February 1831-Dated Printed Circular from the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, a Society dedicated to converting Jews to the Christian faith, with Integral Postal Cover, Very Good.
The American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was founded in New York in 1820, growing out of earlier missionary efforts (including a "Hebrew Christian Prayer Union" informally organized in 1813 under Rev. Philip Milledoler). Its stated mission was "meliorating the condition of the Jews" and was a genteel cover for what it actually did: it was a missionary society devoted to converting Jews to Christianity, run by Christian clergy and lay people rather than Jews themselves.

This rare original printed circular was intended to raise funds for the Society in their mission to convert the Jews to Christianity. At first it notes that the Society was instituted in 1820, and that a farm of 500 acres was purchased on the Hudson River in New Paltz, Ulster County, New York for the purpose of receiving converted Jews and teaching them new trades. This program didn't prove very successful due to the small number of “converted” Jews sent to the farm (only four). This circular further notes that the society's first missionary, Reverend J. I. Abraham, who himself was a converted Jew, has been sent by the Society to Smyrna, and has "directed him to labour in the cities bordering on the Mediterranean, in one of which (Thessalonica alone) are 30,000 Jews," and that funds are needed to sustain his mission.

This circular optimistically states that "there is abundant employment for a Society engaged in seeking the salvation of at least ten millions of Jews, scattered amongst all nations under heaven." Much more excellent missionary content. Signed in type by Stephen N. Rowan, Agent & Secretary for Domestic Correspondence.

This circular was mailed as a folded letter addressed to: Rev. J. Smylie at Centreville, Amity Co., NY and bears a red "CITY OF WASHINGTON" circular postmark and manuscript "20" postage rate. We have not been able to locate any other record of this rare circular. There are strips of old cellulose (stamp hinge) material reinforcement on the reverse and where the red wax seal was torn when opened. Complete having some heavy folds and weakness or wear to portions of the printed text. An important historic American issued religious document.
The Society published a periodical originally called "Israel's Advocate," which pushed the "restoration of the Jews" as its central theme. Solomon Henry Jackson, the first Jewish printer in New York, published an anti-missionary periodical called "The Jew" from 1823-1825 specifically to counter Israel's Advocate.

American Jews at the time saw the Society as effectively a state-sponsored evangelical operation aimed at total conversion, and works like George Houston's 1820 "Israel Vindicated" attacked it directly, arguing the missionary work was un-American and unconstitutional.

By the 1840s the Society had gone dormant for about eighteen years before being revived, resuming its periodical under the name "Jewish Chronicle", which suggests the early 1830s, around when this circular is dated, may have been near the tail end of its active phase before that lapse.