Judah Monis

[6] Records show that Monis read for Jewish congregations in Jamaica[7] and New York,[1] and in roughly 1715, opened a small store in New York City, where he also began a second career teaching Hebrew to Jews and Christians, as well as a pastime of conducting discussions of theological topics, such as Kabbalah and the Holy Trinity, with leading Christian authorities.

Monis wrote three books defending the religious reasons behind his conversion, but Cambridge First Church records speculate disapprovingly on his secret observance of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturdays.

[10] Monis continued to use his handwritten grammar manual, but the unavailability of any Hebrew type for printing presses required that each student copy the entire text by hand, an unpopular job which took up to a month.

Monis sold the books himself out of his Cambridge home, and it was a required text for all Harvard students for the ensuing 25 years.

Monis' duties at Harvard continued to diminish, until by 1760 he was teaching only one class per week, at which point he retired, citing his declining health.

[10] He died four years later in Cambridge and is buried in a churchyard in Northborough, Massachusetts, under a tombstone bearing the image of a grafted tree to symbolize his conversion, with an inscription reading in part: