The American Magazine, for June 1758. (pp. 411-460)

This issue of the Philadelphia journal: “American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle” contains a remarkable Rabbinic Sermon - distinguished for being the Earliest Jewish Publication in the New World. In November of 1757, Frederick the Great of Prussia committed his army to one of the fiercest campaigns of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). His troops routed an enemy that was twice as numerous, emerging triumphant following the campaign at Leuthen. Jubilant Prussian Jews joined their neighbors in celebration and hosted a special Sabbath thanksgiving service in which a hymn was composed to mark the victory and Chief Rabbi David Fraenckel (1707-62) delivered a much acclaimed sermon in German, in which he strongly identified the Jewish Community with their host society. Fraenckel’s sermon met with great success and it was much re-issued. The sermon’s appearance in this Philadelphia monthly, the first presentation of it in an English translation, marked the first Jewish publication in the Americas. Indeed the sermon proved to be so popular it was subsequently reprinted in pamphlet form on Colonial presses three times in 1758 and once more five years later. The 1763 American publication is of particular interest, as it contains a preface in which the publisher lamented the manner in which non-Jews had persecuted the Jews over the centuries. He saw in Rabbi David Fraenckel's words evidence that Jews did indeed identify with a larger host nation and he hoped that the sermon’s wide dissemination would serve to instruct that in fact the Jews “have patriot[ic] sentiments, and the warmest gratitude to princes who have wisdom and humanity to protect and defend them.” That it was an American publisher in particular, who gave voice to the enlightened sentiments behind the repeated publication of the Rabbi's sermon, fore-shadowed the welcome reception that Jews were ultimately to find in the United States. See H. Snyder, A Tree with Two Different Fruits: The Jewish Encounter with German Pietists in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, in: The William & Mary Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4 (2001)