Limdu Heitev Hachadash – The New Children’s Primer containing elements of Hebrew reading, compiled by Jacob Dickson, abridged by Rev. Izak Goller, London, 1923.

If you are Rachel Cohen, learning Hebrew at Deal Street School, I have the prize that you won in 1923.

This little book with large print was used to teach small children to read Hebrew a hundred years ago. It was compiled and published by the Hebrew bookseller, Jacob Dickson, who had a shop in Widegate Street in the East End of London.  Jacob Dickson founded his bookshop about 1875. After his death in 1915 the business was carried on by his children Woolf and Sarah Dickson.

There was a more complete edition, and this small book was an abridgement by the Rev. Izak Goller. Izak Goller had two careers – he was both a British Rabbi and a poet and artist.  He was born in Plungian, Lithuania and brought up in Manchester. He gained a scholarship to the Manchester Central School and then studied in a yeshiva.

His first ministerial appointment was at the Kovno synagogue in Manchester, and he then taught at the Talmud Torah in Leeds. Between 1922 and 1925 he served as minister at the Walthamstow and Leyton Synagogue in London, and then at the Hope Place Synagogue in Liverpool. He then moved back to London and established his own Young Israel Synagogue. He published startlingly original poetry.

I wonder what the children made of the rather Germanized names of the letters: Alef, Beth, Weth, Geemel, Daleth, Hey, Waw, Sajin, Cheth, etc.