פרדריק דה סולה מנדס

Rav Frederick de Sola Mendes (8 July 5610/1850–28 October 5688/1927) was a rav, author and editor in New York, born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, into an old Spanish and Portuguese rabbinic family. He was a son of Rav Abraham Pereira Mendes, a grandson of Rav David Aaron de Sola and a great-grandson of Haham Raphael Meldola, and a brother of Rav Henry Pereira Mendes. He learned at Northwick College, at University College School in London and at the University of London, taking his B.A. in 1869; from there he went to Breslau for his rabbinic studies, and received a doctorate from the University of Jena in 1871.

Back in England he was licensed to preach by Haham Benjamin Artom in London in 1873 and was appointed that year to the Great St. Helen’s Synagogue, but before the year was out he left for New York, having been called to the congregation Shaaray Tefillah, later the West End Synagogue. He entered on his duties there on 1 January 1874 as assistant to Rav Samuel M. Isaacs, was elected rabbi of the kehillah in 1877, and held the position until he retired in 1920 as Rabbi Emeritus.

With his brother Rav Henry Pereira Mendes and others he founded the paper The American Hebrew in 1879 and edited it through its first six years, writing for it often thereafter. In 1888 he published in the North American Review a piece in defense of belief in Hashem. He joined the staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia in 1900 as revising editor and head of its translation bureau, resigning both posts in September 1902, and together with Marcus Jastrow and Kaufmann Kohler he was among the revisers of the Jewish Publication Society translation of Tanach. He translated Jewish Family Papers: Letters of a Missionary, wrote the article on the Jews for Johnson’s Encyclopedia, and for a time in 1903 edited the monthly The Menorah. His own books include Outlines of Bible History, Defense not Defiance and Child’s First Bible.