File:The German sectarians of Pennsylvania - a critical and legendary history of the Ephrata Cloister and the Dunkers (1899) (14781974822).jpg

Identifier: germansectarians01sach (find matches)
Title: The German sectarians of Pennsylvania : a critical and legendary history of the Ephrata Cloister and the Dunkers
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Sachse, Julius Friedrich, 1842-1919
Subjects: Ephrata Cloister Church of the Brethren Pennsylvania Dutch German Americans Printing
Publisher: Philadelphia : Printed for the author
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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they were successful is shown by the fact that, asthe settlers gradually increased in numbers,—coming downthe Susquehanna from New York and overland from Phila-delphia,—we soon find traces of a few of these Jewishtraders married and settled down. Whether they weremarried before they came here or took their wives fromamong the German settlers is an open question. It is cer-tain, however, that they strictly adhered to the ancientcustoms of their fathers. It was from intercourse with these Jewish traders, whoadhered as strictly as they could to the requirements oftheir faith, that the Mosaic ceremonies and customs werederived and practiced by the Gennan settlers, whose reasonwas almost dethroned with religious excitement and vagaries.Some even went so far as to circumcise each other andblaspheme against Paul because he did away with that rite.The Ephrata chronicles quote several such cases, notablyone A W , of Oley, and one D C . The result of this was that several German families in
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Synagogue at Schaffcrtown. 117 the old township of Heidelberg actually returned to theold dispensation, and with these accessions quite a Jewishcommunity was formed in Lancaster county. It was not long before a house of prayer was built bythem for the worship of the great Jehovah : it was the firstsynagogue in the American desert. It was built on theold Indian trail leading from the Conestoga to theSwatara. The place where this synagogue stood—the first in Pennsylvania for many years—is stillpointed out by old residents. It was a rude log-house,locally known as the Schiil; yet here the law waselevated and the shophar blown long before it wasdone in the chief town of the Province. Our view of the old post-road shows thesite of the Schiil^ now occupied by a modernhouse. Tradition tells us that the ancientlog-house in the foreground was formerly theOR Sacred Trumpet, homc of the Hazan OX reader, who in lateryears served the congregation, which at one time was themost distinctive and

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