Proph-
ets," in which he set out to show the rational basis for the belief
in God and for the biblical laws. This chapter, with various
additions by the author, was later incorporated into Nezah TisraeL

434

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

As a supplement to the chapter, Schur published part of the
introduction to his book in order more fully to explain its pur-
pose. He stated that he had written the book in answer to the
host of sincere Christians who invited the Jews to accept their
faith, as well as to refute the arguments of the assimilationists.
He was especially aroused, on the one hand, by the Christian
Hebraist Franz Delitzsch's missionary pamphlet, Ernste Fragen
an die gebildete judische Religion ("Serious Questions to Educated
Members of the Jewish Religion"), published in Leipzig in
1888, and, on the other hand, by Baron Maurice de Hirsch's
views in favor of assimilation as the Baron had expressed them
in a newspaper interview. Schur also stressed that, in order to
influence the Jewish nonbelievers, he had adopted a rational
approach and had endeavored to show that Judaism was based
not only on faith, but also on "understanding and knowledge,,
righteousness and justice."

An additional motive led to the publication of the book:
the propaganda of the Reverend Mr. William A. Blackstone on
behalf of the persecuted Russian Jews. Blackstone's proposal to
convene an international conference to consider the "condition
of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine," which was
incorporated in a memorial to President Benjamin Harrison on
March 5, 1891, had more than a humanitarian basis. Blackstone
believed that the return of the Jews to Palestine would serve
as a harbinger of the second coming of the Messiah, and this
was the motivating reason for his Zionist activity. 1 7

When word was received of the Reverend Mr. Blackstone's
project, Schur was among those who greeted it enthusiastically.
He devoted an editorial to it and made his own Hebrew transla-
tion of the memorial to the President. But before long he

1 7 A copy of the memorial to President Benjamin Harrison is included in the
Reverend Mr. William A. Blackstone's book, Jesus Is Coming (1908; available also
in a Hebrew translation).

435

JACOB KABAKOFF

became aware of the missionary aspects of the project, and
declared that the settlement of Palestine was a national matter
and not necessarily a religious one. He then informed his readers
of his decision to publish the first three chapters of his book,
dealing with Christianity and its relation to Judaism. This, he
felt, would unmask the motives of those Christian friends of
the Jews who sought to convert the latter, and would serve as a
rebuttal to the arguments of the missionaries.

Following a rationalistic approach, Schur endeavored to
show that the biblical laws were based on logic and that even
the Jewish concepts of God and revelation were grounded in
reason. He adduced the Sabbath and labor laws as outstanding
examples of the lofty ethical teachings of Judaism. By following
such a line of thought, the author sought to win back those
who had strayed into socialism.

The question of Reform is dealt with in the chapter "Shall We
Remove the Old in Favor of the New?" In this chapter, drawn
from an article, similarly entitled and published previously in
Ha-Pisgah, Schur maintained that no agreement could be
reached on the question until "we succeeded in establishing in
Zion a spiritual and material center and in building there an
academy for the study of both Torah and general wisdom. " l8
He felt that while there was room for reforms, only a Sanhedrin
of rabbis from all over the world could effect them. Owing,
however, to the differences which divided the rabbis, this was
unfeasible for the present. The needed reforms could come,
therefore, only from an academy in Zion whose rabbinical
graduates would be acceptable to Jews the world over.

x* Schur reiterated this idea editorially in Ha-Pisgah (August 15, 1893), and called
upon Orthodox Jewry to work for a "religious center" which would consist of a
seminary for rabbis and teachers in Jerusalem. He felt, however, that the Orthodox
Jews would not respond to his appeal, and therefore urged the HovevS Zion
Societies to take the initiative in raising funds for this purpose.

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

At the end of the above chapter, Schur touched upon Ahad
Ha-am's views on Reform as expressed in his essay, Dibrt Shalom
("Words of Peace," 1895). Schur sharply criticized Ahad Ha-
am's differentiation between "reform of religion and development
of religion.53 To Schur's mind, if reform was a denial of the faith,
it mattered little whether it was called "reform" or "devel-
opment." He himself saw the need for reform, but because
there were none to effect it, "we must wait until the homeland
is rebuilt."19

Schur's views on the "mission of Israel," on which he had
also touched previously in a leading article in his journal, are
outlined in the concluding chapter of his work. He pointed
out that anti-Semitism existed not only in Europe, but that it
had also struck root in predominantly Christian America. Logic
dictated that "we can find rest only in a country of which we
could justly demand that it open its gates to us. And only Zion
shall be redeemed with justice, for it is the inheritance of our
fathers" (p. 265). Another reason which he gave for Zionism
was that it would enable the Jews to "remain faithful to our
religion and to fulfill the mission of our prophets."

At the close of his analysis of the status of the Jews and the
Zionist movement, Schur gives an enthusiastic account of
HerzPs program in the Jewish State. Although he had been an
adherent of the Hibbat Zion movement, he was able to appre-
ciate the tremendous advances made by the concept of political
Zionism. Yet, while accepting HerzPs ideas wholeheartedly,
Schur did point to a number of flaws in the Jewish State. Among
these flaws Schur counted Herzl's failure to list the Hebrew
language as a unifying factor for world Jewry. Schur disagreed,
moreover, with Herzl's contention that agriculture should be

x* Schur also took Ahad Ha-am to task for his criticism of the First Zionist Con-
gress. See his article in Ha-Pisgah, V (1897), issues of December 3rd and I oth.

437

JACOB KABAKOFF

secondary to commerce and industry. Nor did he approve of
the fact that religion was neglected and that no provision was
made for a Sanhedrin. Despite these flaws, Schur upheld HerzPs
essential program against its critics in the assimilationist camp.
Schur summarized his views on the "mission of Israel" in the
following words:

If Israel has a mission, then it is to try to return to the land of its
fathers as its own master and to establish the Torah of Moses and
widen its laws in accordance with present-day conditions. This will
also bring about a solution to the social question . . , for the Torah of
Moses is basically and fundamentally social ... (p. 272).

Schur envisioned still another duty for the future Jewish
state: it was to serve as a medium through which the Jewish
people could transmit Western ideas to the people of the East,
just as previously it had brought the wisdom of the East to the
West.

Upon the publication of Nezah Tisrael, there appeared in
Ha-Ibri,20 which continued publication during the close-down
of Ha-Pisgah, a "Call to All Lovers of Hebrew" concerning the
book. The "call/5 which was signed by Adolph M. Radin,
second vice president of the Ohale Shem Society, appealed to
the readers to purchase the book and to support a fellow
Landsmann.

A favorable review of the book was published by Simon
Bernfeld in Ha-Shiloah, 2 x but as one who held moderate Zionist
views, Bernfeld could not support Schur' s suggestion that
Palestine be acquired with justice from Turkey. Nor could he
concur in Schur's enthusiasm for HerzPs program. Rabbi
Joseph H. Hertz had words of praise for Schur's efforts in the
American Hebrew,*2 and spoke of the book as "one which deserves

20 Ha-Pisgak, April 2, 1897.

21 Ha-Shiloah, I, 569-75.

22 American Hebrew, LXI (1897), issue of September 24th.

438

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

to rank with the very best productions of the Jewish genius
during the last quarter century." Among others who valued
Schur's work were Mordecai Zev [Max] Raisin23 and Bernard
Drachman, who translated a specimen selection, on "The
Sanitary Aspects of the Mosaic Legislation/5 a4 from the book.

III. ZIONIST ACTIVITY

Among the important sources for the history of Hibbat Zion
and the beginnings of political Zionism in America are Schur's
Hebrew weeklies Ha-Pisgah and Ha-Tehiyah. They contain much
information on the activities of the various Zionist societies and
on the problems which occupied the attention of their members
during the iSgo's and at the beginning of the twentieth century.
After the advent of Herzl and the First Zionist Congress, many
of the Zionist groups came to consider Ha-Pisgah as the "official
Zionist organ.55

Schur was among the dedicated servants of the Zionist ideal
in America. His place as "one of the most important workers55 in
early American Zionism was recognized by Nahum Sokolow. 2 s
In Europe, Schur had been a friend of Hermann Schapira
and had been close to Smolenskin, and after settling here he
maintained contact with the heads of the Hibbat Zion move-
ment and later with Herzl and Max Nordau. He was among
those who agitated for American representation at the First
Zionist Congress in Basel.

*3 See Mordecai Zev [Max] Raisin's article, "Sefat Eber v'Sifrutah ba'Amerika,"
Ha-Shiloah, VIII (1901-1902), reprinted in his Dappim mi-Pinkaso Shel Rabbi (New
York, 1941). See also Mi-Sefer Hayai (New York, 1956), pp. 8-9.

a* In Neo-Hebraic Literature in America, Appendix to the Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial
Convention of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association (1900), pp. 81-82, 134-37.

as See Nahum Sokolow's Hibbath %ion (London, 1935), p. 29.

439

JACOB KABAKOFF

When Schur arrived in America in 1888, he found in New
York an active Hovev6 Zion Society, which had been working
for the support of the settlements and the acquisition of land
in Palestine since 1884. Schur appealed to this group to aid
him in his journalistic venture, and the committee which he
had formed for Ha-Pisgah in December, 1888, was made up
largely of its active members. In his memoirs, Benjamin L.
Gordon recalls a meeting of the society which he attended in
1890 and at which Schur "spent most of the evening on the
rostrum outlining plans for the promotion of Hebrew." 2fi

Schur urged the Hoveve Zion groups to take on a wider
program of activities. Upon receiving a letter from Zalmon D.
Levontin, founder of the Palestinian settlement Petah Tikvah,
suggesting the establishment of a commercial house in Palestine,
Schur brought the full text of the communication to the attention
of the societies. 3 7 At every opportunity he urged greater support
of Hebrew and of a Hebrew organ of expression. We cannot
determine how much aid he received, but on several occasions
he expressed his thanks to the groups in New York, Boston,
Baltimore, and elsewhere for their help.

The pages of Ha-Pisgah reflected the issues which preoccupied
the American Hovev6 Zion. In 1890 the Hovev6 Zion Society
of New York was preparing to purchase some land in Palestine
in order to establish a settlement. The Society, headed by Adam
Rosenberg, urged the groups in other cities to participate in the
purchase, and announced that it had already sent a sum of
money to Paris for this purpose.28 A proposal by the Society
to send a delegation to Palestine met with the disapproval of

36 See Benjamin L. Gordon, Between Two Worlds: Memoirs of a Physician (New
York, 1952), pp. 146-47-

a? Ha-Pisgah, II (1890), issue of May 9th.
a8 Ha-Pisgah, II (1890), issue of August 7th.
440

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

many Hovev6 Zion members, but Schur was among those who
lent his support to the idea.

When Schur moved to Baltimore, he continued his Zionist
agitation by urging continually that land be purchased and
the Tishuv [the Jewish community in Palestine] strengthened.
Shortly after the founding of the Shavg Zion ["Returners to
Zion"] Society in New York in 1891, he wrote a glowing
editorial about the prospects of this first American society for
settlement in Palestine. Ha-Pisgak regularly reported on the activ-
ities of the Shav6 Zion, which soon established a second group. 2*

We learn about Schur9 s energetic efforts on behalf of Zionism
in Baltimore from such local men as Moshe Falk Mervis30 and
David Panitz. The latter, in his pamphlet on Zionism, wrote
that he found in Baltimore, on his arrival there in 1894, a
society called the Hevrat Zion. As Panitz said, however, "the
national idea was not unknown in Baltimore even prior to
the founding of Hevrat Zion, for the Zionist writer Schur
published in Baltimore the journal Ha-Pisgah. When the pub-
lisher of the Yiddish Israelit in Baltimore invited Schur to edit it,
the spirit of Ha-Pisgah rested also upon the Israelit"

Even before the founding of the Hevrat Zion, an attempt
was made in Baltimore to establish there a branch of Shav6
Zion No. 2, and Schur worked to accomplish this. The New
York society was headed by Moses Mintz and Ephraim Deinard,
and Schur helped them to arrange an initial meeting in Bal-
timore. Among those who attended this meeting was Benjamin
Szold, who later was the first speaker to address the new group.
Despite Schur's prodding, however, the group did not last very
long.

*s> A. R. Malachi, "Shave Zion," Hadoar, XVII (1937)-

5° See Mervis, "L'Toldot ha-Zionut v'ha-Tenuah ha-Ivrit b'Baltiinore," Hadoar,

XXII (1942).

441

JACOB KABAKOFF

In Baltimore, Schur aided in the sale of Palestinian etrogim
[citrons], a project of the New York Hovev6 Zion. In Schur's
unpublished letters to Deinard during the early part of 1892,
we find various details concerning the sale of etrogim in Baltimore.
Schur gave space in his journal to advertisements on the sale
of Palestinian etrogim, and attacked the use of etrogim from
Corfu. 3I He constantly stressed the need for the support of the
farmers of Palestine. In his letters to Deinard, he urged that
the New York Hovev6 Zion unite against the Yiddish publisher
Sarasohn and his son because of their equivocal stand on Hibbat
Zion.

Schur constantly pointed to the role of Palestine as a center
for world Jewry. In an editorial, published on May 14, 1891,
he stated that while it was not feasible to bring all of suffering
Jewry to Palestine, the Jewish communities the world over
should consider themselves as "limbs of the body in the Holy
Land. . . . The more strength the body will have, the more
it will draw the limbs to itself.35 In other articles he further
developed the idea of Zion as a religious center.

From Mordecai Ben Hillel Hakohen's letter addressed to the
American Hovev6 Zion through Ha-Pisgah, 3 2 it is evident that
the European Zionists viewed Schur' s journal as the organ and
address of the movement in America. The author of the letter,
a prominent Hebrew publicist, was keen enough to voice the
opinion that even were Palestine to become the spiritual center
of the Jews, their material center would still remain where the
masses were; in America. He urged the American Hovev6 Zion
to support the Zionist executive in Jaffa in its plan to establish
an agricultural school.

*x The chief opponent of the use of Corfu etrogim was Deinard, whose pamphlet,
Milhamah la-Shem ba-Amcdek (1893), is devoted to this question.

32 Ha-Pisgah, III (1891), issue of August 7th. The letter is reprinted in the author's
Me-Erev Ad Erev (Vilna, 1904), I, 295-99.

442

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

The Zionist leaders in Vienna also turned to the "great Hovev6
Zion" spokesman Schur to give prominence to their call con-
cerning the founding of a Zionist executive in that city. Schur
published the call, signed by Reuben Brainin, Nathan Birn-
baum, and others, and editorially urged the Hovev6 Zion
groups in New York, Boston, and Chicago to act favorably
upon it.33 After the First Zionist Congress, European Zionists
often approached Schur. Herzl himself wrote him from time to
time, asking for help in gaining American support for his
plans.

An indication of Schur's Zionist views in the years that
preceded Herzlian Zionism is to be found in his published
Yiddish address, Tisha VAb^ wherein he analyzed the status of
the Jewish people and attributed its national decline to the
weakening of Jewish observance, on the one hand, and to the
desire on the part of assimilationists and reformists to ape the
Christians, on the other. He urged his listeners to meet the
threat of anti-Semitism in America by means of Zionist activity
and by the gradual redemption of the Holy Land through
settlement. At a time when Zionism was limited to small circles
of devotees, Schur was among those who called for the
intensification of the movement.

When Herzl's Jewish State appeared, Schur was without a
journalistic platform of his own. However, because of Herzl's
request that he urge the American Hovev6 Zion to send delegates
to the First Zionist Congress, he published an article on this
subject in Ha-Ibri, on April 30, 1897, under the title, "The
Progress of European Zionism.33 He addressed himself partic-
ularly to the Hevrat Zion in Baltimore and the Ohale Shem in
New York, and asked them for assurances in sending delegates.
He argued that it would be a disgrace for the American Hovev6

33 Ha-Pisgah, III (1892), issue of January Qth.

443

JACOB KABAKOFF

Zion if no delegates were to go. 3 4 In his letters to Mervis of
Baltimore, he urged him time and again to aid this cause, and
expressed his own readiness to go as a delegate. The Baltimore
Zionists finally decided to send Rabbi Schepsel Schaffer, the
chairman of the local Hoveve Zion Society. Actually the only
formal delegate from America,35 Rabbi Schaffer was joined by
Adam Rosenberg and by Rosa Sonneschein of St. Louis. Schur
was dissatisfied with the choice of Schaffer, and wrote Mervis
that he was prepared to go to Basel for half the sum which
the trip would cost the Baltimore Hovev6 Zion.

Schur also published a second article in Ha~Ibri, under the
title, "Dr. Guedemann's Nationalistic Judaism" (vol. VII, pp.
34-36, June 4 and 13, 1897), in which he attacked Moritz
Guedemann, the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, as an anti-Zionist
and summarized HerzFs answer to him. In the latter part of
this article Schur also criticized the anti-Zionist stand of the
Reform theologian Kaufmann Kohler, who was at the time
rabbi of Temple Beth-El in New York. In contradistinction to
the pro-Zionist Reform rabbi, Bernhard Felsenthal of Chicago,
Rabbi Kohler had written against Herzl and Zionism in the
American Hebrew.

The propaganda for the First Zionist Congress brought new
life to Zionist activity in the United States. Schur responded to
this quickening of the Zionist pulse by reviving Ha-Pisgah in
October, 1897. A more vibrant note was sounded by him in
his editorials and in his numerous surveys of Zionist activity,
both here and abroad. Ha-Pisgah became once again the semi-
official organ of the various Zionist societies, which supplied

3< On the reaction of the American Zionists to the First Zionist Congress and
Schur's activity, see A. R. Malachi, "Zion6 Amerika ba-Gongress ha-Rishon,"
Hadoar, XXVI (1946).

35 See David Panitz, Sefer %ikkronot Zion> pp. 51-52.
444

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

the journal with news of their activities and gave it financial
support.

The new spirit in American Zionism and the role of Ha-Pisgah
in furthering it were stressed by Mordecai Zev [Max] Raisin
in his article, "Zionist Observations." 3 6 "In America, too,"
Raisin wrote, "there is a Zionist movement. Here, too, we have
Jews in whom the national feeling has not died. . . . The ap-
pearance of Ha-Pisgah now is a sign of new life in our national
literature in America. . . . The publication of Ha-Pisgah now is
timely indeed, for the lack of a basic Zionist organ is deeply
felt in the ranks of American Zionists."

In response to HerzPs appeal, Schur informed Herzl that he
had visited a number of cities and had helped organize Zionist
societies. 36a In Chicago he helped bring about the establishment
of a society dedicated to political Zionism, with Bernard Horwich
as president. In his memoirs, Horwich relates that Schur was
among those who urged him to undertake the task. 3 7 The full
name of the organization, which Horwich claimed to be "the
first organized Zionist group in America," was "The Chicago
Zionist Organization No. i."38 An outgrowth of this organiza-
tion was the Order Knights of Zion, founded in 1898.

3$ Ha-Pisgah, V (1897), issue of October 29th.

3 to I have recently obtained, from the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, four letters
from Schur to Herzl dating from before the First Zionist Congress. In these letters
Schur stressed the need for a Zionist organ in America, and described his activities
in behalf of Herzl's program.

3 7 See Bernard Horwich, My First 80 Tears (Chicago, 1939), p. 230. Horwich
erred in saying that Leon ZolotkofT of Chicago was elected a delegate to the First
Zionist Congress; this mistake was repeated in various accounts of the history of
American Zionism.

3 8 This claim is accepted by various writers. Others credit the Ohav6 Zion Society,
founded in New York on June 29, 1897, with being the first modern Zionist or-
ganization which accepted Herzl's program. See Michal Aaronson, "Eltster
Tsiyon-Fareyn Do Feiert Zein Yubiley," Morgen Journal (New York), December
II, 1952.

445

JACOB KABAKOFF

Schur supported the policies of Herzl and accepted the fusion
of political Zionism with the Hibbat Zion movement. He stressed
constantly that Zionism should be a means not only of political
but also of spiritual redemption. Notwithstanding the similarity
of some of his views to those of Ahad Ha-am, Schur criticized
the Zionist thinker for his attitude towards political Zionism,
In his weeklies Schur featured prominently the proceedings of
the early Zionist congresses and gave much space to the Dreyfus
case. Concerning Zionist relations with Turkey, Schur always
urged a direct approach and believed that if the Jews offered
economic aid to the Turks, the Sultan would support the
Jewish aims in Palestine.

In Herzl and Nordau, Schur recognized two leaders. He
held them in such esteem that, in his article on the Second
Zionist Congress, he wrote that his hope of seeing the rebirth of
the dead bones of his people — a hope which he had previously
expressed in his Nezak Tisrael — had been fulfilled by these
leaders. He published their speeches and gave space to their
letters, urging the American Zionists to greater activity. 3 9

Schur was among the early supporters of the Federation of
American Zionists, headed by Richard J. H. Gottheil. When
some of the veteran Hoveve Zion societies, led by Dr. Philip
Klein and Joseph I. Bluestone, refused to accept the authority
of the Federation, Schur advocated a policy of cooperation with
the new central body. Because of this viewpoint, a number of
societies protested against the journal. Various other Zionist

39 Herzl's first letter to Schur was published on December 20, 1894, in
and contained a request for support of the Colonial Bank. A cablegram from
Herzl on the same subject appeared in the journal on March 24, 1899. Additional
letters from Herzl were reprinted on July 7, 1900, and October 2, 1900, in Ha-
Tehiyah. Upon receiving Ha-Pisgah, Nordau sent Schur a letter of encouragement
to American Zionists, printed in Ha-Pisgah on November 27, 1897. Additional
letters from Nordau appeared on March 25, 1898, in Ha-Pisgah and on March 30,
1900, in Ha-TekiyaL

446

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

groups throughout the country reiterated, however, their support
of Ha-Pisgah as their "official Zionist organ," and elected Schur
to honor ary membership.

Schur gave space to the Federation's call to its first conven-
tion, scheduled to take place in May, 1898. 4° He opposed the
decision to postpone the convention because of the Spanish-
American War and voiced his despair in a letter, dated June 4,
1898, to Zvi Hirsch Masliansky: "Since the beginning of the
war the condition of Ha-Pisgah has worsened considerably. The
subscribers have stopped sending money. And the Zionists?
Do you believe that there are real Zionists in America? What
have they done after all the tumult and noise? The mountain
labored and brought forth a mouse.53 4I

When the convention finally took place on July 4—5, 1 898,
Schur greeted it editorially, but pointed to its failure to empha-
size the Hebrew language and Hebrew culture in the program,
One of the tasks of the convention was to elect delegates to the
Second Zionist Congress. Schur expressed his dissatisfaction
over the choice of Kasriel Zvi Sarasohn as a delegate because
he questioned Sarasohn's loyalty to Zionism.

When the differences between the Federation and the old-
time Hovev6 Zion continued unresolved, Schur suggested in
Ha-Pisgah that the Federation be reorganized under Gottheil
and Klein, as had been proposed by the Second Zionist Con-
gress. 42 Two unpublished letters, dated October 1 7 and Novem-
ber 23, 1898, from Schur to Deinard cast light on this early
phase of Zionist organizing activity. In both letters he was
sharply critical of the Federation's leadership and suggested
that the New York Hovev6 Zion Society effect a change in its
composition.

*° For the text of the call, see Ha-Ptsgah, V (1898), issues 23-27,

41 Igrot Sojrim, p. 130.

<a Ha-Pisgah, V (1898), issue of October Hth.

447

JACOB KABAKOFF

Schur expressed satisfaction with the fact that the Federation's
second convention was to take place in June, 1899, outside of
New York, in the city of Baltimore. Writing on May 25, 1899,
to Benjamin L. Gordon, of Philadelphia, Schur said that he
was planning to attend as a delegate and hoped that the conven-
tion would take counsel on how to improve the situation in
American Zionism.43 At the Baltimore convention Schur was
chosen as Hebrew secretary and gave an address in Hebrew on
the problem of education. He was elected to the executive of
the Federation and was chosen as a delegate to the Third
Zionist Congress. Schur was, however, unable to go as a delegate.
Despite an appeal issued by the Chicago Zionists over the
signature of Felsenthal and others for funds to finance Schur's
trip, only a small sum was raised. 44

Schur continued to urge the Federation to recognize Ha-Pisgah
as its official organ. In a letter dated October 5, 1899, he asked
Gordon to support this request. He was again elected a member
of the Federation's executive at its convention, held in New
York on June 11-12, 1900, and also was chosen as a delegate
to the Fourth Zionist Congress.

In Chicago, Schur was among those who left the Hovev6
Zion Society to form the new group called L'maan Zion ["For
Zion's Sake"]. The organizers of the new group explained their
action in a statement published in Ha-Pisgah. 4S They opposed
sending a letter of congratulation to Sarasohn for "his great
activities in behalf of Zion." Schur also strongly opposed Leon
Zolotkoff, editor of the Chicago Tidisher Courier and ally of
Sarasohn, since the activities of the Knights of Zion, the Zionist

4* A. R. Malachi, "Mikhtev^ Zev Schur PDr. B. L. Gordon," Hadoar, XIII (1933).
Sec the first letter especially.

44 Ha-Ptsgak, VI (1899), issues of June 3Oth and July 7th.
4* Ha-Pisgah, V (1897), issue of December 24th.
448

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

order in which Zolotkoff held the position of general secretary,
were repugnant to Schur.

The weekly Ha-Tehiyah, which began publication on Novem-
ber 9, 1899, as a continuation of Ha-Pisgah, also carried a
regular section devoted to American Zionist activities. Since
the Federation did not begin to issue the Maccabaean until 1901,
Ha-Tehiyah, like its predecessor, is an important source for the
history of American Zionism. In a series of enthusiastic ar-
ticles Schur continued his agitation in behalf of the Colonial
Bank.

The issues of Ha-Tehiyah contain a full report on the Fourth
Zionist Congress, held in London and attended by Schur as a
delegate. On July 25, 1900, Ha-Tehiyah carried an account of
the farewell meeting held for Schur before he left for the
Congress, and a letter of greeting from Felsenthal, who had
encouraged Schur in his journalistic activities throughout the
years.

From Schur's letters to his journal concerning the Congress,
as well as from the stenographic report of the proceedings, it is
evident that Schur argued against GottheiPs assertion of the
right of the Mid- Western Zionist groups to maintain their own
federation, independent of the New York organization.46 This
was still another expression of the Mid- Western groups' re-
luctance to forego their autonomy completely in favor of the
New York central body.

Upon his return from London, Schur reported on the Con-
gress in New York, Chicago, and Des Moines. A few weeks
later Ha-Tehiyah abruptly ceased publication because of the
editor's sudden illness, from which he was not to recover.

<6 See Ha-Tchiyah, I (1900), issue of August l6th; also Stenographischts Protokoll der
Verhandlungtn des IV Zionisten-Congresses in London (Vienna, 1900), p. 181.

449

JACOB KABAKOFF

IV. IMMIGRANT PROBLEMS

The second large wave of Jewish immigrants from Russia came
to America at the beginning of the iSgo's. A number of groups
of "German" Jews rose to help the victims of persecution, and
Schur, who had revived Ha-Pisgah in March, 1890, made the
problem of immigrant aid one of the main concerns of his
journal. He was among those who advocated the founding of
the Jewish Alliance of America, whose purpose was to unite the
East European Jews for the work of succor.

As a reaction to the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe,
various groups of German Jews, including such leading Reform
rabbis as Solomon Schindler of Boston and Emil G. Hirsch of
Chicago, became vocal in their opposition to this immigration. 4 7
Schur was among those who challenged the "German" opposi-
tion and who defended East European Jewry from its detractors.
To the English masthead of Ha-Pisgah he added the words:
"It is the organ of the most intelligent class of the Jewish
immigrants." At the same time, he did not fail to criticize his
fellow East European Jews for their lack of order and organiza-
tion.

At first Schur viewed the activities of the Baron de Hirsch
Fund favorably and expressed the hope that it would engage
also in educational work among the immigrants. Later he
warned the unfortunate East European Jews not to place too
much hope in the Fund. When the Association of Jewish
Immigrants of Philadelphia was founded, Ha-Pisgah printed the
organization's warnings to East European Jewry not to expect
help from the Fund. 48

*7 See A. Tscherikower, "How the American Jews Received the Russian-Jewish
Immigration," Gcsfukhte fun der Tiddisher Arbeter Bavegwg in di Fareynikte Shtatn
(New York, 1943), I, 200-23.

** Ha-Pisgah, II (1890), issue of June 22nd.
45<>

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

Schur kept the cause of East European Jewry before the eyes
of his readers. "We are opening the gates of Ha-Pisgah to this
great issue/3 he stated in a leading article devoted to harassed
Russian Jewry and calling on the East European Jews of New
York and elsewhere to pool their efforts in one organization,
so that they would neither require help from Baron de Hirsch
nor have to hear the epithet "schnorrers" ["beggars"] from the
German Jews. He urged Rabbi Jacob Joseph, of New York, and
the other leading rabbis to issue a call for this purpose.49

Schur continued to urge his coreligionists to follow a policy
of "self-help." When the Jews of Philadelphia organized the
Jewish Alliance of America, Schur became one of its active
supporters and urged the Jewish communities of other cities to
form branches. Ha-Pisgah reflects the ups and downs of the
Jewish Alliance, which, despite its short existence, laid the
foundation for joint action of the East European and German
Jews in behalf of persecuted Jewry.

Schur's journal carried the Jewish Alliance's call, dated
August n, 1890, and reported the organizational meeting held
five days earlier in Philadelphia, where it had been decided to
form a national alliance which would stress agricultural work
for the immigrants. News of the activities of the societies for
immigrant aid in New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Cincinnati
is found in the pages of Schur's journal. In addition, Schur
published various articles and poems on the need for alleviating
the lot of the persecuted.

To the objections of the Hovev6 Zion that the activities of the
Jewish Alliance would detract from the work for Zionism, Schur
replied editorially that the two complemented each other.50
By providing agricultural training, the Jewish Alliance would
prepare people for eventual settlement in Palestine. He wrote:

*» Ha-Pisgah, II (1890), issue of June 29th.
«° Ha-Pisgah, II (1891), issue of January 1st.

451

JACOB KABAKOFF

If we have recently begun to support also the Jewish Alliance of
America, whose aim it is to teach the immigrants agricultural work
in America, let not our readers make the mistake of thinking that
we have forsaken Zion. . . . We have spoken out for the idea of the
Jewish Alliance of America because it has a great aim. ... Its aim
and the aim of Hovev6 Zion are one and the same.

Before long, however, Schur's enthusiasm for the work of
the Jewish Alliance waned. He began to take it to task for
advocating the establishment of agricultural colonies for the
immigrants, an aim which was beyond its means. He criticized
it also for failing to protect the honor and rights of the East
European Jews against their detractors. In his opinion, it was
more useful to establish in each city societies which would aid
the immigrants to obtain work and to enter trades. He attributed
the failure of the Jewish Alliance to the East European elements
in American Jewry which had not given it fullhearted support.

Public acknowledgment was made to Schur of his aid to the
Jewish Alliance of America by its first president, Charles D.
Spivak, at its founding convention. Spivak listed Ha-Pisgah
among the newspapers which had rendered invaluable service
to the organization.51 In February, 1892, the Jewish Alliance
was consolidated with the American Committee for Ameliorating
the Condition of the Russian Exiles, an organization which had
won the support of the German Jews as well.

The strained relations between the East European and the
German Jews are amply reflected in the pages of Ha-Pi$gah.
Rabbi Solomon Schindler's anti-immigration articles and public
statements in Boston were but one indication of the opposition
on the part of some Reform rabbis. Schur fought Schindler's
views and rallied some of the more liberal-minded Reform
rabbis to the defense of the East European Jews. While Schindler

*x See Constitution of the Jewish Alliance of America and Abstract of the Proceedings of
the First Convention of the Alliance, held in Philadelphia, February 15, 1891, p. 22.

452

THE ROLE OF WOLF SCHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

was the subject of Schur's choicest epithets, Isaac M. Wise and
others did not go unscathed. Schur kept up a running attack on
Schindler and made him the subject of some of his sharpest
editorials. As justification for his attacks on the rabbi, Schur
reprinted from the Boston Herald Schindler's address, "Should
Palestine Be Returned to the Jews?" S2

In an appeal "To the German Rabbis in America," Schur
urged that they rise up to defend the good name of East Eu-
ropean Jewry. S3 He turned especially to Bernhard Felsenthal of
Chicago, Dr. Alexander Kohut of New York, Dr. Marcus
Jastrow of Philadelphia, Dr. Solomon H. Sonneschein of St.
Louis, Dr. Benjamin Szold of Baltimore, and a few others,
asking them to denounce Rabbi Schindler's statements. Schur
wrote: "All of you know the Bible and Hebrew literature in
the original and not through translation, and you know also
what the Jewish inhabitants of Russia have accomplished in the
field of Hebrew literature during the last fifty years. You know
the East European Jews, their character and qualities, because
you have had contact with them. Arise and state publicly your
opinion of them." In a later issue Schur printed the sympathetic
replies received from Rabbis Kohut, Szold, and Felsenthal.

Schur spoke out also against Reform, which he viewed as a
danger to the future of American Judaism and as a force for
national assimilation. s 4 He put his faith in the Judaism practiced
by the East European Jewry — a Judaism which, he believed,
required refinement rather than reform. Time and again he
urged the East European Jewish intellectuals to establish a
rabbinical seminary which would produce men of both basic

*a Ha-Pisgah, II (1891), issue of April

S3 Ha-Pisgah, II (1891), issue of April 10th.

** For Schur's views against Reform, see Ghayim M. Rothblatt, "Ha-Itonut
ha-Ivrit b' Chicago," The Chicago Pinkos, ed. Simon Rawidowicz (1952), pp. 45-47.

453

JACOB KABAKOFF

Jewish and general knowledge. Schur felt that American rabbis,
in addition to knowing the ancient sources, should be at home
also in modern Hebrew.

Although Schur constantly championed the cause of the East
European Jews, he unceasingly reminded them of their failings
and shortcomings. In the first volume of his journal he was
critical of the management of kashrut [kosher food] in New York
by Rabbi Jacob Joseph, and of the educational standards in
that city.55 He decried the fact that the East European Jews
were dependent upon the philanthropy of German Jews and
that they had not even one decent welfare society of their own.
On various occasions he analyzed the basic reasons for the
division between Jews of German and East European origin,
and castigated his fellow Jews for the disorder in their ranks.
He did not feel that, under the prevailing conditions, he could
advise Russian Jews to make their home in America.

Schur's attitude towards America was negative. " America
is a rich and fruitful country in which ample bread is to be
found, but only physical, not spiritual bread," he wrote in an
editorial on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of
the discovery of America. He greatly feared the rise of anti-
Semitism and the enactment of anti-immigration laws. The Rus-
sian American Jewish scholar, Judah David Eisenstein, of New
York, took a more optimistic view of the Jewish position in
America, which he expressed in a letter to Ha-Pisgah.56 While
Schur admitted, in an editorial note to Eisenstein's letter, that
America was not like Russia, he still felt the danger of
anti-Semitism to be imminent. Nevertheless, on occasion, he
did express his faith that the spark of American Judaism could
be fanned into a flame, if properly nurtured.

ss Ha-Pisgah, I (1888), issue of October 12th.
*6 Ha-Pisgah, III (1891), issue of June nth.

454

THE ROLE OF WOLF SGHUR AS HEBRAIST AND ZIONIST

Schur's fullest presentation of his views on American Jewish
life is found in his article, "Come, Let Us Search Our Ways,"
which appeared serially in the fourth volume of his journal. s 7
He analyzed the character of the several waves of Jewish
immigration, and painted a frank and realistic picture of the
status of the East European Jews in this country. According
to Schur, the squalor and poverty of their life were among the
chief factors inducing anti-Semitism.

"Why haven't our brethren from Russia and Poland known
how to make proper use of American freedom?" asked Schur.
In answer to this question, he attributed their condition to the
low state of Yiddish journalism and the meager accomplishments
of Jewish education. s 8 He expressed concern over the large
numbers of children who, growing up without any education,
were sent out peddling or into the sweatshops. The plethora of
societies and small congregations, he felt, did not add to the
glory of the American Jewish community. Nor was the rabbinate,
to his mind, an effective instrument in leading the people.

Once more Schur minced no words in blaming the East
European Jews themselves for their sad lot. Castigating those
who were already well-established for not helping the new-
comers, Schur insisted that "a large share of the hatred of the
Americans for the Jews of Russia and Poland could be blamed
on themselves and not on the Americans."

In his periodicals Schur expressed constant concern for the
fate of Hebrew writers and of Hebrew literature in America.
The editorials, literary information, and appeals which he
published offer documentary evidence of the dire economic

s? Ha-Pisgah, II (1891), issues of June 5th-July 3rd, July iyth, and July 3ist.

58 Schur later suggested that the Hebrew teachers unite into a federation and
adopt a uniform curriculum. He urged the teachers in New York to issue a call
for a general meeting. See his editorial in Ha-Pisgah, V (1897), issue of Novem-
ber 1 9th.

455

JACOB KABAKOFF

plight of the Hebrew writers during the iSgo's and at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The sufferings of the poets
Menahem Mendel Dolitzky and Isaac Rabinowitz, of the
grammarian Moses Ha-Kohen Reicherson, and of the scholar
Abraham Dov Dobsevage [Dobsewitch] were subjects to which
Schur returned time and again. In one editorial he declared:
"In this country the fate of the Hebrew writer is worse than
that of the hewer of wood and the drawer of water in Russia."
In order to strengthen the position of Hebrew writers in America,
Schur suggested the establishment of a Hebrew writers3 asso-
ciation along the lines of the one set up in Europe at the Third
Zionist Congress.

Schur sympathized with the lot of his fellow writers, for he
himself epitomized their struggle for economic survival. When
he was forced by sickness to cease his journalistic activity, he
lost his meager source of income. He was the son of a generation
of immigrants who endeavored to turn the tide of materialism
and to focus attention upon the Hebrew language and literature
and upon the spiritual aspects of American Jewish life. As a
pioneer of Hebrew journalism and of our national ideal, Schur
stands out as a symbol of unparalleled devotion to Hebraism
and Zionism in America.

456

The Human Record:

Cyrus Adler at the
Peace Conference, 1919

MOSHE DAVIS

The outline of this paper was originally presented at the
special session on Philadelphia History at the fifty-second
Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society,
hi February, 1954, at the suggestion of Professor Salo W.
Baron, then president of the Society, thus marking the nine-
tieth anniversary of Cyrus Adler's birth on September 13,
1863. In publishing the full paper in this Festschrift, honoring
Professor Jacob R. Marcus, I wish also to express my gratitude
to him for his friendship and guidance.

IKE FOUR months which Cyrus Adler spent in Paris
in the spring of 1919 are but a small time-segment of his rich
and eventful life. Yet they represent one of the most significant
periods in his career: four months of unremitting labor as rep-
resentative of the American Jewish Committee and associate
of Louis Marshall at the Peace Conference, months of intricate
planning and discussion with the representatives of the ravaged
and suffering European Jewish communities and of supreme
dedication to the "emancipation of the Jews of Eastern Europe."
Out of this experience, Cyrus Adler, American Jewish educator
and administrator, emerged as Cyrus Adler, defender of Jewish
rights and liberties everywhere.

Dr. Moshe Davis is the Provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
New York, N. Y.

457

MOSHE DAVIS

Dr. Adler left two records of his service in Europe. The first,
"a working record," is arranged in three sections: diary, memo-
randa, and correspondence.1 The typescript, which exists in
several copies, was deposited with the American Jewish Com-
mittee, and is still unpublished. It has, however, been used
extensively by many scholars who subsequently wrote on the
Jews at the Peace Conference and on other phases of modern
Jewish history. 2

But Adler composed also another documentary of those his-
toric days, a documentary which he chose to call "the human
one.35 This personal statement was embodied in the daily letters
which Adler wrote home to his wife, Racie. With the permission
of his daughter, Mrs. Wolfe Wolfinsohn, we herewith publish
edited portions of those letters. 3

1 Part I (pp. 1-73) is called "Diary of Doctor Cyrus Adler" (March 24 to July 10,
1919); Part II (pp. 74-283) consists of "Minutes of Conferences, Drafts of Clauses,
Memorials, etc."; Part III, "Correspondence," includes letters of Woodrow Wilson,
Herbert Hoover, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Robert Lansing, Lewis L. Strauss, Henry
Morgenthau, and others.

3 The fullest utilization of the "Diary" is found in Oscar I. Janowsky, The Jews
and Minority Rights: 7898-7979 (New York, 1933). Portions of the "Diary" were
incorporated also in Adler*s autobiography, I Have Considered the Days (Philadelphia,
1941), and in Abraham A. Neuman's Cyrus Adler ^ a Biographical Sketch (New York,
1942).

A more recent history of the Peace Conference, in which Adler's record was
consulted, is Joseph Tenenbaum's volume in Yiddish, Tzvishen MUchomeh un
Shalom [Between War and Peace] (Buenos Aires, 1956). Dr. Tenenbaum was a
member of the Polish Jewish Delegation, and wrote from the vantage point of
the East European group, the view which prevailed at the Conference.

3 Altogether, Dr. Adler sent 101 letters; what is published here is but a fraction
of the material. The "Letters" include many intimate family matters and highly
personal reports. I am, therefore, deeply grateful to Mrs. Wolfinsohn, who entrusted
these precious documents to me and gave me a free hand to make my own selection.
In this highly selective edition of the "Letters," my basic consideration was to
extract those portions which are historically or biographically pertinent, and to
try to arrange them in a continuing and unified account. The changes made in the
text of the "Letters" were to correct the few slips in the spelling, to standardize the
notations, and to correct obvious hurried errors in punctuation.

458

CYRUS ABLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, IQIQ

Studied in juxtaposition, the second record not only brings
completeness to the first; it also reveals the true character of
Adler's service to his people and his deep sense of commitment
to its needs. Indeed, it presents a new Cyrus Adler, a person
whom we do not know from his writings and addresses, or even
from his autobiography. The distinction once drawn by Charles
Francis Adams "between the materials for a history of action
and those for one of feeling" applies precisely to the two records
which Adler left us. 4 In the public record, the facts speak, the
individual is underplayed, the act itself is all-important. In the
private record, reaction is the key, feeling is paramount; there
is no intention to communicate all the facts, nor is this even
necessary.

What Adams has to say on this subject is of such striking
pertinence to our study and is so remarkably appropriate to
Adler's "human record" that it is worthwhile to consider the
entire passage:

Our history is for the most part wrapped up in the forms of office. The
great men . . . are seen, for the most part, when conscious that they are
acting upon a theatre, where individual sentiment must sometimes be
disguised, and often sacrificed, for the public good. Statesmen and
generals rarely say all they think or feel. The consequence is, that, in
the papers which come from them, they are made to assume a uniform
of grave hue, which, though it doubtless exalts the opinion later genera-
tions may entertain of their perfections, somewhat diminishes the inter-
est with which they study their character. . . . We look for the workings
of the heart, when those of the head alone are presented to us. We
watch the emotions of the spirit, and yet find clear traces only of the
reasoning of the intellect. The solitary meditation, the confidential
whisper to a friend, never meant to reach the ear of the multitude, the
secret wishes, not to be blazoned forth to catch applause, the fluctua-
tions between fear and hope, that most betray the springs of action —
these are the guides to character. . . . 5

^ Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, with an Introductory Memoir by
her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, fourth edition (Boston, 1848), p. xviL

$ Ibid.

459

MOSHE DAVIS

The "Letters" offer a new guide to Adler's character. Aspects
of his personality known only to his intimates, his reflections
scrupulously withheld throughout the years, are revealed in
the "Letters." And they breathe spirit into the flesh and bones
of the formal record.

It is not our purpose in this introductory statement to describe
the events leading to the final success of the Committee of Jewish
Delegations as measured by the Polish Minorities Treaty and
the other treaties in which the Jews were given religious and
linguistic rights. Nor are we here concerned with an evaluation
of the general procedure and results in the light of subsequent
history.6 Our focus is on Cyrus Adler. But some brief back-
ground remarks are necessary to place the "Letters" in per-
spective.

Paris in the spring of 1919 was cold and cynical. It was
crowded with soldiers and diplomats. Although they did not
often express it, people felt that a new era of shameless self-
interest had come upon them. As Franklin D. Roosevelt, who
was then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, recalled:

President Wilson's gallant appeal . . . meant little to the imagination
or the hearts of a large number of the so-called statesmen who gathered
in Paris to assemble a treaty of so-called peace in 1919. I saw that with
my own eyes. I heard that with my own ears. Political profit, personal
prestige, national aggrandizement, attended the birth of the League of
Nations, and handicapped it from its infancy. 7

Herbert Hoover described the mood in more graphic lan-
guage: "The wolf is at the door of the world."

This was the setting in which the respective Jewish delegations

6 For a summary of the work of the Peace Conference and the Minorities Treaties
in relation to Jewish rights, see A. Gorali, Skeelat Hamiut Hayehudi Bechever Haleumim
[The Problem of the Jewish Minority in the League of Nations} (Jerusalem, 1952), Part I,
"Treaties of Protection of Minorities," pp. 11-34.

7 Quoted in Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Ordeal (Boston, 1954), p. 3.

460

CYRUS ABLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, I gig

convened in Paris. They were no less divided among themselves
than the victors who had gathered to apportion the war's spoils.
It had been agreed earlier among the various Jewish representa-
tives that the Palestine question should be clearly dissociated
from the minority rights issue. On that score argument had been
eliminated in advance. 8 But even concerning the demands for
minority rights, the eastern and western groups were divided.
The first sought national minority status for the Jews; the latter
thought that special political guarantees would be harmful.9
Nevertheless, after much dissension and bickering, necessity as
well as underlying devotion to common ends created a mood for
joint action, and a compromise formula was adopted. The
urgent purpose of the Jewish delegations was always before
them: the emancipation of East European Jewry. Adler, too,
saw the attainment of this goal as his sole objective in coming,
and he never swerved from it.

Adler actually had not wanted to go to Paris. His responsibili-
ties at Dropsie College and at the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America weighed heavily upon him. Nor did he wish to leave
his family. This separation, in fact, was his greatest trial abroad.
Nevertheless, his duty was clear. He was vice president of the
American Jewish Committee and chairman of its Executive
Committee. Adler had opposed the formation of the American
Jewish Congress in December, igi8. But once it was organized,
its existence and influence could not be denied. When it became
clear that the Congress leadership would be fully represented
in Paris, the American Jewish Committee felt it necessary that

8 For the background and development of the Zionist presentation at the Con-
ference, see Selig Adler, "The Palestine Question in the Wilson Era," Jewish
Social Studies, X (October, 1948), 303-34.

9 See Tenenbaum, chapters V and VI ("The Jewish Peace Representatives in
Conflict" and "Committees and Little Committees"), pp. 60-93.

461

MOSHE DAVIS

its representatives also should be present. x ° Reluctantly, Adler
agreed to the Committee's decision that he go to Europe "to
cooperate in respect to securing full rights for the Jews in all
lands where such rights are denied." * x As he wrote to Louis
Marshall: "My present willingness to go is ... based more upon
the insistence of Mr. [Jacob H.] Schiff and yourself, than upon
my judgement." z a

The relationship between Marshall and Adler was one of
friendship and mutual reliance. They traveled together and
worked side by side throughout the months of feverish activity.
And they were the last two members of the American group to
leave. Marshall, of course, emerged as the giant figure of the
Jewish delegations and was their spokesman.13 Yet Marshall
was always mindful of the strong support which Adler gave
to his decisions, and of the persuasive role which he played in
them.14 Writing to Jacob H. Schiff in 1920, and recalling an
incident at the Conference, Marshall indicated that his accept-
ance of the presidency of the Committee of Jewish Delegations
was "with the concurrence of Dr. Adler." I s

10 See Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, ed. Charles Rcznikoff (Philadelphia,

1957), n, 538-40-

11 "Adler Papers," Louis Marshall to Gyms Adler (January 23, 1919). Other
communications in the "Papers" relating to the conversations between Marshall,
Schiff, and Adler are as follows: Adler to Marshall (November 19, 1918); Adler
to Marshall (January 20, 1919); Marshall to Adler (January 23, 1919); Marshall's
certification of Adler's credentials (February 8, 1919).

13 Ibid., January 27, 1919.

x»See Cyrus Adler, "Louis Marshall," in Lectures, Selected Papers and Addresses
(Philadelphia, 1933), p. 147.

x« Adler was instrumental in bringing Marshall and Judge Mack together, thus
establishing the basis for a unified approach in the Delegations. "Diary," p. 7;
"Letters" (March 28). See also Janowsky, p. 291.

*s Louis Marshall to Jacob H. Schiff (January 22, 1920). From the Louis Marshall
Collection of the American Jewish Archives, with the permission of Mr. Marshall's
family. I am grateful to Charles Reznikoff, editor of the Marshall papers, and to
Morris Fine, of the American Jewish Committee, with both of whom I consulted*

462

CYRUS ABLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

Marshall and Adler regarded themselves, and were regarded
by others, as a team. Lewis L. Strauss, who is mentioned several
times in the "Letters" in most glowing terms, and who served
as secretary to Herbert Hoover, couples the two in a brief
reminiscence:

The events of those days made a deep impression upon me. . . . Dr.
Adler and Louis Marshall were in Paris together and accomplished
an unbelievable service for minority groups the world over. Their
patience in listening for days on end to long harangues and arguments,
their perseverance in the face of great odds, their great force and
accompanying gentleness and humanity surpassed anything I have
ever since experienced. Truly, there were giants in those days. . . . r *

While, as Strauss indicates, the immediate tasks of the Confer-
ence required infinite patience and long hours of devoted at-
tention, Adler nonetheless found the time to fulfill all the other
obligations which he had assumed. High on his daily agenda
was the urgent and immediate need to bring relief to the war-
stricken. From the moment he arrived in London and through
the months ahead, he was in close contact with the European
work of the Joint Distribution Committee. He met with Eliezer
Sigfried Hoofien, the J.D.C. representative, and worked with
the delegations from Roumania and Galicia, Poland and
Palestine.17 Some of the happier activities connected with his
Jewish Welfare Board responsibilities are described in the "Let-
ters*5; and the "Diary" records the meeting to solve the problem
of locating the Russian Jewish soldiers who had been taken
prisoners and who were then in Paris. x 8

regarding the Marshall-Adler correspondence. For other Marshall references to
this association, see Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, II, pp. 549-51, 553, 563-64,
568-69.

16 Lewis L. Strauss to Moshe Davis (February II, 1954).
x? "Diary" (March 26; April 3, 4, ll), pp. 5, 12-13, 15, 20.

18 Ibid. (March 30), p. 10. See also Cyrus Adler, "Origin of the Jewish Welfare
Board," in Lectures, Selected Papers and Addresses, pp. 227-28.

463

MOSHE DAVIS

Besides the tasks of Jewish statesmanship and relief activities,
there were other duties which derived from Adler's wide cultural
and personal interests. He counselled Harry Schneiderman, then
editor of the American Jewish Tear Book, on the publication of the
twenty-first volume, and secured the material on the Peace Con-
ference which was included.19 Adler carried about with him
the proof sheets of Simon Dubnow's History of the Jews of Russia
and Poland, which was to be issued by the Jewish Publication
Society. This book, it turned out, was very helpful in an im-
mediate and practical way. As Adler tells us in his autobiography,
he gave it to Arthur Lehman Goodhart, the legal advisor to the
Morgenthau Commission to Poland, who thus acquired authen-
tic background information for his assignment. 20

Describing his work in Paris, Adler wrote that he had no
leisure, "but it was a different sort of work, 'conversations' in
polyglot,"21 A parade of personalities moves through the
"Letters'3 and "Diary"; he met quite literally with hundreds of
people, not only with cultural and political leaders, but also
with friends from home, "students and soldiers." His happiest
hours were his wanderings among the bookstalls or when he
could find children to play with. Out of the blue, in one of his
"Letters," comes the seemingly irrelevant remark: "I see few
children hereabouts."22 This is another reflection of his home-
sickness.

Moving, too, are the reflections which pressed in upon him as
he walked the streets of Paris. "When I felt the rain and cold
today standing around the stations at Havre and Paris I realize
what the soldiers had to stand, and think none of us ought ever

" "Diary," pp. 349-54-
30 / Have Considered the Days, p, 319.
ai "Letters" (March 30).
**Ibid. (April 6).

464

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, I gig

o complain of our discomforts."23 Or this one: "In happier
lays you, Sarah, and I must see it together . . . but this is no
ime to travel for pleasure." 24

Writing home, Adler often tried to make a case for his "im-
>erturbability." But the "Letters" disclose that this was a surface
nood. Deep down, and inside, he was shaken, as at the Kaddish
it the service in the synagogue at Rue Victoire, 2S or in his
ament: "The reports from Eastern Europe are worse and
vorse." *6 The saddening experience of human anguish brought
orth the quiet prayer for his wife: "I want you to be in a posi-
ion to enjoy life in this rejuvenated world."27

Late in April, Adler recorded: "Things look promising for
. great charter of liberty for the Jewish people."28 But it took
everal more months before "the Olympians," as he always
eferred to the heads of the governments, could agree on specific
Drmulations. Finally the great day came. Victory was written
tito a document, and the document was hailed as a milestone
a the struggle for human rights and liberties. In a letter to
toris D, Bogen, who was then in Poland, Marshall, Adler, and
Tahum Sokolow, the three men representing the formerly
livergent "West and East" camps of the Jewish delegations,
inited to express their satisfaction with the treaty entered into
>etween the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Poland.

t is our firm belief that these treaties have at last absolved the Jews of
Eastern Europe from the serious disabilities from which they have so
Dng suffered and will forever end the grave abuse of the past. They

3 "Letters" (March 27).

* Ibid. (March 25).

* Infra, Letter of Sunday, March 30, 1919.

* Infra> Letter of March 31.

7 Ibid. (June 14).

8 "Diary" (April 23).

465

MOSHE DAVIS

will enable the Jews as well as all other minorities to live their own
lives and to develop their own culture. . . . a9

These men and their associates in the Jewish delegations
were not prophets. Later history frustrated their work and
their dreams, 3 ° But if they were not prophets, they were, indeed,
the children of prophets. It was their obligation to meet the
duties of their time and hour. Theirs was the task of uniting
world Jewry, of seeking a way in which Jews everywhere could
devote themselves in freedom to their cultural and spiritual
heritage. This task they performed nobly.

While they had not gone to Versailles for the actual signing
of the Treaty — it was the Sabbath, June 2 8th — Marshall
and Adler heard it announced hi Paris by the boom of the
guns. Political emancipation for the East European Jews had
been achieved. The time had come to turn from the needs of
the Jews in Europe to those of the Jewish community in America.
They began to plan for the future. They agreed to devote
themselves to Jewish education.

This solemn decision is briefly recorded in Adler's auto-
biography. 3 x It was confirmed in a letter which Marshall sent
to Jacob H. Schiff immediately upon their return:

Dr. Adler and I discussed these points while we were abroad. We are
both of us agreed that now that the question of Jewish emancipation

**Ibid., p. 394-

3° In his autobiography, Adler later wrote: "I felt at that time, and I am sure
Mr. Marshall did too, that the Charter of Rights ... in the Polish Treaty was one of
the greatest achievements of the Conference from our point of view. We were not
so shortsighted as to think that the benefits would inure to the Jews of Poland
at once. I wrote at the time that I felt it would take at least twenty-five years before
the benefits would fully accrue to the Jews of Poland. At the time of the present
writing twenty years have passed. The intervening ones have not been very good.
I hope that my prophecy about the twenty-five years will still prove true." [/ Have
Considered the Days> p. 324.]

** Ibid., p. 324,
466

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

soon be disposed of, at least to the extent that treaties and consti-
tutions can do so, the next great problem of American Jewry is to take
up in a comprehensive manner the subject of Jewish education, not
only insofar as it relates to higher learning, but especially with regard
to primary and elementary schools. 3 2

Fully cognizant of the importance of this decision, Adler
returned home determined to help bring it to fruition. In the
decades which followed he worked tirelessly for many noble
ends. Yet the experiences in Paris during those four months
never left him. There he had seen the ineradicable scars of
human suffering. There he had come to understand, at the
source, the motivations and strivings of his brethren in European
lands. And there, above all, he had conquered his own pre-
conceptions. He had worked for a meeting of divergent minds,
to bring agreement out of dissension, so that, henceforth, he
and his brothers could dwell together in unity.

The Letters

Sunday, March 16, 1919, 3:30 P.M.

R. M. S. Caronia.

We had Shabbos dinner in my cabin yesterday — bread,
tongue, and fruit. I said the prayers and it gave me a better
feeling than being in the dining room. 33

a3 Louis Marshall Collection (August 14, 1919).

33 "We were booked to sail on March loth but owing to the Harbor strike did not
leave till Wednesday, March I2th, at 2 P.M. The Caronia put into Halifax for
coal on Friday, March 1 4th, and sailed on Sunday, March i6th, arriving at
Liverpool Sunday, March 23d. After the formalities connected with landing, we
took the 3:55 train for London, arriving there about 9 P.M., and were fortunate
enough to secure very comfortable quarters at the Carlton, in spite of the crowded
condition of London." ["Diary," p. ij

467

MOSHE DAVIS

London, Tuesday, March 25, [19] 19, n P.M.
... we went to Elkan Adler's to dinner ... we had a good
talk and saw Elkan Adler's wonderful library. 3 4 He is a bachelor
who lives in a perfectly enormous house. This was the first meat
meal I have had, but I have not felt the want of it. ...

Paris, Sunday, March 30, [19] 19.

... we went to the synagogue at the Rue Victoire [Friday
evening, March 28th]. I am sure you remember the grandeur
of the building. The hazan has a beautiful voice and the choir
of several dozen small boys and a few men was most impressive.
Four rabbis were at their stations, including Israel Levi, the
Grand Rabbi of France. Most impressive of all was the con-
gregation. There were certainly a thousand persons present,
and nearly every woman was in mourning. Hundreds of men
rose to say Kaddish. They all stood together on the almemar.
This congregation gave me a more forcible idea of what France
had suffered than anything I have read. It was very pathetic.

March 31, 1919, midnight.

.... I hope we are making progress toward a union of forces,
but it is slow work, just as the big Conference is also slow.
Possibly it is best when there are so many diverse interests and
people; haste would be inadvisable even if possible. 3 s

One hears a great deal of pessimistic talk, but it is difficult
to say what that amounts to .... I can't say that the work is
exhilarating so far, but it was so very necessary that we should
come that I don't believe you would have forgiven me if I had
not come, and I could not have forgiven myself.

3* "Mr. Adler, while not a Zionist, indicated his pro-Palestinian attitude, agreeing
with the position which the American Jewish Committee has taken." [Ibid., p. 2.]

35 See "Proceedings of a Meeting of Representatives of Jewish Organizations of
Various Countries" (Sunday, March 30, 1919), "Diary," Part II, pp. 74-90.

468

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

None of the relief party 3 6 has shown up yet but will tomorrow.
The reports from Eastern Europe are worse and worse. Five
of our people are now in Poland. . . .

Wednesday, April 2, 1919.

I spend some time writing each day as I am keeping a brief,
but I hope accurate, record of what is going on here, so far as it
comes within my own ken.

Thursday, April 3, [19] 19.

This afternoon we went to the Red Cross to look after
mandates received by cable from the Joint Distribution Com-
mittee. The officers there were most kind and sympathetic.
An entirely new condition has broken out in Poland which
dwarfs all questions of relief: an epidemic of typhus. There
are said to be one hundred thousand cases.

Walking back I met Dr. Haffkine,37 whom I consider one
of the ablest and most charming men of our entire group. He
came back to the hotel with me, and as he lived in India for
twenty years and has become quite English, I martyrized myself
by drinking tea with him. . . .

Sunday, April 6 [1919], 1:30 A.M.

You see what bad hours I am keeping, but I have come
from a full meeting at the Consistoire [the headquarters of French

*6 Representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee.

s 1 Dr. Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine was largely responsible for the forma-
tion of the Comitf de Juifs de Paris Descendants de Juifs de I9 Europe Orientate. As the
long name indicates, this Committee, known as the Haffkine Committee, sepa-
rated itself from the official representatives of Russian Jewry. The Comiti addressed
the Peace Conference on May 15, 1919, using the word "minority" rights in-
stead of "national" rights. Nevertheless, it followed the policy of the Committee
of Jewish Delegations. See "Diary," p. 13; Janowsky, pp. 296, 350.

469

MOSHE DAVIS

Jewry]. This is the gathering we have been aiming at. Another
takes place at eight this Sunday night.

This morning (I mean Saturday) I went alone to the
Portuguese synagogue in the Rue Bufiault. They have an organ,
a boys' choir, and a good deal of ceremony. None of their
melodies were familiar to me, but of course the service was.
It was over at 10:30.

Sunday, April 6, [19] 19.

This is another beautiful day and mild. After studying a
lot of papers that had to do with Palestine relief, we actually
treated ourselves to an hour's walk through the Jardin des
Tuileries and along the Seine. It was beautiful and the hundreds
upon hundreds of captured German cannons were a good sight.

Monday, 2 A.M. Just back from a full meeting which began
at 8 P.M. at which twenty speeches were made in at least four
different languages. This is the last of these lengthy discussions,
I think. Whether we have paved the way for a real union I do
not know, but at least we have tried. s8

3* See "Memorandum of the Proceedings of a Meeting of Representatives of
Jewish Organizations of Various Countries Held at the Salle du Gonsistoire
Isra&ite, Rue de La Victoire" (Saturday, April 5th, and Sunday, April 6th,
1919), "Diary," Part II, pp. 91-1 15.

Dr. Adler's view is reported on pp. 105-6:

Doctor Adler stated that nearly all the previous speakers had drawn a sharp
line between the East and the West. He could say without the slightest hesita-
tion that no such line exists for him. Whether we say Kol Yisrael Ahim (and
none can fight so bitterly as brothers) or Kol Tisrad Haberim (he preferred the
latter because it is an expression of will and indicates greater likelihood of
getting on together), we must try to secure full rights. An agreement was of the
greatest importance. If two, four, or six projects are handed in to the Conference
they are likely to be examined by men less competent to deal with them than
the gentlemen present. These men would be likely to strike out disagreements
hi the various projects and leave a colorless and useless document. Is the
historic position of the Jews of Poland one of choice or necessity? He believed
their greatest desire would have been for centuries to free themselves from
the conditions imposed upon them by Poles and Russians. Yet, if the Eastern
Jews would take the responsibility of insisting that they get rights different
from those of the other Jews, he was ready to support them. They should
consider that whatever they did would affect 3,300,000 Jews in America,

470

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, I gig

April 7, 1919 (Monday).

At the meeting last night, I made a brief address (one of
twenty), but the forces that are at play in this place are not
disposed to reason; each has his own idea and must have all
or nothing. I do not suppose this state of mind will last, but
just at present the attitudes of the various peoples are as little
to be composed as the ocean in a storm. Maybe we will have a
calm later on.

The relief work is a sure thing at least. We were arranging
this morning to purchase from the Army shoes, underwear,
socks, and stuff to be made up into women's and children's
clothes to be sent to Poland. Mr. Marshall and I had decided
to spend $100,000.00 on this and only a few minutes ago I got
word that Lord Swaythling39 had telegraphed £40,000.00 for
the same purpose. Dr. Bogen40 and four others are in Poland
now to distribute what is sent, and the Hoover administration
furnishes the cars for transportation,

three-fourths of whom had come in the last forty years. He preferred a formula
giving the Jews all rights granted any other section of the population. Such a
formula, omitting the phrase "national rights" but securing them where other
nations did, would secure rights for the East without injuring the West. He
did not wish to judge for others but did not wish others to judge for those he
represented. It was well known that Jews had frequently been called a nation
in the Western world. At one time, before the readmission of the Jews to
England, the Sephardic Jews there were known as the Portuguese nation.
The Indian tribes in America are called nations and are so designated in
treaties made with them by the United States. Whenever the Western world
used the word nation, however, it implied the adjective foreign, and meant
that those so designated did not form part of the population.

At the conclusion of the meeting, a committee of seven was appointed to
prepare a draft of a "union formula" to be presented to the Peace Conference,
which included representatives of the various Jewish delegations. Marshall and
Adler were appointed to this committee.

3 9 Lord Louis Samuel Swaythling (his family name was originally Montagu) and
Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild were elected members of the delegation of the Jews
of the British Empire to represent British Jewry at the meetings in Paris, but they
were unable to leave England. They were replaced by Henry Straus Quixano
Henriques and Joseph Prag.

4° Boris D. Bogen served as administrator of Jewish relief in Poland. See his
autobiography, Born A Jew (New York, 1930), especially chapters XIV-XIX.

471

MOSHE DAVIS

Tuesday, April 8, [19] 19.

Before I answer your letters, let me say that our own affairs
here are beginning to take a better turn — at least an approach
to unity. Our large committee of about fifty had appointed a
small committee of seven, which met this morning. I cannot
say that harmony is certain, but at least approaches have been
made. My travelling companion [Marshall] and I represent
the U.S.A. on this committee of seven so there is no kick coming
our way. . . .

. . . God knows this is a time when good understanding and
peace are needed in this world.41 I also feel that for the relief
work alone I have been able to help more here in two days
than I could have in a year at home. It was very necessary to
come. Some of us ought to have been over here all these years.
The need and the work are both stupendous, and it is big
work. . . ,42

Wednesday, April 9, 1919.

We are making our plans for Pesach as follows: Seder with
the soldiers. I am getting four kilos of matzos and will get boiled
eggs and coffee sent to the room. Other meals I will go to the

<xjanowsky cites Nahum Sokolow's testimony to Adler's conciliatory attitude:
"Outside our ranks Mr. Adler was really the most accommodating" (pp. 305-6).
Tenenbaum, who is highly critical of the "assimilationist American Jewish Com-
mittee'* approach of Adler throughout his volume (see especially pp. 35, 65, 70),
places a different emphasis on the compromise proposal (see pp. 75-80).

*3 The "Diary" is punctuated with tragic reports from Poland. A typical insertion
is dated Friday, April nth:

We then went to the Welfare Board where we met Major Davis, M.D., U. S. A.,
who gave us a most terrible picture of conditions in Poland. The synagogue[s],
he said, were filled with people, many of them ill with typhus, because they
had no other shelter; he saw people delirious from hunger. He said that at
the beginning, Doctor Bogen met with great difficulties — but gradually his
position was improved — that most of the Commissioners were useless; that
what was needed were strong young men and women who were willing to
sacrifice their comfort and they ought to be in uniform [pp. 20-21],

472

CYRUS ABLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, I gig

kosher restaurant . . . though I am going to lay in some sausage
in case it should be too bad weather on a walking day ....

Thursday, April 10, 1919.

Tomorrow there will be more "conversations," and by the
middle of next week our Jewish delegations will reach an
agreement if one is possible. The men from Eastern Europe
have been through a lot and their conditions are heartrending.
One cannot avoid sympathizing with their needs (and I do
not mean only their physical needs), even if we cannot always
follow their judgement.

Sunday night, April 13, [19] 19.

Affairs seem to be reaching a crisis, and I am afraid we shall
have a busy Passover. Whatever may come out of it, I shall
always feel that, in spite of my sorrow at being away from you,
it was necessary to come and that it would have been a betrayal
of helpless people not to do so. Only I ought to have come in
December.

April 14, 1919, Monday, nos mtf [Erev Pesach].
All this morning we spent at the Hotel Grillon creating, I
think, favorable public opinion. ... It looks like a very long
story. I shouldn't be surprised if things would last until the
summer. It is a game of watchful waiting. However, it is a
stormy day, and I may be pessimistic.

Wednesday, April 16, 1919.

Monday evening we went to the Rue Victoire to synagogue,
where there was an enormous congregation and a beautiful
service. Then to the hall where the JWB [Jewish Welfare Board]
Seder was held. There were five hundred seats around the table
and, excepting forty reserved for officials and the various

473

MOSHE DAVIS

delegates who were here and asked to be invited, all the rest
were occupied by soldiers, officers and men. A few were Austral-
ians and the rest Americans. The service was chanted by an
American soldier from Washington, [Abe] SchefFerman, who
has a powerful and magnificent voice. After the service there
was, unfortunately, speaking. I led off, followed by Marshall,
[Julian W.J Mack, a French colonel who "represented" Marshal
[Ferdinand] Foch, and Congressman [Walter Marion] Chandler.
I was rather opposed to this part of the programme, but the boys
seemed to like it, and I tell you they can cheer. All the details
were observed. Each person had his dish of charoset, horseradish,
lettuce, and herbs. It was really an inspiring sight, and the
boys were so happy and felt themselves greatly honored. It
rained cats and dogs, and we were all soaked when we got
home, but none the worse for wear. . . .

Tuesday morning I went to the Portuguese synagogue, which
was also crowded. The service was very impressive, and the
Americans all got honors. ... I accompanied the Law and
[David S.] Blondheim had something else. My regular seat now
is on the banco, with the president and I was called up as
"Monsieur Cyrus Adler de la Consistoire de Philadelphia.5*
(By the way, I am getting along better in French than I thought,
although I am somewhat timid about it in good society.) The
chant for the prayer for the dew is exactly as with us. I wish
we would have more dew and less rain. . . .

In the evening we went again to the Seder. This time [Harry]
Cutler, Marshall, and I were the only guests. The Australian
Jewish chaplain and the soldiers themselves made the speeches,
and it was more informal and jollier than the first night. Most
of the boys who were there the second night could not get in
the first night. There were more Australians present, and they
gave their peculiar war cry. . . .

You say you are wondering whether things are going as I

474

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, 1 919

want them. There is no use writing about them as everything
is in a state of flux, but the big things look a little better, and
our own hold out some hope, though I fear we cannot bring
about unanimity.

April 17, 1919.

. . . this whole business is one of watchful waiting, to use a
famous phrase, but the elements are so diverse and the conditions
so big that the watching is harder than the working. This is
not a complaint, only a statement of fact. Tonight we have
been sitting in the hotel with a couple of bright Americans
•engaged in what is here the principal business: talking, with a
goodly number of stories thrown in.

Friday, April 18, [19] 19.

My principal business today has been at Mr. Hoover's office,
•where I have been twice in connection with affairs in Poland,
which are very horrifying. . , .43

« The interview with Herbert Hoover, chairman of the American Relief Com-
mittee, is summarized in the "Diary," pp. 182-85.

The following extract of the report of the meeting indicates the similarity of
views held by Adler and Hoover. Yet Adler persisted in presenting the views
of the East European delegations.

.... Mr. Hoover said further:

1. That strong Jews in America and elsewhere ought to be factors in
preventing the Jews in Poland from continuing the mistakes they are now
making in causing a political division.

2. That the Jews ought to insist on political equality and religious liberty.

3. That it is a profound error to introduce the words "national rights"
into the discussion. He again, at this point, emphasized the need for demanding
political equality and refigious liberty.

Doctor Adler here stated that this had been his own view but that practically
all the Jewish delegations from Eastern Europe insisted that national minority
rights were their only safeguard; that the Eastern Jews insisted that they know
conditions and are the best judges of what they require and that the Western
Jews have no right to impose their views upon them. That even the French
and English Jews who do not use the word "national" insist upon "minority
rights."

Mr. Hoover said that he considers this a most serious mistake.

4. That the Joint Distribution Committee should continue to do its relief

475

MOSHE DAVIS

.... I am playing a lone hand in the main until such time
as I think it may be useful for the cause to do otherwise. The
position is not an easy one but I am standing as an independent
entity representing America. I may tire out most of the others
before they tire me out. You may be sure that I am not moved
by personal considerations, for the position is too tremendous
to have such considerations weigh. But just at the moment it
seems wise to me.

Wednesday, April 23, 1919.

.... If ever there was a time when individuals counted for
nothing, and the cause of millions of suffering humanity counted,
this is the time. I hope you will not think the less of me because
of my method; indeed, it is the only one I can employ.

Everything now is on the knees of the Olympians, the big
four, and by next Monday we shall know how things turn out.
Nobody will be satisfied, of that I am sure, but it may be that
even with deductions we shall get a great charter of liberties
for our people. Let us hope so.

April 25, 1919.

.... This is the most nerve-racking atmosphere that ever
was churned up. No hours are possible for meals or anything
else. People knock at your door before you are up and drop
in at 10:45 P.M. . . .

work in Poland in which the American Relief Administration is giving and
will give every possible assistance.

5. That it should continue to organize local committees for this purpose,
but that in Poland and wherever else it does its work, it should make it a
condition of administering of relief in any form, that the committees should
have no political character, or that the participants therein do no political
work against the existing government

He asked Doctor Adler to make titiis clear to his people and when Doctor
Adler asked for permission to quote him, he assented.

April nineteenth, 1919.

475

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, I gig

April 27, 1919.

We then called on Baron Edmond de Rothschild and had a
most interesting hour's talk. He is a tall, spare man of seventy-
three, very intelligent and well informed as to affairs all over
the world.

His "hotel" is a very fine one, and the room in which we
were received full of fine pictures and other objects of art. . . .

April 28, 1919.

Tonight a half dozen of us, including two men just in from
Poland, dined together, and we got more details about condi-
tions there and tried to think out plans to be of help. It is a
hard nut to crack, as indeed is most of the Eastern world.
Anyone who is perfectly sure that he knows what is best is a
mixture of sublime assurance and actual ignorance.

Midnight, May i, [19] 19.

This evening I went to Rabbi Lieber's [Maurice Liber] for
dinner. Blondheim called for me. We were the only guests. The
family consisted of the rabbi, his wife, and sister-in-law. Two
dear little girls about four and six were allowed to stay up to
see me, and I suppose out of compliment to me one of them
was dressed in something that looked perilously like an American
flag.

Friday afternoon, May 2, 1919.

This morning at Brentano's and the Hotel Crillon I devoted
a couple hours to the Free Library of Philadelphia and made
good progress. I think the matter will work out satisfactorily. I
got an armful of pamphlets and maps this morning for
nothing. . . ,44

<* This was one of Dr. Adler's "hobby" assignments. He had consented, before
leaving New York, to the request of Simon Gratz, then president of the Board of

477

MOSHE DAVIS

May 4, 1919, 11:20 P.M.

I picked up the other day a volume of Sherlock Holmes
stories which I have never read, so think what fun I am
having. . . .

Monday morning. May 5, [1919].

.... Yesterday afternoon Marshall, Cutler, and I decided
on an afternoon off. Cutler had a fine limousine, and we went
through the Bois de Boulogne, which is wonderfully green and
beautiful and was crowded with people. Then out to Versailles,
where we saw all the wonders, both outdoor and in the miles of
historical paintings, too many of which look as though they were
done to order. You probably remember, however, the tapestries,
which to my eye are infinitely more beautiful than the paintings.
But it was the out of doors which is the most beautiful of all.
Such gardens and lawns and avenues of trees and fountains
exist nowhere else in the world. Part of the grounds were closed
off, for the Boches are there. We saw a few of them walking in
their enclosure, but of course could distinguish no faces. There
was a big crowd peering through the great iron gates but not a
sound or a word of insult was uttered. As the Boches themselves
say, their reception has been cold but correct.

Tuesday, May 6, 1919.

I hope no one will exaggerate nay little part here. There
are at least forty Jewish representatives from different parts of
the world, and if all claim the exclusive credit for what may
or may not happen, Baron Munchausen won't be in it with them.

Trustees of the Free Library of Philadelphia, to try to build up the collection of
early atlases for the Library. Adler describes in his autobiography how he used
"to prowl around the streets of Paris from about five o'clock until dinner time,"
and that he visited hundreds of bookshops. He bought a fine collection and arranged
with Brentano's in Paris to be his shipping agent.

478

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

Today I made a funny find: a Purim plate of a kind I have
never seen before. Haman is a pitiable looking object. It is
inscribed and dated 1 795.

May 8, 1919.

I sent you a cable this morning about the treaty because I
wanted you to hear from me direct that the first round in the
fight has been won, although I have no doubt that what I
cabled you and much more has been sent to the American
papers. . . .

Maybe my writing conveys to you some idea of the excitement
everyone here is laboring under. There is no outward show,
but the feeling is akin to that of Armistice Day. Whether the
Germans will sign is another matter, but even if they do not,
the necessary military measures will only in my opinion be in
the nature of a demonstration and not of a fight.

Oscar [S. Straus] feels very good about the League of Nations
and has a very warm letter from the President acknowledging
his help. . . .

May 9, 1919.

.... It was absolutely necessary for some responsible people
to be here for the relief. Otherwise much unnecessary suffering
which we could prevent would have gone on. God knows there
is enough.45

Saturday night. May 10, 1919.

.... We [with Elkan Adler] prowled among book shops,
and as luck would have it, I struck one from which I expect

*s A portion of every day was assigned to the relief work, On Sunday, May nth,
Adler records: "We saw Mr. Oscar Straus and Mr. Lewis Strauss this evening,
We agreed to telegraph to Washington for permission to create a Joint Distribution
Committee uniform. We discussed the formation of a business corporation for
constructive relief, also the advisability of sending a Jew as Consul-General or
Consul to Poland." ["Diary," pp. 41-42.]

479

MOSHE DAVIS

to get a lot of old atlases. I think the Philadelphia Library will
get a fine collection. . . .

Sunday night. May n, 1919.

This afternoon Marshall and I went to see Salomon Reinach.
He lives at Boulogne. We drove through the Bois, which was
filled with people, and the most wonderful avenues of horse
chestnut trees. Reinach (not the one who was in America) is
one of the most cultivated men in the world. He has a library
of 30,000 volumes, mostly on archaeology and art. . . .

May 12, 1919.

.... Tonight we went to an amateur soldiers' show called
"Who Can Tell," got up by the men of the 88th Division and
given under the auspices of the JWB. Mr. and Mrs. O. S,
Straus, Marshall, [Chaplain Elkan G] Voorsanger, and your
humble servant occupied the centre box and enjoyed ourselves
immensely. The place was packed — of course with soldiers.
There were 155 men in the cast, and those who acted as girls
were simply killing; but the pony ballet brought down the
house. I haven't laughed so much at anything I have seen in
Paris, and those around me enjoyed it as much. The scenery
was very elaborate — and beautiful — and the Persian ladies
wonderful. I think the professional stage could learn something
from the boys, and they were graceful and snappy.

May 13, 1919.

We had very bad news from Wilna via Copenhagen, but
as the latter is a center of news-mongering I went to the ARA
(American Relief Administration, L e. Hoover) to set machinery
in motion for authentic information. By the way, no one troubles
to use words here, but all speak in abbreviations.
Then I met two Captains, [Ulysses Morris] Bachman and
480

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

[Simon] Reisler, who have been attached to the Peace Commis-
sion;46 I would like to have them transferred to the ARA, as I
believe they could do enormously good work in Eastern Europe.

May 14, 1919.

.... You will be interested to know the exact words of the
treaty, which I got only yesterday through Oscar Straus.

Article 93 is as follows: "Poland accepts and agrees to embody
in a Treaty with the Principal Allied and Associated Powers
such provisions as may be deemed necessary by the said Powers
to protect the interests of inhabitants of Poland who differ from
the majority of the population in race, language, or religion."

Every word counts here, and it is much stronger than in the
advanced summary from which I quoted in the cable.

I must go and attend to something now because of horrible
news from Wilna, and this is a time of peace.

May 15, 1919.

.... You know too from my letters that the job is not yet
done, that there is a supplemental treaty, and that Roumania
and Russia are still to be considered. It is our hope that a norm
established for Poland will be applied automatically to the
other countries.

.... Today I spent two hours at old book shops and com-
pleted as far as I can the collection of atlases for the Phila-
delphia Free Library. . . .

Midnight, May 15 [1919].

.... I gave a little dinner on my own account tonight, to
Marshall, Lewis Straus [s], and Captain Bachman. As a result,
the latter agreed to go in for relief work. . . .

*6 Captain Simon Reisler of Indianapolis and Captain Ulysses Morris Bachman of
Cleveland were medical officers who served in Salonica, the Ukraine, Bulgaria,
Serbia, Galicia, and Poland.

481

MOSHE DAVIS

Sunday night, May 18, [19] 19.

Lewis Straus[s] (Mr. Hoover's secretary), about whom I
have written occasionally and who is one of the dearest boys
that ever came down the pike, sent word yesterday that he
would like to take Marshall and me out for the day. . . . 4 7

We first went to the Plaza to return Judge Mack's good-bye
call. He went to London at eleven and sails on Wednesday.
We then started off and got back at Paris dusk about 8:45,
travelling nearly 300 miles in an open car. You should see my
face, it is full of red roses.

I can't possibly give you the names of all the towns and
villages we passed through, but we were at Belleau Woods,
now known as the Bois des Marines des fitats Unis, at CMteau-
Thierry, at Rheims, and Fismes, up and down across the Marne,
and saw a good part of this sector of the battle front.

Much is already covered over, but I saw enough to make
my blood boil anew and to feel that nothing that the Germans
have inflicted on them in the treaty is enough.

I have seen thousands of little dwellings shattered to atoms,
the dugouts which sheltered the German machine guns, trenches,
enormous holes in the ground made by great shells, barbed
wire entanglements four rows deep (the American barbed wire
was much better than the German). I walked through the
Belleau Woods and saw where the battle took place, passed
very many small cemeteries and, alas, many places on the
roadside where there was a single grave. I walked through
the streets of Rheims, which almost looks like a city of the dead,

4t Adler*s affection for the young Strauss was revealed in other ways, as the
following paragraph from Mr. Strauss's letter of February u, 1954, indicates:

Dr. Adler was especially kind to me. Busy as he was, he took the time and
trouble to write to my parents in Richmond, Virginia, whom he had never
met, to give them a good report of me. I still have that letter, for my mother,
of blessed memory, carefully treasured it, and I found it among her effects many
years later.

482

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE, 1 919

many of the streets simply pulverized, with here and there a
part of a house standing and a few people and a goat or donkey
inhabiting it. And the magnificent cathedral with its roof gone,
partially defaced, but still standing in the main in ruined
grandeur. The town of Fismes is even more of a ruin than
Rheims — almost every house shattered. No pen can paint
these pictures, it takes the eye to see them. I saw German
prisoners, lots of them, at work or marching in their billets,
but well clad and well fed. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that mere fiendishness was at work here, else why should every
house in a village down in the valley, far away from the railroads,
from any fortification, be shot to pieces? It was just damned
deviltry; the Bodies had the guns, and these houses were targets.
You can see signs of how they expected to own the country, for
they had put up signs in German, which are still standing,
giving directions as to roads, etc. When you see Rheims, you
realize what a mercy of God it was that they did not get to Paris.
Truly the name Huns is not undeserved.

May 19 [1919].

.... The JWB will soon be over, but the relief work could
go on indefinitely. Every day multiplies horrors.

May 20, 1919, 10:15 P M.

.... I had a call this morning from [Claude G.] Montefiore,
Sir Stuart Samuel, Messrs. Henriques and Prag of London. Of
course, the whole question is the internal? conditions in Eastern
Europe where fourteen separate wars are now being fought.
Still, the peace conference is slowly but surely marching to its
end. It must stop some time, and then maybe the world will
take the League of Nations for a trained nurse and go to bed
for a rest cure. ...

483

MOSHE DAVIS

May ai, Midnight [1919].

We had terrible details tonight in connection with the fighting
in Wilna — 2,200 Jews were buried by the Hebra Kadisha;
all the people at a service in one synagogue were killed. I
suppose you will have read the details in the press long before
this reaches you. The whole world seems mad.

May 22, 1919.

.... I hope you will meet Lewis Straus [s] some day. He
has the judgement of a man of forty, enormous power of work,
a kind heart, and is just a six foot kid into the bargain. . . .

Sunday morning, May 25 [1919].

I spent the morning at the office of the JDG {Joint Distribution
Committee] receiving horrible cables about pogroms from
various sources. We have had very full direct reports of the
great demonstration in New York. It was a good thing to have
done. I have several times cabled to the JDC very full statements
of the horrors we heard about.

We have had a very full account by wire of the great dem-
onstration in New York, which may prove of high importance. 4 8

I am keeping a record — but rather a working record — my
human one is going to you.

If I haven't told you before, I will say now that at the latter
end and now we are a "united front" again and while the
temporary decision was unfortunate and created great mental
distress to those of us who were in earnest about unity, in the
last analysis I think no real harm was done.

4* A cablegram of some two thousand words was sent by Jacob H. Schiffto Marshall
and Adler, who then brought it to the attention of President Wilson. For the
documents and additional material on this phase of their work, including the
reports of the Morgenthau Commission, see Cyrus Adler and Aaron M. Margalith,
With Firmness in the Right (New York, 1946), pp. 152-67.

484

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

.... I can say of my own knowledge that it was highly
necessary that Bogen should come over here. No hero of the
war has done or stood what that man has gone through. I
consider him one of the great Jewish heroes, and when the time
comes I mean to say so. ...

May 26, 1919.

Today we took a long step forward, I think, both in the
matter of rights and the stopping of pogroms. We had a half
hour's talk with the President, who was most gracious and
sympathetic. He looks remarkably well in view of the great
strain he has been under, and I remarked it to him. He said:
"Well, I ascribe it to the fact that I haven't lost my sense of
humor." He is lodged in a very beautiful house in a lovely
street which they call the Place des feats Unis, and very near
it is the splendid Avenue de President Wilson. It may be that
long before this reaches you the press may have some statement
of this interview, though I do not know just what was given out.

I said to Mr. Marshall as we left the house, if anybody had
told us five years ago that we two would be talking to the
President of the United States in Paris, we would have had him
locked up as a lunatic. None of the others who have gone back
to the U. S. had an interview with the President; this is the
first that has been secured.49

We then spent an hour with Mr. Hoover and went over many
phases of the relief problem. s °

4* The interview is fully described in / Have Considered the Days, pp. 313-16, and
in the "Diary," pp. 206-9. See also Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, II, pp.
552-53-

s ° Herbert Hoover records in his new volume, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, that
"next to the Peace Conference itself, the most important American activity during
the peacemaking and for some time afterward was the Relief and Reconstruction of
Europe, under my direction. Mr. Wilson often referred to it as the 'Second Amer-
ican Expeditionary Force to Save Europe.' " See pp. 87-93, under the subdivisions

485

MOSHE DAVIS

May 27, 1919.

... it doesn't make much difference what anyone says, the
real point will be what was accomplished, and if we can bring
home the accomplishment, the talk won't amount to much.
I have, however, great confidence in the result. You must
consider the cause and sink the personalities. Marshall has
been wonderful, and we never could have accomplished half of
what we will without him. After the agreement on policy this
has been largely a lawyer's task in competition with the greatest
international lawyers of the world, and he has more than held
his own. Mack worked hard and, as a United States judge and
with his other Washington connections, was of great value. . . .

May 28, 1919.

.... Miss [Harriet B.] Lowenstein returned from Vienna
and Warsaw full of dreadful accounts. She showed us a piece
of bread customarily eaten by the poor, which looked more like
dung than anything else. I don't believe a pig would eat it.
Well, enough of horrors.

I had a half hour and went to Brentano's to arrange for
the purchase of some more books for which I had received
offers. If my credit for the Free Library holds out, I will make
for them a great collection of atlases.

May 29, 1919, 10:30 P.M.

Tomorrow is Decoration Day. There are services in the
various synagogues and churches. I am going to the Rue
Victoire in the morning and in the afternoon, when I am on
the Committee to receive the President.

"The Relief and Reconstruction of Europe" and "Organizing the Relief and
Reconstruction."

486

CYRUS ABLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

Decoration Day morning . . . we must stay for the sup-
plementary treaties, as the main treaties have in them, so far
as we are concerned, only generalities, and after all it is the
details that count for everyday life. A job half done is no job
at all. . . . The supplementary treaty about Poland is by this
time in the hands of the Poles. We will see how they take it.
Of course, not a word is allowed in the newspapers about it here,
though there has been a "leak" to the London Times. Such
leaks, however, greatly injure the papers that use them. . . .

.... I am also convinced that Hebrew should be used as
a spoken language and am willing, when I come home, to join
in the movement to that end. While I am too old ever to get
a good use of it, I realize that we must have a language in
which we can communicate with each other. . . .

May 30, 1919, 4P.M.

This morning we had services at the big Synagogue, as there
were at various churches. I enclose you the JWB program; it
was very dignified and simple, and the addresses were short
and touching. I confess that I openly wept.

This afternoon at two there were services at the American
Cemetery at Suresnes. It was a sad but wonderful occasion. Many
thousands of Americans and French were there, and the hillsides
were crowded with American boys in khaki, and the cemetery
was filled with American graves. The President made a fine
speech, and he was attended by Marshal Foch (who looks very
much like his pictures only more weather-beaten). Ambassador
[Hugh Campbell] Wallace, Henry White, General [Tasker
Howard] Bliss, Admiral [Andrew Theodore] Long, and in-
numerable French generals and other people whom I don't
know. ...

It is hard to judge whether the President's speech will be
immortal, and it contained some references to immediate events,

487

MOSHE DAVIS

but I thought it very great, and certainly there are few men who
in an even voice can address a multitude in the open air and be

heard.

As the present titular head of the JWB overseas, I was on
the reception committee and so had an excellent place only a
few feet from the speaker's stand. . . .

It did seem to me an historic occasion for the President of
the United States to be speaking on French soil in the presence,
alas, of so many American dead. Let us hope they did not
die in vain.

May 31, 1919, Saturday night.

We feel reasonably secure, but there is danger of a joker
being slipped in or of some perfectly well-meaning person
dropping a monkey wrench in the machinery, so it is most
advisable to see the thing through.

I was talking today with the representation of the English
Quakers, who are doing a great deal of relief work in Europe,
and they, like us, are appalled at the immensity of the task.

June i [1919].

The Matin reports this morning that the Austrian treaty was
given in confidence yesterday to the minor powers. The Matin
states that various representatives of the smaller powers objected
to the clause granting rights to minorities as being an interference
with their internal affairs. Mr. Wilson replied, justifying the
attitude of the great powers in taking the responsibility of
guaranteeing a reign of justice to the citizens of all the states
born or enlarged by the war. There may be some minor changes
made in wording, but the condition at present seems satisfactory.
It is understood that the treaty goes to the Austrians tomorrow.
Possibly your papers have fuller reports, as there seems to be a

488

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

disposition to let a little more news out, but of course I don't
know.

Junes, 1919, 10 P.M.

On the first day of Shebuot I went to the Portuguese Syn-
agogue, which I like very much. It was beautifully decorated,
and the little boys were charming. The Chief Rabbi gave a
good sermon and read the Ten Commandments himself. When
he goes up to preach or to the Law he is attended by two
Shamas[h]im, and the small boys, and the whole congregation
stands. I was seated on the banco, with the president, and every
one who was called up walked over and shook hands with him
and felt it necessary to shake hands with me too. . . .

June 13, 1919.

This is Friday afternoon, the i3th, and hasn't been a pleasant
day as we only get more harrowing details from Eastern Europe.
These are not new facts but the details of them. Some of them
are intended, I think, to frighten us off from our work, but we
are not built that way.

June 17, 1919.

With regard to the pogroms, it is not impossible that they
are partly intended to scare us off from continuing our work
here, but we are trying to set millions of people free and will
not stop, nor do the Jewish people in Eastern Europe want us
to stop. They want to be rid of the terrible torture of each day,
and say that they would rather die of hunger or be killed than
to be insulted and degraded every day. I have sent a letter to
Dr. Bogen today, which I hope he will show in the proper
quarters and which may at least give him some moral support
in his very trying position in Warsaw. . . .

4*9

MOSHE DAVIS

June 24, 1919.

.... The town is commencing to decorate itself most beau-
tifully to celebrate the signing of the peace, which will probably
be before the end of this week. They had quite a lively time !ast
night, but I fancy the real blowout will come after signing. . . .

.... I met Mr. [Henry] Morgenthau on the street, and
although he is eaten up with his profession, shows a genuine
interest in Jewish affairs. In fact, the most indifferent Jews have
become interested over here. It is difficult to escape it. s x

June 25, 1919.

.... I cannot see how things can be delayed much longer.
It is now in the cards that the Boche will sign on Saturday of
this week, if they can get anyone to sign for him. He is a slippery
customer; he began the war with the invasion of Belgium and
ends it by scuttling his ships.

June 29, 1919.

I went to the Portuguese Synagogue, where there was an
excellent attendance. We [with Marshall] walked across the
river to the Invalides. Crowds were beginning to gather all
about the Place de la Concorde, awaiting the booming of the
cannon to signal the signing of the treaty with Germany.
Meanwhile every man, woman, and child who had the price
had streamed out to Versailles. We heard the booming all right,
but it was the Polish treaty that interested us most. . . . Back

** President Wilson appointed a mission (consisting of Henry Morgenthau,
Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin, and Homer H. Johnson) to go to Poland to
investigate the relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations. Although
Adler advised Morgenthau not to accept the appointment, Morgenthau felt that
the mission would be helpful, since it was to come at the invitation of Paderewski
to investigate the various reports emanating from Poland. Moreover, the mission
hoped to discover a way to ameliorate the pogroms and discriminations. See also
Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, p. 141, "Outbreaks of Jewish Persecution
in Poland."

490

CYRUS ADLER AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE,

we went to the Crillon and met Ray Stannard Baker, who told
us it had been signed in another room from that in which the
correspondents were and was all right, and so the long fight
was over and won. . . .

Then we tried to get dinner, but the town had broken loose
and it was hard to get anything. I dipped into the crowds, up
to the Madeline, back to the Crillon, along the Rue Rivoli, up
the Rue de la Paix to the Op&ra, and there the crowd was too
much even for me. Taxis were not allowed to run; people
danced in the streets, and there was a great jollification that
the war was at last over, five years from the date of the assassina-
tion at Sarajevo. May I add that I drank a bottle of champagne
before going to bed?

This morning Sokolow called for the purpose of giving
congratulations. We went to Morgenthau's for a conference;
he is to go to Poland as the head of a special mission with
Homer Johnson of the Liquidation Board, who has been at
this hotel as long as we have. . . . Now that the Polish treaty
is signed, we hope to aid in bringing about a reconciliation
between the two populations in Poland. . . .

I begin to feel that it is certain that Roumania, all the new
countries, and even Greece will have similar terms made and
that it is not necessary to see each one through. I confess now
that the result is better than I had dared to hope in view of the
seesawing of the last two months, that there were many dangers
and that we owe most of the result to President Wilson.52

*3 The feeling of gratitude to Wilson was shared by all the Jewish delegations and
was formally expressed to him on behalf of the Comit'e des Delegations Juives in a
letter of May i6th. Signed by Louis Marshall and Julian W. Mack, the letter
revealed not only the hope that had been placed in Wilson, but also the hope
that had been centered in the Peace Conference.

"We take this opportunity of giving expression to the gratitude that the Jews of
all the world owe to you for your mighty endeavors to obtain for them that measure
of justice for which they have waited well nigh twenty centuries." ["Diary,**
Part III, p. 316.]

491

The Writings of Jacob Rader Marcus

Compiled by HERBERT C. ZAFREN

I\ BIBLIOGRAPHY is in the nature of a skeletal literary
biography, and the bibliographer is tempted to write a bio-
graphical introduction using his compilation as a primary source.
One can watch with ease the progression as our subject writes
first for his hometown Jewish paper, then for his school's student
publication, for Jewish papers of wider popular appeal, for
scholarly journals, local and distant. One sees Marcus, the
student, become a soldier in 1917, a Ph.D. candidate in Berlin
writing a dissertation in German in 1925, a leading rabbi with
a presidential message to the Central Conference of American
Rabbis in 1950, a renowned historian with a presidential address
to the American Jewish Historical Society in 1957. From book
reviewer in the school organ to sought-after writer of prefaces
and introductions in the works of students and colleagues,
Dr. Marcus has risen from humble beginnings to the heights
in his chosen fields.

But these and other almost obvious observations can easily
be made by any user of the bibliography.

It remains for us to indicate that there are no illusions about
the completeness of this list. There may be titles completely
overlooked by the compiler and forgotten by Dr. Marcus, whose
help the compiler acknowledges with much gratitude. There

Mr. Herbert C. Zafren is the Librarian at the Hebrew Union College -Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

493

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

are certainly many possible references to reprintings in other
places; some were intentionally omitted. In 1922, for example,
there appeared "The Rise of the House of Hillel" in The Scribe.
The American Israelite reprinted this in 1928, and very soon
thereafter the London Jewish World picked it up. This, like
some later items, may have appeared in almost syndicated
fashion in community papers in scattered places throughout
the United States and elsewhere. A first reference, and occa-
sionally a second, are deemed sufficient.

Largely because of dating difficulties, one whole category has
been removed from the list. As a very conscientious and careful
teacher. Dr. Marcus prepared many syllabi for his courses and
had them published in mimeograph form. A partial list follows:

1 . G History — From the Fall of the First Temple, 586 B.C.E.,
to the Fall of Jerusalem, 70 G.E. (This appeared in at least
three editions.)

2. C History — The History of the Jewish People in the Days
of the Second Temple 516 B. G. E. — 70 G. E.

3. The Jew in the Near East, 70-311 G. E.

4. The Medieval Jew, 311-1791 G.E.

5. The Jew in the Medieval and Modern World, 31 r to date.

6. History III — Modern Jewish History — From the Be-
ginning of the 1 7th Century to Present Times.

7. History III — Modern Jewish History — From the Middle
of the 1 7th Century to Present Times.

8. The American Jew.

Other, generally non-scholarly, publications are also intention-
ally omitted.

The list is arranged chronologically by year, but alphabetically
within any one year. Collations are simple except to distinguish
variant editions; cross references are provided to facilitate use.

494

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS
1916

1. America: The Spiritual Center of Jewery [sic]. Jewish Community
Bulletin. Wheeling, Vol. i, No. 3, pp. 4-5, 8.

2. The Jews of Russia and Poland. Hebrew Union College Monthly.
Cincinnati, Vol. 2, pp. 171-172.

A review of Israel Friedlaender's The Jews of Russia and Poland (New
York, 1915).

3. Mendele Mocher Seforim. American Hebrew. New York, Vol. 98,
pp. 410-411.

4. [Review of] T%e Evolution of Modern Hebrew Literature, by Abraham

5. Waldstein (New York, 1916). Hebrew Union College Monthly. Cin-
cinnati, Vol. 2, pp. 304-305.

5. [Review of] The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Chicago,
I9I5)> James Orr, Editor-in-Chief, 5 vols. Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 20-23.

6. Year Book — Central Conference of American Rabbis, Vol. XXV.
Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 175-176.

A review.

1917

7. Hebrew Union College Monthly. Jacob R. Marcus, Editor-in-Chief.
Vol. 4, 1917-1918.

Inactive in this year because of military service, Dr. Marcus was an
active Associate Editor for Vols. 3 and 6, during which time his initials
appear under several editorials.

8. Judaism and Struggling Christianity. Hebrew Union College Monthly.
Cincinnati, Vol. 3, pp. 181-194.

9. Martin Luther and the Jews. Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 69-80, 122-133.

10. [Review of] The Jews Among the Greeks and the Romans, by Max
Radin (Philadelphia, 1915). Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 159-160.

495

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

1918

11. The Jewish Soldier. Hebrew Union College Monthly, Cincinnati,
Vol. 4, pp. 115-122.

1919

12. Lost: Judaism in the A[merican] Efxpeditionary] Fforces]; the
Urgent Need for Welfare Workers. American Hebrew. New York,
Vol. 104, pp. 448, 456-457.

13. Religion and the Jewish Soldier. The Community Voice of the Allen-
town Jewish Community Center. AUentown, Pa., Vol. i, No. i, pp. 6, 8, 14.

14. [Review of] Chosen Peoples. 7 he Hebraic Ideal Versus the Teutonic,
by Israel Zangwill (London, 1918). Hebrew Union College Monthly,
Cincinnati, Vol. 6, pp. 22-23.

1920

15. An Investigation into Polish Jewish Life of the Sixteenth Century with
Special Reference to Isaac ben Abraham, Author ofHizuk Emunah* Cincinnati,
[198] pp. variously paged.

Rabbinic thesis. Typescript deposited at Hebrew Union College Library.

16. [Review of] The Inward Light, by Allan Davis and Anna R. Strat-
ton (New York, 1919). Hebrew Union College Monthly. Cincinnati, Vol. 6,
pp. 119-120.

17. Valedictory. Ibid.9 Vol. 6, pp. 182-184.

1921

18. Current Events (Month Ending December 3, 1921). B'nai B'rith
News. Chicago, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 5-6.

19. The Jew Enters Spain. The Scribe. Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 8,
p. 4.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, IX. The Jew Enters Spain. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 38 (1928), p. 4.

496

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS

20. Jewish Diplomats in Moslem Spain. The Scribe. Portland, Ore.,
Vol. 5, No. ii, pp. 4, ii.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, XI. Jewish Diplomats in Moslem Spain.
American Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 42 (1928), p. i.

21. The Karaites. The Scribe. Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 5,
13-14.

22. Making a Living in Ancient [i. e., Medieval] Spain. Ibid., Vol. 5,
No- J5>PP- 5> 12-13.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, XII. Making a Living in Ancient
[i. e., Medieval] Spain. American Israelite. Cincinnati, VoL 74,
No. 44 (1928), p. 4.

23. Mohammed and the Jews. The Scribe. Portland, Ore., Vol. 4,
No. 26, p. 5.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, VIII. Mohammed and the Jews.
American Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 37 (1928), p. 4.

24. The Poets of Spain. The Scribe. Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 9,
pp.5, n.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, X. The Poets of Spain. American Israelite.
Cincinnati, VoL 74, No. 40 (1928), p. 4.

25. Polish Situation Not Hopeless. Jewish Tribune. New York, August

26. 1921, pp. 2, 17.

1922

526. Current Events (Months Ending January 3, February 3, March 3,
April 3, May 3, June 3, 1922). B'nai B'rith News. Chicago, VoL 14,
No. 5, pp. 5-6, 16; No. 6, pp. 5, 16; No. 7, pp. 5-6; No. 8, pp. 5-6;
No. 9, pp. 5-6; No. 10, pp. 5, 16.

27. An Exponent of Hebraic Culture; Gotthard Deutsch. The Cm-
cinnati Menorah. Cincinnati, pp. 18-19.

497

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

28. Jewish Histories Series. Before the Roman Conquest. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 22, pp. 5, 14.

a. Outline Sketches of Jewish History. Jewish History Before the
Roman Conquest. American Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 30
(1928), p. 4.

29. Jewish History Series. The Rise of the House of Hillel. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 24, pp. 5, 13.

a. Sketches of Jewish History. The Rise of the House of Hillel. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 31 (1928), p. 4.

30. Jewish History Series, III. The Inner Life of Palestinian Jewry.
The Scribe. Portland, Ore., Vol. 5, No. 26, pp. 5, 14.

a. Sketches of Jewish History. The Inner Life of Palestinian Jewry.
American Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 32 (1928), p. 4.

31. Jewish History Series, V. The Jews hi the Diaspora. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 5, 13-15.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, IV. The Jews in the Diaspora. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 33 (1928), p. 4.

32. Jewish History Series, VI. The Jewish Constitution. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 6, No. 5, pp. 5, 12-13.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, V. The Jewish Constitution. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 34 (1928), p. 4.

33. Jewish History Series, VII. The Passing of Palestine. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 6, No. 9, pp. 5, 13.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, VI. The Passing of Palestine. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 35 (1928), p. 4.

34. Jewish History Series, VIII. The Rise of Babylon. The Scribe.
Portland, Ore., Vol. 6, No. 12, pp. 5, 13.

a. Sketches of Jewish History, VII. The Rise of Babylon. American
Israelite. Cincinnati, Vol. 74, No. 36 (1928), p. 4.

49$

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS
1925

35. Die handelspolitischen Beziehungen ^wischen England und Deutschland
in den Jahren 1576-1585. Berlin, E. Eberling, 1925. 75 pp.

Doctoral dissertation.

36. Notes on Sephardic Jewish History of the Sixteenth Century.
Hebrew Union College Jubilee Volume. Cincinnati, 1925, pp. 379-396.

1928

37. Israel Jacobson. Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook.
Cincinnati, Vol. 38, pp. 386-498.

a> m Reprint. 120 pp.

38. Outline Sketches of Jewish History; see No. 28.

39. Sketches of Jewish History; see Nos. 29-34.

1929

40. A Survey of Contemporaneous Jewish History. (June, 1928, to
June 15, 1929.) Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Cincin-
nati, Vol. 39, pp. 230-253.

a. . Reprint. 24 pp.

1930

41 . The Love Letters of Bendet Schottlaender. Edited by J. R. Marcus.
Hebrew Union College Annual. Cincinnati, Vol. 7, pp. 537-577.

a, . Reprint, 41 pp.

42 . [Review of] The Origins of the Synagogue and the Churchy by Kaufmann
Kohler (New York, 1929). Jewish Quarterly Review. Philadelphia, New
Series, Vol. 21, pp. 197-198.

499

HERBERT G. ZAFREN

1931

43. The Americanization of Isaac Mayer Wise. Cincinnati, 1931. 123 pp.

An address delivered on Founder's Day, March 28, 1931, at the Hebrew
Union College.

44. A Laymaris Jewish Library ', by Israel Bettan, L. I. Egelson, and
J. R. Marcus. [Cincinnati, 1931.] 40 pp. [Jewish Tracts (issued by
the Tract Commission of the Union of American Hebrew Congrega-
tions and the Central Conference of American Rabbis), No. 18.]

1932

45. Jewish Palestine. A Study in "Becoming." In Syria — Palestine, by
A. T. E. Olmstead [Chicago, (1932)], pp. 497-520.

a. . The New Orient. Chicago, Vol. i (1933), pp. 289-312.

46. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History and Literature.
Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 42,
pp. 86-88.

Jacob R. Marcus, as chairman of the Committee through 1948, wrote
the historical part of this and the subsequent reports.

1933

47. Impacts of Contemporary Life upon Judaism. In Religion Tomorrow:
A Symposium. Papers delivered at the XXXIII Council U. A. H. C.
1933, Chicago [Cincinnati, 1933,] pp. 20-28.

a. . Reprint, 1 1 pp.

48. Jewish Palestine. See No. 45a.

49. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History and Litera-
ture. Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 43,
pp. 99-103.

50. Zionism and the American Jew. American Scholar. New York,
Vol. 2, pp. 279-292.

500

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS
1934

51. Contemporaneous History, June, 1933 — June, 1934. Central Con-
jerence of American Rabbis Yearbook. [Cincinnati], Vol. 44, pp. 282-289.

52. The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew. Cincinnati, Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, Department of Synagogue and
School Extension, 1934. xviii, i leaf, 417 pp.

a. . xvi, i leaf, 365 pp.

Second issue, without E. Gamoran's Introduction and without "Topics
for study, discussion, and papers."

b. Les Juifs et le nouvel Etat allemand. UUnivers Israelite. Paris,
Vol. 90 (1935), p. 327.

Extract from The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew.

1935

53. A Brief Introduction to the Bibliography of Modern Jewish History. A
selected, annotated list of the standard books in several languages on
the period from 1650 to modern times. Cincinnati, Hebrew Union
College. 170 pp. [Hebrew Union College (Department of Jewish
Religious Education), Publications, No. 16.]

54. Contemporaneous History. Central Conference of American Rabbis
Yearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 45, pp. 452-458.

55. Les Juifs et le nouvel Etat allemand; see No. 52b.

1936

56. Report of the Committee on Contemporaneous History and
Literature — Contemporaneous History. Central Conference of American
Rabbis Tearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 46, pp. 318-326.

1937

57. Report of the Committee on Contemporaneous History and
Literature — Contemporaneous History. Central Conference of American
Rabbis Tearbook, Philadelphia, Vol. 47, pp. 394-404.

501

HERBERT G. ZAFREN

58. An index to Jewish Festsckriften, by Jacob R. Marcus and A. [T.]
Bilgray. Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College. 154 pp.

1938

59. The Jew in the Medieval World; a Source Book: 315-1791. Cincinnati,
Union of American Hebrew Congregations, xxvi, 504 pp. (Jewish
History Source Books)

a> _ Cincinnati, Sinai Press, 1938. xxiv, 504 pp.

60. Report of the Committee on Contemporaneous History and
Literature — Contemporaneous History, May, 1937 — April 15, 1938.
Central Conference of American Rabbis Tearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 48,
pp. 302-311.

1939

61. Is Anti-Semitism Justified in Germany? [Chicago], 22 pp.

62. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History and Litera-
ture. Central Conference of American Rabbis Tearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 49,
pp. 65-71, 365-383-

63. [Review of] The Jewish Contribution to Civilization, by Cecil Roth
(London, 1938). Jewish Social Studies. New York, Vol. i, pp. 263-64.

64. [Review of] A Social and Religious History of the Jews, by S. W. Baron.
Jewish Quarterly Review. Philadelphia, New Series, Vol. 29, pp. 45-50.

1940

65. Mass Migrations of Jews and Their Effects on Jewish Life. Central
Conference of American Rabbis Tearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 50, pp. 277-299.

66. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History and Litera-
ture. Ibid., Vol. 50, pp. 67-73, 383-385.

502

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS

1941

67. Jacob Mann. Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Cincin-
nati, Vol. 51, pp. 247-249.

68. Judaism and Western Civilization. Contemporary Jewish Record.
New York, VoL 4, pp. 501-510.

Condensed from an address delivered July 30, 1941, at the Harvard
Summer School Conference on "Religion and the World Today."

69. New Literary Responsibilities. American Jewish Year Book, 5702.
Philadelphia, pp. 784-791.

On the Jewish Publication Society of America.

a. . Reprint. 8 pp.

70. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 51, pp. 68—73,

331-333-

1942

71. Defenses Against Antisemitism. In Essays on Antisemitism, edited by
K. S. Pinson (New York, 1942), pp. 175-186.

a. . (New York, 1946), pp. 49-58.

Slightly revised.

72. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 52, pp. 60-63,
354-356.

73. [Review of] Rome, by H. Vogelstein (Philadelphia, 1941), Review
of Religion. VoL 6, pp. 311-315.

74. Saving Europe in Spite of Itself. Hebrew Union College Bulletin.
Cincinnati, VoL 2, No. i, pp. 1-2, 14-15.

503

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

1943

75. A Brief Bibliography of American Jewish History. Jewish Book
Annual, 1943-44- New York, pp. 23-30.

a> . Reprint. 8 pp.

b. . New York, Community Education Service of the American

Jewish Historical Society, sponsored by the National Jewish Welfare
Board, 1949, 9 pp.

"Reprinted in revised form from Jewish Book Annual, 1943-44."

c. . 1950- 9 PP-

d. . New York, National Jewish Welfare Board, 1954. 16 pp.

Published jointly by the American Jewish Tercentenary Committee and
the Jewish Book Council of America. Yellow paper.

76. Jews. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago, Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica. Vol. 13, pp. 58-64.

Includes: Culture and Community in the Medieval Jewish World,
Modern Period, The Age of Reaction Beginning 1920, and The Jews in the
United States.

Issued as preprint and reprinted in many subsequent issues of the
encyclopaedia.

77. Report of the Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central
Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 53, pp. 52-55,
258-261.

78. United Planning for a United World. Hebrew Union College Bulletin.
Cincinnati, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 5-6.

79. ]ybv£)V BJKn $7»'DJ7. Tivo Bleter. New York, Vol. 21, pp. 201-214.

1944

80. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, VoL 54, pp. 62-64,
257-260.

504

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS

81. [Review of] History of the Jews in England, by Cecil Roth (Oxford,
1941). Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series. Philadelphia, Vol. 34,
pp. 483-486.

1945

82. The Contribution of the Jew to American Civilization. New York. 3 pp.

Broadcast on "Message of Israel," April 8, 1945.

83. Democracy in Judaism. Liberal Judaism. Cincinnati, Vol. 13, No, 8y
pp. 11-19.

84. Jews in American Life. New York, American Jewish Committee.
i6pp.

a. - . Revised edition, 1955. 20 pp.

85. An Old People in a New World: the Story of How the Jew Came to
America. New York. 3 pp.

Broadcast on "Message of Israel," April I, 1945.

a. An Old People in a New World. Current Religious Thought. Oberlin,
Ohio, Vol. 5, No. 6 (1945), pp. 16-18.

"From an address on the Message of Israel Hour . . ."

86. "ifcTDfca m B*D ^«B iyn«D njn. Tivo Bleter. New York, Vol. 25,
PP- 367-371-

1946

87. Defenses against Antisemitism; see No. 71.

88. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 55, pp. 59-61,
212-214.

89. The Triesch Hebra Kaddisha, 1687-1828. Hebrew Union College
Annual. Cincinnati, Vol. 19, pp. 169-204.

5<>5

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

1947

90. Communal Sick-Care in the German Ghetto. Cincinnati, Hebrew Union
College Press. 335 pp.

91. The Modern Religion of Moses Hart. Hebrew Union College Annual.
Cincinnati, Vol. 20, pp. 585-615.

a. - . Reprint. 31 pp.

92. Report of the Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central
Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook, Philadelphia, Vol. 56, pp. 72-76,

93. [Review of] In Time and Eternity \ a Jewish Reader ^ edited by
N. N. Glatzer (New York, 1946). Jewish Social Studies. Vol. 9, No. 3,
pp. 257-258.

1948

94. American Jewish Archives, Edited by Jacob R. Marcus. Cincinnati,
Vol. i- (1948- ).

Most of the -unsigned contributions are those of the editor.

95. The Forty-Eighters. In Charting Freedom's Course, 1947, The Forty-
first annual report of the American Jewish Committee. New York,
PP- 79~90.

96. From Peddler to Regimental Commander in Two Years: the Civil
War Career of Major Louis A. Gratz. Publications of the American Jewish
Historical Society. New York, No. 38, pp. 22-44.

97. The Program of the American Jewish Archives, by the editors.
American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. i, No. i, pp. 2-5.

98. Report of Committee on Contemporaneous History. Central Con-
ference of American Rabbis Yearbook. Philadelphia, Vol. 57, pp. 57-60,

450-453-

506

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS
1949

99. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94,

100. A Brief Bibliography of American Jewish History; see No. 75.

1 01. Fifty Years of the cYear Book.' Committee Reporter, New York,
Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 4.

On the American Jewish Tear Book.

1 02. Light on Early Connecticut Jewry. American Jewish Archives.
Cincinnati, Vol. i. No. 2, pp. 3-52.

103. Looking Back 60 Years. Jewish Exponent. Philadelphia, Vol. 119,
No. 14, p. 17.

"Address delivered at the Sixtieth Anniversary Dinner of the Je\vish
Publication Society.*'

104. The President's News Letter, issued by the President of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis [Jacob R. Marcus] . Cincinnati, Vol. i,
Nos. 1-2 (September, 1949 — April, 1950).

1950

105. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

1 06. A Brief Bibliography of American Jewish History; see No. 75-

107. A Brief Supplement to the Standard Hebrew Dictionaries of
Abbreviations. Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume. New York, Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America, pp. 447-480.

1 08. Dedication Address. In Chicago Sinai Congregation. Bulletin.
Chicago, Vol. 7, No. 31, p. [4].

109. The President's Message to the 6ist Annual Convention of the

507

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

Central Conference of American Rabbis. Central Conference of American
Rabbis Tearbook. Cincinnati, Vol. 60, pp. 237-246.

a. . [Philadelphia, 1950,] [2], 10 pp.

Cover title says "Cincinnati, Ohio, June 7, 1950."

b. The Presidents Message Presented to the Sixty-First Annual Convention of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis. Cincinnati, June 7, 1950, [1-^2] 3-10 pp. I leaf.

Different printing.

no. The President's News Letter, issued by the President of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis [Jacob R. Marcus]; see No. 104.

1951
in. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

112. Dr. David Philipson's Place in American Jewish Historiography.
American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 28-31.

113. Early American Jewry. Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1951-53. 2 v.

Vol. i (1951): The Jews of New York, New England, and Canada,
1649-1794.

Vol. 2 (1953): The Jews of Pennsylvania and the South, 1655-1790.

114. The Man Who Created Reform Judaism. Liberal Judaism. Cin-
cinnati, Vol. 19, No. i, pp. 1-5.

a. . Reprint. [6] pp.

115. [Review of] The Great Synagogue, London, 1690-1940, by Cecil Roth
(London, 1950). American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 3, pp. 112—
116.

1 1 6. Solomon Landman. Central Conference of American Rabbis Tearbook.
New York, Vol. 61, pp. 254-255.

117. The Rabbi's Basic Library, selected by Jacob R. Marcus and
Sheldon H. Blank. nsD jnv, Bulletin of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis Committee on Jewish Literature and Art. No. i
(Purim, 5711), pp. 1-7.

508

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS
1952

1 1 8. American Jewish Archives, see No. 94.

119. Bright Star Shining in the West. New York, Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, United Jewish Layman's Committee, Inc. 3 pp.

Broadcast on "Message of Israel," March 9, 1952.

1 20. European Bibliographical Items on Chicago. In The Chicago
Pinkas, edited by S. Rawidowicz on the 25th Anniversary of The
College of Jewish Studies. Chicago, pp. 177-97.

1953

121. After Five Years. American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 5,

PP- 3-4*

An editorial.

122. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

123. Henry Cohen (1863-1952). Publication of the American Jewish
Historical Society. Philadelphia, Vol. 42, pp. 451-455.

124. Early American Jewry; see No. 113.

125. How to Write the History of an American Jewish Community. Cincin-
nati, American Jewish Archives. 32 pp.

126. [Review of] Portraits Etched in Stone, Early Jewish Settlers, 1682-
1831, by David de Sola Pool (New York, 1952). William and Mary
Quarterly. Williamsburg, Series 3, Vol. 10 (1953), pp. 259-261.

127. [Review of] The Sephardim of England, by Albert M. Hyamson
(London, 1951). American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 5, pp. 126-
129.

128. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore. Cincinnati, Vol. i- (1953- ).

The Board of Editors includes Jacob R. Marcus.

509

HERBERT G. ZAFREN

129, The West India and South America Expedition of the American
Jewish Archives. American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 5, pp. 5—2 1 .

1954

130. American Jewish Archives, see No. 94.

131* A Brief Bibliography of American Jewish History; see No. 75.

132. A Few Notes From the Record. National Jewish Monthly. Washing-
ton, Vol. 69, No. i, pp. lo-n, 16, 20.

133. [Foreword to] A Jewish Tourist's Guide to the U. £., by Bernard
Postal and Lionel Koppman (Philadelphia), pp. vii-viii.

134. Jewish Americana. A catalogue of books and articles by Jews or
relating to them, printed in the United States from the earliest days to
1850, and found in the Library of the Hebrew Union College -Jewish
Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. A supplement to A. S. W. Rosen-
bach. An American Jewish Bibliography. [Preface by Jacob R. Marcus.]
Cincinnati, American Jewish Archives. 115 pp. (American Jewish
Archives. Monographs, No. i).

135. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore; see No. 128.

136. Tercentenary, 1654-1954. American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati,
Vol. 6, pp. 75-76.

An editorial.

137. A Tour through 300 Tears of Freedom. Philadelphia, The Jewish
Publication Society of America, March 19. i p. News release: Passover
edition.

Appeared in various community newspapers, including the Detroit Jewish
News of March 26, 1954.

1955

138. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

139. Important Historic Records. JPS Bookmark. Philadelphia, Vol. 2,
No. 4, pp. 4-6.

510

THE WRITINGS OF JACOB RADER MARCUS

140. [Introduction to] Tear Without Fear, by Martin M. Weitz (New
York), i p.

141. Jews in American Life; see No. 84,

142. Memoirs of American Jews, 1775-1865. Philadelphia, Jewish Pub-
lication Society of America. 3 v. (The Jacob R. Schiff Library of
Jewish Contributions to American Democracy.)

143. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore; see No. 128.

144. Three Hundred Years in America. In The Beth El Story, with a
History of the Jews in Michigan before 1850, by Irving I. Katz.
Detroit, Wayne University Press, pp. I5i-[i64].

145. Who Are We American Jews? Hebrew Union College - Jewish
Institute of Religion Bulletin. New York, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 15-17.

1956

146. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

147. The Future of American Jewry. American Israelite. Cincinnati,
Vol. 101. One Hundredth Anniversary Edition (February 23, 1956),
Section i, p. i; Section 2, pp. 8, 10-13.

Lecture delivered at Dropsie College, 1955.

a . - . Cincinnati, American Jewish Archives, 1956. 12 pp.

148. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore; see No. 128.

1957

1 49. Address of the President. Publication of the American Jewish Historical
Society. Philadelphia, Vol. 46, pp. 465-466.

150. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

151. [Foreword to] Precious Stones of the Jews of Curasao, Curaqaon Jewry,
1656-1957, by Isaac S. Emmanuel (New York), pp. 7-8.

HERBERT C. ZAFREN

152. The Goals of Survival — What Will U. S. Jewry Be Like in
2000? National Jewish Monthly. Washington, D. C., Vol. 71, No. 9,
PP- 4> 6.

153. Letters as a Source of Biography. In The Writing of American
Jewish History, edited by Moshe Davis and Isidore S. Meyer (New
York, American Jewish Historical Society), pp. 420-425.

154. Pedagogue's Progress. Cincinnati, American Jewish Archives. 12 pp.

Baccalaureate address delivered at State Teachers College of the State
University of New York, Fredonia, New York, June 9, 1957,

155. [Preface to] Life Without Strife, by Martin M. Weitz (New York),
pp. ix— x.

156. [Review of] The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial
Times to the Age of Jackson, by Edwin Wolf 2nd, and Maxwell White-
man (Philadelphia, 1957). Jewish Exponent. Philadelphia, Vol. 127,
No. 38, p. 15.

157. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore; see No. 128.

158. Ten Years After. American Jewish Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 9,
pp. 126-127.

1958

159. American Jewish Archives; see No. 94.

1 60. The Periodization of American Jewish History. Cincinnati, American
Jewish Archives. 9 pp.

Preprint of Address of the President Publications of the American Jewish
Historical Society. Philadelphia, Vol. 47, March, 1958.

161. Lee M. Friedman, 1871-1957, In Memoriam. American Jewish
Archives. Cincinnati, Vol. 10, pp. 12-13.

162. An Arizona Pioneer — Memoirs of Sam Aaron. Ibid., pp. 95-120.

163. American Jewry • Documents, Eighteenth Century. Cincinnati, The
Hebrew Union College Press.

Index

Compiled by
ABRAHAM I. SHINEDLING

AARON, JOSEPH, 134-36

Aaron, Sam, Memoirs of — An Arizona

Pioneer, 512

Abolitionist movement, 174
ABRAHAM BEN MOSES, 112
ABRAHAM, RICHARD, 210
ABRAHAMS, ISRAEL, 4, 296
Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 176
Accountants, 59
Adath Israel Congregation, Louisville,

267

Adath Israel Synagogue, Berlin, n
ADLER, CYRUS, 457-91
ADLER, ELKAN, 468, 479
ADLER, FELIX, 158
ADLER, ISAAC, 363
ADLER, LIEBMANN, 155, 165-68, 380,

398

ADLER, RACIE, 458
ADLER, SAMUEL, 361-63, 365, 367-69,

380-81, 389, 392, 396, 403-4
Administrators, 59
ADOLPHUS, ISAAC, 95, in
Agricultural Society, New York, 290
Agriculture, 29, 39, 43~44, 49, 253, 256,

289-91, 437, 442, 451-52; see also

Farmers, farming
Agudat Achim, 430
AGUILAR, GRACE, 241
AHAD HA-AM (Asher Ginzberg), 434,

437, 446
Alabama, 282
Alaska, 279

ALEXANDER, ABRAHAM, SR., 89

ALLEN (family), 278

ALLEN, CHARLES G., 283

ALLEN, LEWIS, 222

Alliance Israelite Universelle, 289-90

ALLISON, DAVID, 120

Alsace-Lorraine, 33, 43

Alte Synagoge, Berlin, n

America, xiv, 1-2, 16, 27-28, 30, 33,
37, 44, 48, 52, 56, 61, 69, 71, 74-76,
81, 86, 107, 123-24, 131, 136, 147,
151, 153, 157-58, 160, 162, 173-74,
247, 260, 442, 454

American colonies; see Colonies, Amer-
ican

American Committee for Ameliorating
the Condition of the Russian Exiles,
452

American Expeditionary Force (AEF), 8

American Federation of Labor, 287

American Hebrew (of New York), 438, 444

American Hebrew College of the City
of New York, The, 364, 366

American Historical Association, 148

Americanization, 48

American Jewish Agricultural Society,
New York, 290

American Jewish Archives, xi, xiii,
xv— xvi, 17—19

American Jewish Committee, 457-58,
461, 468, 472

American Jewish Congress, 461

American Jewish Historical Society,
xiv, xvii, 16-17, 19, 74, 99, 148, 493

American Jewish Periodical Center, 19

513

INDEX

American Jewish Publication Society,

228
American Jewry, American Jews, xiii-

xiv, xvi, I, 16, 18-21, 30, 43, 67, 69,

72, 74-75, 84, 99, 107, 136, 153,

160-61, 171-73, 184, 1 88, 263-93,

427, 452, 467, 471, 475
American Jewry • Documents • Eighteenth

Century, 512

American Judaism, 158, 1 60, 453-54
American Party, 173
American Relief Committee (Admin-

istration), 475-76, 480-81
American Revolution; tee Revolution,

Revolutionary War
American Society for Meliorating the

Condition of the Jews, 206
Amsterdam, Holland, 26-27, 7&» I23
Anarchism, anarchists, 45-46, 433
ANDERSON, JACOB, 120
Anglicanism, 29
Ansbach, Bavaria, 256
Anti-Semitism, 2, 8, 37-38, 47, 49,

51-53, 56-57, 60, 74, 266, 434, 437,

443, 454-55
Arab States, 57
"Ararat," 152

Arbeiterbund (Workers' League), 286
Arbeiter-J&itung, 286
Aristocracy, aristocrats, 29-32, 35
Arizona Pioneer, An — Memoirs of

Sam Aaron, 512
ARNOLD, MAYER, 222
ARONSON, H., 242
Artisans, 24, 33-36, 39-40, 42, 253,

256; see also Craftsmen, Handicrafts,

handwork

ASH, ABRAHAM JOSEPH, 273
Ashkenazic Jews, Ashkenazic rite, Ash-

kenazim, 66, 71, 74-81, roo, 107;

see also German Jewry, German Jews
Assimilation, assimilationists, 74, 84-86,

95-96, 247, 254, 427, 433, 435, 438,

443, 453, 472

Association of Jewish Immigrants, Phil-
adelphia, 450

Athenaeum, Philadelphia, 176
AUB, JOSEPH, 375-78
AUSTIN, BEN W., 168
Austria, Austria-Hungary, Austrians,
2, 31, 40, 78, 488

BACHMAN, ULYSSES MORRIS, 480-81

Baden, 249, 253, 255, 258

BAER, FRITZ, 10

BAKER, RAY STANNARD, 491

Balkans, 49

Baltimore, 40, 45, 270, 277, 282, 285,
429, 441, 451

Baltimore Hebrew Congregation; see
Nitgy Israel Congregation

BAMBERGER (department store), 281

Bankers, banking, 42-43, 46-47, 50-52,
54-55, 59, 273, 276, 281-83, 292;
see also Finance

Baptist Female Society of Boston and
Vicinity for Promoting the Conver-
sion of Jews, 204

Barbary States, 89, 174

Baron de Hirsch Fund, 450-51

BARON, SALO W., 457, 502

BARTON, RICHARD, 85, 96

BARUGH, BERNARD, 55, 72

BAUER, BRUNO, 329

Bavaria, Bavarian Jews, 248, 255-57,

259

Bayonne, France, 81
Beggars, begging, 33
BELMONT, AUGUST, 282
Bene Israel Congregation, Cincinnati, 9
BENJAMIN BEN WOLF, 116
BENJAMIN, I. J., n, 159
BENJAMIN, JUDAH P., 215, 220
BENTWIGH, NORMAN, 159
BERDICHEWSKY, MIGAH JOSEPH, 431,

433

Berlin, 10-12, 43
BERMANN, SraoN, 290
BERNAL, JACOB ISRAEL, 76
BERNFELD, SIMON, 438
Beth-El Temple, New York, 444

INDEX

Beth Elohim Congregation, Charleston,
S. G., 75, 89, 94, 96, 128, 182

Beth Midrash Hagadol, Pittsburgh, 3

Beth Shalome Congregation, Rich-
mond, 75, 90, 231

BETTAN, ISRAEL, 500

BETTELHEIM, AARON S., 410, 418

BETTMAN, DANIEL, 278

Bevis Marks Congregation, London, 76

Bible, biblical quotations, references,
studies, 4, 69, 72, 109, 123-33, 135,
140, 187, 193, 196, 198, 200, 206,
214, 216, 221, 227, 234, 295-313,
318-20, 322, 326, 337, 354-55, 385,
393, 396, 398, 400, 404, 4io, 415,
418, 424, 428, 434, 495; see also Pen-
tateuch, Septuagint

Bibliography, 162, 187

BIDDLE, NICHOLAS, 176, 213

BIEN, JULIUS, 278

BILGRAY, ALBERT T., 15, 502

BINGLEV, DR., 91

BIRNBAUM, NATHAN, 443

BLACKSTONE, WILLIAM A., 435

BLANK, SHELDON H., n, 508

BLAU, LUDWIG, 141

BLISS, TASKER HOWARD, 487

BLOCH, JOSHUA, 373~78

BLONDHEIM, DAVID S., 474, 477

BLUCH, JACOB (Jacob Henry), no

BLUCH, JONAS HIRSCHEL, 1 19

BLUCH, JOSEPH HENRY (Joseph Henry),
ill, 119

BLUESTONE, JOSEPH I., 446

B'nai B'rith, xiv, 289, 360-61

Board of Delegates of American Israel-
ites, 289, 360

Board of Governors, Hebrew Union
College -Jewish Institute of Religion,
Cincinnati, v, xi, xv, 9, 15, 17

BOGEN, BORIS D., 465, 471-72, 485, 489

Bolsheviks, Bolshevism, 52, 54-55; see
also Communism

BONAPARTE, JOSEPH, 173

BONAPARTE, NAPOLEON; see Napoleon
Bonaparte

BONSIRVEN, JOSEPH, 357-58

Bordeaux, France, 33, 43, 87

B6RNE, LUDWIG, 254

Boston, 40, 274, 430, 451

BOSWELL, ANN, 182

BRAININ, REUBEN, 431, 443

BRANDON (FONSECA) (family), 81, 87

BRANDON (RODRIGUEZ) (family), 87

BREASTED, JAMES H., 7

BRENTANO, LORENZ, 277

BRETT, CATHERINE, 94

BRIGHAM, CLARENCE S., 189

British Jewry, 471; see also English
Jewry, English Jews

BRODY, ANTOINETTE; see Marcus, An-
toinette

BROGLIO, ANTHONY, 85

Brokers, 281, 283

Brooklyn, 63-65

BUENO DE MESQUITA (family), 87

Bureaucracy, 53

BUSCH, ISIDORE, 153, 239

BUSH (MATHIAS), 111-13, 120-21

BUSH, MRS., 113

Businessmen, business, 3, 40, 50, 270-
75, 279, 288-89, 292; see also En-
trepreneurs, Merchants, Peddlers,
Storekeepers, Tradesmen

BUXTORF, JOHN, 127

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, 201

California, 263, 267, 276, 290-91

Canada, xvi, 20, 278

CAPELLUS, Louis, 127

Capitalism, capitalists, 24-39, 42-49,

50, 56, 60-61, 285, 288
CARDOZA, SARAH, 227-28
CARDOZO (family), 81, 87
CARDOZO, JACOB N., 211
CAREY, EDWARD L., 217
Caribbean Sea, xvii, 80
CARVALHO (family), 81, 87
CARVALHO, DAVID NUNEZ, 81
CARVALHO, EMANUEL NUNES, 128-30
Catahoula Parish, La., 289-90

INDEX

Catholics, 56, 174, 284

Central America, 26

Central Conference of American Rabbis,

xiv, xvii, 17, 19, 355, 382, 493
Central Europe, 14, 34
Central European Jewry, Central Eu-

ropean Jews, 15, 78
Ceremonial law, ceremonies, 318-21,

394

CERF, MINKELLA, 81
CHANDLER, WALTER MARION, 474
Charleston, S. C., 8l, 89, 128, 160,

181, 221, 275, 278
Chemists, 288
Chicago, 40, 45, 270, 276, 278, 281-82,

285, 430
China, 26, 57

CHOMSKY, WILLIAM, 123-45
Christianity, Christendom, 23, 29, 46,

86, 94, 97, 182, 251-54, 325, 327-^8,

330, 357, 434, 436; see also Jesus (of

Nazareth)
Christians, 5, 46, 66, 76-77, 84-85,

87-88, 123, 133, 182, 250, 282, 356,

435, 4433 488; see also Catholics,

Gentiles, Non-Jews, Protestants
''Christian state," concept of, 251-53
Church establishments ; see Established

Church
Church, The, 31-32, 77; see also Eccle-

CHYET, STANLEY F., 1-22, 295, 535
Cincinnati, xiv, 5-7, 9, 11-12, 268,

270, 275-76, 281-82, 285, 288, 451
Circumcision, 83-84, 95, 381, 385, 388,

390-91

Citizens, citizenship, 2, 32, 253
Civil equality; see Equality, political
Civil rights, 250, 255; see also Political

freedom, political rights
Civil War, 37, 172-73, 272-73, 275,

280, 282, 292
CLAY, HENRY, 174
Cleveland, 270, 276
Cleveland Conference of Rabbis,

36l

516

Clothing business, 2-3, 59, 268, 272-73,

276, 278-81, 291-93
Coal business, 269, 278
COHEN, ABRAHAM HYAM, 89-90
COHEN, MRS. ABRAHAM HYAM, 89-90
COHEN & ISAACS, 118
COHEN, B. W., 239
COHEN, E. A., & Co., 215
COHEN, G. M., 143-44
COHEN, HENRY, 222
COHEN, HENRY, 509
COHEN, HENRY LURIA, 90
COHEN, ISRAEL, 7
COHEN, ISRAEL I., 194
COHEN, JACOB, 221, 225
COHEN, JACOB I., 90, 118, 194
COHEN, JACOB I., JR., 201
COHEN, JACOB RAPHAEL, 87, 89-90
COHEN, MENDEZ I., 204
(COHEN) PEIXOTTO (family); see Peixotto

(Cohen)

COHEN, PHILIP I., 204
COHN, BERNHARD N., 315-24
COHN, HENRY, 367, 369-71
COHN, MICHAEL, 363
COLE, CORNELIUS, 279
Colleges, 41, 50

Colonies, American, 27-^29, 115
Columbia University, New York, 162
Comite" de Juifs de Paris Descendants

de Juifs de 1'Europe Orientale, 469
Comit6 des Delegations Juives (Com-
mittee of Jewish Delegations), 460,

462, 469, 491
Commerce, 27, 34, 36, 174, 253, 258,

283-84, 361, 438; see also Trade
Committee of Jewish Delegations; see

Comit6 des Delegations Juives
Communism, Communists, 56, 60—6 1,

285-86; see also Bolsheviks, Bolshevism
CONE, HERMAN, 248, 257
Cone Mill, Greensboro, N. C., 248
CONE, WILLIAM, 248
Confederation of the Rhine, 249-50
Congregational church, 29
Congregations, 83, 271, 455

INDEX

Congress (of the United States), 52
Congress of Vienna, 250
Connecticut, 94
Connellsville, Pa., 2
Conservative Judaism, 4, 156
Constitution (of the United States),

30,33

Contracting, contractors, 42, 45
Conversion, converts, 83-86, 89-94,

97, 133, 182, 253, 435-36
CONYBEARE, F. C., 327
COOKE, JAY, 282
COOPER, WILLIAM, 192
CORDOVA, JACOB DE, 234
Cotton business, 278, 282
COUGHLIN, CHARLES E., 53-55
Court Jews, 27
Cox, ISAAC JOSLIN, 6
Craftsmen, 39; see also Artisans
CRESSON, WARDER, 228
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD, 206
Curacao, 76
CUTLER, HARRY, 474, 478

DA COSTA (family), 87

DA COSTA, ISAAC, 94

DA COSTA, SARAH, 94

Dallas, 161

DALLAS, MRS. GEORGE MIFFUN, 176

DALY, CHARLES P., 74

DA PONTE, LORENZO; see Ponte, Lorenzo

Darmstadt, Germany, 257
DAVEGA (family), 87
DAVIS (family), 72
DAVIS, FRANCES, 73
DAVIS, JEFFERSON, 85
DAVIS, MOSHE, 295, 457-91, 512
Dearborn Independenty 52
Deborah, Die (of Cincinnati), 398
Declaration of Independence, 30
DE HIRSCH, MAURICE, 290, 435
DEINARD, EPHRAIM, 425-28, 430, 432,

441-42, 447

DEI Rossi, AZARIAH, 127

Deism, Deists, 29, 251, 327-29

DE LA MOTTA (family), 87

DE LA MOTTA, JACOB; see La Motta,
Jacob de

DELANCEY, OLIVER, 85

DE LEON (family), 87

DE LEON, M. H., 229, 232

DELTTZSCH, FRANZ, 435

DELMAR (family), 81, 87

DE LUCENA (family), 80, 87

DE LYON (family), 87

DE MESQUTTA (family), 80

DE MESQUITA, BUENO, 87

Democratic Party, 173

DENNIE, JOSEPH, 177

Department stores, 281, 292

DE PASS (family), 87

Depression, the Great; see Great Depres-
sion

Depression, economic, 272-73, 285

DERKHEIM, MYER, 73

DE SPENCER, CATHERINE, 84

DE TORRES (family), 87

DEUTSCH, GOTTHARD, 6, 9, 159, 497

Dietary laws; see Kashrut

Discrimination, 49, 490

DlTTENHOEFER, ISAAC, 235

DOBSEVAGE (DOBSE WITCH), ABRAHAM

Dov, 456

Doctors, 41, 51, 288
DOLTTZKY, MENAHEM MENDEL, 430,

456

DONOVAN, J. [TJ W., 93
DORSEY, JOHN SYNG, 177
DRACHMAN, BERNARD, 427, 439
Dreyfus Case, 446
DRIVER, S. R., 140
Dropsie College, Philadelphia, 461
DROPSIE, MOSES AARON, 407, 415,

423^24

Dry goods business, 268-69, 278, 291
DUKER, ABRAHAM G., 63-68
Dutch Jews, 113
DYER, JOHN M., 269, 277

517

INDEX

East (of Europe), Eastern Europe, 27,

39, 43, 49, 57, 99, 469-71, 475, 477,

481, 483, 489

East (of the United States), 279, 288
Eastern European Jewry, Eastern Eu-

ropean Jews, 40, 42, 44-45, 48, 78,

99, 289, 425-27, 450-55, 458, 461.

465-66, 470, 475
Easthampton, L. I., 94
East Indies, no
Easton, Pa., 97
Ecclesiasticism, 29, 35; see also Church,

The
Economic life, xiv, 29, 31-32, 35-37,

43, 45, 47-49, 51-52, 55-58, 60-61,

255, 263-93
Economists, 59
Editors, 41
Education, 41-42, 50, 142, 250, 255,

271, 285, 289, 448, 454-55, 466-67
EGELSON, Louis I., 500
EINHORN, DAVID, 315-24, 364-65, 381,

EEENBERG, MAURICE, 10
ElSENSTEIN, JUDAH DAVID, 427, 454
ELBOOEN, ISMAR, 10, 150
ELFELT, SIMON, 222
ELIASSOF, HERMAN, 380
Emancipation, 31-32, 247, 252, 254-55,

259, 466
Emanu-El Congregation, New York,

267, 361-62, 366-69, 371
Emanu-El Congregation Theological

Seminary, New York, 359-71
Emanu-El Theological Seminary Soci-

ety, New York, 359, 362-66, 369-71
Emigration, 25, 27^28, 35, 38-39, 147,

153, 247-48, 257-59, 263; see also

Immigrants, immigration
EMMANUEL, ISAAC S., 511
ENELOW, HYMAN G., 358
Engineers, 41, 59, 288
England, English, 25, 28-29, 31, 34,

38, 57, 76, 101, 103, 107-8, 128,

280, 282, 471; see also Great Britain

518

ENGLANDER, HENRY, 6

ENGLISH, GEORGE BETHUNE, 206

English Jewry, English Jews, 287, 475;
see also British Jewry

Enlightenment, 43, 249, 251-52

Entrepreneurs, 27, 42-43, 48-50, 58-59,
253; see also Businessmen

Eoff St. Temple, Wheeling, W. Va., 4

EPSTEIN, ELIAS L., 535

Equality, political, 32, 249-50, 254-55,
475; see also Political freedom, polit-
ical rights

Equality, social, 252

ERTER, ISAAC, 380

Established Church, establishment of
religion, 29-31

ETTING, HENRY, 229

ETTING, REUBEN, 194

ETTING, SOLOMON, 196-97, 200-201

Europe, xiii, 2, 10, 12, 14, 16, 25-27,
29-31, 33-34, 47, 7i, 83, 107, 147,
173, 273, 282, 285-86, 289, 367,
437, 458

European Jews, 71, 132, 152, 457

EVANS, MARGARET, 94

EWALD, HEINRICH, 137

EWING, SAMUEL, 177-78

EZEKIEL, JACOB, 231

Factories, 34-36, 39~4°, 45, 49, 269, 288
Farmers, farming, 24, 28-29, 36-37, 39,

44, 46-47, 51, 54, 57-58, 289-91,

293, 442; see also Agriculture
Farmington, W. Va., 10
FARO (GABAY) (family), 87
Far West, 276, 279
Fascism, 56

Federal government, 52-53, 57-58
Federalists, 173

Federation of American Zionists, 446-49
FELDMAN, ABRAHAM J., 358
FELSENHELD, HERMAN, 143
FELSENTHAL, BERNHARD, 155-56, 158-

59, 162, 165-70, 379-406, 444, 448-

49, 453

INDEX

Female Association for the Relief of

Women and Children in Reduced

Circumstances, Philadelphia, 176,

179-80
Female Hebrew Benevolent Society,

Philadelphia, 179
FENNO, JOHN, 177
FENNO, MARIA, 177
FEUCHTWANGER, LEWIS, 219
Finance, 44, 46, 279, 281-83; see also

Bankers, banking

Fine Arts Academy, Philadelphia, 176
FINE, MORRIS, 462
First World War, 8, 48, 50-51
FISK, JAMES, 283
Flatbush (Vlackebos), Brooklyn, 63,

67-68

FLEISHER YARNS, 269
FLEURY, ABBE CLAUDE, 198
FLORSHEIM SHOE Co., 281
FLUEGEL, M., 290
FOCH, FERDINAND, 474, 487
Folksfreind, 433
FONSECA BRANDON (family); see Brandon

(Fonseca)
FORD, HENRY, 52
Fox, G. GEORGE, 358
France, 8, 25, 28-29, 31, 33-34, 38, 55,

57, 249

FRANGKFOORT, ABRAHAM, 63-64, 66-68
FRANK, WILLIAM, 257-59, 268
FRANKEL, ZACHARIAS, 154, 157-60
Frankfurt, Germany, 249-50, 257
FRANKLIN, SOLOMON, 289
FRANKS (family), 28
FRANKS, ABIGAIL, 85
FRANKS, DAVID, 94, no, 116, 195
FRANKS, JACOB, no, 195
FRANKS, MOSES, 195
FRANKS, PHTLA, 85
FRANKS, REBECCA, 85
Freedom, economic; see Economic life
Freedom, juridical; see Juridical freedom
Freedom of religion; see Religious

freedom
Freedom, political; see Political freedom

FREEHOF, SOLOMON B., 358

Free Library of Philadelphia, 477-78,

480-81, 486

French Jewry, French Jews, 43, 249, 475
French National Assembly, 32
French Revolution, 32, 173, 249, 251
FRIEDE, MYER, 290
FRIEDLAENDER, ISRAEL, 495
FRIEDLANDER, MORITZ, 278
FRIEDMAN, LEE M., 512
FRISCH, EPHRAIM, 358
FROHMAN, DANIEL, 268
FROHMAN, HENRY, 268
Fuel Society, Philadelphia, 179
FULTON, WES, 116
FURNESS, WILLIAM HENRY, 177
Furth, Bavaria, 256
Fur trade, 278

GABAY FARO (family); see Faro (Gabay)

Galitia, 43, 463

Galician Jews, 379

GANS, AARON, 415, 424

GANS, DANIEL, 415, 424

GANS, EDUARD, 152, 254

GANS, LEBERMAN & Co., 415

Gas industry, 278

GEIGER, ABRAHAM, 156-59* 33°, 37$,
380

GEIGER, LUDWIG, 150

Gemara, 390; see also Mishna, Talmud

Gemileth Chesed (Hebrew Mutual
Benefit Society), New York, 230

Genealogy, 19, 69-97

Gentiles, 83, 116, 118, 181; see also
Catholics, Christians, Non-Jews, Prot-
estants

German Hebrew Benevolent Society,
New York, 235

German Hebrew Female Benevolent
Society, Philadelphia, 231

German Jewry, German Jews, 14, 19,
42, 51, 78, 101, 132, 247-50, 252-55,
263, 270, 290, 45<>-52, 454J ** oho
Ashkenazic Jews

519

INDEX

Germans, 39, 252, 280, 285-86
Germany, xiii, I, 8, II, 14, 25-29,

31-32, 35-36, 38-39, 52, 55-56, 99,

153, 247

GERSONI, HENRY, 380
GESENIUS, WILHELM, 137, 140
GFROERER, AUGUST FRIEDRICH, 328-29
GELPIN, MRS. HENRY DILWOOD, 176
GIMBEL (department store), 281
GINZBERG, ASHER; see Ahad Ha-am

GlNZBERG, LOUIS, 159

GIST, MARIA, 182
GLATZER, N. N., 506
GLENN, MENAHEM G., 4°7-24
GLICK, JOSEPH SELIG, 433
GLUECK, NELSON, v, xi-xii, xv, 11, 17
Gnosticism, Gnostics, 351, 353
GOLDSMITH, LEWIS, 197
GOLDSMITH, MORRIS, 206
GOMEZ (family), 28, 87, 91
GOMPERS, SAMUEL, 266, 287
GOODHART, ARTHUR LEHMAN, 464
GOODMAN, ABRAM VOSSEN, 65
GORDON, BENJAMIN L., 440, 448
GORDON, JUDAH LOEB, 380

GOTTHEIL, GUSTAV, 367, 381, 396

GOTTHEIL, RICHARD J. H., 368, 446-47,

449

GOULD, JAY, 283
GRAETZ, HEINRICH, 6, 13, 157, 160-61,

168, 331, 386
Grain business, 278
GRANT, ULYSSES S., 37-38
GRATZ (family), 99-122, 172, 175
GRATZ, BARNARD, 109-13, 115-16, 118-

22, 172, 175, 195
GRATZ, BENJAMIN, 174, 182
GRATZ, HAYIM, no
GRATZ, HYMAN, 175-76
GRATZ, JACOB, 176, 217-18
GRATZ, JONATHAN, no, 114
GRATZ, JOSEPH, 176
GRATZ, Louis A., 506
GRATZ, LOUISA, 183
GRATZ, MARIA GIST, 182
GRATZ, MARY, 183

520

GRATZ, MICHAEL, 109-19, 121-22,

172, 175, 195, 214
GRATZ, REBECCA, 171-86
GRATZ, SIMON, 175-76, 183, 217
GRATZ, SIMON, 477
GRAYZEL, SOLOMON, 160
Great Britain, 57; see also England
Great Depression, 52~53» 56, 60
GREENEBAUM, J. VICTOR, 17
GROLLMAN, EARL A., 18
GUEDEMANN, MORTTZ, 444
GUGGENHEIM, MEYER, 278
Guilds, 29, 34, 287
GUTHEIM, JAMES K., 381

HACKENBURG, JUDAH L., 222

Haffkine Committee, 469

HAFFKINE, WALDEMAR, 469

HAHN, AARON, 381

HAHN, AUGUST, 297

HAHNEMANN, SAMUEL, 217

Ha-lbri, 428, 430-31, 438, 443-44

HAKOHEN, MORDECAI BEN HILLEL, 442

Ha-Kol, 427

Halachah, 388, 404

Ha-Leumi, 427

HALL, JOHN E., 177

HALLGARTEN, CHARLES, & Co., 282

Hamazkir, 162-63, 169-70

Hamburg, Germany, 1, 26-27, 76, 100

Ha-Melitz, 426, 428, 430

HAMILTON, ANDREW, m, 85

Handicrafts, handwork, 28, see 253;

also Artisans
HANDUN, OSCAR, vii
HANNAH, DAVID, 120
Hanover, Germany, 255
Hanseatic league, 249
Ha-Pisgah, 425-34, 436, 438-42, 444~52,

454

HARBY (family), 87
HARBY, ISAAC, 82
HARRISON, BENJAMIN, 435
HART (family), 72
HART, ABRAHAM, 217, 277

INDEX

HART, BENJAMIN, 73

HART, BENJAMIN F., 234

HART, BERNARD, 94

HART, BETTY, 92

HART, DAVID, 73

HART, EMANUEL B., 283

HART, FRANCES DAVIS, 73

HART, HENRY, 94

HART, JUDITH, 97

HART, MICHAEL, 73, 114

HART, MOSES, 506

HART, MYER, 97, in

HART, SGHAFFNER & MARX, 281

HART, THOMAS, 226

HARTE, BRET, 94

Ha-Sanegor9 428

Ha-Shahar, 426

Ha-Shiloah, 438

Haskalah, 43, 380; see also Maskilim

Ha-Tekiyak, 426, 432, 439, 446, 449

Hawkers, hawking, 48

Ha-Tehudiy 433

Ha-Tom, 426

HAYS, ISAAC, 210, 212-13, 219, 222-23,

227, 229, 232-34, 241
Ha-Zefirah, 430, 433
Hebra Hased Va Amet, New York,

211
Hebrew, 105-6, 123-45, 426-28, 432-

33, 437, 440, 447, 455-5$, 487
Hebrew Assistance Society, New York,

230
Hebrew Benevolent Society, New York,

242
"Hebrew Congregation," Savannah,

160

Hebrew Education Society, Phila-
delphia, 407-24
Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society, New

York; see Gemileth Ghesed
Hebrew School Fund, Richmond, 235
Hebrew Sunday School, Philadelphia,

179-80
Hebrew Union College, Hebrew Union

College -Jewish Institute of Religion,

Cincinnati, xi, xiii, xvii, 4-7, 9, 12-13,

16-17, 19, 162, 355, 367-69, 371,

373-75

Hebrew Union College Board of Gover-
nors; see Board of Governors, Hebrew
Union College -Jewish Institute of
Religion, Cincinnati

Hebrew Union College Monthly, 7-8

Hechalutz, 380, 382-83, 385, 387, 389,
391-94, 399-400, 403, 406

HEIDELBACH, PHILIP, 282

Heidelberg, Germany, 257

Heidelberg, Pa., 114

HEILBRON, HEIMAN, 117

HEINE, HEINRICH, 155, 218, 254

HENDRICKS (family), 278

HENRIQUES (family), 87-88

HENRIQUES, GEORGE, 283

HENRIQUES, HENRY STRAUS QTUIXANO,

471, 483

HENRIQUES, MOSES, 88

HENRY, JACOB, 200

HENRY, JACOB; see Bluch, Jacob

HENRY, JOSEPH; see Bluch, Joseph Henry

Henry Joseph Collection, of the Amer-
ican Jewish Archives, 99

HENRY, SOLOMON, no, 113

HENTY, GEORGE ALFRED, 3

HERTZ, JOSEPH H., 438

HERZL, THEODOR, 3, 425, 437~39,
443-46

Hesse, Germany, 255, 259

Hevrat Zion Society, Baltimore, 441,

443
Hibbat Zion, 425, 427, 437, 439, 442,

446; see also Hoveve" Zion Society
HTLLHOUSE, JAMES ABRAHAM, 207
HINTON, CATHERINE D., 96
HIRSCH, EMIL G., 358, 367, 371, 45O
HIRSCH, SAMUEL, 367, 381, 396
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 99
Historiography, 148-49, 187, 247
Hitierism, xiii-xiv, 55
HTTZIG, FERDINAND, 398
HOLFORD, GEORGE PETER, 196, 203,

214
Holidays (Jewish), 181, 404

521

INDEX

Holland, 25, 57, 99-100
HOLLANDER, KOSMANN, 117
HOLLANDER, SUESSKIND BEN KOSMANN,

117

Holy Alliance, 250
HOMBERO, MOSES, 117
Homestead, Pa., 3
HOOFIEN, ELIEZER SIGFRIED, 463
HOOVER, HERBERT, 458, 460, 463, 471,

475, 48o, 482, 485
HOPKINSON, FRANCIS, 176
HOPKINSON, JOSEPH, 177
HORWIGH, BERNARD, 445
HORWITZ, JONAS (JONATHAN), 200, 297
Hoveve" Zion Society, 429-30, 440-44,

446-47, 451-52; see also Hibbat Zion
HUBSCH, ADOLPH, 381, 392-93, 396
HUGUENIN, ANN SARAH, 89
Humanism, 316-17, 324
Hungarian Jews, 398
HYAMS, CATHERINE, 85
HYAMS, DAVID, 94
HYAMSON, ALBERT M,, 509
HYDE, ORSON, 133
HYMAN, HENRY, 231

Iberian Peninsula, 75

Illinois and Wabash Land Companies,
194, 196, 200

Immigrants, immigration, I, 25, 27-28,
36-40, 42-45, 48-50, 71, 83, 123,
128, 136, 147, 162, 248, 257, 264,
267-68, 274-75, 278, 280, 282, 286,
3i6, 332, 392, 396-98, 4H-I2, 414,
419^20, 423, 425, 427, 440, 450-52,
454""56; see also Emigration

Imperialism, 38

India, 57

Indies, 26

Industrialism, industrialists, industrial-
ization, industry, 34, 36, 38-42, 44,
47-48, 50-51, 58-59, 174, 253, 275,
278, 282, 438

Inflation, 53

522

INLAND STEEL Co., 281

Inquisition, 70, 241

Insurance business, 278

Intellectuals, intellectualism, 56

Intermarriage, 79, 81-86, 94-97, 182-
83> 395-96

International Institute of Agriculture,
291

International Workingman's Associa-
tion, 286

IRBY, ANN SARAH, 89

Ireland, Irish, 28, 280

IRVING, C., 204

IRVING, WASHINGTON, 177-78

ISAACKS, JACOB, 190

ISAACS, AARON, 94

ISAACS, ABRAM SAMUEL, 381

ISAACS, DAVID, 84

ISAACS, RALPH, 94

Israel, 57

ISRAEL, ISRAEL, 94

ISRAEL, MICHAEL, 95

ISRAEL, MOSES NATHAN, 200

Israelit^ Der (of Baltimore), 429, 441

Israelite (of Cincinnati), 315, 326-27,
331-33, 347, 349, 397-98

Israels Herold (of New York), 153, 239

ISSERMAN, FERDINAND M., 358

Italians, Italy, 31, 56

JACOBS, BARNARD, 103, 115, 117, 121
JACOBS, JOSEPH, 7
JACOBS, SAMUEL, 18
JACOBSON, ISRAEL, 14, 499
JACOBSON, JACOB, 10
JADWIN, EDGAR, 490
JAQUETT, JOSEPH, 296-97, 312
JASTROW, MARCUS, 395-96, 410, 418,

453

JEFFERSON, THOMAS, 176, 190
JELUNEK, ADOLF, 158
Jeshuat Israel Congregation, Newport,

R. I., 75, 123-24
JESSUP, MARY* 93

INDEX

JESUS (of Nazareth), 47, 70, 132, 190,

192, 202, 207, 325-58, 400
Jewelry business, 279
Jewish Alliance of America, 450-52
Jewish Foster Home, Philadelphia,

179

Jewish Publication Society of America,
xiv, xvi, 20, 160, 295, 464

Jewish Theological Seminary of Amer-
ica, New York, 4, 162, 397, 461

Jewish Welfare Board, xiv, 17, 463, 480,
483, 488

Jewry, Jews, xiii, 14, 16-17, 20, 23-28,
30-43, 45-56, 59-61, 64-66, 71, 73-
75, 77, 82-86, 123, 128, 147, 149,
154, 161, 250-52, 254, 451, 461-62

Jobbers, jobbing, 40, 42, 45, 48

Johannisstrasse Jewish Reform Con-
gregation, Berlin, n

JOHNSON, DAVID ISRAEL, 203-4

JOHNSON, HENRY, 85

JOHNSON, HOMER H., 490-91

Joint Distribution Committee, 463, 469,

475, 479, 484
JOSEPH BEN BENJAMIN, 112
JOSEPH, JACOB, 451, 454
JOSEPHSON, MEYER, 103-4, 106, 108,

III-I2, Il6

JOSEPHSON, MRS. MEYER, 116

JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS, 189, 191, 234

JOST, MARCUS, 380

Journalists, 41

JUDAH, AARON H., 211

JUDAH, BENJAMIN S., 95

JUDAH, DAVTD, 84

JUDAH, DE WITT CLINTON, 91

JUDAH, MANUEL, 201-2

JUDAH, MARIA, 95

JUDAH, MICHAEL, 84

JUDAH, NAPHTALI, 199

JUDAH, SAMUEL, no, 219, 221, 223-24,

240
JUDAH, SAMUEL BENJAMIN HALBERT,

217, 225

JUDAH, SAMUEL N., 211
JUDAH, URIAH HENDRICKS, 91

Judaism, 77, 84, 86, 156-57, 181-82,
252, 254, 301, 315-24, 36i, 434-36,

453

Judaism, Conservative; see Conservative
Judaism

Judaism, Orthodox; see Orthodox Ju-
daism

Judaism, Reform; see Reform Judaism

Judeo-German, 99

"Judische Wissenschaft"; see "Wissen-
schaft des Judentums"

Junk business, 281

Junkers, 31

juridical freedom, juridical rights, 30-3 1

KABAKOFF, JACOB, 425-56
KALISCH, ISIDOR, 296, 332
KAMINKA, ARMAND, 356
KANTOR, JUDAH LOEB, 426
Kashrut, 181, 454
KATZ, IRVING I., 511
KAYSER, HENRY, 235
KELLY, JAMES A., 63
KEMBLE, GOUVERNEUR, 177
Kentucky, 74
Kiel, Germany, 10
KIMHI, DAVID, 130, 307
KIRCHHEIM, RALPH, 383
KISCH, GUIDO, 147-70
KLAUSNER, JOSEPH, 356-57, 43 *
KLEIN, PHILIP, 446-47
Knights of Labor, 287
Knights of Zion, 445, 448
"Know Nothing" Party, 173
KOBER, ADOLF, 381

KOHLER, KAUFMANN, 5, 9, 155, *58-59»
165-68, 373-78, 380-81, 393, 398,

444>499

KOHLER, MAX J., 65
KOHUT, ALEXANDER, 427, 453

KOPPERL, MORTTZ, 283

KOPPMAN, LIONEL, 64, 510

KORN, BERTRAM W., vii, xiii-xvii, 19,

129, 189, 359-71
Kovno, Lithuania, 2

523

INDEX

KRAUS, WALTER MAX, 91, 94
KRAUSKOPF, JOSEPH, 358
KROGHMAL, ABRAHAM, 380, 398
KROCHMAL, NAGHMAN, 380
KUHN, LOEB & Co., 282

LABATT (family), 88

Labor, laborers, labor movement, labor

unions, 45, 48, 284-88, 427; see also

Unions, Working class
LACEY, HENRY, 202
LA MOTTA, JACOB DE, 197
Lancaster, Pa., 75, 120
Landau, Germany, 257
LANDAU, ALFRED, 103
LANDMAN, SOLOMON, 508
LANDSBERO, MAX, 158
Land speculation, landowners, 27, 50,

94> 97> i*9> i?2, 269; see also Real

estate business

Lane Theological Seminary, Cincin-
nati, 5

LANSING, ROBERT, 458
Lawyers, 4I3 51, 288
Laymen, 83, 369
LAZARE, ABIGAIL, in
LAZARUS, JOSHUA, 278
League of Nations, 291, 479, 483
Leather business, 278
LEBESON, ANITA L., 295
LEESER, ISAAC, 19, 142-43, 180, 222,

228, 295-313, 315, 368-69, 408-10,

4^2, 415, 4I7-I8, 420, 424
LEHMAN BROTHERS, 59, 282
LEHMAN, EMANUEL, 282
LEHMAN, MAYER, 282
Lehranstalt, Berlin, 10
Leipzig, Germany, 43
LEIZER BEN LEIB [URI] (Eleazar Lyons),

103, 106, 113-14
LE JEUNE, BENJAMIN, 73
LE JEUNE, ROSINA, 74
LEO-WOLF, JOSEPH, 212-13
LEO-WOLF, WILLIAM (WERNER), 217
Levant, 26

LEVI, HARRY, 4

LEVI, HENRY, 232

LEVI, ISRAEL, 468

LEVIN, LEWIS CHARLES, 229-30, 234-

35, 240, 242

LEVINE, JUDAH LOEB, 431
LEVINGER, LEE J.9 75
LEVINSKY, ELHANAN LOEB, 431
LEVTTA, ELIJAH, 127
Levites (Levis), 70
LEVONTIN, ZALMON D., 440
LEVY, A., 279
LEVY, AARON, 100-101, 103, 108, 117-

20, 215

LEVY, ASSER, 64
LEVY, BENJAMIN, 121
LEVY, CHAPMAN, 226
LEVY, DAVID, 222
LEVY, DAVID (David Levy Yulee),

224-25; see also Yulee, David
LEVY, E., 220
LEVY, HENRIETTA, 95
LEVY, ISAAC, 84, 95
LEVY, JACOB A., 231
LEVY, JACOB C., 206
LEVY, JOHN, 242
LEVY, JOHN B., 216
LEVY, LEVY ANDREW, 195
LEVY, MOSES, 95
LEVY, MOSES E., 88, 220
LEVY, MYER, 211
LEVY, NATHAN, 95, 218-21
LEVY, RACHEL, 95
LEVY, SAMSON, 95
LEVY, SAMSON, JR., 95
LEVY, SARAH, 226
LEVY, URIAH PHILLIPS, 215
Lexington, Ky., 174
LIBER, MAURICE, 477
LIBOWTTZ, NEHEMIAH S., 379
Library Company, The, Philadelphia,

LlEBERMAN, MR., IIO

LIGHTFOOT, JOHN, 332
Ligonier, Ind., 283

, MOSES LOEB, 380

524

INDEX

LlLIENTHAL, MAX, 143, 284, $97

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, 174, 282

LlNDESKOG, GOSTA, 325, 357-58

LIPMAN, HYMEN L., 224, 242

LIPPMAN, MAYER, 381

LIT (department store), 281

Lithographing, 278

Lithuania, 1-2

Lithuanian Jews, 102, 425

L'maan Zion Society, 448

Lodz, Poland, 45

London, 26-^27, 76, 88, no

London Jewish Chronicle, 332

LONG, ANDREW THEODORE, 487

Long Island, N. Y., 64-65, 290

LOPEZ (family), 81, 88

LOPEZ, AARON, 18, 28

LOPEZ, DAVID, JR., 96

LOPEZ, DIEGO JOSE, 81, 88

LOPEZ, MATHIAS, 207-8

Louisiana, 289-90

Louis STIX & Co., 268

LOUZADA (family), 88

LOWENSTEIN, HARRIET B., 486

Lower classes, 426

LUBIN, DAVID, 291

Lumber business, 269

LUTYENS, GOTTHELF N., 2OO

LUZZATTO, SAMUEL DAVID, 380

Lynchburg, Va., 72-73

LYON, ABRAHAM, 226

LYON, CATHERINE, 4, 91

LYON, ELIETZER, 114

LYON, GEORGE, 84, 91

LYON, JOSEPH, 91

LYON (LYONS), SOLOMON, 118

LYONS, A. J., 120

LYONS & HART, 226

LYONS, ELEAZAR (Leizer ben Leib), 113

LYONS, Lovi, 108, 120

LYONS, MORDECAI, 226

MACK, JULIAN W., 462, 474, 482, 486,

491
MACY, R. H., & Co., 269, 281

(MADURO) PEIXOTTO (family); see

Peixotto (Maduro)
MAILERT, AUGUST, 259-60
MAILERT, CHARLES Lucius, 259-60
Maimonides College, Philadelphia, 360-

61, 369, 410, 418
MAIMONIDES, MOSES (Moses ben Mai-

mon), 77, 410, 418
Mainz, Germany, 250, 257
MALACHOWSKY, HILLEL, 426, 428, 431
Manhattan, N. Y., 67
MANN, JACOB, 503
Mannheim, Germany, 257
Manufacturers, manufacturing, 40, 42-

44, 58, 256, 283
MARACHE (family), 88
MARCUS (family), 2-4, 10
MARCUS, AARON, 1-3, 13
MARCUS, ANTOINETTE, 1 1-12, 19
MARCUS, ETHEL, 2
MARCUS, FRANK, 2
MARCUS, ISAAC, 2-3
MARCUS, JACOB RADER, xi, xiii-xvii,

1-22, 149, 187-88, 359, 374-75, 457,

493-512

MARCUS, JENNIE RADER, 2
MARCUS, MERLE, 12—13
MARGOLK, MAX L., 295
MARKELSON, AARON; see Marcus, Aaron
MARKENS, ISAAC, 64, 74
MARKS, ELIAS, 202
MARKS, HAIM, 116
MARKS, HENRY, 113-14, 116
MARKS, ISAAC, 72
MARKS, LEAH, 113-14
MARKS, LEVI (LIPMAN), 113-14
MARKS, MICHAEL, 72
MARKS, MORDECAJ, 96
MARKS, RACHEL, 116
MARKS, SOLOMON, 116
MARKS, ZANVDL, 113
MARQUES (family), 80, 88
MARQUES, ISAAC RODRIGUEZ, 72
MARQUES, JACOB RODRIGUEZ, 72
Marranos, 26, 75, 77; see also New

Christians

525

INDEX

MARSHALL, Louis, 18, 457, 462-63,

465-66, 471-72, 474, 478, 480-82,

484-86, 490-91
MARTIN, JOHN, 198
MARX (family), 96
MARX, ALEXANDER, 148, 162, 295
MARX, CAROLINE, 85, 96
MARX, JOSEPH, 96
MARX, JUDITH, 96
MARX, KARL, 52, 54, 254
MARX, LOUISA, 96
Maskilim, 426-27, 431, 434; see also

Haskalah

MASLIANSKY, Zvi HIRSCH, 431, 447
Masoretes, 127, 138, 297-98, 305-6
MATHER (family), 123
May Laws (Russia), 2
MAYBAUM, SIEGMUND, 150
MAYER, ISAAC, 296
MAYSOR, DAVID, 94
MAYSOR, REBECCA, 94
MEARS, GRACE, 95
MEASE, JAMES, 176
Meat packing industry, 269, 275, 277-

METJER, JACOB, 64
MEIR BEN K.OPPEL (JACOB), n8

MEN AHEM BEN SARUK, 129

MENDELE MOCKER SEFORIM (Shalom
Jacob Abramowitsch), 7, 495

MENDELSSOHN, MOSES, 254, 302

MENDES (family), 88

MENDES, FREDERIC DE SOLA, 357

MENDES, H. PEREIRA, 427

Merchants, 24, 26-30, 43, 47, 83, 94-95,
97, no, 1 1 6, 172, 268, 293; see also
Businessmen, Peddlers, Storekeepers,
Tradesmen

MEREDITH, MRS. WILLIAM, 176

MERVIS, MOSHE FALK, 428, 431, 441,

444

MERZBACHER, LEO, 143, 257
MESOJUTTA, DE; see de Mesquita
Messiah, messiahship, messianism, 69-

70, 316, 322, 395, 435
Metal business, 278

526

Mexican War, 173

MEYER, ISIDORE S., 156, 382, 512

MEYERS, SAMUEL, 65

Mickve Israel Congregation, Savannah,

Middle classes, 30, 41-42, 46, 48, 50-51,
53-54, 56, 59, 293, 426

Middlemen, 284

Middle West, 37, 274-76, 279

Midrash, 158, 309, 385

Midwood (Midwout), Brooklyn, 63,
67-68

Mikveh Israel Congregation, Phila-
delphia, 75, 89-92, 97, 108, 120-21,
128, 172, 175, 181, 183

MILMAN, HENRY HART, 203

Milwaukee, 270, 276, 285

MINDA, ALBERT G., 357

"Minister," 83

MINIVER, MICHAEL, 120

MlNKOVSKY, PlNKHOS, 427

MINTZ, MOSES, 441

Mishna, 390, 399

Mixed marriages; see Intermarriage

MOKE, CHARLES, 97

MOISE, REBECCA, 96

MOISE, ROBERT, 96

MOKE, THEODORE SIDNEY, 96

Monarchy, 30-32, 35

Monatssckrift jur Geschichte und Wissen-

schaft des Judentums, 403
Moneylenders, moneylending, 24, 33,

35, 37, 42
MONTAGUE, EDWARD P., 240

MONTEFIORE, CLAUDE G., 483
MONTEFIORE, JOSHUA, 195, 1 98, 2O5,

211
MONTMOLLIN, FREDERICK, 199

MOORE, CLEMENT C., 207

MOORE, GEORGE FOOT, 124

MORAIS, HENRY S., 95

MORAK, SABATO, 381, 397, 407-24

Moral law, 318-21, 324

MORDECAI, ALFRED, 224-25, 228-29,

240, 242
MORDECAI, ELIZABETH (ESTHER), 90

INDEX

MORDECAI, M. G., 235

MORDECAI, MORDECAI MOSES, 97, 106,

108, in, 118
MORDECAI, MOSES, 90
MORDECAI, MRS., 114
MORGENSTERN, JULIAN, 6~7, 374
Morgenthau Commission to Poland,

464, 484

MORGENTHAU, HENRY, 458, 490-91
Mormons, 133
MORRIS, NELSON, 277
MORRIS, RICHARD B., vii
MORRIS, ROBERT, 118-19
MORTARA, EDGAR, 173
MOSES, CECILIA F., 96
MOSES, JACOB, 95
MOSES, SOLOMON, 199
MUHLFELDER, RABBI, 143

MURAT, ACHILLE, 177

MYERS (family), 91, 96
MYERS, BARTON, 96
MYERS, BENJAMIN, 73
MYERS, ELAINE GRAUMAN, 74
MYERS, ESTHER, 73
MYERS, HAIM, 112
MYERS, JUDITH MARX, 96
MYERS, LOUISA MARX, 96
MYERS, MOSES, 96, 201, 213
MYERS, MOSES, n, 96
MYERS, MYER, 96
MYERS, SAMUEL, 96
MYERS, SAMUEL, S. 278
MYERS, SARAH, 73

NAAR (family), 80-81, 88
NACHMAN BEN MOSES, 112, 116
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 32, 78, 173,

197, 249-51, 255
Napoleonic wars, 37
Nashville, 73

NASSY, DAVID DE ISAAC COHEN, 191-92
NATHAN (family), 91
NATHAN, BENJAMIN, 104, 114-15
NATHAN, CAROLINE WEBB, 91
NATHAN, ESTHER, 91

NATHAN, LYON, 91-92

NATHANS & HART, 189

NATHANS, BARBARA (SARAH), 92

NATHANS, ISAIAH, 92

NATHANS, MOSES, 92

NATHANS, SARAH ABRAHAMS, 92

National Community Relations Advi-
sory Council, xiv

National Jewish Welfare Board; see
Jewish Welfare Board

National Labor Movement, 287

Natural law, 30

NAUMBURG, JACOB, 391

Nazis (National Socialists), 14-16, 49

Needle trade, 273

Nefutsoth Jehudah Congregation, New
Orleans, 242

Negroes, 29, 56, 63, 65, 85

Netherlands, the; see Holland

NEUMANN, JOSHUA N., 102

NEWBURGER, MORRIS, 415, 424

New Christians, 70; see also Marranos

New Deal, 52-53, 55-56

New England, 20, 29, 36, 43, 124, 274

New Haven, Pa., 2

New Jersey, 290

NEWMAN, Louis L, 358

NEWMAN, MOSHE, 433

New Netherlands, 65

New Orleans, 96, 267

Newport, R. L, 96, 160

New Testament, 69-70, 193, 206, 326-
27, 329-39* 342-43, 346, 35<>, 352-55,
397; see also Bible, Jesus

New York (City), 1-2, 40, 45, 64-65,
67, 72-73, 80, 89, 91, 93, 95, HO,
128, 160, 181, 268-70, 275, 278-79,
281, 283, 285, 288, 426, 451, 454

New York (province and state), 20,
124

New York Militia, 72

New York Stock Exchange, 94

New York, University of the City of, 136

Ninth of Ab, 322, 430

Nitgy Israel Congregation, Baltimore,

211

527

INDEX

NOAH, MORDECAI MANUEL, 82, 152,
196, 203, 213, 242

NONES (family), 81, 88

NONES, ANNA (HANNAH), 92

NONES, BENJAMIN, 90, 92, 193

NONES, DAVID BENJAMIN, 92

Non-Jews, 40, 42~43> 49> 80-82, 85-86;
see also Catholics, Christians, Gen-
tiles, Protestants

NORDAU, MAX, 439, 446

NORDHEIMER, ISAAC, 136-4!, 145

Norfolk, 73, 96, 201, 216

North, 272, 275, 282

North America, xiii, 26-27, 29> 8o~
81

NORTON, ELIJAH, 207

Norwalk, Conn., 84

NUNEZ (family), 88

OBERHOLZER, EMIL, JR., 535

Occident (of Philadelphia), 315, 332

OCHS, JOSEPH, 235

OODEN, HUGH, 117

Ohal6 (Ohole) Shem Society, New

York, 159, 432, 438, 443
Ohav6 Zion Society, New York,

445

Oil business, 269
Old Testament; see Bible, Pentateuch,

Septuagint

OLES, M. ARTHUR, 99-122
Open Board of Stockbrokers, New

York, 283
Order Knights of Zion; see Knights of

Zion
Orphan Society (Asylum), Philadelphia,

176-77, 179
Orthodox Jewry, Orthodox Jews, 43,

436
Orthodox Judaism, 4-5, 182-83, 247,

316

OTTOIXNGHE, JOSEPH, 189
OTTOLENGUI (family), 88
Oyster Bay, Long Island, 65

528

PADEREWSKI, IGNACE JAN, 458, 490

Pakistan, 57

PALACHE (family), 80, 88

Pale of Settlement (Russia), 40

Palestine, 12, 435, 438, 440-42, 44$,

451, 461, 463
Panics, economic, 285
PANTTZ, DAVID, 429, 441
Papacy, 31
Paris, 12, 457

Paris National Assembly, 249
Paris Peace Conference, 457-91
PARKHURST, JOHN, 126
Particularism (Jewish), 321-24
Passover, 320, 403-4, 473*74
PATTON, JOHN, 112
PAULDING, JAMES K., 177
Pawnbrokers, pawnbroking, 35, 45-46,

253

PAXTON, MARY J., 95
Peace Conference, Paris, 457-91
Peasantry, peasants, 28, 33-36, 39-40,

42,49

Peddlers, peddling, 2, 33, 35, 37, 40,
42, 45-46, 48, 264-66, 269, 455; see
also Businessmen, Merchants, Store-
keepers, Traders

PEIXOTTO (family), 81, 88

PEIXOTTO (COHEN) (family), 88

PEIXOTTO, DANIEL L. M., 213

PEIXOTTO, LEAH COHEN, 78

PEIXOTTO (MADURO) (family), 88

PEIXOTTO, MOSES LEVY MADURO, 78, 8l

PEIXOTTO, SAMUEL LEVY MADURO, 78

PEIXOTTO, SIMHA C., 221

Pennsylvania, 3, 20, 97, 124

Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf
and Dumb, 204-5

Pentateuch, 296-300, 303, 307, 311-12,
344; see also Bible

Pentecost; see Shavuoth

PERRY, MATTHEW C., 282

PESOA (family), 88

Petersburg, Va., 73

INDEX

Petroleum business, 278

PETTIGREW, JAMES, 97

Philadelphia, 29, 40, 45, 90-91, 94-95,

no, 113, 119, 128, 160, 171-73,

175-81, 184-85, 270, 275, 285
Philadelphia Conference (of Reform

rabbis), 279, 381
Philadelphia Free Library; see Free

Library of Philadelphia
Philanthropy, 271

PHUJPPSON, LUDWIG, 302-3, 306-7, 309
PHDUPSON, DAVID, 9, 508
PHILLIPS, JONAS ALTAMONT, 213-14
PHILLIPS, JONAS B., 209
PHILLIPS, MR., 117
PHILLIPS, PHILIP, 222
PHILLIPS, ZALEGMAN, 210, 216
PHELLIPSON,, SIMON, 195
Physicians, 2
Pine Bluff, Ark., 290
PENSON, KOPPEL S., 503
PINTO (family), 88
Pittsburgh, 2-3, 268
Podwerynka, Lithuania, 2
Poland, Poles, 27-^28, 49, 463, 469-72,

475-76, 481, 487, 490-91
Polish Jewry, Polish Jews, 49, 133, 291,

455, 475, 490

Polish Minorities Treaty, 460

Political equality; see Equality, political

Political freedom, political rights, 30;
see also Civil rights; Equality, political

POLLAK STEEL Co., 281

Polonies Talmud Torah, New York, 128

PONTE, LORENZO DA, 207, 209, 214

POOL, DAVID DE SOLA, 509

Portsmouth, Va., 201

Portugal, 26, 77, 81, 88

Posen, 251

POSTAL, BERNARD, 64, 510

PRAG, JOSEPH, 471, 483

PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH, 193, 195

Priests, 70, 306-7, 344, 395

Professions, 51, 288-89, 293

Proletarians, proletariat, proletarianiza-
tion, 24, 34, 40-41, 45, 4^, 50, 5^-53

Proselytes, 381, 385-86, 388-91, 395,

399

Protestants, 174

Prussia, 250, 255

Publications of the American Jewish Histori-
cal Society, 148-49

Publishing business, 41, 277

PUE, ELIZABETH, 84

PULITZER, JOSEPH, 292

Puritanism, 29

PYKE, E., 277

Quakers, 488
Quarries, 278
QUIXANO, ABRAM HENRIQZJES, 87

Rabbi, 83, 455

RABINOWTTZ, ISAAC, 456

RACHEL BAS SELIGMAN AARON, 104,

106, 120

Radicalism, radicals, 45-46, 48, 52, 55
RADIN, ADOLPH M., 438
RADIN, MAX, 495

Railroads, 36, 269, 276, 281-83, 292
RAISIN, MORDECAI ZEV (MAX), 439, 445
RASHI (Solomon ben Yitzhak), 133, 304,

308-9

RAWIDOWICZ, S., 509
RAYNER, WILLIAM SOLOMON, 282
Real estate business, 278; see also Land

speculation, landowners
REESE, MICHAEL, 278
Reform Judaism, 4-5, 14, 247, 254,

315, 361-64, 366, 368, 380, 395, 427,

433-34, 436-37, 443, 453
REICHERSON, MOSES HAKOHEN, 456
REIDER, ISAIAH, 2
REEDER, JENNIE, 2
REINACH, SALOMON, 480
REISLER, SIMON, 481
Religious education, 3-4, 180
Religious freedom, 30, 475
RENAN, ERNEST, 327
Republican Party, 173

529

INDEX

Republik der Arbeiter, 286

Restoration, the, 250

Retail trade, retailers, 37, 41-42, 58-59,
281

Revolution, Revolutionary War, 29,
37, 72, 89, 92

Revolution of 1848, 32, 153

REZNIKOFF, CHARLES, 462

RICHARD, STEPHEN C., 95

Richmond, 90, 96, 116, 160, 181, 278

RIESSER, GABRIEL, 154

Rights of man, 30, 255

RINMAN, SOLOMON, 426

Ritual slaughtering, 83

RIVERA (family), 80

RIVKIN, ELLIS, 23-61

Rodeph Shalom Congregation, Phila-
delphia, 75, 267

RODKINSON, MICHAEL L., 425-28

RODRIGUEZ (family), 88

RODRIGUEZ BRANDON (family); see
Brandon (Rodriguez)

RODRIGUEZ, ISAAC, 84

Roman Catholics; see Catholics

Roman Empire, 23

ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN D., 53, 55, 460

ROSENBACH, ABRAHAM S. WOLF, 19,
187-88, 510

ROSENBAUM, ARTHUR J. S., 64

ROSENBERG, ADAM, 440, 444

ROSENBLATT, WILLIAM, 363

ROSENBLOOM, JOSEPH R., 18, 171-86

ROSENFELT, JOHN, 278

ROSENTHAL, JULIUS, 155, 165-68
ROSEN WALD, JULIUS, 18, 269
ROSENZWEIG, GERSON, 430-31
ROTH, CECIL, 75, 502, 505, 508
ROTHMAN, WALTER E., n, 17
ROTHSCHILD (banking house), 46-47,

52, 54, 282

ROTHSCHILD, EDMOND DE, 477
ROTHSCHILD, LIONEL WALTER, 471
Roumania, 463, 481, 491
RUBINSTEIN, BARUCH, 426
RUNDALL, MARY ANN, 216
RUSH, JAMES, 177, 192, 234

530

RUSSELL (family), 73

RUSSELL, ESTHER, 235-36

RUSSELL, MOSES, 73

RUSSELL, PHILIP MOSES, 72, 236

Russia, Russians, 2, 40, 49, 52, 57, 454,

470, 481; see also Soviet Union
Russian Jews, 289, 435, 450-51, 453~55
RUTER, MARTIN, 127

Sabbath, 181-82, 320-21, 395

St. Louis, 271, 276, 285, 290, 430

St. Michaels, Barbados, 72

SAKS (department store), 281

SALE, SAMUEL, 367, 371

SALOMON, DEBORAH (DELIA), 92-93

SALOMON, EZEKEEL, 93

SALOMON, HAYM, 93, 236

SALOMON, HAYM M., 93, 236, 243

SAMUEL, STUART, 483

SANDERUN, DANIEL, 120

SANDMEL, SAMUEL, 325-58

San Francisco, 276, 278

SARASOHN, KASRIEL Zvi, 429-31, 442,

447-48

SARZEDAS (family), 88
SASPORTAS (family), 88
SAUL, JOSEPH, 209
SAUNDERS, CHARLES H., 201-2
Savannah, 160, 181, 275
Saxony, 255
SCHAFER, SIMON, 283

SCHAFER, S. M., 283
SCHAFFER, SCHEPSEL, 444

SCHAPIRA, HERMANN, 439
SCHECHTER, SOLOMON, 4, 156, 159
SCHEFFERMAN, ABE, 474
SCHIFF, JACOB H., 18, 282, 462, 466, 484
SCHINDLER, SOLOMON, 450, 452-53
SCHLESINGER, MAX, 357, 381
SCHLOSS, MOSES, 363, 370

SCHNABEL, MR., 365
SCHNEIDERMAN, HARRY, 464
SCHOENBERG, ISAAC, 366
SCHONTHAL STEEL Co., 28 1

Schools, 142, I44™45, 151,

INDEX

see also Religious education, Sunday
Schools

SCHORR, OSIAS (Joshua Heschel Schorr),
379-406

SCHOTTLAENDER, BfiNDET, 499

SCHRADER, EBERHARD, 398

SGHUR, WOLF (ZEV), 425-56

SCHUYLER, NICHOLAS, 97, 183

Schweinfurt, Germany, 257

SCHWEITZER, ALBERT, 329, 341

Scientists, 59

SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 171, 178, 185

SEARS, ROEBUCK & Co., 269

SEASONGOOD & Co., 283

Second-hand trade, 253

Second World War, 57

SEESSEL, HENRY, 267-68

SEIXAS (family), 8 1, 88, 91, 93

SEIXAS, BENJAMIN, 93

SEIXAS, DAVID G., 204-5

SEIXAS, GERSHOM MENDES, 89

SEDCAS, ISAAC B., 91, 93, 211

SEIXAS, JAMES, 133-34, 141

SEIXAS, JUDITH LEVY, 93

SEIXAS, MARY JESSUP, 93

SEIXAS, MOSES BENJAMIN, 93

SEIXAS, REBECCA, 94

SEIXAS, SOLOMON, 211

SELIGMAN (brothers), 268, 282

Sephardic Jews, Sephardim, 71, 74-81,

87-88, 100-101, 136, 471; see also

Spanish-Portuguese Jews
Sephardic rite, 75
Septuagint, 132, 309
SERGEANT, MRS. JOHN, 177
SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY, 279
Sewing Society, Philadelphia, 179
Shave" Zion Society, 441
Shavuoth, Shovuoth (Pentecost), 404,

489
Shearith Israel Congregation, Montreal,

89
Shearith Israel Congregation, New

York, 73, 76, 89, 91, 93-^95
SHINEDLING, ABRAHAM I., 19, 513-35
SHIPTON, CLIFFORD K., 189

Shoe industry, 281
Shopkeepers; see Storekeepers
Skulchan Anich, 394

SlLBERMAN, MOSHE, 429

Silesia, 263

SILVER, ABBA HILLEL, 7

SIMON, ABRAM, 358

SIMON, JOSEPH, 75, 97, 114-15, 120-^22,

195

SIMON, RACHEL (RELAH), 114

SIMON, SHINAH, 97, 183

SIMONSON, GERTRUDE, 91

Sinai (of Baltimore), 315

Sitka, Alaska, 279

Slavery, slaveowners, slaves, 24, 29, 33,
63-66, 173, 275

SLIDELL, THOMAS, 215, 220

SMALL, ABRAHAM, 200

Smelting business, 278

SMITH, ELIAS, 196

SMITH, JOHN, 124-25

SMOLENSKIN, PERETZ, 426, 434, 439

Smuggling, 37-38

SNELLENBURG (department store), 281

Social Democratic movement, 45

Social Democratic Party, 286

Social equality; see Equality, social

Socialism, socialists, 45-46, 48, 287, 433

Social Justice) 55

Social life, society, 30, 34, 44, 46, 53,
56-57, 60, 175, 178, 184, 254; see also
Middle classes, Upper classes, Work-
ing class

Social welfare, 179, 184

SOFER, MOSES, 136

SOHER (family), 72-73

SOHER, ROSALIE, 73

SOKOLOW, NAHUM, 439, 465, 472, 491

SOLIS (family), 8 1, 88

SOLIS, JACOB S., 205

SOLOMON, BERNARD, 278

SOLOMON, JOSEPH, 119-20

SOLOMON, LEVI, 113

SOLOMON, MR., 113

SOLOMON, SAMUEL, 194

SONNESCHEIN, ROSA, 444

531

INDEX

SONNESCHEEST, SOLOMON H., 380,

98, 453

SORIA (family), 88

South, 20, 272, 275, 279

South America, xvii, 26

SOXJZA (family), 88

SOUZA, SAMUEL, 81

Soviet Union, 50, 57; see also Russia

Spain, 70, 77, 87

Spanish-Portuguese Jews, 27, 70, 74;
see also Sephardic Jews

Spanish Succession, War of the, 37

Spenersche %eitung (of Berlin), 153

Speyer, Germany, 257

SPEYER, ALBERT, 283

SPICEHANDLER, EZRA, 379-406

SPINOZA, BARUCH (BENEDICT), 230

SPITZ, MORRIS, 380, 398

SPIVAK, CHARLES D., 452

STAHL, FRTEDRICH JULIUS, 254

State, the, 254

Steel industry, 281

STEINSCHNEIDER, ALBERT, 163, 170

STEINSCHNEIDER, MORITZ, 156-57, 162-
63, 169-70, 380

STERN, MALCOLM H., 19, 69-97

STERN-TAEUBLER, SELMA, 247-61

STETTHEIMER, JOSEPH, 278

STEWART, WALTER, 118-19

STILES, EZRA, 123-24

STTX, Louis, 257, 259, 268

STTX, Louis, & Co., 268

Storekeepers, storekeeping, 40, 42, 45-
46, 48, 265, 267-69; see also Busi-
nessmen, Merchants, Tradesmen

STRASSER, ADOLPH, 287

STRAUS (brothers), 283

STRAUS (family), 269

STRAUS, ISIDOR, 269-70

STRAUS, LAZARUS, 269

STRAUS, NATHAN, 269

STRAUS, OSCAR S., 479-81

STRAUSS, LEWIS L., 458, 463, 479,
481-82, 484

STRIKER (STRYKER), PIETER, 63-64,
67-68

532

STUART, MOSES, 124, 126, 128, 131-33,

138-41, 145
SUARES (family), 88
SULLY, THOMAS, 178

SULZBERGER, DAVID, 407, 415, 423

Sunday Schools, Jewish and Christian,

4, 179-81; see also Schools
SUTRO, ADOLPH, 278
SUWALSKY, ISAAC, 433
SWAYTHLING, LOUIS SAMUEL, 47!
Switzerland, 173
SZOLD, BENJAMIN, 380, 394, 397, 402-3,

441, 453

TAEUBLER, SELMA STERN-, 247-61

Talbotton, Ga., 269

Talmud, talmudic quotations, refer-
ences, studies, 109, 130, 303, 311-12,
321^24, 332, 338, 385, 388-91, 410,
415, 418, 424

Targum, targumic references, 309-10,

393

TARSHISH, ALLEN, 19, 263-93
Tavern keeping, 42
TAYLOR, ROBERT, 327, 329

TCHERNICHOWSKY, SAUL, 43!

Teachers, 41, 50, 288

Temple Israel, Boston, 4

TENENBAUM, JOSEPH, 458, 472

TENTLER, AARON A., 227

Texas, 2

THOMPSON, MARTHA LAMPLEY, 95

Tiflis, I

TILGHMAN, WILLIAM, 176

Tisha b'Ab; see Ninth of Ab

Tobacco business, 278-79

TOBIAH BEN JUD AH, 115

TOURO (family), 88

TOURO, ISAAC, 123-24

TOURO, JUDAH, 409, 417

Trade, trading, 27-28, 37, 40, 42, 49,

107, 258, 361; see also Commerce
Tradesmen, traders, 28, 35, 40, 97;

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