Leeser, Isaac. Autograph Manuscript Signed. Certificate of Conversion. Written in Hebrew, signed by Leeser in Hebrew and English, along with three other signatures (see below).

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

21st Tammuz

Philadelphia

1844

A highly scarce early American conversion certificate. This rabbinical document attests to the ritual conversion to Judaism of the three children of Moses ben Nathan Bomeisler: His daughter Rebecca and his two sons, Benjamin and David. The entire document is written in Hebrew by Isaac Leeser who attests that the father promised to raise the children within the Jewish faith. The unnamed Christian mother testified to Leeser's satisfaction that she had granted irrevocable consent to the process. A ritual Jewish conversion requires the assent of three members of a Beth-Din (Rabbinical Court). Hence, in addition to Leeser, the document is signed by Abraham Israel, (scribe and beadle of the Cherry Street Synagogue), Jacob Phillips (manager of the United Hebrew Benevolent Society) and I.L. Hackenburg. See Dana Evan Kaplan, Intermarriage and Conversion to Judaism in Early American Orthodoxy in: Tradition, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Summer 1997) pp. 39-51.