Marking the observance of the American Jewish Tercentenary, Yale University Library today opened an exhibition of rare documents and books concerning Jews that were in Yale’s first library in 1743.
The exhibit includes a portion of a journal written by one of Yale’s first presidents, mentioning the first known Jewish religious service in New Haven in 1772. It also includes an English translation of J. Basnage de Beauval’s “The History of the Jews from Jesus Christ to the Present Time,” published in 1708, a Hebrew Bible, and a Flavius Josephus Opera, Oxonii, dated 1690.
Also on display is a manuscript letter, dated November 15, 1861, from Judah P. Benjamin, who served as Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State under the Confederacy. Benjamin was a student at Yale from 1825 to 1828, and a U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1852 to 1860. The exhibit also includes a signature of Isaac Touro, for whom the historic synagogue at Newport, Rhode Island, was named. Touro gave President Stiles of Yale his first lessons in the Hebrew language.
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