Concept

Morris Jacob Raphall

Summary
Morris Jacob Raphall (October 3, 1798 – June 23, 1868) was a rabbi and author born in Stockholm, Sweden. From 1849 until his death he resided in the United States. He is most remembered for having declared, on the eve of the Civil War, that the Bible and God endorse slavery. At the age of nine Raphall was taken by his father, who was banker to the King of Sweden, to Copenhagen, where he was educated at the Hebrew grammar school. "He was educated for the Jewish ministry in the college of his faith in Copenhagen, in England, where he went in 1812, and afterward in the University of Giessen, where he studied in 1821-24." Raphall married Rachel Goldston on August 3, 1825 and they had five children (Alfred, James, Esther, Charles, and Isabella). Rachel was one of seven children of Manasseh Goldston (also known as Goldstein and Goulston). In February 1827 Raphall was named as a defendant in an insurance fraud case involving a fire at a fur shop owned by his brother in law Noah Goldston. Raphall was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months prison. He devoted himself to the study of languages, for the better acquisition of which he subsequently traveled in France, Germany, and Belgium. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Erlangen (Germany). After lecturing on Hebrew poetry in 1834 he began to publish the Hebrew Review, and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature, the first Jewish periodical in England; he was forced to discontinue it in 1836 owing to ill health. For some time he acted as honorary secretary to Solomon Herschell, chief rabbi of Great Britain. He made translations from Maimonides, Albo, and Herz Wessely; conjointly with the Rev. D. A. de Sola he published a translation of eighteen treatises of the Mishnah; he also began a translation of the Pentateuch, of which only the first volume appeared. In 1840, when the blood accusation was made at Damascus, he traveled to Syria to aid in the investigation, and published a refutation of it in four languages (Hebrew, English, French, and German).
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