FISCHELL, A.:
Rabbi and historian; lived in the city of New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was for some time an assistant to Dr. Raphall, minister of the Shearith Israel congregation. Concerning Fischell, whose name is also spelled "Fischel" and "Fishell," but little is known: it is believed that he died in Holland in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1859 Fischell read a paper, "Chronological Notes on the History of the Jews in America," before the New York Historical Society. With this he prepared a chronological conspectus, which has been reprinted by the American Jewish Historical Society ("Publications," ii. 99 et seq.). In the discussion which grew out of this paper Fischell claimed that the early Jews enjoyed the fullest measure of liberty under Dutch rule in New Amsterdam, while George Bancroft maintained that Roger Williams, in Rhode Island, was the first to grant religious liberty in America. Fischell's paper was first published in the "Historical Magazine," 1860 (vol. iv.).
- Daly, The Settlement of the Jews in North America, p. xiv., notes 32 and 85, New York, 1893.
