Isaac Leeser Memorial Broadside, Isaac Goldstein, New York: J. Davis, 1868

1 Broadside (16 ¾ x 13 5/8 in.; 425 x 348 mm). Creased at folds. Mylar sleeve.

Lance Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism, Wayne State University Press, 1996.

This bilingual memorial poem takes the form of a dual acrostic, whose initial letters, in both its Hebrew and English portions, spells out the name of the deceased, Reverend Isaac Leeser (1806–1868). A black bordered likeness of the late communal leader is centrally placed, beneath two partial verses taken from the Book of Proverbs (11:30 & 12:19).

More than any other person of his time, Isaac Leeser envisioned the development of a major center of Jewish culture and religious activity in the United States. He single-handedly provided American Jews with many of the basic religious texts, institutions, and conceptual tools they needed to construct the cultural foundation of what would later emerge as the largest Jewish community in the history of the Jewish people. In addition to his decades of service in the pulpit of Philadelphia's congregation Mikveh Israel, where he was the first to introduce a regular English sermon into the synagogue service, Isaac Leeser's accomplishments as an architect of the American Jewish community include the founding of the first Jewish Publication Society (1845), the first Hebrew high school (1849), and Maimonides College, the first American Jewish rabbinical seminary, in 1867.  

A prolific writer, in 1843 he founded the monthly The Occident, the first successful Jewish newspaper in America. For 25 years, this was an important forum for articles on Jewish life and thought. His major literary achievement was the first American translation of the Bible, published in 1845. This remained the standard American Jewish translation of the Bible until the new JPS edition of 1917.

Leeser retired from Congregation Mikveh Israel in 1850. He did not take office again until 1857, when the newly formed Congregation Beth-El-Emeth in Philadelphia called him, and he remained its leader until his death in 1868.