FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST COMPLETE JEWISH PRAYER-BOOK PRINTED IN THE NEW WORLD WITH DATED FAMILIAL INSCRIPTIONS FROM PROMINENT JEWISH AMERICANS. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINTED BOOKS OF JEWISH AMERICANA.

Isaac Pinto, translator. Prayers for Shabbath, Rosh-Hashanah, and Kippur, or The Sabbath, the Begining of the Year, and the Day of Atonements…According to the Order of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. New York: John Holt, 1766. 

4to. (iv), 190, (i). Roman and italic type. Contemporary, possibly original, sheep. 

DATED INK INSCRIPTION TO FRONT FREE END PAPER: “Hetty Marache Her Book / God Giver Her Grace therein to look / not only look but understand them” Verso inscribed: “Miss Hetty Marache’s Prayer / Book 1786 / Miss Hetty Marache her Book given to her b[y] / her Honored Father In the Year 1779.” 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Evans, 10343, vol. 4, p. 1766; Goldman 32; Rosenbach 46; Sabin 62992.

FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST COMPLETE JEWISH PRAYER-BOOK PRINTED IN THE NEW WORLD. 

A SINGULAR WORK OF PRINTED JEWISH AMERICANA WITH EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE FIRST STATE TITLE PAGE WITH INCORRECT SPELLING ‘BEGINING’ 

One of the most important works of American printed Judaica. The work is preceded only by the less substantial Evening Service of Rosh-Hashanah and Kippur (New York, 1761; Evans 8890) and the pamphlet Form of Prayer Performed at Jews Synagogue (New York, 1760; Shipton & Mooney 41133). The present work is widely recognized as the first complete Jewish prayer book printed in the New World. 

The translator, Isaac Pinto (1720-1791), was a merchant born into the well-established Jewish community in the British West Indies. He emigrated to New York in 1751 and became a member of the Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardi) Synagogue, Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation established in North America, and the only Jewish Congregation in New York City until 1825. 

In addition to his devotion to his congregation and Jewish community, Pinto became a devout patriot of his adopted country, vocally supporting the burgeoning Revolution and signing resolutions favoring the Non-Importations Agreement. Indeed, the present work was printed by John Holt, a prominent printer of the era who also printed the New York Journal, a significant paper supporting the independence movement. 

The work is the first complete American Colonial prayer-book and is a product of its time, including a prayer for King George III and the royal family. “Yet the fact that the first Jewish prayer-book to be published in the English language took place in colonial New York with its tiny Jewish community rather than in London, which had ten times the number of Jewish residents, most likely served as some sort of declaration of independence. By being the first to use an English prayer-book in their services, the nascent American Jewish community could demonstrate to their London elders that they had the will and the ability to determine their own religious practices.” (Jefferson)

Pinto addresses the issue of his English translation directly in the introduction: “[Hebrew] being imperfectly understood by many, by some, not at all; it has been necessary to translate our Prayers, in the Language of the Country wherein it hath pleased the divine Providence to appoint our Lot.”

This copy is enhanced further by a Revolutionary War-era gift inscription dated 1786, connecting the work to an early American Jewish family and the early Jewish communities in New York, Newport, and Philadelphia. The inscription notes that the work was given to Esther “Hetty” Marache Mordecai (1768-1820) by her father Solomon Marache (1734-1819) in 1779. 

Solomon Marache was a Sephardic Jew who, like Pinto, had been born in the West Indies and moved to New York in the 1750s. They were almost certainly acquainted, and Marache may have even acquired the work directly from Pinto. 

Marache married Rebecca Myers (1740-1787) in 1766, coincidentally the same year as this publication. By 1768, however, they had moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where they were very likely members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel. Also a Sephardi congregation, it was the second Jewish congregation founded in the United States, established in 1658, just 4 years after Shearith Israel. It was here that the couple’s first child, Esther “Hetty” Marache, was born on 20 February 1768. The inscription notes that Solomon gave the prayer book to Hetty in 1779, when she was eleven years old. 

The Marache family, evidently supporters of the American patriot cause, moved again to the metropolis of Philadelphia by at least 1773. They may have moved out of a desire to relocate to a patriot stronghold, as Newport was the center of British control in New England. In further evidence of his patriotic sympathies, it is recorded that Solomon was one of 6 Jewish men who accepted the colonial paper money sanctioned by King George III in lieu of gold and silver. 

They became deeply integrated into the early Jewish community of Philadelphia, with Marache’s involvement in creating the city’s first synagogue for Congregation Mikveh Israel detailed in Wiernik’s History of the Jews in America: “The question of building a Synagogue was raised in 1761 as a result of the influx of Jews from Spain and the West Indies, but nothing was accomplished in that direction. In 1773, when Barnard Grats (Born in Germany, 1738; died in Baltimore, 1801) was parnas and Solomon Marche, treasurer, a subscription was started 'in order to support our holy worship and establish it on a more solid foundation,' but no Synagogue was built until about ten years later.” (p.76). 

It was in this very synagogue, completed in 1782 at Third and Cherry Streets, that Esther was married to Joseph Mordecai, son of Moses Mordecai and Elizabeth “Esther” Whitlock, in 1786. The date corresponds to the inscription made to her at the front of this book, almost certainly indicating that it was a gift on the occasion of her wedding. 

It seems very probable that the book was originally acquired by her father, Solomon, while still living in New York at the time of its publication. As mentioned earlier, the Jewish community was small, and Marache and Pinto were almost certainly at least acquaintances. He gifted the book to his daughter in 1779, and she inscribed the book in 1786, possibly in preparation for or on the occasion of her marriage. 

Esther & Joseph moved on from Philadelphia, first to Virginia, and ultimately settled in Charleston, South Carolina, where they established their family and had at least six children. One of their children was Thomas Whitlock Mordecai, Sr. (1806-1865), a prominent broker, auctioneer, and slave dealer who frequently advertised in the Charleston newspapers. His son, Thomas Whitlock Mordecai, Jr. (1840-1861), was a young college student when he enlisted with the Charleston Light Dragoons. When mustering at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, however, he contracted and died from diphtheria.

EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE. Copies of this seminal work are exceedingly scarce, with first state copies even more so. Only four copies in total have sold at auction in the last 25 years, with only two of those being examples of the first state. 

This copy, a first state example with excellent provenance connecting it to a documented Jewish family of the colonial and early Federalist period, is a singular work and worthy of the finest collection of Judaica. 

[Books, Prayer Books, Ephemera, Pamphlets] [Judaica, Jewish History]