Devotional Exercises for Daughters of Israel, 1852.
The First Prayer Book For Jewish Women
Printed In America
[Judaica]. Devotional Exercises, For The Use Of The Daughters Of Israel, Intended For Public And Private Worship, On The Various Occasions Of Women’s Life. Compiled And Translated, With Emendations, From The German Of Letteris, Miro & Stern; And Edited By Rev. M.J. Raphall, M.A. PHDR. Of The Congregation Bnai Jeshurun, New-York. New York: Published by L. Joachimssen, 5612, A.M. (1852).
4to.; contemporary inscription to first blank; brown cloth, elaborately stamped in gilt and blind; rubbed, with slight water damage to cover and unobtrusively to a few leaves; spine reinforced.
First edition of this fragile and genuinely rare book.
The Devotional Exercises is central to the history of Jewish-American publishing, specifically to the development of the female Judaic-American religious tradition. This compilation—translated from the German, with many significant emendations, by Morris Jacob Raphall, a New York-based rabbi and scholar—contains over 60 inspirational devotional exercises intended to encompass all aspects of a Jewish woman’s life. It is divided into three primary sections: “Daily Private Worship;” “Public Worship;” and “Exercises for Special Occasions.” Prior to this publication, Morris Raphall was known primarily as a lecturer on Hebrew poetry and post-Biblical history and, as head of the Birmingham [England] Hebrew Congregation and head of its National School, as the foremost interpreter of Judaism to non-Jews. In 1849 Raphall emigrated to America, where he was elected preacher of New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshrun. In 1860 he was the first rabbi to open a session of the American House of Representatives; he later achieved a rather ambiguous notoriety for his public defense of slavery as “a divinely ordained institution.”
That such an enterprise was executed respectfully and without condescension in the mid-19th-century—by male authors, publishers and translators—is truly laudable. Both the editor and publisher publicly defended the importance of their work. Raphall, in his Translator’s Preface, emphasizes the book’s role in the formal religious training of American Jewish women: “How much greater must be the want of such Exercises in this young country, where Hebrew educational institutions for both sexes are in their infancy, and where, while boy’s schools are few, girl’s school can scarcely be said to exist...” Joachimssen echoes and expands these sentiments; his explanation of the genesis of the volume merits quoting at length:
The want of a suitable collection of Devotional Exercises, in the vernacular tongue, for the daughters of our people, has long been felt and lamented by many who like myself, are fathers of families... Discoursing on this subject with my Reverend friend, Dr. Raphall, he agreed with me, that in the absence of any Hebrew educational institution for females in this country; and under the consequent impossibility of their receiving adequate instruction in the Hebrew language, or in their religious duties; a work that should at once satisfy their hearts and their minds, would be a most valuable boon to them. On this hint I spake, and proposed to him to undertake the editing and translating of a compilation of Devotional Exercises, to be selected from the works of Letteris, Stern, and Miro; the best, and most approved, at present, in existence; which I offered to print and publish at my own expense... I feel that this book will indeed meet and satisfy the want of which I have spoken; and I congratulate myself that a work undertaken, not for great gain, but for great public utility, should have fallen into hands so well able to do it justice. That the pious daughters of Israel will hail this little book with pleasure and thanks, is my flattering hope; that it may promote religious feeling, and uphold religious spirit and observances among them, is my fervent prayer.
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