Falk, Joshua ben Mordechai HaKohen. Avnei Yehoshua [“Stones of Joshua”: Philosophical commentary to the Ethics of the Fathers].

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

“Jewish Messenger” Office

New York

1860

FIRST EDITION. Composed in a novel and quite beautiful typography. The J.D. Eisenstein copy, with his book-plate.

Vinograd, New York 53; Deinard, Koheleth America 4; Singerman 1653; Goldman, 688.

The First Rabbinical Text Published in America. The First Hebrew Book Printed in New York. The author, Joshua Falk, was well aware of the revolutionary aspect of issuing a work of Jewish scholarship in Hebrew in the New World. His preface urges Jews to purchase this book in order to prove that Jewish works of this nature do indeed have an audience in America, which in turn, will lead to more such rabbinic texts to be issued in this country. The typsetter, Naphtali ben Kathriel Samuel of Thorn also recognized the book’s importance, viz. the colophon: “I give thanks that it was my good fortune to be the typesetter of this scholarly book, the first of its kind in America.” Joshua Falk (1799-1864), a native of Poland, arrived in America in 1858 and served briefly as rabbi in Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, New York. He died the year of the book’s publication while visiting his daughter in Keokuk, Iowa. See A. J. Karp, From the End of the Earth: Judaic Treasures from the Library of Congress (1991) pp. 316-7 (illustrated).