Myer S. Isaacs and Family

Newlyweds Rev. Samuel Myer Isaacs (1804-1878) and Jane Symmons arrived in New York from London in 1839. Rev. Isaacs, an Orthodox Rabbi, had been appointed as the head of the Elm Street B'nai Jeshurun synagogue. During this period in Jewish American history, spiritual services were conducted for Jews in the languages of Hebrew or German. Rev. Isaacs became the second Jewish spiritual leader in the United States to teach in English, the first being Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia. Originally from Leewarden, Holland, Samuel's father, Myer Samuel Isaacs, lost his business during the Napoleonic Wars, fleeing to London in 1814. Of Myer Isaacs' five sons, four of them entered the Rabbinate, teaching in England, Australia, and the United States.

Reared and educated in England, as a young man Samuel Isaacs served for a brief period as the Principal of the Neveh Zedek orphan asylum in London. The demonstration of his teaching and leadership skills in London led the B'nai Jeshurun Congregation to request that he serve as cantor and preacher, though he did not have official rabbinical ordination. B'nai Jeshurun, the largest immigrant Ashkenazi congregation in New York City at the time, was eager to Americanize and sought a well-spoken leader with a natural ability for the English language. Rev. Isaacs led the B’nai Jeshurun at the Elm Street Synagogue (formally a church) beginning in either 1839 or 1840. In either 1845 or 1847, a schism took place within the Congregation over doctrinal issues, prompting the founding of Congregation Shaaray Tefila . (Dates vary in sources as to both Rev. Isaacs' beginning at B'nai Jeshurun and the creation of Shaaray Tefila.)

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