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<font size=3>At 04:56 PM 5/21/2013, Zev Sero wrote:<br><br>
Indeed. The question then becomes whether the modern practise
among<br>
American Orthodox Ashkenazim comes from 1) Seixas's practise (Did
his<br>
successors continue it? And did the American Ashkenazim copy
anything<br>
else from the S&P? shuls?); 2) American Reform; 3) European
Orthodox<br>
who got it from European Reform; 4) Somewhere else.<br><br>
Isaac Leeser who lived in the 19th century in Philadelphia gave sermons
in English. He was a strong opponent of Reform which began to
emerge in America during the middle of the 19th century. His
speaking in English was motivated by the fact that this is the language
that people understood. <br><br>
Seixas was chazan in Philadelphia during part of the Revolutionary War
and then returned to NYC after the was ended. <br><br>
Rabbi A Rice who came to Baltimore in 1840 spoke in German, because
his congregation consisted primarily of people from Germany.
Indeed, in Baltimore during the middle part of the 19th century
German was the language used in the shuls there. This ended because
the American born generation spoke English. <br><br>
Reverends spoke in the language that most of the people understood,
and it most certainly was not Portuguese by the middle of the 18th
century.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Also whether Seixas's successors
continued to speak in English or reverted<br>
to Portuguese.<br>
</blockquote><br>
They could not have "reverted to Portuguese." This would have
made no sense, because by 1816 when Seixas died, there were
many Ashkenaz members of Shearith Israel (It was the only synagogue in
NYC until 1825 when Ashkenazim started Bnei Jeshurun.) and almost
no Marranos who spoke Portuguese were coming to America. The
truth be told, the members of La Nacion who settled in America
quickly learned English. They were primarily merchants and hence
had to learn the language that was used in business in America before the
Revolution, which was English. <br><br>
The minutes of the synagogue were kept in Portuguese with English
sprinkled in at the beginning but not for long. Soon they were
mostly in English with some Portuguese sprinkled in. The early
minutes of Shearith Israel were published in two articles by the
AJHS.<br><br>
YL</font></body>
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