Monis, Judah | A landmark of Jewish Americana, and of American printing history

Monis, Judah

Dickdook Leshon Gnebreet: A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue, Being an Essay to Bring the Hebrew Grammar into English. Boston: Jonas Green, 1735

4to (223 x 160 mm). Folding broadside of "The Hebrew Grammar, at One View," from Parkhurst's An Hebrew and English Lexicon (likely the 1762 edition) tipped to verso of front free endpaper facing the title, decorative headpieces, p. 48 with annotation reading "Judah Monis His Book"; contemporary annotations to title in ink, browning and scattered spotting, contemporary ink annotations and ownership inscriptions to text, margins of a few tables just shaved, final leaf with repairs and one tear with loss of a few words. Three-quarter speckled calf and marbled paper-covered boards, gilt-lettered label to spine; boards rubbed.

The first Hebrew grammar published in the New World. 

Judah Monis emigrated from Europe to North America around 1715. Settling first in Long Island and New York City, he eventually (ca. 1720) moved to Boston, where he was publicly baptized on March 27, 1722. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed Harvard College's first Hebrew Instructor, a position he held until his resignation in 1760. Already by 1720, Monis had completed a first draft of the grammar textbook he would eventually use to teach Hebrew at Harvard. Because of a lack of funds and sufficient Hebrew type, however, the book was not published until 1735. As the first Hebrew grammar printed on American soil, Dickdook Leshon Gnebreet would serve generations of students at Harvard and other institutions of higher learning in New England.

The present copy belonged to Simeon Howard, who was almost certainly a student of Judah Monis. Howard went on to become a prominent and long-serving pastor of the West Church in Boston.

PROVENANCE

Simeon Howard (ownership signatures)

REFERENCE

Celebration of My Country 21; ESTC W4735; Evans 3913; Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America 171; Rosenbach, American Jewish Bibliography 28