Wise, Isaac Mayer. HaChashmona’im - The First of the Maccabees. Translated into Hebrew by Yitzchak Epstein.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

A.M. Luncz, for the Girls’ School of Safed.

Jerusalem

1893

FIRST HEBREW EDITION. Hebrew text, with additional title-page in French.

This historical novel by America’s leading Reform rabbi first appeared as a serial in Wise’s weekly newspaper The Israelite and was then published in book form in Cincinnati, 1860 (Singerman 1697). Pioneering educator Yitzchak Epstein came to Palestine in 1886, initially serving as an agricultural consultant at the behest of Baron Rothschild. Epstein promoted strong ties of tolerance to the local Arab population, ideas he promulgated at the first Zionist Congress in 1897.