Rabbi Isaac Leeser, establishing the first Jewish…
1845 CE
Rabbi Isaac Leeser, establishing the first Jewish Publication Society in 1845, prints books in Hebrew, even setting the type himself.
The society will dissolve in 1851 after a fire destroys the building and the entire JPS stock.
The scarcity of books concerning the Jewish religion had concerned many in his congregation.
Leeser has nearly single-handedly provided American Jews with the texts they needed to worship.
Although Philadelphia has a vibrant publishing community, no one had wanted to publish his translation of a Jewish instructional for children from German, so Leeser had printed and published it himself in 1830.
Similarly, he had issued proposals to publish his translations of Johlson's Instruction in the Mosaic Religion, as well as his The Jews and the Mosaic Law, both of which had likewise produced no offers, so he became his own publisher.
It is the first such translation in the United States, and will become the standard Bible for English-speaking Jews during the nineteenth century.
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