Rev. M. J. Raphall. Bible View of Slavery. A Discourse, Delivered at the Jewish Synagogue, “Bnai Jeshurun,” New York, on the Day of the National Fast, Jan. 4, 1861

In this sermon, Raphall, the prominent minister of a New York synagogue, asserted that the institution of slavery was sanctioned by Scripture. His sermon received more attention from the American public and generated more controversy than those delivered that day by Christian clergymen precisely because Raphall, a Jew, “was a descendant of the People of the Book.” Prominent abolitionists, Christians and Jews alike, attacked Raphall’s thesis, although he did distinguish the benevolent Biblical laws of slavery from the cruel way it was practiced in the South. Raphall responded to his opponents in the preface to this pamphlet. See Korn, American Jews and the Civil War, pp. 15-31