(Bible, English). Torah Nevi’im u’Kethuvim- The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures. Carefully Translated According to the Massoretic Text, After the Best Jewish Authorities and Supplied with Short Explanatory Notes. By ISAAC LEESER

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

L. Johnson & Co

Philadelphia

1853

FIRST EDITION. Text in English. Printed in two columns

Deinard 847; Singerman 1271; not in Darlow & Moule

THE FIRST AMERICAN JEWISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE INTO ENGLISH. Isaac Leeser (1806-1868), a German Jew by birth, serrved as the hazzan of the Sephardi congregation Mikveh Israel of Philadelphia. There he founded the Jewish Publication Society of America, as well as the Occident, a monthly Jewish newspaper, in which he served as Editor for 25 years. Perhaps his crowning achievement was his translatiion of the Bible into English. Leeser’s version soon became the standard American Jewish translation and remained so well into the twentieth century. The translation is truly a monumental effort. Though an Orthodox rabbi who fought the inroads of Reform, Leeser consulted not only the classic rabbinic commentaries such as Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, etc., but also the modern works of Mendelssohn, Zunz and Philippson. See Lance J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1995); pp. 186-193.