PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. Letters to The Jews. * Levi, David. Letters to Dr. Priestley
AUCTION 15 |
Tuesday, March 12th,
2002 at 1:00
Fine Hebrew Books, Manuscripts and Works of Art The Property of Various Owners
Lot 55
(ANGLO AMERICAN JUDAICA)
PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH. Letters to The Jews. * Levi, David. Letters to Dr. Priestley
New York: J. Harrisson for B. Gomez 1794
Est: $600 - $900
David Levi (1742-1801), English Hebraist and polemicist, was the first Jew to write, in English, polemics in defense of his fellow-Jews. In his Letters to Dr. Priestley, he rejected the attempts of the noted scholar to convert Jews to Christianity. This American edition, was printed in New York for a member of the prominent Jewish- American Gomez family, founders of New York’s Shearith Israel synagogue, and active in Jewish affairs throughout the eighteenth century. B. Gomez was in all likelihood the first Jewish bookseller in New York.
See EJ, XI col. 78