THE JAMAICA KALENDAR FOR 1795, [SAINT JAGO DE LA VEGA AND KINGSTON: DAVID DICKSON FOR THOMAS STEVENSON, 1794]

An early specimen of Hebrew type in the Western Hemisphere.

The present lot comprises an excerpt from The New Jamaica Almanack, and Register, Calculated to the Meridian of the Island for the Year of Our Lord 1795. An early owner gave it the title The Jamaica Kalendar for 1795, which he inscribed in manuscript at the beginning of the booklet. Contained herein is a “Kalendar of Months, Sabbaths, and Holidays, which the Hebrew or Jews observe and keep, for the Years 5555 and 5556 of the Creation.” The names of the Jewish festivals, fast days, and new months are given in both Latin and Hebrew type. Most of the empty interleaved pages are filled with lists and notes in the owner’s handwriting. 

Jamaican almanacs included a Jewish calendar (English only) as early as 1776, apparently indicating the importance of Jewish residents, many of them merchants, in the eyes of Christian Jamaicans. The first almanac to list the festivals and new months in Hebrew type was Ann Woodland’s, issued in 1779 in Kingston.

These Jamaican calendars contain the earliest appearance of Hebrew type in the Western Hemisphere in publications intended for Jews. (Earlier works with Hebrew type, such as Monis’ Dickdook Leshon Gnebreet [see lot 276], were largely directed at Gentile audiences.) The first book published for the Jews of North America containing Hebrew type was not issued until more than two decades after the present lot, and the first Hebrew calendar on the continent was not printed until 1851 in Montreal.