Earlier works employing Hebrew types, such as Judah Monis’ Hebrew grammar, were intended for Gentile readers and the first books published for North American Jews to use Hebrew types did not appear until almost 40 years later.
A little browned in a modern folding morocco binding, the very rare copy of Douglass & Aikman’s Almanack... seen in a Kestenbaum of New York sale of February 8 was sold for $44,000 (£23,655), and was immediately followed in the lists by a copy of the first Hebrew prayer-book printed in America, Seder HaTefiloth - The Form of Daily Prayers. According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
Printed with the Hebrew and English texts on facing pages, this ‘crown jewel’ of early American Hebrew printing was translated and printed by Solomon Henry Jackson, New York’s first Jewish printer.
The Kestenbaum copy was foxed, as usual, but in the original calf binding it was sold at $40,000 (£21,505).
A Jamaican almanac with costly Jewish associations
Douglass & Aikman’s Almanack and Register for the Island of Jamaica..., printed in Kingston in 1780, contains a ‘Kalendar of Months, Sabbaths and Holy Days, the Hebrews or Jews observe & keep...’ as well as the names of Jewish holidays in English and Hebrew type and is one of the very earliest instances of Hebrew types being used in the Western hemisphere in publications intended to be used by Jews – Ann Woodland’s almanac of the previous year having been the first.
