Reverend Jacques J. Lyons b. 25 Aug 1813 Paramaribo, Surinam d. 12 Aug 1877 New York: Americans of Jewish Descent

1813 - 1877 (63 years)

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Mother	Mary Levy, b. 29 Apr 1779, Paramaribo, Surinam , d. 3 Jun 1841, New York (Age 62 years)
Family ID	F1372	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Family ID F356 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Notes

(Research):AJLLJ Portraits Database 5 Aug 2011

Jacques Judah Lyons was born in the Dutch colony of Suriname where his parents, Judah Eleazer and Mary Asser Lyons, accompanied by many of the Judah's siblings and his parents, had relocated fro Philadelphia at the end of the 18th century. Educational opportunities were limited, but Jacques did manage to master Dutch, English, French and German.
In his early twenties, Jacques became hazzan at Suriname's Neve Shalom, Paramaribo's Ashkenazi congregation. In 1836 he departed for the United States and secured for himself the position as hazzan at Richmond's Beth Shalome. In 1839 he was elected to replace Isaac Mendes Seixas at New York's Shearith Israel.
In 1842 he married Seixas Nathan's daughter, Grace, and they would have three children. For thirty-eight years he served as the leader of Shearith Israel, running the school and serving as head of the benevolent society in addition to his duties officiating. Perhaps his greatest legacy rests with a collaboration Lyons undertook with Rabbi Abraham de Sola of Montreal in 1854. Together they composed A Jewish Calendar for Fifty Years, which more than just the comprehensive calendar hinted at by the title, also contained an essay on the Jewish calendrical system as well as some of the earliest forays into American Jewish history, a passion that Lyons would purse for the rest of his life, collecting troves of material relevant to the early history of Jews in North America. [4]

Reverend Jacques J. Lyons[1]