Illowy, Bernard (1814-71). Autograph Letter Signed written to Isaac Leeser, in German with few Hebrew words.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

24th October

Baltimore

1859

In this letter Illowy requests several copies of Leeser's “Catechism for Jewish Children” for use in the Rabbi’s Sunday School in Baltimore. Illowy informs Leeser of recent successes in persuading members of his congregation to close their stores on the Sabbath and on Jewish holidays and recognizes that they are making a sacrifice to do so. Also discusses Benjamin Szold (“the new rabbi in the Hanover Street congregation”) and his opinions of liturgical reform.

Bernard Illowy was a Moravian rabbi who had studied Talmud and Codes with the celebrated Chasam Sofer at his yeshiva in Pressburg, as well as Hebrew and Bible exegesis with Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal) at his rabbinical seminary in Padua. Illowy took positions sympathetic to the revolutionaries in 1848, and was subsequently unable to secure a rabbinic position in Central Europe, he therefore migrated to the United States, instantly becoming one of the first ordained rabbis in the country. As a non-ordained clergyman, Isaac Leeser looked upon Illowy as an ally and a welcome reinforcement in strengthening the hand of Orthodox Judaism in America. Illowy would hold pulpits in numerous American cities, doing his best to strengthen traditional observance and stem the tide of reform. Illowy wrote responsa and essays on religious topics, publishing some of them in Leeser’s Occident. In this letter Illowy registers his disappointment that Baltimore’s Rabbi Benjamin Szold was opposed to Isaac Mayer Wise’s Minhag Amerika reformist siddur, but nevertheless wanted to create a reform liturgy of his own, being unopposed to reforms in principle, as Illowy was. See Sefer Milkhamot Elohim, Being the Controversial Letters and Casuistic Decisions of the Late Rabbi Bernard Illowy Ph. D. (Berlin 1914), published by his son Henry Illoway.