Leeser, Isaac

The Records of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (1859-1878) documents the life cycle of the Board of Delegates, a Jewish civil rights organization located in New York City. The Board served in a two-fold function: acting as a central organization for American Jews and working on behalf of Jews abroad. To the latter end, the Delegates collaborated with the Committee of Deputies of British Jews and the French Alliance Israélite Universelle to provide for the relief and aid, civil, and religious rights of Jews throughout the Americas, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, particularly Romania, Ottoman Palestine including Jerusalem, and Morocco.

In the U.S., the Delegates were partially responsible for the appointment of the first Jewish Military Chaplain and surveyed member synagogues concerning the history and size of their congregation, the first organization to systematically record this type of information in the States. The Delegates merged with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) in 1878 and dissolved in 1925. Correspondents include Adolph Crémieux, Sir Moses Montefiore, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Isaacs S. Myer, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Fischel, and Maj. General Benjamin Butler. Documents include correspondence, minutes, committee reports, memorials, announcements, surveys, some printed material including clippings, and a 1932 Rabbinical thesis on the Delegates by Allan Tarshish.

Contains primarily correspondence and some business and official papers of the Cohen Family of Baltimore and Richmond. Papers center around the following members of the family: Jacob I. Cohen (1784-1822), the firm of Cohen & Isaacs of Richmond, Mrs. Edmund Randolph, Carter Braxton (1794), and James Monroe, Governor of Virginia.

The collection consists primarily of correspondence, as well as documents and newspaper clippings pertaining to efforts made by the American and British governments and Jewish communities in both countries on behalf of their co-religionists in the "East" during the blood accusation in Damascus, and related persecution in Rhodes.

Included is correspondence between Moses Montefiore and the Executive Committee of the Israelites of the city of New York; correspondence between the N.Y.C. Israelites and similar committees in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Richmond and the Board of Deputies of British Jews; correspondence between the committee and President Martin Van Buren and Secretary of State John Forsyth and other government officials; minutes and resolutions of the committee; a printed address by Montefiore to the Turkish Sultan and his reply; an English translation of the Firman granted by the Sultan at Montefiore's request and its Greek translation circulated by Montefiore in the "East"; a communique in Turkish, Hebrew, and Ladino issued by the Haham Bashi in Constantinople, Haim Moshe Frisco.

Collection contains research notes and writings relating to London's works on early American Jewish portraits, miniatures, and silhouettes; this includes family histories of the subjects of the artwork, biographical information on the artists, and information about the works themselves. Also includes items relating to London's personal life, such as her genealogy and a notebook of letters written by her son Robert who was killed in action in World War II during his service in the army; notes, manuscripts, and published and unpublished articles and poetry; art catalogs; legal documents; lantern slides; photographs; correspondence; newspaper clippings; genealogical charts; handwritten sheet music; military medals; sound recordings; a theater program; and a scrapbook.

Contains letters and articles in manuscript to Leeser pertaining to: his work as editor of The Occident, his translation of the Bible and his other literary works; discussions concerning Jewish law, the Reform movement in the United States and in Curaçao; Reform and Orthodox Judaism in Albany, N.Y., Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson's anti-Semitic comments in the United States Congress; the founding of a synagogue in San Francisco; the condition of Jews and Jewish education in America and in England; equal rights for Jews in Massachusetts and North Carolina; the controversy over the Touro Monument; slavery and the Civil War; and converts to Judaism. Also includes information on Israel Joseph Benjamin's trip in the U.S., 1859-1862; Isaac Mayer Wise; Sabato Morais; a manuscript guidebook on Jewish ritual slaughter written by Moses Julian in Barbados in 1820; Moses Montefiore's report on his mission to Rome on behalf of the Edgardo Mortara affair; articles discussing Christian theology; the Jews in Cochin, India and in China; a Latin preface to Leeser's Hebrew Bible; a Portuguese prayer against the evil eye; and poems on topics of Jewish interest.

Contains two documents from rabbi and publisher Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia, a broadside proposal to start a school in Philadelphia and a advertisement to attract subscribers to a book by Leeser on Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Customs.