Isaac Leeser. Discourses, Argumentative and Devotional, on the Subject of the Jewish Religion. Delivered at the Synagogue Mikveh Israel, in Philadelphia, in the years 5590-5597.

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA)

Haswell and Fleu

Philadelphia

1837

First edition. Two volumes bound as one. THE ABRAHAM DE SOLA COPY with his signature on opening free endpaper.

Singerman 632; Rosenbach 413.

The First Collection of Jewish Sermons to Appear in America. Leeser’s Discourses marked a coming of age of the American synagogue and Ministry. Leeser was a most facile preacher, well aware of the pioneering nature of his skills in this regard. In his introductory survey of the state of Jewish preaching in vol. I Leeser writes: “I believe that it may be said without any vanity on my part, that in our Synagogue was the first attempt made for about ten years past to give religious instruction in lectures.” This volume was owned by one of Leeser’s more famous contemporaries: Abraham de Sola of Montreal (1825-82), with whom Leeser was closely associated. De Sola served as rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Congregation of Montreal and taught at McGill University. He was so well regarded for his eloquence, that he was invited by President Grant in 1872 to open the year’s Congressional session - the first ever Jew to do so. Upon Leeser’s death, de Sola was asked to take up his pulpit, though he ultimately declined the offer.