The New Jamaica Almanack and Register, Calculated to the Meridian of the Island for the Year of our Lord 1797

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

David Dickson, For Thomas Stevenson

Kingston (Jamaica)

1797

Second Edition-Carefully Corrected. On p.15: "Kalendar of Months, Sabbaths, and Holidays, which the Hebrews or Jews Observe and Keep, for the Years 5557 and 5558 of the Creation." The names of the Jewish holidays and new months are noted in English and Hebrew. Following final printed page, English inscription of former owner: "William Reily, his book, May 1st, 1799." Followed by two pages of accounts in faded brown ink: "Debts due the estate of P. Clayson Deceas'd" and "Debts due Estate of Thos. Hodgkin Deceas'd."

Jamaican almanacs included a Jewish calendar as early as 1776, which “would seem to be an indication of the importance of Jewish residents in the eyes of Christian Jamaicans.” See B. W. Korn, "The Haham DeCordova of Jamaica," in: American Jewish Archives 18.2 (Nov. 1966), p.141 n.2. These Jamaican calendars therefore, represent the very earliest appearances of Hebrew in the Western hemisphere in a publication intended specifically for Jews. Earlier works with Hebrew type, such as Judah Monis’s Hebrew Grammar, were intended for a Gentile audience. The first Hebrew calendar on the American continent was not printed until 1851 (Singerman S463)