James C. Burns, H.F. Burder, J.S. Stamp. Lectures on the Conversion of the Jews.

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA)

American Society for the Melioration of the Condition of the Jews

New York

1846

Republished from the London edition, by the American Society for the Melioration of the Condition of the Jews. [Contains 3 lectures. The final lecture was originally printed separately and has its own title page, but is bound into a single volume with the other 2 lectures.] First American printing.

Rosenbach 589.

“These lectures are select from a very interesting series, that was preached in London in the year 1843, before the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, and subsequently published by the committee” (from the title page). The first two lectures encourage the conversion of Jews to Christianity, noting that this mission not only “has the sanction of the Divine will,” but there may also be special value in converting Jews, as “[t]he very spectacle of their conversion would be like a new revelation to the world.” The American Society for the Melioration of the Condition of the Jews was founded in 1820. An article that appears in the New York Times in 1860 records that “[t]he Society's efforts, were … mainly confined to the City and its vicinity, and its work was principally done through the agency of three converted Hebrews, employed as colporteurs, to visit Jewish families and distribute tracts amongst them.”