A Subscriber From America – 230 Years Ago

A sefer published in 1787 which I got in this week, appears to contain the earliest American mentioned in a prenumeranten. (“Prenumeranten” is a Yiddish term meaning “prior numbers.” It refers to people who pre-subscribed or ordered copies of a book before its publication).

Prenumeranten can often be a great source for finding inter-community relations and genealogy, allowing us to see who lived in what cities when, and what type of literature they supported. While generally pre-subscribers were local Jews who would have been familiar with the author, occasionally we find unusual connections from areas distant to the place of publication.

The book, titled Hashorashim, by Isaac Satanow (1733-1805), is a work on Hebrew grammar. On page four of the volume appears a lengthy list of prenumeranten for Hashorashim and Sefer Hamichlol (another sefer he published) and among the many names appears R. Yehuda son of R. A. and his son in America.

There is one prior mention of a Jew from Jamaica in a book printed in London in 1780, but this appears to be the first of a Jew in the newly-declared United States.