Moses Lopez. A Lunar Calendar of the Festivals and Other Days in the Year Observed by the Israelites…

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Printed at the Office of the Newport Mercury

Newport

1806

The whole of which having been carefully examined and corrected its utility has obtained the voluntary acknowledgment and approbation of Rev. Mr. Seixas, the respectable hazan of the K.K. Shearith Israel in New York. The Jacob I. Cohen Copy with his signature in Hebrew and English. Provenance information (1808) recorded by Cohen on last page. First edition.

Singerman 163; and see Y. Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America, Vol. II, p. 1166 (the present copy).

First Jewish Calendar printed in America. Only the second book printed for American Jews. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Jacob I. Cohen Jr. (1789-1869) was a prominent politician, banker and businessman who met with financial success in the lottery business. Upon moving to Baltimore Cohen was active in the Jewish community and a key activist in efforts to remove Maryland’s requirement that all elected officials swear to “a belief in the Christian religion.” Debate over the “Jew Bill” lasted for more than a decade and when in 1824 it was finally passed, Jacob Cohen became the first Jew elected to an official position in Maryland. Jacob Cohen assembled a magnificent Jewish library - the first important such collection in America. Later it was ably catalogued by Cyrus Adler (see Goldman no. 250). This Calendar was lot number 380 in the Cohen Sale of 1929. (Further information available upon request). In preparation of the Calendar Moses Lopez utilized the scholarly services of Gershom Mendes Seixas (1745–1816), minister of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York. Seixas was the first native-born Jewish minister in the United States. Among the supplementary material included here is a table for determining “the Hour to commence the Sabbath, in the City of New-York,” which “may, with a small variation, answer well for all the Northern States of America.” Also included is a table listing the Torah and Haftarah readings for the Sabbaths and Festivals. See M. Satlow, Two Copies of a Printed Early American Jewish Calendar in Providence, in: Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, Vol. 15, no. 3 (November 2009) pp. 416-25.