Manuscript Petitionary Letter from Members and Seatholders of the Congregation K.K. Mickva Israel. Written to the Board of Adjunta concerning the decorum of the Synagogue. Followed by eleven signatures, senior members of the Synagogue

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

24th February

Philadelphia

1851

A most respectfully composed letter indicative of the great sense of dignity that Philadelphia’s Jews brought to their religious practices. "The Undersigned Members and Seatholders of the Congregation K.K. Mickva Israel, impressed with the unpleasantness and interruption to our Service caused by the bad arrangement of the Doors for entering and leaving the Synagogue: Would respectfully suggest to, and ask of the Board of Adjunta that such improvement should be made therein as will entirely remove this defect..." Signed on the petition are: Elias P. Levy, S. Levison, S[olomon] Solis, Joseph Newhouse, Samuel Hart, M. Cohen, H. Cohen, J.P. Levy, H.J. Allen, Alfred T. Jones, and William K. David. At the beginning of 1851, Mickvah Israel began to actively search for suitable candidates for the position of hazzan in replacement of the celebrated Isaac Leeser whose position at Mickvah Israel was terminated in 1850. In the elections held on April 13, 1851, Sabato Morais was voted the new hazzan. Of the signatories, we know that over the years Solomon Solis (1819-1854) was a devoted friend of Isaac Leeser and worked closely with him on various projects that the latter initiated. At Leeser's behest, Solis served as manager of the American Jewish Publication Society and as the first president of the Hebrew Education Society. It was in fact Solis who attempted to have Leeser reinstated as Hazan of Mickvah Israel in 1851, clearly unhappy as he was, with the decorum of the Synagogue following Leeser's departure. See L.J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (1995), pp. 152, 177, 204, 246-7. If Solis did everything possible to strengthen Leeser's hand at Mickvah Israel, it was our next signatory, Joseph Newhouse (1812-1892), a successful oil entrepreneur and founding president of Congregation Beth El Emeth (established 1857), who provided Leeser with respectability after his ignominious departure from Mickvah Israel. It was Newhouse who personally saw to it that Leeser was solidly ensconced as hazzan of the newly formed Congregation Beth El Emeth where he remained until his death in 1868. See Sussman, pp.177, 209-210, 242. Alfred T. Jones (who signed next to last), a native Bostonian, was another loyal Leeser sympathizer, recording secretary of the American Jewish Publication Society (1845) and first president of the Jewish Hospital Association (1865). By then, he was Parnass of Leeser's synagogue, Beth El Emeth. In 1859, Jones (in his capacity as President of Beth El Emeth) accompanied Leeser to a meeting in Washington with President Buchanan to discuss the Mortara Affair. See Sussman, pp. 152, 204, 210, 215, 233, 247