Sheftall Diaries (1733 - 1808): Georgia's First Jewish Colonists

By Carolyn Wildes Cunningham

This primary source document was written by Benjamin Sheftall, one of the first 41 Jewish colonists of Georgia, and continued by his descendants. This research tool is invaluable in learning about America's Jewish colonial history in the South. The project was undertaken with permission of The University of Georgia's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, repository of the Keith M. Read Collection of which the Sheftall Diaries is a part.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781105223938

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Sheftall Diaries (1733 - 1808): Georgia's First Jewish Colonists

Sheftall Diaries (1733 – 1808):

Georgia’s First Jewish Colonists

© 2013 by Carolyn Wildes Cunningham

All rights reserved.

Lulu.com

ISBN: 978-1-105-22393-8

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The cited and/or replicated documents in this book have not been altered from their original form. There are several differences in the spelling of certain words between the British and American and even instances when the authors of the letters or documents misspelled certain words.

The Sheftall Diaries are supplied courtesy of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries. In the public domain, this information is contained in this library’s Keith M. Read Collection (1732-1905).

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To Benjamin Sheftall

for recording this diary, originally in Hebrew,

and to Levi and Mordecai Sheftall

for encouraging him to translate the text

into English

for the benefit of future generations.

~ Carolyn Wildes Cunningham, Editor

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Sheftall Diaries

Index

Introduction

I am excited to present to you this compilation of Sheftall Diaries (1733 – 1808):  Georgia’s First Jewish Colonists. Originally, these Sheftall Diaries were written in Juedisch-Deutsch – first by Benjamin Sheftall (1692-1765), then by his son Levi Sheftall (1739-1809). Other contributors were Levi’s brother Mordecai Sheftall (1735-1797), Levi’s son Mordecai Sheftall (1783-1856), and Benjamin Sheftall, Jr. (1771-1835). While the original disappeared, a copy of this information is kept in the Keith M. Read Collection of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at The University of Georgia in Athens. 

Written in Levi Sheftall’s handwriting, this copy is the original English translation.  Perhaps because he was an Ashkenazi, Levi Sheftall often misspelled the Sephardic nomenclature, according to Dr. Malcolm H. Stern who served as genealogist of the American Jewish Archives and who called this collection an immense treasure-house of data. Now out of print, Dr. Stern’s article – titled The Sheftall Diaries: Vital Records of Savannah Jewry (1733-1808) – appeared in the American Jewish Historical Quarterly, Volume LIV, September 1964 to June 1965, Numbers 1-4, 242-77. Copies of his article may be found in the Read Collection as well as at the University of South Carolina Library in Columbia; the Saint Louis County Library in St. Louis, Missouri; the Genealogy Department of the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana; and the University of Iowa Library in Iowa City.

From the summer of 1802 until 1808, Levi Sheftall wrote a revised version of the diaries which also is contained in this collection. The first copy contains a number of interesting details which were omitted by Levi Sheftall in the second copy – perhaps realizing he was writing a public rather than a family document, opined Dr. Stern. In the preface to the second version, Levi Sheftall writes, "That it may be known how I came to