William Davis Robinson. Memoir Addressed to Persons of the Jewish Religion in Europe on the Subject of Emigration to and Settlement in, One of the Most Eligible Parts of the United States of North America.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

H. Hay

London

1819

Scarce. A precursor to Mordecai Manual Noah’s Ararat Plan, this is a pamphlet written by an American resident in London seeking wealthy European Jews to invest in land along the upper Mississippi River and Missouri Territory to be reserved for Jewish settlement. “To what part of the habitable globe can the Jews fly for an asylum, where they will be exempt from persecution and oppression? No part of Europe offers to them a secure or convenient refuge, nor can they seek it in Asia or Africa… The United States of America, where the field of enterprise is immense, which is the only government among civilized nations that has wisely rejected any exclusive establishment, and where neither sect nor individual is molested on account of religion, is the only country upon earth that affords them the means of regeneration, of security and comfort.” (pp. 8-9.) See Daly & Kohler, The Settlement of the Jews in North America (1893) pp. 92-96.