[George Houston]. Israel Vindicated Being A Refutation Of The Calumnies Propagated Respecting The Jewish Nation In Which The Objects And Views of The American Society for Ameliorating The Condition Of The Jews Are Investigated.

(ANGLO-AMERICAN JUDAICA).

R. Carlile

London

1823

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION (following the New York, 1820 ed.)

“In a country, where every man’s right to publish his sentiments is held as sacred as his right to think, it cannot be thought surprising that a part of the community, who have long been treated as the outcasts of society, should feel anxious to vindicate themselves from what they consider misrepresentation” (Preface, p. i.) “The very year in which the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was founded saw the publication of a strong counterblast to the Society’s missionary activity. This publication, Israel Vindicated, consisted of a series of discussions, cast into the form of letters, of the injustice of the Christian claim to superiority over the Jews and of the unfortunate distinction between the organic law of the United States and the constitutions of various states, notably Maryland and Massachusetts, on the equality of religions. The whole is presented, in the Preface, as designed to vindicate the Jews from the ‘misrepresentations’ fostered by the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews… It is particularly interesting to observe that the interpretation placed on the American conception of freedom of religion in Israel Vindicated is the strict Jeffersonian view that religious freedom implies the absolute equality of all religions before the law.” See Blau and Baron, The Jews of the United States, 1790-1840, A Documentary History, pp. 758-66.