Morris Jacob Raphall

At the age of nine Raphall was taken by his father, who was banker to the King of Sweden, to Copenhagen, where he was educated at the Hebrew grammar school.

"[1] Raphall married Rachel Goldston on August 3, 1825 and they had five children (Alfred, James, Esther, Charles, and Isabella).

[4] In February 1827 Raphall was named as a defendant in an insurance fraud case involving a fire at a fur shop owned by his brother in law Noah Goldston.

In 1840, when the blood accusation was made at Damascus, he traveled to Syria to aid in the investigation,[1] and published a refutation of it in four languages (Hebrew, English, French, and German).

[6] That year, he gave a series of lectures on biblical poetry at the Brooklyn Institute,[7] and was appointed rabbi and preacher of Manhattan's B'nai Jeshurun congregation, at the time called the Greene Street Synagogue.

In the years preceding the American Civil War, prominent Jewish religious leaders in the United States engaged in public debates, usually in writing, about slavery.

The most notable debate[9]: 17–19 [11] was between Raphall, who endorsed slavery,[12] and David Einhorn[13] and Michael Heilprin, two more liberal rabbis who opposed it.

[14] 150 years after emancipation, Ken Yellis and Richard Kreitner wrote in The Forward that the record shows that New York's Jews were overwhelmingly pro-slavery and on the wrong side of history regarding slavery and the Civil War.

But I stand here as a teacher in Israel; not to place before you my own feelings and opinions, but to propound to you the word of God, the Bible view of slavery....

[20] At "the invitation of a number of leading gentleman of this city", he repeated his talk a week later as a public lecture (tickets required),[21] and by February 1 it was advertised for sale as a 20-page pamphlet, The Bible View of Slavery.