Israel Baer Kursheedt

Israel Baer was born in Singhafen, a town onthe Rhine, during Passover 5526. After his father’s death, when hewas still very young, his mother moved the family to the village ofKursheidt, near Koenigswinter. When German civil authorities requiredthat Jews take proper surnames, Kursheedt took the name of thevillage in addition to the patronymic Baer. Kursheedt’s precociousaptitude for learning drew the attention of family friends, and hewas soon sent to Franfurt-am-Main to study in the yeshiva of thefamed cabalist and Talmudist Rabbi Nathan Ben Simeon Adler referredto Kursheedt as chakham(wise man), and indeed his American contemporaries knew Kursheedt asthe most Talmudically adept scholar in the United States of his day.He was certainly the first Jew in North America with such animpressive mastery of Jewish religious texts.

Kursheedt’s studies in Frankfurt wereinterrupted when war broke out with France, and he was forced intocommerce instead. He had some success as a supplier of provisions tothe Prussian Army, but when peace was declared his career as an armycontractor ended, and he resolved to seek his fortune elsewhere. InHamburg, his attention was drawn to a boat bound for a return trip toBoston. He quickly secured letters of introduction to Moses MichaelHays at Boston and Isaac Moses at New York, and arrived in the UnitedStates in 1796 after a two and a half month passage.

In New York, Kursheedt resumed his commercialactivity with the assistance of IsaacMoses, then parnas ofShearith Israel. He soon became acquainted withGershom Mendes Seixas,Shearith Israel’s hazan. There can be no doubt thatSeixas was enthralled by Kursheedt’s erudition, and Kursheedt foundhimself welcomed in the Seixas home.In 1804, atage 38, he would marry Sarah Abigail,then 26, the eldest of Seixas’ children by his beloved first wife,Elkaleh Myers-Cohen.

Eightyears later, Isaac moved the family, now comprising two daughters andtwo sons, to Richmond, where he had been offered a post as hazanto Congregation Beth Shalome. The Kursheedts would live inRichmond for another decade, accumulating five more children– two sons and three daughters – along the way. Among theirchildren were future leaders of American Jewry, Asherand Gershom.During their sojourn, Sarah wrote frequently to her father, with whomshe remained close. Meanwhile, Isaac himself developed something of afriendship with Thomas Jefferson, and was invited to visit him atMonticello.

In both New York and Richmond, Kursheedt becameinvolved in Jewish communal institutions, assisting in the upkeep ofthe local cemetery and playing an important role in Jewish education.Despite his own traditional education, Kursheedt was reform minded.He quickly found himself at odds with a number of influential membersof Shearith Israel. Though widely respected for his learning, heoften lost the battles he chose to fight. In 1809, for example,Kursheedt and other congregants attempted, without success, to limitthe number of prayers in honor of a donor to three per person, asthese prayers had become linked to elaborate public displays ofwealth.

After his return to New York in 1824, Kursheedtwas caught in the middle of the interethnic tensions within NewYork’s Jewish community, which came to the fore with the increasingarrival of German Jews. He soon helped to establish anAshkenazi minyan, or prayer group. Whenthe Sephardi board of elders tried to prevent the Ashkenazim frommeeting for prayer, Kursheedt and fifteen other members of ShearithIsrael formed a new Ashkenazi congregation, named B’naiJeshurun. This became New York’s second synagogue. Kursheedtdevoted himself to the development of the newinstitution. His last major communal effort came about during theDamascus Affair in 1840, when he organized and presided at a publicmeeting to express sympathy for the sufferings of the Jews of Syria –an act that was copied by other American Jewish communities. He diedtwelve years later at New York, surrounded by friends and family, atage 86.

Israel Baer Kursheedt

1842