Discourses on the Jewish Religion, Isaac Leeser, Philadelphia: Sherman & Co., 1867

A rare, complete set of the collected sermons of one of the seminal figures of American Jewish history.

Isaac Leeser (1806-1868), a Prussian-born immigrant to America, would ascend to prominence in his adoptive country as editor of The Occident, and American Jewish Advocate, the first successful national Jewish newspaper; founder of several important Jewish communal institutions; and translator of a number of basic Jewish texts, including the Pentateuch (1845-1846) and the complete Hebrew Bible (1853; see next lot). A man of great industry, he also served as cantor and acting rabbi of Philadelphia’s Sephardic Congregation Mi(c)kveh Israel, in which capacities, and generally as a communal leader, he delivered more than 250 English-language sermons over the course of his career. Some of these were published in The Occident or in pamphlet form, but in 1837-1841 Leeser collected and printed two series of addresses given in the years 5590-5601 (1830-1841). These volumes comprised the first anthology of Jewish sermons in America and helped establish the sermon as a central feature of the American synagogue service. Indeed, Leeser advocated for the founding of Jewish schools that would train preachers who would regularly deliver lectures and discourses on Jewish topics in the vernacular.

No doubt due to his many national and local communal and literary responsibilities, Leeser would not put out a third series of sermons until 1867, shortly before his death. The present lot comprises the complete, ten-volume set of his Discourses, including the original three volumes from 1837-1841 issued anew. Leeser wrote that, in publishing this work, he was motivated by the wish to leave a “religious legacy” for the “new generation that has sprung up.” In his 1868 review of the Discourses, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, a student of Leeser’s, praised “the characteristic freshness, vigor and originality of thought” evident in his teacher’s words, as well as his “keen penetration, wonderful powers of observation, a marvellous memory, and an ever ready power of detecting resemblances.” He also noted the historic nature of the compendium which, he asserted, “will be one of the main sources for a history of Judaism in our country.” Sulzberger concluded that “every one who knew Mr. Leeser and appreciated his abilities, every Jew who is interested in the events that have befallen his co-religionists here, during the last forty years, and who wishes to understand the principles of his religion, every one who desires to read an advocacy of Judaism, by one of its ablest defenders, will be glad to possess the work.”

Physical Description

10 volumes (approx. 7 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.; 200 x 115 mm) on paper: Vol. 1: 422 pages (pagination: xii, 410); Vol. 2: 410 pages (pagination: iv, 406); Vol. 3: 385 pages (pagination: x, 375); Vol. 4: 408 pages (pagination: vi, 402); Vol. 5: 410 pages (pagination: iv, 406); Vol. 6: 400 pages (pagination: iv, 396); Vol. 7: 400 pages (pagination: iv, 396); Vol. 8: 390 pages (pagination: iv, 386); Vol. 9: 262 pages (pagination: iv, 258); Vol. 10: 408 pages (pagination: iv, 404). Slight scattered staining and dog-earing; minor, episodic damage/tears in edges; pp. [i-ii], 409-410 of Vol. 1 and pp. [i-ii] of Vol. 6 remargined; tiny loss of text due to stain on p. 212 of Vol. 7; small repairs in outer edges of pp. i-2 of Vol. 10; notes or corrections in pencil or pen on pp. 109-111, 267 of Vol. 1 and pp. iii, 120 of Vol. 5. All volumes bound in half blue leather over marbled boards, some of them slightly scuffed; spines in six compartments with raised bands; title, name of author, and volume number lettered in gilt in three of the compartments; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns, the pastedowns marbled. Housed in a modern blue cloth case lined with matching marbled paper.

Literature

Anon., “The Late Rev. Isaac Leeser,” The Occident, and American Jewish Advocate 25,12 (March 1868): 593-601.

Yosef Goldman with Ari Kinsberg, Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography, vol. 2 (Brooklyn: Yosef Goldman, 2006), 611-612 (no. 687).

Robert Singerman, Judaica Americana: A Bibliography of Publications to 1900, vol. 1 (New York; Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 1990), 354 (no. 1956).

[Mayer Sulzberger], Review of Discourses on the Jewish Religion, The Occident, and American Jewish Advocate 26,5 (August 1868): 237-238.