b'14(AMERICAN-JUDAICA) 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.FIRST EDITION.Two volumes bound as one.THE ABRAHAM DE SOLA COPYwith his signature on opening free endpaper. pp. (ads), x, (2), 297, (4), 293, (3, list of subscribers). Some foxing, few leaves loose. Contemporary calf, rubbed, lacking backstrip. 4to. [Singerman 632; Rosenbach 413.] Philadelphia, Haswell and Fleu, 1837. $1000 - $1500THE FIRST COLLECTION OF JEWISH SERMONS TO APPEAR IN AMERICA. Leesers 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 rst attempt made for about ten years past to give religious instruction in lectures. This volume was owned by one of Leesers 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 de Sola was invited by President Grant in 1872 to open the years Congressional session - the rst ever Jew to do so. Upon Leesers death, de Sola was asked to take up his pulpit, though he ultimately declined the offer.15(AMERICAN-JUDAICA) Rosanna Dyer Osterman. Autograph Letter Signed, written in English to her brother in Baltimore, Leon Dyer. Osterman sends news of cholera epidemics in the South that have abated. She requests copies of Isaac Leesers The Occident that she is missing, as well as a volume of the Jewish Orthodox Magazine of Liverpool edited by D. M. Isaacs and Moses Samuel. She also asks her brother to bring a Siddur for her when he visits, a German and Polish Prayer Book such as I has [sic] always used. pp. 3. 4to. Galveston, Texas, January 14th, 1848. $1000 - $1500 Rosanna Dyer Osterman (1809-66) is described as a unique character in the records of womanhood (Henry Cohen, Settlement of the Jews in Texas, PAJHS 2, 1892). Along with her husband Joseph, Rosanna was a founder of the rst Jewish community in Texas. Possessed of means, she shared her generosity and also gained renown as a nurse in times of crisis. During a malaria epidemic in 1853, she set up tents on her property turning her home into an impromptu hospital. Osterman was killed in a steamboat explosion in 1866 and left much of her fortune to charity. Her brother Leon Dyer (1807-1883) served as acting mayor in Baltimore in 1834, a very trying period where hunger and rioting was rampant. It is said that he quelled the unrest by the force of his personality. Dyer later served as an ofcer in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War.7'