PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST: CONTAINING THE PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING HELD AT THE SYNAGOGUE MIKVEH ISRAEL, PHILADELPHIA: C. SHERMAN & CO., 1840

The record for a historic meeting of Philadelphia Jewry in the aftermath of the Damascus Affair.

On August 27, 1840, a meeting of concerned Philadelphia Jews was held in the city’s Mikveh Israel synagogue “to express their sympathy for their suffering brethren in Damascus, and to co-operate with their brethren in other parts of the world to ameliorate their situation.” Letters from the Jews of Istanbul were read aloud, and Isaac Leeser addressed the assembled about the plight of the Damascus Jewish community. The meeting passed a number of resolutions and its representatives subsequently appealed for help to United Statues President Martin van Buren. These early efforts mark American Jewry’s first attempts at fashioning a distinctive, global political agenda.