Oriental Legends and other Poems

200 pages. 9.25 x 6 inches. Hinges exposed, damage to spine. The boards are green with gilt lettering. Gilt lettering on spine. The author, German born Herman Milton Bien immigrated to America in 1854 and worked as a rabbi, teacher, merchant, journalist and politician. He is the author of an 1866 Passover Hagadah, which he titled "Easter Eve", which tells you what kind of "reform Jew" he was. The poems in this present volume, many of which are of an American patriotic nature and one memorializes Rabbi Max Lilienthal. In 1863 he was elected to the Nevada state legislature. The reform temple Congregation Anshei Chesed in Viksburg (became Reform in 1873) hired Bien as rabbi in 1883 but they dumped him in 1895. He tried to get a position at Temple Emanuel in Birmingham and when Temple Emanuel turned him down he killed himself, leaving a suicide note that his life was a failure.