Bidspirit auction | (ANGLO / AMERICA / CANADA).

(ANGLO / AMERICA / CANADA). Hagadah shel Pesach. Service for the Two First Nights of Passover. According to the Custom of the Spanish, Portuguese, and German Jews. Translated by David Levi. Hebrew and English on facing pages. With occasional instructions and translation into Ladino and Yiddish. Inscription at end: ““The gift of Dorothea Hart to Moses Eleazer David May 12th 1822 / Mrs. Hart 3 Rivers Canada.” ff. 39, pp. 7. Lightly browned and stained in places. Finely bound in modern gilt-tooled calf. 8vo. Marbled slipcase. Yudlov 371. London, D. Levi, 1794. A scarce copy of the first separate printing of the Levi Hagadah. Precursor of the first American Hagadah. David Levi of London (1742-1801) produced a six-volume English translation of the Hebrew prayers, which served as the foundation for later editions published both in England and in America. Due to the accuracy of Levi’s translation of the Passover Hagadah in particular, it was reproduced almost verbatim in the first Hagadah that was printed in the United States (New York, 1837). Thus this 1794 Hagadah is the basis from which the first American Hagadah came to be derived. In addition to a beautiful binding, the present copy of the Hagadah boasts distinguished Canadian Jewish provenance. According to the inscription on the first page of the explanatory notes, it was given by Dorothea Hart (1747-1827) to her grandson Moses Eleazer David (1813-1892) in 1822. Dorothea Catherine (nee Judah) was the wife of Aaron Philip Hart (1724-1800), a London-born Ashkenazi Jew who moved to Canada about 1760, settling in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. At the time of his death he was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the British colonies. David’s paternal grandfather, Lazarus (1734-76), helped found the Shearith Israel Congregation, the oldest in Canada, and the latter’s son Moses (1767-1814) was the first Jewish settler of Windsor, Ontario. Moses Eleazer, the first Jew born in the Windsor area, was also an active member of Montreal’s Shearith Israel community.