(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Defense of Judaism by Haham David Nieto with Important Note by Isaac Leeser. David Nieto (1654-1728), was Haham of the Spanish-Portuguese community of London between the years 1701-1728. True to the tradition of his native Italy, Nieto was clearly a “Renaissance man” in terms of his erudition and breadth of scope. He studied medicine at the University of Padua and was a linguist, astronomer of note and seasoned polemicist. Nieto's Reply to the Archbishop of Cranganor, in which he refutes the christological reading of the Bible, first appeared posthumously in the Spanish language (1729). It was not until 1845 that Moses Mocatta produced in London an English translation. See JE, Vol. IX, pp. 302-3; EJ, Vol. XII, cols. 1152-3. Of particular interest in this American edition of the work is the prefatory “Note” by Rev. Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia (1806-1868), staunch defender of Orthodox Judaism: “We would observe that Mr. M[ocatta] belonged to the British Jews' congregation who do not regard rabbinical authority as binding. Hence his allusion in the Preface which is not very complimentary to our old teachers.” See L.J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism(1995), pp. 209-10