Bidspirit auction | (FRANCE).  PAUL LOUIS BERNARD DRACH.

(FRANCE).  PAUL LOUIS BERNARD DRACH. Le Pieux hébraïsant contenant les principales prières chrétiennes et un abrégé du catéchisme catholique en hébreu ponctué avec le latin en regard accompagné de notes critiques et grammaticales sur le texte hébreu pour l'utilité de ceux qui étudient la langue sainte. Text in Hebrew and French. Uncut copy. pp. xix, ff. 30, pp. 32-72. Foxed in places. Original printed wrappers, edges stained. 12mo. Paris, Gaume Frères, 1853. Catholic catechism in French and Hebrew. Scarce. Copies obtained by Jews were destroyed. Born in Strasbourg, David Drach (1791-1865), received a traditional rabbinic education. In 1813, he married a daughter of Emmanuel Deutz, the Chief Rabbi of France. Thereafter he was appointed head of the Jewish School of Paris, also publishing translations of traditional liturgical texts. On Easter 1823, Drach scandalized French Jewry, having himself baptized into the Catholic Church amidst much pomp and ceremony. He then spent nearly two years seeking to obtain parental control of his three children whom his wife had secretly taken to London. (See EJ, VI col. 191).