Solomon ? Jackson's The Jew : A Contemporary American Jewish Response

The small community of Jews of approximately three thousand living in the United States during the first quarter of the nineteenth century enjoyed the same freedoms and legal equality of other Americans as presented in the federal Constitution. They were but a small minority of the nearly ten million residents of the states along the Atlantic coastline.Then as now, New York City was the center of the American Jewish population, only then it had less than a thousand Jewish inhabitants.The American Jews were constantly aware that they lived in a Christian society, but it was not until the early 18oos that mission ary activity directed toward them had increased enough to warrant a response from the Jewish community. This study will analyze the contents of The Jew, the first American Jewish literary response to the missionaries and the first Jewish journal published in the United States. An attempt will be made to determine who its supporters were as well as the strength of Jewish support for its cause. In addition, a search of contemporary newspapers also published in New York may provide additional insight into the responses to the issue of missionary work to the Jews. Until 1816, there was no demonstration of any significant evangelizing to the Jews in America, but Christian efforts to convert American Jews date back to the earliest years of Jewish settlement when, on their own initiative, reverends or lay leaders of local churches sought to baptize them. Organized missions to the Jews were entirely based upon European models, especially the London Jews' Society. Given the small size of the Jewish community in America, losses through assimilation and intermarriage posed a real threat. Mr. Joseph S.C.F. Frey, who had been affiliated with the Society for Conversion of the Jews in London, arrived in New York in 1816 with the expressed interest of pursuing my Jewish brethren in the United States. Frey was himself a converted Jew whose original name was Joseph Samuel Levi. With the support of the Reverend of the Dutch Reformed Church, Frey formed a new society, the American Society for Evangelizing the Jews, on December 30,1816. Due to lack of interest it soon thereafter lost its base of support.1 Frey was able to gain the influential support of Rev. Dr. Elias Boudinot,then president of the American Bible Society, to create a new society called the American Society for Melio rating the Condition of the Jews (A.S.M.C.J.), which was incorporated by an Act of the New York Legislature on April 14,1820?American Jews could not allow the missionary activity to continue unchallenged. There were a few responses to this new missionary activity pri marily directed at the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews.3 All of the early responses were individual efforts rather than organizational ones which were more

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