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EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The Prayer Book of THE REFORMED SOCIETY OF ISRAELITES, of Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the rarest, as well as one of the most interesting documents, relating to the development of Judaism in America. Unknown except from secondary sources to recent writers, it is the earliest Reform Prayer Book printed in this country, and throws an interesting light on early Reformed American Judaism. Persistent research has brought to light only two imperfect copies, by combining which, this reprint has been made possible. The original bears the date 1830. Whether there was an earlier edition, the Editor is unable to say with certaintyprobably there was. It is well worth preserving to posterity.

The story of the Reformed Society of Israelites has been told in detail in the Editor's volume: The Jews of South Carolina, pp. 147-165, and in an article in the Literary Supplement to The American Hebrew, Dec. 7, 1906. He has there shown, contrary to all previous statements, that the Charleston Movement of 1824 was not an indigenous Movement, but was directly dependent upon a similar Movement that had taken place in Germany a few years before-now popularly known as the Hamburg Movement. The Prayer Book of the Reformed Society of Israelites, however, has nothing in common with the one published for the use of the Hamburg Temple in 1819. Apart from its novelties, such as the Articles of Faith, the Wedding

Service, the Confirmation Service, the Service for Circumcision and for Naming a Daughter, and its English Hymns, it is based upon the Portuguese Ritual then in use in Charleston.

The diction of the Prayer Book is classical, in which respect it is in marked contrast with later American productions. Its compilers were Isaac Harby, the best known Jewish publicist of his day, Abraham Moise, a prominent lawyer, of Charleston, and David Nunes Carvalho, the lay Reader of the Society. The Hymns-here first incorporated into a Jewish Prayer Book in the English language, are practically all adapted from Christian sources—one hymn only, No. 5: "Before the glorious orbs of light" an admirable version of the Adon Olamis of Jewish origin, its author being the before-mentioned David Nunes Carvalho.

Some of the Rubrics, e. g., those connected with the Ceremony of Circumcision, the Ceremony of Naming a Daughter, and the Marriage Ceremony, are rather amusing to us of this later day; they furnish a curious illustration of the method of the Society in its proposal "to go back to Moses and the Prophets." But the Society meant well, and we, the inheritors of its brave work-the first effort at Reform in America-should be ever grateful to these pioneers, who anticipated by at least a generation, the first successful attempts to create an American Judaism.

NEW YORK, February, 1916.

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PRINTED BY J. S. BURGES, 44 QUEEN-ST.
1830.

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