Call Number:

Arc Ms 62

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Archives at the Library of the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Extent:

2.5 linear feet (5 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Jesselson family collection of Isaac Leeser material, 1829-1896, Arc Ms 62, Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1829-1896 (inclusive)

Creator:

Leeser, Isaac

Form:

Correspondence

Abstract:

Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) was a rabbi, educator, writer, translator, editor and publisher; and proposed, founded, or led many significant civic, religious, and charitable institutions. This collection consists of letters, largely written to or from Isacc Leeser, that bear witness to Leeser's efforts to build the infrastructure of organized Jewish life in an English-speaking environment.

Isaac Leeser was born on December 12, 1806 in Neuenkirchen (in present day Germany), the son of Uri Lippman and Sara Isaac Cohen. He earned his education in Germany, first in Dulmen and later in Muenster. Following the deaths of his mother, father, and grandmother, his uncle Zalma Rehine, who lived in Richmond, Virginia, encouraged him to move to the United States in 1924, and his five years in that city resulted in his introduction to the Sephardic rite, the dominant Jewish rite practiced at that time in the United States.

By 1929, Leeser was living in Philadelphia, having been elected to the post of Hazan of the Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, an institution with which he maintained a stormy relationship until his retirement in 1850. Leeser established, with Rebecca Gratz, the Free Sunday School movement in Philadelphia; wrote sermons and theological works including The Jews and the Mosaic Law (1834), the Hebrew Spelling-Book (1838), Discourses on Jewish Religion (1867); and translated many works such as Instruction in Mosaic Religion by J. Johlson (1830), The Form of Prayers According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (1837), Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine, and the entire Hebrew Bible. He worked as an editor and publisher, and among his contributions to American literary culture was The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, a monthly journal of news and opinion.

Throughout his life, Leeser was a rabbi, educator, writer, translator, editor and publisher; and proposed, founded, or led many significant civic, religious, and charitable institutions. He died in Philadelphia on February 1, 1868.

The above was abstracted from Biographical Sketch of Isaac Leeser, by Arthur Kiron.

The letters in this collection were largely written to Isaac Leeser from a variety of well-known Jewish literary figures and community leaders. There are a few letters authored by Leeser and a small number of letters that were neither written to nor from Leeser. Overall, these letters bear witness to Leeser's efforts to build the infrastructure of organized Jewish life in an English-speaking environment.

The correspondence features more than 200 letters to and from both family members (in particular, his uncle, Zalma Rehine) and Jewish leaders. Jewish leaders include: Grace Aguilar (Anglo-Jewish author), Isidor Busch (publisher of the first American Jewish weekly, Israel's Herold), Solomon N. Carvalho (painter, inventor, and photographer), Julius Eckman (publisher of the Jewish Weekly Gleaner), Rebecca Gratz (American Jewish communal leader); James Gutheim, Solomon Hirschell (British Ashkenazi "chief rabbi"), Henry S. Jacobs, Alfred T. Jones, Gershom Kursheedt, Max Lilienthal (a leader of the American Jewish reform movement), Leo Merzbacher, Jacob Mordecai, Rev. M.N. Nathan (minister of a Jewish congregation at Kingston, Jamaica), Isaac Mayer Wise (a leader of the American Jewish reform movement), and Simon Wolf.

Intellectually, this collection is arranged alphabetically by author of the letter; however, physically, the collection is arranged by item number, as assigned by the donor and which is reflected in the electronic versions (to see entire group of letters, go to: http://leeser.library.upenn.edu. As a collection, these letters allow researchers to reconstruct the formative period of observant Jewish religious life and community building in a newly emergent Anglophone world.