Jacques Judah Lyons was born in the Dutch colony of Suriname where his parents, Judah Eleazar and Mary Asser Lyons, accompanied by many of the Judah’s siblings and his parents, had relocated from Philadelphia at the end of the 18th century. Educational opportunities were limited, but Jacques did manage to master Dutch, English, French, and German.
In his early twenties, Jacques became hazzan at Suriname’s Congregaton Neve Shalom, Paramaribo’s Ashkenazi congregation. In 1836, he departed for the United States and secured for himself the position as hazzan at Richmond’s Congregation Beth Shalome. In 1839, he was elected to replace Isaac Mendes Seixas at New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel.
In 1842, Jacques married Seixas Nathan‘s daughter, Grace, and they would have three children. For thirty-eight years he served as the leader of Congregation Shearith Israel, running the school and serving as head of the benevolent society in addition to his duties officiating. Perhaps his greatest legacy rests with a collaboration Lyons undertook with Rabbi Abraham de Sola of Montreal in 1854. Together they composed A Jewish Calendar for Fifty Years, which more than just the comprehensive calendar hinted at by the title, also contained an essay on the Jewish calendrical system as well as some of the earliest forays into American Jewish history, a passion that Lyons would pursue for the rest of his life, collecting troves of material relevant to the early history of Jews in North America.
