MANUAL HEBREW GRAMMAR FOR THE USE OF BEGINNERS

Andover: Flagg, Gould, and Newman, 1833. hardback. First Edition. Original board with paper label on front, as issued, 8vo, 54 pages ; 22 cm. In English with Hebrew. Singerman 564; Rosenbach 368;  Bruntjen 21148;  Goldman-Kinsberg 183. Goldman notes, "Joshua Seixas, the son of Gershom Mendes Seixas (the minister of New York's Shearith Israel congregation), was born in New York in 1802....He taught in Shearith Israel's Hebrew school in the mid-1820s and he established the congregation's first choir. Seixas moved to Charlestown, MA, in the early 1830s and gave lessons in Hebrew. Among his pupils were Harvard students. Seixas began referring to himself as James while in Charlestown...Seixas then settled in Hudson, OH. He offered private Hebrew classes to students at Oberlin College, and later at Western Reserve University...He also taught groups of Mormons- the center of the movement at the time was in Kirtland, OH- and among his students were Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and Orson Hyde, another early leader of the movement." This is presumably the very edition of his book that he would have used with his Mormon students there. "Seixas left Ohio in 1836 and he was living in Staten Island, NY, by 1838.....a few of his many children remained within the community; others did not....Seixas's grammar was reviewed favorably in its time (Goldman, 'Joshua/James Seixas," 72), though Chomsky later criticized it (Chomsky [1958], 133-4)."  In addition, the printer, Gould, was a relative of Joseph Smith, who is descendant of Zaccheus Gould by the marriage of Samuel Smith and Priscilla Gould. The Smiths came from Topsfield, near Andover, where Gould had his press. For detailed analysis of Seixas' relationship with the founders of the Mormon church, see Rick Grunder's 2015 essay "A Teacher for the Temple: The Infectious Exuberance of Joshua Seixas" (www.rickgrunder.com/seixas.pdf). SUBJECT(S): Hebrew language -- Grammar. OCLC: 4821518. Period ownership signiture. Bookplate on rear pastedown. Lacks backstrip. Some foxing and staining, Good Condition (AMR-65-31A).