(AMERICAN-JUDAICA).
Jacob Mordecai (1762-1838). Autograph Manuscript, written in English (with some Hebrew) ...

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA).
Jacob Mordecai (1762-1838). Autograph Manuscript, written in English (with some Hebrew) entitled: “Institutions of Moses.” Signed by Mordecai on the upper cover, along with inscription: “For Mrs. R. Lazarus” (his daughter Rachel).


Opening page with dedicated introduction to his daughter: “The following sheets contain extracts from a work professing to be a view of the spirit of Hebrew Poetry the production of J G Herder a German commentator it has languished many hours during my confinement to a sick chamber [but now completed] and will prove a source of gratification to a Biblical researcher… For my beloved daughter Rachel! Who will read with deep interest the expositions… hidden from the common researcher… the application of many psalms to material purposes… they… improve the hearts of all but are specially conditioned to inspire within each… [but especially] the soul of a daughter of Israel.”
pp. 30. Densely written with a few erasures and edits, pp. 18-19 with overslip. Touch foxed. Original wrappers. Lg. 4to.
(Richmond, Virginia): circa 1835


Jacob Mordecai (1762-1838) was a pioneer of women’s education in America, founding the Warrenton Female Academy in Warrenton, North Carolina, where he and his family were the small town’s sole Jews. His daughter Rachel (1788-1838), the eldest girl in a family of thirteen, was a teacher at the Academy, and in 1821 married Aaron Marks Lazarus, a Wilmington, North Carolina, merchant and shipper. Notably, Rachel maintained a correspondence with the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth, disappointed as she was with the unflattering stereotypical portrait of a Jewish character in Edgeworth's The Absentee (1812). In later years, Rachel Lazarus underwent a spiritual crisis and was drawn to Christianity. Unstated in this manuscript is any motive or desire to specifically address a crisis of faith, but there can be little doubt that Jacob Mordecai, by way of the gift of this lengthy essay, sought to renew his daughter’s appreciation of the spiritual gifts to be found within Judaism. Mordecai at the time was ill - as noted in the flyleaf inscription - and as indicated by his spidery handwriting, clearly, this manuscript was written with considerable physical (and emotional) effort. Waiting until after her father’s death, Rachel Lazarus converted to Christianity on her deathbed. See Emily Bingham, Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth: Intellect, Power, Conversion, and Apostasy in the Life of Rachel Mordecai Lazarus, in: Donald G. Matthews and Beth Barton Schweiger, Rethinking Religion in the American South (2004) and https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lazarus-rachel-mordecai. A manuscript written under distinctly personal circumstances.