Converts

Contains the correspondence between Mrs. Augusta Ellis Johnson, a Jewish American citizen living in Lima, Peru, and General Alvin P. Horey, United States Minister to Peru. In this correspondence, Ellis Johnson asks Gen. Horey for help securing the release of her 14 year old son, Joseph who was forcibly baptized on October 27, 1868 by Dr. Jose Jesus Aylbon--curat of St. Marcelo--and abducted by the Spanish friars of the Convent of the Descalzos. The dispensation of the incident is not known.

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.