"Les Matinées du Samedi" – Paris, 1842 – Guidebook for Jewish Youth, with Two Prints

"Les Matinées du Samedi" – Paris, 1842 – Guidebook for Jewish Youth, with Two Prints
Les Matinées du Samedi, livre d'éducation morale et religieuse a l'usage de la jeunesse israélite [Saturday Mornings, a book of moral and religious education for the use of young Israelites], by G. Ben Levi [Godchaux Baruch Weil]. Paris: Archives Israélites de France, 1842. French. Two parts in one volume. First edition.
A guidebook for Jewish youth by G. Ben Levi (the penname of Godchaux Baruch Weil), which was widespread in French speaking countries in the middle of the 19th century. The book addresses various aspects of the Jewish way of life and includes two plates – one depicting a Jewish soldier who was injured in the battle field crying "Shema Yisrael" and the other depicting burglars breaking into the house of a Jewish family.
The author, Godchaux Baruch Weil, (1806-1878) was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Paris. He wrote novellas and short stories and dozens of articles for the French Jewish newspaper Archives Israélites de France in which he expressed, among others, his opinion in favor of Jewish reform. Weil was the second-degree uncle of the well-known French writer Marcel Proust.
XXIII, 271; [3], 262, [1] pp [pp. XI-XIV were bound out of sequence] + two plates (with tissue guards), approx. 18 cm. Good condition. Stains. Detached gathering. Cardboard binding with leather spine. Blemishes and wear to binding.