Michael Heilprin (, 1823 – 1888) was a Polish-American Jewish biblical scholar, critic, and writer, born at Piotrków, Russian Poland, to Jewish parents. His family was distinguished by its knowledge of Hebrew lore as far back as the 16th century. Michael Heilprin was a scholar who was familiar with more than a dozen languages. Early life Michael Heilprin was born in 1823. His father, Phineas Mendel Heilprin, left Poland for Hungary in 1842. On the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution in 1848, Michael threw himself ardently into the movement led by Kossuth. The collapse of the revolution resulted in him leaving Europe in 1856 for the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life. Career Heilprin was connected with the American Cyclopædia from 1858 and was one of the associate editors of the new edition of that publication (1873–1876). From the time of its establishment in 1865, he became a regular contributor to the New York Nation. In 1879–1880, he published two volumes of The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, Translated and Critically Examined, a work of profound original research. The work was left incomplete at the author's death. Heilprin directed the establishment of several successful agricultural colonies in the United States for Russian-Jewish immigrants. Views on slavery In the civil-war era, prominent Jewish religious leaders in the United States engaged in public debates about slavery. Generally, rabbis from the Southern states supported slavery, and those from the North opposed slavery. Towards the end of the fifties when public opinion was crystallizing on the impending war issue, Philadelphia was the scene of a conflict whose bitterness can better be imagined than described. Party feeling had reached the boiling point when one evening Carpenter's Hall was appropriated for the use of the Anti-Slavery Democrats. The speaker on this occasion, all enthusiastic, was convincing his auditors of the justice of their cause when he was suddenly interrupted by the hoots and jeers of a crowd of hoodlums representing the "Copperheads,” who entirely unobserved had entered the meeting. Quick as a flash, in this moment of uproar, an unknown man rose from one of the front rows in the audience.Every eye was upon him. In breathless excitement he mounted his chair, and in the most vigorous German, reinforced by a remarkable eloquence, delivered such a bitter tirade against the methods of the opposition as to make him at once