The Day’s Doings; An Illustrated Journal. Two issues concerning the Benjamin Nathan murder

AUCTION 15 | Tuesday, March 12th, 2002 at 1:00
Fine Hebrew Books, Manuscripts and Works of Art The Property of Various Owners

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Lot 35
(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

The Day’s Doings; An Illustrated Journal. Two issues concerning the Benjamin Nathan murder

With fourteen illustrations Light wear. Folio

London: 3rd and 10th September 1870

Est: $600 - $900
“No single event since the close of the Civil War excited the Jewish community as much as the gruesome murder of Benjamin Nathan, one of New York City’s leading Jewish laymen and a descendant of the colonial Nathan-Seixas family. His brother-in-law was Reverend Jaques Judah Lyons, of Shearith Israel Congregation. On the morning after the crime was committed, Saturday, July 30th, 1870, almost all the newspapers in the city carried the anguished story.” The Unsolved Murder of Benjamin Nathan, in: American Jewish Archives (1956), p.14 The son of the founder of the New York Stock Exchange, Benjamin Nathan was himself a vice-president of the Exchange as well as the president of Shearith Israel and Mount Sinai Hospital. The Exchange offered a reward of ten thousand dollars for information on the crime and ceased trading on the day of his funeral. Though many suspects had been investigated, including one of Nathan’s own sons, the case remains unsolved to this day