Moses Samuel

Moses Samuel (London, 1795–Liverpool, 1860) was a clockmaker, translator of Hebrew works and writer.

Life

His parents were Emanuel Menachem Samuel and Hanna Hinde; his father moved from Kempen in Posen in Silesia (now Kępno in Poland) to London. Moses with his mother moved to Liverpool around 1805. He went into business, not with any great success, but founding what later became the H. Samuel chain.^[1]

Works

He was the originally anonymous translator of the Italian Jewish kabbalah text Book of Jasher (Venice, 1625) which later became a para-canonical^{[clarification needed]} text in the Church of Latter-day Saints.^{[citation needed]} He later wrote "I did not put my name to it as my Patron and myself differed about its authenticity".^[2] The patron was Mordecai Noah, the New York publisher, who purchased the text after the Royal Asiatic Society declined it.

He also translated works of Moses Mendelssohn (notably Jerusalem, London, 1838) into English. An orthodox Jew, he campaigned against both the Reform Jewish movement, and as author of An Address to the Missionaries of Great Britain against Christian efforts to proselytize Jews. He co-edited The Cup of Salvation - Kos Yeshuot, a magazine in Hebrew and English, with D. M. Isaacs.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Wasserstein, Bernard, "Samuel, Moses", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/39469 
2. ^ Jewish historical studies: transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 2000

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia "...Samuel was a zealous advocate of the emancipation of his coreligionists, and a rebuke, entitled "The Jew and the Barrister," he administered to a member of the bar was favorably noticed in several magazines."

Persondata
Name	Samuel, Moses
Alternative names
Short description	Clockmaker, translator of Hebrew works and writer
Date of birth	1795
Place of birth	London, England
Date of death	1860
Place of death	Liverpool, England