Isaac Leeser. Catechism for Younger Children. Designed as a Familiar Exposition of the Jewish Religion.

AUCTION 63 | Thursday, November 13th, 2014 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic and Ceremonial Art

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Lot 10
(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Isaac Leeser. Catechism for Younger Children. Designed as a Familiar Exposition of the Jewish Religion.

Second edition, with new preface by Leeser and dedication to Rebecca Gratz. <<This copy inscribed and signed by Leeser:>> “Revd. Dr. G.W. Bethune, With the respects of IL. Phila. Novbr. 7th, ‘44.” With Bethune’s book-plate on front pastdown. pp. xii, 168. Ex-library. Some foxing. Contemporary boards, spine damaged. 8vo .

Philadelphia: C. Sherman (1844)

Est: $4,000 - $6,000
PRICE REALIZED $19,000
In this children’s textbook, Leeser sets forth the basic tenets of Jewish belief as contained in the Ten Commandments and Maimonides’s Thirteen Principles of Faith. An appendix entitled “The Ceremonial Law” addresses the practical observance of Judaism: Prayer, Tzitzith, and Tephillin, as well as the Sabbath and Festivals. This edition is exceptionallly scarce as Leeser writes in a later edition: “The second edition has indeed not been exhausted by public demand, but a calamitous conflagration having destroyed the remainder of the same, a new supply had to be provided.” Indeed WorldCat records only two copies of this second edition. Of Huguenot descent, George Washington Bethune (1805-62) was a preacher-pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church. An outspoken Democrat, opposed to slavery he was also an avid fisherman, who worked anonymously on five of the American editions of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler under the pseudonym The American Editor. Singerman (no. 901) questions whether this work was issued in 1845 since only the Jewish year (5605) is recorded on the title-page. Since the Jewish year commences in the Fall it is therefore unclear whether the book would have been published in 1844 or 1845. Leeser’s personal inscription here to Bethune, dated November, 1844, provides us with the answer.