Oldest Tallit in America
The first owner of the tallit is said to have been Abraham Isaacks (ca. 1658-1743), an immigrant from Emden, Friesland. When Isaacks arrived in New York in approximately 1697-1698, the total Jewish population in the colonies was estimated at 200-300. Like many of colonial New York's Jews, Abraham Isaacks was a merchant. Isaacks was also a landowner, and was actively involved in New York political life--both unusual traits for Jews of the time, even for prosperous ones like Isaacks. In 1733 and 1737 Abraham Isaacks was parnass , or president, of Shearith Israel, the oldest congregation in America, having led efforts in 1730 to build the congregation's Mill Street Synagogue, the first synagogue erected in North America. Abraham Isaacks' wife Hannah (? - 1745) was part of the prominent Mears family, whose descendents include Rebecca Gratz, Emma Lazarus, and Benjamin Nathan Cardozo. When Abraham Isaacks died in 1743, Hannah became "administratrix" of his estate, taking responsibility for all his property. According to descendent Henry Aaron Alexander, Hannah also received Abraham's silk tallit, either upon her husband's death or as a gift beforehand.
Hannah died two years after her husband, whereupon her son Jacob Isaacks (ca. 1718-1798), a merchant in Newport, Rhode Island, became administrator of the family estate and likely inherited the tallit then as well. By the mid-18 th century, Jacob Isaacks had become one of Newport's most prominent Jewish residents. He was a member of Congregation Jeshuat Israel's Adjunta , or board of trustees, and he was on the building committee for what became known as the "Touro Synagogue," which remains the oldest surviving synagogue building in America. Jacob Isaacks began the family's tradition of military service (the tallit's owners and their families participated in six of this country's wars) by serving in the French-Indian War in 1745 and by lending the state of Rhode Island three "four-pounder" guns during the Revolutionary War. Jacob Isaacks and his wife Rebecca (who was also part of the Mears family) had eight children. The oldest of the eight was named Hannah, after her grandmother, and was the next member of the family to receive the tallit, according to Henry Alexander.
Hannah Isaacks (ca. 1762-1798) married Jacob Phillips (? - ca. 1830), a merchant trader, in 1785. She gave birth to her third daughter, Rebecca, in the West Indies, and died in childbirth in 1798, six years after Rebecca was born. Rebecca Isaacks (ca. 1738- 1802), the wife of Jacob Isaacks, took custody of young Rebecca and the rest of Hannah's children after her death, and brought them to Charleston, South Carolina, where much of her family resided.
In 1808, Rebecca Phillips (1792-1872) married Isaiah Moses (1772-1857), an immigrant from Bederkse, in the Kingdom of Hanover. Moses began his career as a grocer and shopkeeper but later became a merchant trader and, for a time, one of the few Jewish planters in South Carolina. The Moseses belonged to the fourth-oldest congregation in America, Charleston's Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), and Isaiah was a member of its Adjunta . He vigorously opposed changes to KKBE's traditional Sephardic traditions requested by many of the same congregants that would form the "Reformed Society of Israelites" in 1825.
Rebecca and Isaiah Moses's second child and oldest daughter Hannah was the next member of the family to receive the tallit , according to Henry Alexander. Although Hannah Moses Abrahams (1809-1875) was married to Alexander Hezekiel Abrahams (1801-1871), she operated her own dry-goods store and was one of only a small number of independent Charleston businesswomen. In 1832, Hannah Moses Abrahams gave birth to her only daughter, Henrietta Abrahams (later Henrietta Falk) (1832-1884). According to Henry Alexander, the tallit skipped Henrietta's generation and was passed directly from Hannah Moses Abrahams to her granddaughter, Sarah Falk Solomons (1859-1938).
Sarah Falk, born in Charleston in 1859, spent most of her adult life in Savannah and married Isaiah Abraham Solomons (1857-1909) in 1884. The Solomons family was active in public service and played leadership roles in Congregation Mickve Israel (the third-oldest congregation in America) and the Savannah Jewish community. In 1873, Isaiah Solomon's sister, Rebecca Ella Solomons (1854-1938), married Julius Mortimer Alexander (1844-1917) and moved to Atlanta.
Julius Mortimer Alexander belonged to one of Atlanta's most prominent families. In 1848, when Atlanta's population was only 1,500, Julius's father, Aaron Alexander (1813-1876), became the first American-born Jew to settle in the city. In 1874, Rebecca Alexander gave birth to Henry Aaron Alexander (1874-1967). Henry Alexander became a well-known lawyer and served as a state legislator in Georgia's General Assembly during the 1909-1910 Term (Alexander was the only Jew serving during his term). Alexander developed an interest in his Jewish heritage following his role as part of Leo Frank's defense team during what scholar Mark Bauman has called "[p]erhaps the most notorious instance of anti-Semitism in American history." He took on leadership roles in several national and Atlanta-based Jewish organizations, including the Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue National Shrine, the Union of Sephardic Congregations, New York's Congregation Shearith Israel, the Hebrew Benevolent Society (Atlanta's Reform congregation known as "The Temple"), and the Sephardic congregation Or VeShalom. Henry Alexander's aunt, Sarah Falk Solomons, gave him the "crumbling silk" tallit , as Alexander describes it in the family history he published privately in 1954. Subsequently, Henry Alexander gave the tallit to his son, Henry Alexander, Jr. (1922-2000).
Henry Alexander, Jr. lived much of his life in Eugene, Oregon, where he taught philosophy at the University of Oregon. Judith Shanks, granddaughter of Henry Alexander, Sr.'s brother Cecil, grew close to Henry Alexander, Jr. as she researched her family's history, making several trips to Oregon before Alexander passed away in 2000. Over the years, Henry Alexander Jr. entrusted Judith with many of his father's family relics, including the prayer shawl that was witness to the four oldest congregations in North America, the birth of American Reform Judaism at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, and the Golden Ages of historic Jewish communities in Newport and Charleston. With the help of AJHS Trustee Jeffrey Oppenheim and Ambassador John L. Loeb (both descendants of the Isaacks family) Judith Shanks donated this remarkable tallit to the American Jewish Historical Society in 2006.
After a journey spanning thousands of miles and hundreds of years, the tallit has come home, to be preserved in an archive just seven blocks from Abraham Isaacks's final resting place.
The following chart outlines the ten generations through which the tallit was likely passed:
1. Hannah Mears Isaacks of New York (? - 1745)
2. Jacob Isaacks (ca. 1718-1798) = Rebecca Mears (ca. 1738 -1802)
3. Hannah Isaacks (ca. 1762-1798) = Jacob Phillips (? - ca. 1830) of Newport, New York, West Indies
4. Rebecca Phillips (1792-1872) = Isaiah Moses (1772-1857) of Charleston
5. Hannah Moses (1809-1875) = Alexander H. Abrahams (1801-1871) of Charleston
6. Henrietta Abrahams (1832-1884) = Abraham Falk (1828-?)
7. Sarah Falk (1859-1938) = Isaiah Abrahams Solomons (1857-1909) of Savannah
8. Henry Aaron Alexander (1874-1967) (Nephew of Sarah Falk Solomons) = Manya Zelmanovna Klinitszkaya (Marian Kline)
9. Henry Aaron Alexander Jr. (1922-2000) = Patricia Schoen
10. Judith Shanks (Henry Aaron Alexander Jr.'s 1 st cousin, once removed; grandniece of Henry Aaron Alexander Sr.)
