Large minutely detailed engraving entitled: Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews. Composed by Julius Bien.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

The Jewish Messenger

New York

1859

* Accompanied by: (Companion volume) Max Wolff. Explication of an Engraving Called the Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews. Additional Hebrew title-page. Kabbalistic diagrams.

cf. Goldman 1015; Singerman 1599; Deinard, Koheleth America 70.

Remarkable pictorial composition representing a cornucopia of Judaic iconographic symbols and figures along with Hebrew textual narrative derived from Jewish lore and service. Max Wolff states in his preface that he was ministering to the Chabei Shalom Congregation of Boston, where he was inundated with queries concerning the present engraving (originally produced in Paris, 1851). Consequently, Wolff reproduced it for the American market together with an extended translation of the explanatory booklet. Julius Bien was a respected lithographer who fled Germany for New York after having participated in the unsuccessful revolution of 1848. While receiving US Government contracts for engraving geological and geographical publications, he was also involved in Jewish communal life as director of both the Hebrew Technical Institute and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York.