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Friedländer (D) Lesebuch für jüdische Kinder

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first edition, woodcut device for the jüdischen Freyschule on title, Hebrew alphabet plate, woodcut head- & tail-piece, erased library stamp on title, light staining to margin of title and following f., otherwise internally very good, ?original calf-backed paper-covered boards, shaky, considerable loss to surface paper, worn at foot of spine, [Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana 36], 8vo, Berlin, in Commission den Christian Friedrich Boss und Sohn, 1779.

***"To the best of my knowledge, the Rosenthaliana is the only library which has a copy of this book on its shelves. David Friedländer's Lesebuch für Jüdische Kinder can be regarded as the first modern book for Jewish children. It was published in Berlin in 1779 for the use of the pupils of the Jüdische Freischule in Berlin. Its publication is something of a turning point in the history of books for Jewish children, primarily because it was the first to call itself a Lesebuch in the modern sense of the word and secondly, because it gave expression to a process that dramatically changed the nature of Jewish education in Germany. Edited by David Friedländer with the help of Moses Mendelssohn, it was the first to be written in the framework of the Haskalah movement (Jewish Enlightenment). Since its appearance hundreds of non-religious books have been published in a German-Hebrew bilingual format in German-speaking countries, specifically addressing Jewish children, in an attempt to influence their Jewish identity and their world-view...The heterogeneity of the Lesebuch, as well as the vacillation between the alternative cultural models, make this text one of the most interesting pieces of evidence relating to the Berlin enlightenment's endeavour to create a Jewish-German culture" Zohar Shavit, Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana 36, p.83. David Friedländer (1750-1834), important forerunner of Reform Judaism, he established the "Jewish Free School" in 1778 with his brother-in-law, along with the Hebrew press and bookshop alongside it, leading to the publication of this work. Extremely scarce, there are no auction records for this work in the last twenty-five years. A facsimile edition was published in Berlin 1927, with preface by Moritz Stern, indicative of its importance as both a work and a focal point for the cultural changes taking place in Germany at this time..

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