The New Jamaica Almanack and Register, Calculated to the Meridian of the Island for the Year of our Lord 1798.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Stevenson and Aikman

Kingston, (Jamaica)

1797

On p.15: “Kalendar of Months, Sabbaths, and Holidays, which the Hebrews or Jews Observe and Keep, for the Years 5558 and 5559 of the Creation.” The names of the Jewish holidays and new months are noted in English and Hebrew. With several 18th- and 19th-century inscriptions in various hands on opening and closing blanks, including inscriptions by the MacDermots of Coolavin in front; an emotional record of the death of a loyal servant, 1798; seven pages of poetry at end.

Almanacs issued in Jamaica included a page of the 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 font 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).