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Postcard/Broadside - Privately printed stationery to Rev. Abraham de Sola in Montreal, with an invitation from a member of the prominent Jewish Hart family…L. H. Hart, Sec. to the meeting of the Young Men's Hebrew Benvolent Society. Dated February 21, 1872. Abraham de Sola (September 18, 1825 – June 5, 1882) was a Canadian rabbi, author, Orientalist, and academic. Originating from a large renowned family of rabbis and scholars, De Sola was recognized as one of the foremost leaders of Orthodox Judaism in North America during the latter half of the nineteenth century. n 1873, by invitation of President Ulysses S. Grant's administration, De Sola delivered the opening prayer for the United States Congress. The event was of significance, as De Sola was a British subject, and this was the first indication of a more friendly feeling between the United States and Great Britain after the dangerously strained relations that had been caused by the recently adjusted Alabama Claims. William Ewart Gladstone, then British Prime Minister, as well as Sir Edward Thornton, the British ambassador at Washington, extended the thanks of the British government to De Sola. Abraham de Sola frequently visited the United States, and, through his pulpit addresses and numerous contributions to the press, became recognized there as one of the most powerful leaders of Orthodox Judaism, at a time of heightened tension between the Orthodox and Reform wings of the community. He was intimately associated with Isaac Leeser, Samuel Myer Isaacs, Bernhard Illowy, J. J. Lyons, and other traditionalist religious leaders, and on Leeser's death was invited to become successor to his pulpit; but this and many similar offers he declined. For twenty years he was a constant contributor to Leeser's Occident, and after the latter's death he purchased the copyrights and stereotype plates of his works and continued their publication. He died in New York City in 1882 and was buried in Montreal.[1] His archives are held at McGill University.[2]

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Physical Location

Arc.MS.56, Box 20, Folder 5