(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)
Leeser, Isaac. Autograph Manuscript, written in English (one word Hebrew).
List of advertisements intended for The Occident’s issue of June, 1849. Advertisements include one for a Jewish Boarding House in New York, with “fine spacious apartments” which is “kept open until after the arrival of the Philadelphia cars;” for Bibles bound in calf “suitable for Jewish families and for the school room;” and in search of a Chazan for K.K. Bne Jeshurun in Cincinnati. A salary of $500 is offered, “none but persons fully qualified need apply, and none others will be elected.”
Two pages. Tall, thin folio.
Philadelphia: 1849
In Philadelphia Isaac Leeser was a hazzan, traditionally, a relatively minor role in the synagogue, but which had been magnified in America to a sizable position of religious leadership for want of ordained rabbis. However, even in America the expanded role of hazzan had only consisted of delivering occasional sermons and responding to simple decisions in Jewish law. Leeser however transformed the role: Writing books on Judaism, creating texts for Jewish schoolchildren, translating the Twenty-four books of the Bible into English - a first for any Jew anywhere - as well as preparing translations of the Siddur in both Sephardic and Ashkenazic rites. Additionally, in 1843, Leeser created a monthly journal, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, which was read by Jews across North America and the Caribbean.