MANUSCRIPT CIRCUMCISION RECORD-BOOK. Bound with Sefer Sod Hashem (Vienna, 1814)

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

New Orleans

1836-1850

Manuscript on paper. With thirty three manuscript inscriptions in Ashkenazic Hebrew script recording the performance of circumcisions, with rendering of names, dates and places in Latin letters.

One of the Earliest American Circumcision-Book of the Jews of the South. An important genealogical record. Contains registry of circumcisions performed in New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Columbia, South Carolina; New York and Philadelphia. In addition to the Hebrew and family names of each child, the Mohel stated the age of the child at the time of circumcision, ranging from the traditional eight days to two hundred and one days. Many of the Family-names recorded were among the most prominent of the South, including: Benjamin, Levine, Dalsheimer, De Jonge, Jefferson, Harris and Levy. The majority of entries relate to Jewish families of New Orleans. See B.W. Korn, The Early Jews of New Orleans (1969) A similar manuscript initiated in the New York area a decade later (1846) was sold by Kestenbaum & Company, March 12th, 2002, Lot 21.