JOHLSON, J[OSEPH]. Instruction in the Mosaic Religion. Translated from German to English by Leeser, Isaac

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Adam Waldie

Philadelphia

1830

FIRST EDITION. English interspersed with Hebrew

Rosenbach 321; Singerman 0489

Leeser’s First Book, The First Religious Manual For The Jews of America The translator, Isaac Leeser (1806-1868), pioneer of Orthodox Judaism in America, dedicated the book to his uncle, Zalma Rehine of Richmond, Virginia, who was Leeser’s sponsor and benefactor in this country, having brought him over from Germany. The copyright page is anomalous, the Library of Congress cataloging information containing a line in Hebrew. The title has Johlson a “teacher of an Israelitish School at Frankford on the Maine.” The truth be told, Johlson (1777-1851), son of the rabbi of Fulda, was closely associated with the emerging Reform movement in Germany. It is somewhat ironic that the great champion of Orthodoxy, Isaac Leeser, would deem Johlson’s catechism, Unterricht in der Mosaischen Religion (Frankfurt a/Main, 1819), an appropriate text to educate the young Jews of America. See Lance J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (1995), pp. 67-70