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The Freethinker, the Jews, and the Missionaries: George Houston and the Mystery of Israel Vindicated

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Jonathan D. Sarna
Jonathan D. Sarna
Affiliation:
Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion
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Abstract

In 1820, a volume entitled Israel Vindicated, written by "An Israelite," was published in New York City. It was the first Jewish polemic composed in response to the founding of a missionary society, the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, and it remained influential throughout the nineteenth century. The author of this work, however, has never been identified. Nor has the volume itself received the attention it deserves. This article attempts to fill both of these lacunae.

Section one describes and analyzes Israel Vindicated. It places the work within the context of its times, and compares it to other, more traditional anti-Christian polemics. Section two outlines the postpublication history of Israel Vindicated. Soon after it appeared, some New Yorkers attempted to have the work banned, and its author exposed and punished. Later, the work was variously invoked by Jews and Judeophobes alike, though, of course, for different purposes. In section three, the author of Israel Vindicated assumes center stage. A review of old and new evidence leads to the conclusion that the work flowed from the pen of freethinker George Houston, assisted probably by his Jewish printer, Abraham Collins. Finally, section four analyzes the motivations of George Houston and his Jewish supporters. As is shown, this was far from the first time that Jews joined forces temporarily with other, sometimes hostile minority groups in pursuit of self-interest. Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 5 , April 1980 , pp. 101 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 1980

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References

I am grateful to Professor Alexander Altmann for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for their generous support of my research.

1. Israel Vindicated; Being a Refutation of the Calumnies Propagated Respecting the Jewish Nation in which the Objects and Views of the American Society for Ameliorating the Condition of the Jews are Investigated (New York, 1820).Google Scholar A London edition was published in 1823. I am grateful to Mr. William Matheson of the Library of Congress for providing me with a copy of the deposit records for this volume.

2. An earlier work by a Christian responded to missionary Frey's, Joseph S. C. F. tour of America, Tobit's Letters to Levy; or a Reply to the Narrative of Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey. Submitted to the Consideration of Christians of Every Denomination Whether He is What He Describes Himself to Be, A Convener of Jews (New York, 1816).Google Scholar The unidentified Tobit supported Christian teachings, but opposed active missions. Several other polemical works were imported: Levi, David, Letters to Dr. Priestly (New York, 1794)Google Scholar; idem, A Defense of the Old Testament (New York, 1797; Philadelphia, 1798)Google Scholar; Nikelsburger, Jacob, Koul Jacob in Defense of the Jewish Religion (New York, 1816; Boston, 1817)Google Scholar and Letters of Moses Mendelsohn [sic] to Deacon Lavater (New York, 1821).Google Scholar For other polemical works, see Rosenbach, A. S. W., An American Jewish Bibliography (New York, 1926)Google Scholar and its supplements.

3. American Israelite 10 (1863): 77.Google Scholar

4. Chaney, Charles L., The Birth of Missions in America (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Eichhorn, David Max, Evangelizing the American Jew (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; Eisen, Max, “Christian Missions to the Jews in North America and Great Britain,” Jewish Social Studies 10 (1948): 31–66Google Scholar; Sklare, Marshall, “The Conversion of the Jews,” Commentary 56 (09, 1973): 44–53Google Scholar; Thompson, A. E., A Century of Jewish Missions (Chicago, 1902)Google Scholar; Meyer, Louis, “Hebrew Christian Brotherhood Unions and Alliances of the Past and Present,” Minutes of the First Hebrew Christian Conference of the United States—July 28–30. 1903 (New York, 1903), pp. 16–31Google Scholar; Marcus, Jacob R., The Colonial American Jew (Detroit, 1970), pp. 935–47Google Scholar; Friedman, Lee M., “The American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews and Joseph S. C. F. Frey,” Early American Jews (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), pp. 96–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ratner, Lorman, “Conversion of the Jews and Pre-Civil War Reform,” American Quarterly 13 (1961): 43–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kohn, S. Joshua, “Mordecai Manuel Noah's Ararat Colony and the Missionaries,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 55 (1965): 163–98Google Scholar detail the American situation. Abrahams, Harold J., “The Priestly-Levi Debate,” Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society in London 12 (1961): 1–19Google Scholar; and Meirovich, Harvey W., “Ashkenazic Reactions to the Conversionists, 1800–1850”Google Scholar (forthcoming) show parallel developments in England. I am grateful to Rabbi Meirovich for providing me with a copy of this article.

5. Israel Vindicated, pp. 4–5.

6. Ibid., pp. vi, v, 91, 95.

7. Ibid., pp. 100–1. For other examples of the constitutional argument, see “Of the House of Israel's” letter in Evening Post (03 15, 1829)Google Scholar; Occident 3 (1845): 42Google Scholar; 5 (1847): 499; and Leeser, Isaac, The Claims of the Jews to an Equality of Rights (Philadelphia, 1841), pp. 4, 11, 14.Google Scholar On toleration, see Altmann, Alexander, “The Philosophical Roots of Moses Mendelssohn's Plea for Emancipation,” Jewish Social Studies 36 (1974): 200–2Google Scholar; and more generally Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “Toleration.”

8. Israel Vindicated, pp. 99, 110; cf. Chyet, Stanley F., “The Political Rights of the Jews in the United States: 1776–1840,” American Jewish Archives 10 (1958): 14–75Google Scholar; and Eitches, Edward, “Maryland's Jew Bill,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 60 (1971): 258–79.Google Scholar

9. Israel Vindicated, pp. 29, 38, 41.

10. Israel Vindicated, p. 110.

11. Israel Vindicated, p. 2. On p. 20, “Rabbi Orobio” is quoted, but only second hand. Later works, especially Fernandes, Benjamin Dias, A Series of Letters on the Evidences of Christianity (Philadelphia, 1859)Google Scholar and Newman, Selig, The Challenge Accepted; A Dialogue Between A Jew and A Christian: The Former Answering a Challenge Thrown Out by the Latter Respecting the Accomplishment of the Prophecies of the Advent of Jesus (New York, 1850)Google Scholar, were more heavily based on traditional Jewish polemics. For a convenient survey of disputation literature with an extensive bibliography, see Talmage, Frank E., Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

12. Israel Vindicated, p. 52. See below, sec. III.

13. Israel Vindicated, p. 12. For Mordecai Noah's view of the Talmud as an excrescence filled with “many crudities,” see New York Enquirer for the Country (06 15, 1827).Google Scholar In the Occident 3 (1845): 34Google Scholar, Noah wrote: “Shut the Talmud and open the Bible.” Isaac Harby's views on “rabbinic interpretations” are reprinted in Blau, Joseph L. and Baron, Salo W., eds., The Jews of the United States 1790–1840: A Documentary History (New York, 1963), p. 564.Google Scholar The reigning Christian view is expressed in the influential North American Review 60 (1845): 354, 357, 359, 364.Google Scholar Isaac Mayer Wise describes the ignorance of Jewish sources which he found among American Jews in the 1840s in his Reminiscences (Cincinnati, 1901), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

14. National Advocate (12 30, 1820)Google Scholar; Commercial Advertiser (02 28, 1821)Google Scholar, reprinted in New York Spectator (03 2, 1821).Google Scholar

15. New York Evening Post (03 10, 1821)Google Scholar; Columbian (03 8, 1821).Google Scholar

16. Handy, Robert, A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities (New York, 1974), pp. 30–42Google Scholar; Pratt, John W., Religion, Politics and Diversity: The Church-State Theme in New York History (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 121–157.Google Scholar Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's famous line, “What makes me for you a Christian, makes yourself for me a Jew,” Nathan the Wise, trans. Morgan, Bayard Q. [New York, 1955]Google Scholar, act iv, scene 7, thus had radical implications. This is not surprising considering Lessing's deistic views. More commonly, Jews were pleased to be known as “good Christians.” Mordecai Noah once actually used this term about himself (Noah, Mordecai to Seward, William [02 4, 1841]Google Scholar, Historical Society of Pennsylvania).

17. Commercial Advertiser (03 13, 1821)Google Scholar reprinted in New York Spectator (03 16, 1821)Google Scholar; Pratt, , Religion, Politics and Diversity, pp. 137–38.Google Scholar

18. Sarna, Jonathan D., “Mordecai M. Noah: Jacksonian Politician and American Jewish Communal Leader—A Biographical Study” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1979), pp. 91–97.Google Scholar Earlier studies of Noah include, Goldberg, Isaac, Major Noah (Philadelphia, 1938)Google Scholar and Gordis, Robert, “Mordecai Manuel Noah: A Centenary Evaluation,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 41 (1951): 1–25.Google Scholar

19. Evening Post (11 5, 1822).Google Scholar

20. National Advocate (11 6, 1822).Google Scholar

21. The Jew (ed. Solomon Jackson, 1823–1825), p. vii.Google Scholar

22. Mendelssohn, , “Letter to Lavater,” in Jospe, Alfred, Jerusalem and Other Jewish Writings (New York, 1969), p. 114Google Scholar; Leeser, , Claims of the Jews, p. 4Google Scholar; idem, “Preface” to Dias Fernandes, Letters on the Evidences of Christianity, p. iii.Google ScholarLeeser, mentioned Israel Vindicated in his Jews and the Mosaic Law (Philadelphia, 1834), p. 241Google Scholar; cf. below n. 29. More generally, see Seller, Maxine, “Isaac Leeser: A Jewish Christian Dialogue in Ante-Bellum Philadelphia,” Pennsylvania History 35 (1968): 231–42.Google Scholar

23. Wise, , Reminiscences, p. 272Google Scholar; American Israelite 3 (1857): 370Google Scholar; 10 (1863): 77, 284, 300, 332; 17 (May 12, 1871), p. 8; Heller, James G., Isaac M. Wise, His Life Work and Thought (New York, 1965), pp. 142–44, 170, 652–57Google Scholar; Friedlander, Albert H., ed., “The World of My Books, by Isaac Mayer Wise,” in Marcus, Jacob R., Critical Studies in American Jewish History (Cincinnati, 1971), 1: 173–75.Google Scholar

24. American Israelite 17 (05 12, 1871), p. 8.Google Scholar See also Grinstein, Hyman, The Rise of the Jewish Community in New York 1654–1860 (Philadelphia, 1945), pp. 385, 585Google Scholar; Blau, and Baron, , Documentary History, p. 758.Google Scholar

25. Meager information on Collins may be found in Grinstein, , New York, pp. 385, 552Google Scholar and Blau, and Baron, , Documentary History, p. 758.Google ScholarCollins's, Voice of IsraelGoogle Scholar is a piece of unrecorded Judaica Americana found in Yale University's Sterling Library. Abraham Collins also wrote the introduction to the American edition of Oxlee, John, Three Letters Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of his Grace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury … (Philadelphia, 1843).Google Scholar It is not certain whether this Collins is identical with the Collins of Israel Vindicated.

26. Israel Vindicated, p. 97.

27. Catalogue of the Astor Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1887), p. 1814Google Scholar; Halkett, Samuel and Laing, John, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (New York, 1971 [1926–1934]), 3: 178.Google Scholar

28. The only secondary account of Houston that I know of is the brief account in Post, Albert, Popular Freethought in America 1825–50 (New York, 1943), pp. 44–48, 78, 90, 92, 122, 181.Google Scholar I have pieced together a more complete sketch based on the following: London Times (11 15, 1814)Google Scholar; New York Evening Post (07 10, 14, 1817Google Scholar; January 30, 1821); Columbian (01 31, 02 3, 1821)Google Scholar; National Advocate (04 25, 1822Google Scholar; January 15, 1823); Judah, S. B. H., Gotham and the Gothamites (New York, 1823), pp. x, xii, 75–76Google Scholar; Evening Post (02 3, 1823Google Scholar; October 3, 1823; November 11, 1823; May 28, 1824); Houston, George to Holden, Edward (10 15, 1824)Google Scholar, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, New York Historical Society; New York National Advocate (11 28, 1825)Google Scholar; New York Herald (11 19, 1835Google Scholar; January 14, 1836; October 10, 1836); Evening Star (11 13, 14, 1837)Google Scholar; New York Herald (11 14, 1837)Google Scholar; New York Weekly Herald (06 13, 1840), p. 212Google Scholar; Neal, John, American Writers: A Series of Papers Contributed to Blackwoods Magazine, ed. by Pattee, F. L. (Durham, 1937), p. 118Google Scholar; Carlson, Oliver, James Gordon Bennett: The Man Who Made News (New York, 1942), pp. 121–24Google Scholar; and Schappes, Morris U., ed., A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States 1654–1875 (New York, 1971), pp. 605, 614.Google Scholar

29. Israel Vindicated, pp. 19, 23, 30, 33, 35, 36, 52, 53, 55, 80Google Scholar contain the more important quotations from Ecce Homo.

30. Correspondent 4 (1828): 375–79:Google Scholar cf. Israel Vindicated, pp. 33–34, 81. A different “Levi” letter from Correspondent 3 (1827): 18, 19Google Scholar is reprinted in Blau, and Baron, , Documentary History, pp. 771–73.Google Scholar

31. Commercial Advertiser (03 13, 1821)Google Scholar reprinted in New York Spectator (03 16, 1821)Google Scholar; National Advocate (11 6, 1822)Google Scholar; Voice of Jacob (05 27, 1842), p. 143.Google Scholar

32. At least one Jew, C. C. C. Cohen, prominently identified himself as a freethinker. See Schappes, , Documentary History, pp. 187–94.Google Scholar

33. Berger, David, “Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Harvard Theological Review 68 (1975): 287–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lasker, Daniel J., Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York, 1978), pp. 164–65Google Scholar; Barzilay, Isaac, “The Treatment of the Jewish Religion in the Literature of the Berlin Haskalah,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 24 (1955): 39–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 49–50; Pelli, Moshe, “The Impact of Deism on the Hebrew Literature of the Enlightenment in Germany,” Journal of Jewish Studies 24 (1973): 127–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also found in 18th Century Studies 6 (1972): 25–59Google Scholar; and Ettinger, Shmuel, “Jews and Judaism in the Eyes of British Deists in the Eighteenth Century,” Zion 29 (1964): 182–207.Google Scholar