The United States is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its independence.
This occasion is also a landmark in the history of Hebrew poetry. One hundred and fifty years ago, in anticipation of America’s centennial, the first known Hebrew poem celebrating America as America was published in New York. Titled Minḥat Yehudah (“Judah’s Offering”), it appeared in 1876 and was written by Moses Aaron Schreiber (1841–1912).
A Tone of Optimism
It was the first poem in the Hebrew language to explore the nature and history of American nationhood, but Minḥat Yehudah is also remarkable for its tone. It radiates Joy. Its voice is celebratory and deeply optimistic. The vitality that bursts from its verses – and the hope they express – are almost without parallel in Hebrew poetry of the Jewish Diaspora. It’s surely rare to find in that literary legacy lines expressing comradery and harmony such as:
Here they came
Christians and Jews
as friends and brothers
In her shadow they find peace,
In her bounty, joys increase.
Indeed, from the centennial celebrations of 1876 until quite recently, America and the Jewish people seemed like a match made in heaven. Their historic encounter sparked a remarkable transformation, giving rise to an explosively successful historical rendezvous. It is sobering that contemporary voices suggest this long and extraordinary honeymoon may have come to an end.
The Poem’s Offering: Hebrew
So, what is the “offering” in the poem’s title? It is the unique gift that American Jews were able to present to their adopted homeland on its centennial: a poem in the language of the Bible.
The poet writes in the eighth and concluding stanza what translates to:
Alas! but we,
Posterity
Of Judah’s host,
No land can boast!
Our tongue alone
Is all we own!
Accept from Hebrews
This ode in Hebrew,
Our heartfelt prayer,
God bless thee, e’er!
The Hebrew language of the Bible was a unique cultural inheritance that the Jews alone could contribute to the American national story. It stood in contrast to the Bible itself, that was not understood as a legacy particular to the Jews. In fact, America’s Puritan founding fathers and mothers looked to the Hebrew Scriptures as a model for understanding their own experience. At the heart of their vision stood the Exodus – the journey from bondage to the Promised Land. They understood the Bible as an “ideal typology,” namely that biblical events foreshadow later history. Accordingly, in their eyes the Great Migration to New England, which began around 1620 and continued for roughly a generation, was a reenactment of the Israelites’ exodus from the bondage of Egypt and their entry into Canaan.
The Puritans believed they had been called to establish in the New World a “city upon a hill,” one to which the eyes of the world would be turned. As they imagined it, it was to be a new Zion, modeled on the one the Jewish People had built in the land promised to them. As seventeenth-century settler Peter Folger (Benjamin Franklin’s maternal grandfather), put it in a popular poem, “New England they are like the Jews, as like as like can be.“
In that sense, the United States did not need Jews to contribute the legacy of the Bible to its centennial celebrations. It already possessed that legacy. What it did not possess was the language of the Bible itself, and that is what made the Hebrew offering significant.
Yet that is also where the story becomes more complicated. True enough, English was never formally established as the official language of the United States. Nevertheless, multilingualism was not generally regarded as a desirable feature of American nationalism at the time. And so, wouldn’t emphasizing the Jews’ distinct language undermine the poem’s rhetorical efforts to express Jewish loyalty, patriotism, and identification with their adopted homeland?
The answer seems relatively straightforward, though it contains a certain irony. Scholars of Hebrew in America agree that at the time, before the great wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, only a tiny number of American Jews possessed any real knowledge of Hebrew. In other words, Hebrew posed no threat to America’s aspiration toward a common national language.
Yet this raises an obvious question: If so few American Jews actually knew Hebrew, how could it serve as Judah’s unique offering? How meaningful was the poem’s declaration that “Our tongue alone, is all we own?”
The answer, it seems, lies in reading the word tongue in a broader, more symbolic sense. Since language was understood as the force that both shapes and transmits a people’s worldview, Hebrew came to be seen, as scholar Alan Mintz has suggested, as the cultural DNA of the Jewish people, the deepest root of Jewish civilization. And since the United States was what the formerly enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass called a “composite nationality,” or, in Walt Whitman’s wording, “a nation of nations,” Hebrew, as the embodiment of the Jewish nation, was understood not as a barrier separating Jews from America, but as one of the building blocks that composed the American national mosaic.
A Two-Pronged Publication
In addition to its unique subject matter and tone, Schreiber’s poem has two other prominent bibliographical characteristics. The first is that an English translation appeared from the very beginning alongside the original Hebrew text although usually a translation is done after initial publication, in the course of time. The second special feature is that the poem was first printed not in a book or a newspaper, but as a broadside. The broadside, illustrated by Adolf Leszczynski, is highly invested in its graphic quality and visual appearance, which hints at the Tablets of the Covenant –with Hebrew on one side and English on the other.
To understand these outstanding features, it is good to become better acquainted with the authors of the Hebrew and English versions, as well as with the institutional framework for the poem’s publication. As noted, the Hebrew version was composed by Moshe Aaron Schreiber, a Hebrew maskil (Enlightenment scholar) from Kovno (today Kaunas), Lithuania, who was a student of the renowned Haskalah Hebrew author Avraham Mapu and was certified by him as a Hebrew teacher. Before coming to the United States, he was also ordained as a hazan—a multi-purpose religious functionary—by the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Nathan Adler. Schreiber served at the Shaaray Tefila synagogue in New York, which was established in 1839 and was then located on West 44th Street. Shaaray Tefila served as a hub for the city’s Anglo-Jewish elite, whereas New York’s Sephardic aristocracy centered around America’s first synagogue, Shearith Israel, established in 1654 when the first Jews arrived in North America from Recife, Brazil.
The English translation was written by the acting rabbi at that same synagogue, Rabbi Dr. Frederick de Sola Mendes (1850–1927) who had a very different background.
Born in Jamaica and raised in England, Frederick de Sola Mendes descended from distinguished Sephardic rabbinic families. He studied at the University of London, earned his doctorate at the University of Halle in Germany, and attended the renowned Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau. He received his rabbinic ordination in London from Hakham Benjamin Artom and after a short stint as minister in England, was called to serve as adjunct rabbi at Shaarey Tefila in 1874.
His brother, Henry (Haim) Pereira Mendes, also served as a rabbi in New York, at the “Shearith Israel” congregation, and under his leadership, the community grew increasingly connected to European Orthodoxy. Frederick, on the other hand, who was officially crowned as the rabbi of “Shaaray Tefila” in 1877, led gradual changes that ultimately transformed it into a Reform congregation. These changes were likely the reason Schreiber left Shaaray Tefila and became a rabbi in traditionalist congregations in New York and Baltimore.
Thus, the Hebrew and English writers of this poem came from markedly different backgrounds and religious orientations, and it is hardly surprising that the poem and its English version emphasize very different themes. Nevertheless, their shared service at Shaarey Tefila would seem to explain their collaboration, particularly if the poem was intended as an element of the congregation’s worship, perhaps during a special service marking the Fourth of July or the days surrounding it.
Indeed, the poem is structured as a festive hymn of praise, that could be read responsively. In both the Hebrew original and the English version, each stanza is divided into two parts, with the second designated to be recited by a chorus in response to the leader. Significantly, the poem concludes with a stanza, the second part of which is labeled “prayer” rather than “chorus.”
The Broadside Format
As noted, the poem did not first appear in a book or newspaper, but as a broadside, in this case a large (17×14) poster intended for public display. The broadside format itself raises intriguing questions around the poem. How widely was it seen? How popular did it become? And what sort of public attention could such a publication have attracted before disappearing from view?
At first glance, publishing the poem as a broadside rather than in a book would seem to have limited its circulation. Indeed, despite its historical significance, the poem was almost entirely forgotten by later generations. It was reprinted only once, in 1900, as part of an obscure scholarly survey of modern Hebrew literature in America – a survey that itself was buried within a collection of essays in the proceedings of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). Nor has the poem ever been the subject of a detailed academic study.
Yet the history of print suggests that the opposite may well be true, and that the broadside actually enjoyed wide circulation when it first appeared. The key to this notion lies in the fact that as far as we know, only two copies of this remarkable broadside have survived. One is preserved in the collections of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, home to one of the world’s most comprehensive Judaica collections, particularly in the field of American Jewish history. The other surfaced at auction more than a decade ago (where it sold for $20,000).
According to a counterintuitive rule-of-thumb in analytic bibliography, the larger a print run is, the fewer copies are preserved (not only proportionally, but in absolute numbers). Mass-produced, inexpensive printed materials, much like today’s free newspapers, are far less likely to be saved than, say, limited and numbered editions of an artefact.
If that principle holds true here, then the very rarity of the surviving copies may actually point to the broadside’s widespread distribution when it was first published. So, it actually might have been more seen and popular than one might first imagine.
That, however, remains only an assumption. We simply don’t know how widely the broadside circulated. What we do know is that two copies have survived; and from them we can glimpse a distinctly Jewish vision of America, as a land that embodied freedom, liberty, and hope in a new world.
A Literary Coincidence
One final detail in the poem may be interesting to note before concluding. Schreiber writes in the Hebrew version of the poem that, as the centennial approaches:
“All eyes watch Philadelphia.”
(Ein kol tsofiyah Philadelphia)
The line amusingly brings together the elevated language of the Hebrew Bible – so characteristic of Haskalah poetry – with the name of a modern American city. This is apparently an intentionally striking juxtaposition, used by Schreiber at a number of points in the poem.
Philadelphia was, of course, where American independence was declared and the Constitution drafted. It was there that the Liberty Bell rang out, proclaiming freedom through the biblical verse engraved upon it:
“Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
(Leviticus 25:10)
As the English version of the poem notes:
Our standard flaming,
To men proclaiming,
By God’s decree,
Our country’s free!
Hebrew poetry of the Haskalah drew heavily on the language of the Bible. Yet the striking phrase “All eyes watch Philadelphia” doesn’t include a direct biblical quotation. Most closely, it is a nod to a verse in Isaiah (52:8):
“Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they sing for joy, for eye to eye they shall see when the Lord returns to Zion.”
The verse contains both the watchmen looking beyond the horizon, and the eye, and Schreiber creatively fuses the two into the expression “all eyes watch.”
Strikingly, two years after America’s centennial, another Hebrew poet – almost certainly unaware of Schreiber’s poem – would coin the same expression.
In Naftali Herz Imber’s Tikvateinu, there appears the same combination of “eye” and “watching” but as in Isaiah, the watching eye is fixed upon Zion. It is this poem that would later go on to become the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah.
In Schreiber’s Minḥat Yehudah, the Holy Land is not mentioned at all. On the occasion of its centennial celebration, America alone fills the horizon.
Judah’s Offering
“Remember ye always His covenant, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations.” -1st Chron. XVI. 15.
Dedicated to the people of America, on the Centennial of their Liberty, July 4th, 1876, in behalf of the people of Israel, by Moses A. Schreiber, of the Forty-fourth Street Synagogue, City of New York.
I.
INTRODUCTION.
Tell me, land,
Why open stand
Thy spacious portals,
Thronged with mortals
From every clime?
Is’t warlike time,
That men assembling,
Hosts resembling,
On thy coast pour
From each far shore?
On horses racing,
Space-effacing,
See, they crowd,
Shouting loud:
All courses wending,
One spot intending,
They shout it—hark—
‘Tis Fairmount Park.
CHORUS.
No armed men’s tramp,
No legions stamp:
No war or sadness,
But joy and gladness,
Our standard flaming,
To men proclaiming,
By God’s decree,
Our country’s free!
II.
TAXATION.
Since Colon’s toil
Our verdant soil,
In accents glowing
To all men showing
The wanderer’s course
Did seek a source
Of wealth and pleasure,
Of health and leisure,
On this fair land,
Where we now stand;
But woe, ’tis written
That sons of Britain
Did rule not well
Those here did dwell:
Their strength o’ertaxing,
Ne’er relaxing,
Imposts laying,
Commerce slaying.
CHORUS.
The islet dire,
The modern Tyre,
Harsh oppressing,
No wrong redressing,
Our father’s load
To spurn did good
Through God’s decree,
Our land to free!
III.
DECLARATION.
The man arose
Whom justice chose
His brothers leading,
Their rights brave pleading,
All to bind
In common mind,
Their hands firm grasping,
Together clasping,
A union grand
Rose through the land,
Bonds to shatter,
Shackles scatter.
They feared no foe;
For Freedom’s glow
Burned bright within them,
Gave light within them,
With highborn mind
The deed they signed.
CHORUS.
Years five score
Since then they swore
This day of days
The flag to raise:
The bill proclaiming,
All souls inflaming,
By God’s decree,
Our country’s free!
IV.
CONSTITUTION.
Washington, true,
And Hamilton, too,
The best of their choosing,
Their congress composing,
They clothed with power,
From that glad hour.
Laws they selected,
Statutes erected,
Working with zeal
For our common weal;
But alas, fellow mortals!
Were sold in our portals,
Sold like base cattle,
Till for them to battle
Lincoln was raised,
Universally praised,
Slavery slaying,
Freedom conveying.
CHORUS.
United States
He elevates,
The work completing,
Liberty greeting,
Our standard flaming,
To men proclaiming,
By God’s decree,
Our country’s free!
V.
IMMIGRATION.
The tidings sped,
The news soon spread,
Within each prison,
That light had risen
For all oppressed
In this far West.
People streaming,
Ocean teeming,
Unto these coasts
Migrated hosts.
Jew and Gentile
Come in exile;
Braved the sea
To be here free,
The land improving,
Woods removing,
Of nature’s frowns
Made walled towns.
CHORUS.
Myriads of men
Grew happy then,
Their life enjoying,
Naught alloying;
For our standard flamed,
As it proclaimed,
By God’s decree
This country’s free!
VI.
ARTS AND SCIENCES.
From wisdom’s mines,
They built up shrines,
Seats of knowledge,
Hall and College;
The ground they tilled
Till garners filled,
With wit surprising
E’er exercising,
With might and main,
The active brain,
The vapor-giant,
E’en Puck, the pliant,
His service gave
To be their slave,
Earth disgorging
Ores for forging,
Smoothed the road
That progress showed.
CHORUS.
Columbia’s soil
Grown rich by toil,
In arts excelling
With fortunes swelling,
Proof now offers,
Samples proffers,
That first is she,
This country free!
VII.
EXHIBITION.
And other lands,
And foreign strands,
In products vying,
For prizes trying:
Egypt old,
Siberia cold;
Greece contracted,
The Porte distracted;
Germania new,
E’en Britain, too,
France and Prussia,
China, Russia,
The isles assist
To swell the list
Of those competing,
America greeting,
With rivalry,
In labor free.
CHORUS.
Their busy hum
Is heard to come
From the Quaker town
Of Brother’s love;
In accents flaming,
Our strength proclaiming
By God’s decree,
Our country’s free!
VIII.
JUDAH’S OFFERING.
Columbia blest!
Of men the best
Thy helm brave steering,
Thy progress cheering,
Shall e’er command
Thy future land!
Thy welfare speeding,
Thy van e’er leading!
Alas! but we,
Posterity
Of Judah’s host,
No land can boast!
Our tongue alone
Is all we own!
Accept from Hebrews
This ode in Hebrew,
Our heartfelt prayer,
“God bless thee, e’er!”
PRAYER.
O Lord Eternal,
Great power supernal,
In mercy pour
From thy rich store,
Of gifts the choice!
This land rejoice,
Her course progressing,
With Thy hand blessing.
