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Reading, Pa.
born 1797 Jebenhausen, Germany
died December 18, 1866 Reading, Pa.
Here lies the
honorable Mr. Abraham, son of
the honorable Mr. David Einstein, who passed on to His world on
Wednesday, 12 Teveth [5]627. May his soul be bound in the bond of life
Additional information:
Immigrated from Jebenhausen, Germany, in 1839. The
family of five had left their home village on June 16 in a group of six
Jewish families. On their way to the French seaport of Le Havre they
were joined by others, mostly relatives, from Altenstadt (Bavaria),
Buttenhausen (Württemberg), and Heidelsheim (Baden). In Le Havre
this large company of Jewish emigrants split into groups of two or
three
families boarding an immigrant ship together. Abraham Einstein and
his family were joined by his brother-in-law, Leopold Sulzberger of
Heidelsheim, who was to be one of the most prominent Jewish
citizens
of Philadelphia. Their ship, the "Sylvie de Grasse", arrived at the
port of New
York on August 22, 1839.
A German-Jewish journal, the Israelitische
Annalen, which reported on their exodus from Jebenhausen, noted
that these emigrants had "equipped themselves with the necessary
religious requisites, like torah scroll, etc." Indeed a "religious
reqisite" that the Einstein and Sulzberger families brought with them
has survived to this day: A shofar,
a ram's horn that is sounded during services on the Jewish New Year and
on the Day of Atonement. It was the first Jewish ritual object
collected for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in
1889.
Upon his arrival in America, Abraham Einstein soon established himself
as a prosperous dry goods merchant, first in York, later in Dillsburg,
and eventually in Reading, Pa.
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