(Newspaper). New York Herald.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Saturday, January 5

New York

1861

On front page and p. 2, Rev. Dr. Raphall's Discourse in the Greene Street Synagogue.

Full Text of anti-abolitionist Sermon of Rabbi M.J. Raphall. "This sermon aroused more comment and attention than any other sermon ever delivered by an American rabbi” (B.W. Korn). Friday, January 4, 1861 had been proclaimed by President Buchanan as a National Fast Day in order to mobilize the nation against the pending disaster of the break-up of the Union. Rev. Morris J. Raphall of New York took advantage of the solemn occasion to offer his objective understanding of the Bible's position on slavery. His finding was that the Bible provided for the institution of slavery, albeit of a much more humane variety than that practiced by some avaricious Southern slaveholders whose motto was "King Cotton." Naturally, the Southern advocates of slavery seized upon the Rabbi's remarks to uphold their own political position. The shock waves from Raphall's sermon reverberated throughout the country - within the Jewish community in particular. See B.W. Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War (1951), pp.16-25.