Price Library of Judaica Acquires Extraordinary, Rare Pamphlet
The Price Library of Judaica has just acquired what appears to be the only surviving copy of a remarkable 1868 pamphlet. Entitled Ein Jude über Gen. Grant und die Juden (“A Jew on Grant and the Jews”), it was written by Emil Hoeber, a prominent Jewish physician, member of B’nai B’rith, and later Coroner of New York City.
In his four-page German-language tract, Hoeber confronted General Ulysses S. Grant’s notorious General Order No. 11, which expelled Jews from his military district during the Civil War. While he condemned the order, Hoeber nevertheless made an impassioned appeal to his fellow Jews to support Grant’s presidential candidacy, calling such a vote essential “for the cause of humanity” and vital to securing the future of civil rights in America. Evoking Jewish history and Jewish civic responsibility, he wrote: “We, who have been oppressed all over the world, would naturally like to take up the cause of the oppressed here …”
Jonathan Sarna, author of the acclaimed book When General Grant Expelled the Jews (Schocken, 2012), describes the Price Library’s pamphlet as “an immensely important document” in revealing a previously unknown Jewish response to the 1868 presidential election.
New Yiddish Book Donation
The Price Library has received an exciting new addition to its Latin American Jewish holdings: a library of Yiddish books primarily published in Buenos Aires, accompanied by related personal papers and documents. This remarkable collection honors Esther Rollansky’s legacy and enhances UF’s reputation as a vital center for the study of Latin American Jewish culture and diasporic history.
The donation comes from the estate of the late Esther Rollansky, a beloved Yiddish teacher in Buenos Aires who passed away in Israel in 2023. Esther was the daughter of Samuel (Shmuel) Rollansky, a leading Jewish-Argentine intellectual and editor of an influential Yiddish book series. Her collection reflects a lifetime devoted to preserving Yiddish language, literature and education in Latin America.