Isaac Harby (1788–1828), from

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

, was an early 19th-century teacher, playwright, literary critic, journalist, newspaper editor, and advocate of reforms in Judaism. His ideas were some of the precedents behind the development of

Reform Judaism Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish religious movements, Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its Jewish ethics, ethical aspects to its ceremo ...

. Harby's writings were anti-Northern, anti-abolitionist, and staunchly supportive of slavery. Harby came from a

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Jewish family. He and some associates created a new synagogue in 1824 because they felt the existing Sephardic ritual was too hard to understand. The words were spoken in a language that few Jews at the time understood, and all associated with their pain in the Sephardi diaspora. The words were spoken too quickly to understand even if the language was known. Beth Elohim in

. "We wish to worship God, not as slaves of bigotry and priestcraft but as the enlightened descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."See Harby's discourse in
''A Selection from the Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Isaac Harby, Esq'', 1829, p. 57
See also
The Sabbath service and miscellaneous prayers, adopted by the Reformed society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825
His granddaughter Lee Cohen Harby (1849–1918), a writer, was also born in Charleston.

References

External links

bio of Harby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harby, Isaac 1788 births 1828 deaths 19th-century American Sephardic Jews American proslavery activists Jewish American journalists Writers from Charleston, South Carolina American Reform Jews Sephardi Reform Jews