A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue

Judah Monis

1735

Printed page with English and two Hebrew sentences near top and bottom of page.

A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue was the first Hebrew-language manual printed in North America. Its author Judah Monis, knowing that all undergraduates at Harvard University were required to learn Hebrew, presented his Hebrew grammar textbook to the university authorities. Two years later, in 1722, he was appointed as the university’s first full-time Hebrew teacher. At first, Monis’s students were required to copy his textbook by hand—this could take up to a month—and one such handwritten copy has survived. However, Monis requested that the university authorities print the work and Hebrew type was imported from London for this purpose. In 1732, a thousand copies were published. Hebrew was not a particularly popular course, and by the time of his retirement in 1760, Monis was teaching only once a week.

Credits

Judah Monis, Dickdook leshon gnebreet (A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue). Cambridge, MA: 1735.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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