Fernandes, Benjamin Dias. A Series of Letters on the Evidences of Christianity (As they First Appeared in the Occident). With a preface by ISAAC LEESER

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

n.p.

Philadelphia

1854

FIRST EDITION in book form

Singerman 1322

Benjamin Dias Fernandes’ Letters first appeared in Solomon Henry Jackson’s monthly paper “The Jew,” some thirty years before Isaac Leeser, serialized the entire work in his Occident beginning in 1843. Lesser writes in the Preface here: “One of the most attractive features of “The Jew” were the papers which appeared therein under the name of “Dea’s Letters” of which seventeen had been printed when the work stopped... This is the first publication of mine which does not eminate from my pen...We owe it to ourselves to defend our religion; and it would be a shame if, with a free press at our command, we do not scatter light all over the land and “teach the sons of Judah to wield the bow” the arrows of which slay unbelief and exterminate erroneous teaching.” Leeser describes the pains he went to in order to discover the identity of the author of these Letters: “Much to my gratification I received a letter from the late lamented Grace Aguilar informing me that the author’s name was Benjamin Dias, her maternal great-grandfather, a merchant of Portuguese origin, who came from Jamaica to England, where he spent the latter part of his life and where in fact these important Letters were writen.” See L. J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (1995) pp.140-2 and p.280 note 38