Elieser Bassin


Elieser Bassin was a Russian-Jewish convert to Christianity, and an author and proponent of British Israelism.

Life

Born in 1840 to a wealthy Russian Jewish family in Mogilev Elieser later converted to Christianity in 1869 and became a missionary and member of the "London Jewish Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews". He later moved and settled in Britain and through the literature of Edward Hine became a proponent of British Israelism. In 1885 Bassin was appointed as the first director of the "Scottish Home Mission to the Jews" in Edinburgh, a position he held until his death in 1898. Bassin's daughter was folklorist and musician Rose Ethel Bassin.

British Israelism

Elieser is credited as the first Jewish convert to British Israelism. In 1884 he delivered a lecture entitled "God's Dealings With His Chosen People Israel" to a crowd of British Israelites in Portobello, Edinburgh. In his book British and Jewish Fraternity Eleiser equated Britain with the Israelite tribe of Ephraim:

Works

The modern Hebrew, and the Hebrew Christian British and Jewish Fraternity Lost Ten Tribes: Anglo-Israel by a Jew A finger-post to the way of salvation. An exposition from the Bible and Rabbinical books
  • ''The Passover, as celebrated now by the Jews, compared with that celebrated by Christ and His disciples''