Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Vol. VII Includes legislation permitting a lottery to raise funds for the benefit of Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Francis Bailey

Octoraro (Pennsylvania)

1806

Noted on pp. 328-330 we read that on the 8th February 1806, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed "An Act authorising the President Adjuntas and members of the Hebrew Congregation, of the City of Philadelphia, to raise by way of lottery a sum of money for the repairs of their synagogue and burial place, and for other purposes of relief." By this Act, community leaders Samuel Meeker, Jacob Sperry, Samuel Hays, Moses Nathans and Benjamin Nones were appointed commissioners of the lottery on behalf of the Congregation. Rosenbach (no. 147) reproduces from a lone copy in his private collection a printed broadside advertisement "Scheme of a Lottery for the Benefit of the Hebrew Congregation of the CIty of Philadelphia." Lotteries were a popular means for religious institutions to raise community funds. As early as February, 1788, Mikveh Israel applied to the General Assembly for permission to set up a lottery. Two years later, the request was acted upon. After passage of the Enabling Act on April 6th, 1790, there was advertised a lottery to raise the sum of 800 pounds "to enable the Hebrew Congregation in the city of Philadelphia to extricate their House of Worship from its present incumbrances." The drawing was held at the Court House in Market Street on October 19, 1790. When it came time for the growing congregation of Mikveh Israel to erect its second synagogue building, the stratagem of the lottery was again resorted to despite increasing Puritan public sentiment against lotteries for such purposes. See E. Wolf 2nd and M. Whiteman, The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson (1957) pp. 144-45, 360-61