February 4, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, during the American Revolution, Jews made up only a tiny fraction of the population, yet many became passionate patriots in the fight for independence and religious freedom. Historian Adam Jortner, author of A Promised Land, shares the overlooked stories of Jewish Americans who fought, organized, and risked everything for a new nation, and how their struggle helped shape America’s earliest promise of liberty for all faiths.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love to tell stories about America's founding. We
also love to tell stories about America's faith heritage, and
this next story combines both. Here to tell the story
about Jews in America around the time of the Revolution
(00:34):
is Adam Jortner. He's a professor of history and religion
at Auburn University. His book A Promised Land, Jewish Patriots,
the American Revolution and the Birth of Religious Freedom. Professor Jortner,
what brought you to study this idea of Jews in
the Revolution. I'm a real history buff. I had no idea,
(00:57):
no clue that Jews had been a part of the
fighting of the war effort.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, it sounds fake. It sounds like a comedy routine.
I'll tell you about Jews and the Revolution. That's the
shocking thing to me. And the more I read about it,
the more there was to find about it.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Talk about how you came to write about this subject.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I wrote a book about Mormons, I've written a book
about Native American prophets, and my wife was pregnant with
my second kid.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I was very nervous, and I was like, well, I
need a small project.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'll work on Jews and the Revolution, because that won't
that won't take very long. My second son's now ten
years old, so it did take a while. But what
I found out was, not only are there Jews in
the United States during the Revolution, they're really passionate patriots.
For the most part, A lot of Jews rush to
(01:50):
sign up, and a lot of them end up because
of the way the revolutionary war works out, a lot
of them end up in the same city. They're all
in Philadelphia, and they form this synagogue. They reform the
local synagogue Mickfit Israel in Philadelphia in the seventeen eighties,
which makes them one of the very first kind of
(02:12):
national religious groups. So not only is there, you know,
Jews in the Revolution, not only are Jews part of
the American religious history, they're there from the very beginning
of the Republic. And that really made me stop and say,
I need to know about these guys. I need to
really think about religion and the revolution, just just to
(02:35):
get the basic question of well, what were people doing,
what did they believe? What kind of beliefs are bouncing
around there? In Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and all
these places.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You said they came to Philadelphia. Where did the Jews
come from? And when were the first Jews here in America?
When did the Jews arrive and why did they arrive?
Did they arrive for the same reason the Puritans arrived.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They all end up in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War
because most of the cities they're living in, Savannah, Charleston,
New York. By seventeen eighty those have all been taken
over by the British. So Philadelphia is sort of the
last city standing that still has a functioning synagogue. If
(03:21):
you want to be patriotic and you're a Jew, if
you can get to Philadelphia, you got to get there.
And this is something you know in terms of studying Jews.
Judaism requires there's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Stuff you need for Judaism.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You need to have a torah, you need to have
a minion, and these things are things that a Methodist
or an Episcopalian doesn't necessarily need. So a lot of
Jews end up in Philadelphia. But Jews have been in
the Americas ever since Europeans got here. There were Jews
coming over when Spain invaded with the Aztecs. Of course,
(03:58):
Judaism is banned in Spain, so a number of Jews
are hiding out in New Mexico in the fifteen hundreds,
so this is a very old tradition. In North America,
Jews end up in the British colonies, places like New
York and Georgia, mostly.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
As a result of accidents.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A lot of some of those Jews were living in
Brazil when it was under Dutch control and the Dutch
offered some kind of religious freedom. Then Portugal takes over,
so a bunch of Brazilian Jews end up heading to
New York City. And there are other cases where various
Jews from Britain or Jews who have been hiding in
Spain sort of end up in British North America. They
(04:45):
know British North America is a better place for religious
freedom than Spain under the Spanish monarchy, but it's still
not a place where religious freedom is full and celebrated.
There are still state churches in the British colonies. If
you're Jewish, you're not a subject, you're a resident, and
(05:07):
the rules are different for residents. So I mean, I
think most of the Jews end up I mean, there
aren't a ton of them. There may be something like
one tenth of one percent of the population, a tiny,
tiny number, but they have built several synagogues by the
time the Revolutionary War is underway, and people who are
(05:27):
visitors to the colonies are sort of shocked that, you know,
there's no political equality, but they are shocked that there
are Jews in the taverns along with everybody else. They're
surprised that in the day today life they don't see
the kinds of distinctions between Christians and Jews that you
might find in say Central Europe or Poland there isn't
(05:51):
that kind of distinction that's made.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And it's not just the.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Jews who are sort of residents but not citizens. You
write a bit about the Catholics and the Baptists, talk
about that as well, because it's a sort of an
alliance little form as the revolution occurs, where a war
ultimately brings a lot of these folks together seeking a
common ideal, which would be religious freedom. But that wasn't
also why they fought either, to talk about both of
(06:15):
those things.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The thing that I think I found out writing this
book is that religious freedom was not a given in
seventeen seventy six. It wasn't that the British colonies were
this place where everybody had religious freedom, and then the
Revolution just kind of codifies it. Religious freedom is something
you have to work for, it something you have to build.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And you're listening to Professor Adam Jortner, and he's a
professor of history and religion at Auburn University, and his
book A Promised Land is a must read. I urge
you to go to Amazon or the usual suspects, pick
up the book, and you'll learn a lot about the
founding of this nation and the role Jews played in it.
And my goodness, we're learning something already, the fact that
(06:57):
there were Jews in America at the time, that Jews
were in in this patriotic struggle, and that so many
Jews ended up in the city of Philadelphia because it
was the one place where as the war was beginning
to commence, they felt free and they felt secure to
represent and fight on behalf of and for their country
(07:17):
and more importantly, for religious freedom. When we come back,
we're going to learn more about the state of religious
freedom in the United States, and so much more when
we continue with our American stories leh Abib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. If you want to
(07:40):
help inspire countless others to love America like we do,
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Go to Ouramericanstories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot, any amount helps. Go
to Ouramericanstories dot com and give. And we continue with
(08:10):
our American Stories and with the story of the Jews
around the American Revolution and how Jews played a part
in our nation's founding and the Jews had been here
well for a very long time. Before picking up where
we last left off is Adam Jortner. He's a professor
of history and religion at Auburn University.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So what you have in the British colonies, and of
course these are not equal places. We know slavery is
legal in every British colony, even Massachusetts has enslaved people.
And it's not a world where it's assumed that each
human being has natural rights. And therefore it's not a
(08:54):
big problem to say, well, there's going to be a
state church the church sort of varies place to place. Congregationalist,
Puritan in Connecticut, and it's Episcopalian in Virginia and so on.
But these are all connected to the Empire. All these
state churches go back to the center of power in London,
(09:15):
and when the church is supported by a state, then
the church will back up what the state wants. Other
smarter people than me have pointed this out. When do
we get real abolitionist churches in the United States. It's
after the state churches have gone away. So the state
churches want stability, they want peace, and they want the
social order. That's how it works. So if you are
(09:36):
not a member of the state church, depending on the colony,
you just don't have the same religious rights. This is
the case with Jews, with Catholics, Baptists, that's a bit
of a surprise for many of my students down here
in Alabama. But Baptists in Virginia are technically not allowed
(09:56):
to preach without permission from the Episcopalia and the Anglican
state Church. Now what is that My students always wanted
to know, what does that mean? Does that mean that
they go around hunting up the Baptists.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well, no.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The way it works is like this. If you're a
Baptist preacher or you attend Baptist services, you got to
pay taxes, and you pay a tax to support the
state church. And then, unless you want your preacher to
go hungry, if you want a meeting house to meet in,
you got to also pay for your own church. So
you're paying for two churches, only one of which you use.
(10:29):
Second thing is everybody's got a If you're a Baptist preacher,
you got to be licensed and known by the state.
And of course the state can come in any time
it wants and says this is this is not official
church state church business. And of course when would the
officials do this. They do it if any Baptists become troublesome,
(10:50):
particularly if a Baptist starts preaching against enslavement, or if
a Baptist starts preaching about freedom of conscience, that is
the right to choose your own pastor then the next
Sunday you can be sure the sheriff might show up
and say, oh, this is not a legal meeting, or
someone might, as sometimes happened, throw a beehive into your services,
(11:13):
and then nobody investigates it. Or your preacher might get arrested.
This happens a couple of times when the preachers are arrested.
So Baptists don't have that kind of when we talk
about them not having full freedom, we really do mean
they're not rounded up, but they're not allowed to worship,
and for the powers that be, that's okay because they're
not worshiping the right way. Same thing happens with Jews
(11:36):
in Rhode Island. There's a Jewish community in the town
of Newport, Rhode Island, and again they are allowed to
be there their residents, but there's a couple of times
when the governor comes in and tries to seize all
Jewish property based on the idea that well, this is
a Christian kingdom. That means Jews don't have property rights.
And they work it out, but that had to be
(11:59):
pretty scary. And when one Jew in Rhode Island by
the name of Aaron Lopez, he's trying to become a subject.
He wants to become an Englishman in the colonies, Rhode
Island won't let him. So you know, it's the same situation.
And this is true Catholics in Maryland. Catholics could practice
but not outside and not in it. You had to
(12:21):
be in a private house if you wanted to worship
and you were Catholic, you dared to be Catholic in Maryland.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Situation at the beginning of the revolution. And here is
something I sort of realized, which is, what do the
revolutionaries do before they write the declaration of independence, before
they write the constitution, before even.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Before they fire a shot.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
What they are saying seventeen seventy four, seventy seventy five
is the British government is no longer valid here. They
have violated our rights and we break from them. And
once the patriots say that, then all of those rules
about which church you go to don't apply to the patriots.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Again, we can argue about this, what are the legal details,
But the reality is if you were Jewish and you
wanted to be a patriot and sign up, you can.
And Mordecai Cheftall in Georgia becomes leader of kind of
the de facto government of Savannah, even though he's Jewish
because it's not under British control anymore. The same thing
(13:25):
happens with a guy named Charles Carroll in Maryland who
becomes a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He couldn't
hold office in Maryland because he's Catholic, But the Patriots
don't have those rules. Come one, come all, and this
is sort of how the Patriots. They have a lot
of support from these minority religious groups and support from
all kinds of different people, but this is sort of
(13:48):
how these minority groups who had been legally banned from
full participation in the Patriot movement they're in.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
How did the revolution change Judie?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Well, first of all, it gave Jews freedom to form
their own synagogues. In most European and colonial places, and
in Europe itself, there's one synagogue per town. But that's
not going to fly with the First Amendment because you
have freedom of religion, and what you get is actually
multiplying synagogue. So that really, for the first time in
(14:24):
the history of European Jewry and American Jewry, you have
more than one synagogue to choose from, which is not
always great because there aren't that many Jews in a
lot of these towns, but it's a real expression of freedom,
which is to say, we're going to choose to worship
this way and be Jews and y'all can choose to
worship a different way and be Jews, and the state
(14:47):
and the rabbis cannot come in and stop them.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
So it leads to a.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Proliferation of voices about Judaism. The other thing that is
very interesting is that it leads to the first re
really the first Jewish critiques of Christianity in hundreds and
hundreds of years, because freedom of the press meant that
Jews could finally write about that. And of course there
(15:12):
are Christian groups who say this is great. This religious
freedom allows us to preach to Jews, because in Europe
it's hard to preach the Gospel to Jews because they
don't have full rights, they're being oppressed, they won't be
able to hear the real.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Message of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But here in the United States there are several organizations
founded specifically too preach to Jews. So, okay, we've gotten
rid of the Union of Church and States, so this
is a great time to preach. And they start publishing
books and Jews kind of respond and most of the
stuff is actually very very polite and very tepid, but
it does sort of lay out the foundations of a
(15:54):
new set of arguments between Jews and Christians based on
theological issues, and there are some some real whoppers in there,
where you know, Jewish leaders say, well, we believe in
the promises of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and
they bring up things that they don't agree with in
(16:14):
the New Testament, and they talk. They're able to openly
talk about you know, when we find Christian missionaries in
the doorways of our synagogues, this is really annoying. This
doesn't encourage us to convert. It is a way for
Jews and Christians to speak to each other on what
(16:35):
are very touchy issues, but they're able to speak openly.
They're able to sort of sort of speak as equals.
And there's even times when Jews and Christians will debate
each other in public and then nothing happens to either
of them, which again is a just a huge step forward.
It leads to a real flowering of Jews thinking about, Okay,
(17:01):
now that we have religious choice, why Judaism, what is
it that makes our faith distinctive? So it leads to
a lot of self analysis of Jews, and that in
turn is part of what makes new synagogues.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And of course all this debate within and among Jews
and Christians. Well, this battle of ideas was not only
good for the churches and the synagogues.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It was good for America.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And when we come back more from Adam Jordner on
the story of the Jews in America during the Revolution.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Here on our American.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Stories, and we continue with our American stories and with
(18:11):
the story of the Jews around the American Revolution. Picking
up where we last left off is Adam Jortner and
he teaches history and religion at Auburn University and his
book A Promised Land is a must read. I urge
you to go to Amazon or the usual suspects pick
up the book. You start your book in July of
seventeen seventy six with a man named Jonas Phillips shipping
(18:36):
a copy of a very dangerous document across the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Who was he and what was that dangerous document?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Jonas Phillips is a Jewish merchant. He's living in Philadelphia,
he's a Patriot, and he's sending the Declaration of Independence
to some friends back in Europe. And he writes the
letter in Yiddish because again you're not allowed, it's illegal
to ship the Declaration of independence. It's an illegal document.
(19:05):
So he writes the letter in Yiddish. We have a
copy of it, fortunately that it got saved because it
got captured by the British.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
And he says this.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
He says, the American army is full of one hundred
thousand rook them and rook them is Yiddish for tough guys.
And the British found this letter, could not translate the
Yiddish and assumed it was written in some kind of code,
and it got stuck in British archives for one hundred
and fifty years. But I think it's really I love
this story. And Phillips goes on to become president of
(19:37):
the synagogue in Philadelphia, funds money for naval operations, joins
the militia. He's a really serious patriot, and he's a
guy who speaks both Yiddish and English, a very devoted
Jew as well. And it's seventeen seventy six and the
declaration is just hot off the presses. It's an example
(20:00):
of how Jews saw this moment of revolution, this moment
of becoming a separate nation, to cleave to the idea
that all people are born naturally free. This is something
that resonates in the Jewish mind, and it resonates right
here in the United States. I think one of the
(20:22):
reasons why Jews and the Revolution seems so odd is because,
of course, the vast majority of American Jews are descended
from later generations who come in the end of the
nineteenth century and who are inspired by, among other reasons,
this idea of freedom. But I also want to point
out that it was also inspiring for Jews who were
(20:45):
already there and who were able to come to the
aid of the cause. And Phillips is deeply involved in
the war, He's deeply involved in creating this new American Synagogue,
and later he's deeply involved writing to Washington and the
Constitutional Convention about hey, let's get full rights for Jews
(21:10):
and have no religious restrictions.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Let's talk about Jews that were loyal to the crown too,
because look, Ben Franklin had a war inside his own house.
His son was the Royal Governor of New Jersey and
sided with the Crown, and Ben Franklin did and his
son ended up in jail. A lot of people don't
know that, and they never were to speak again. Were
there Jews that was sympathetic to the Crown, and was
(21:34):
this a minority? Was it evenly split as many historians
believe Americans were. I think that many historians believe it
was sort of a third for the Crown, a third
with the Patriots, and a third hiding under their tables,
wondering what would happen. Talk about what you think that
mix was within the Jewish community.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
First of all, everybody, remember, if it's before nineteen fifty,
numbers are squishy, which I mean to say when we
say X amount of Americans believe this, X amount of
Americans did that. The numbers are always squishy because there's
no there's no polling data. But here is what the
(22:12):
evidence sort of suggests. American Jews serve in the Patriot
Army in the exact proportion to their numbers in the population,
which is to say that you know, again, about one
tenth of one percent of Americans are Jewish, about one
tenth of one percent of the American army and militias
(22:34):
are Jewish. That probably indicates a very high degree of
alliance to the Patriot cause, because no Jew in America
would have had a military tradition, because Jews are either
banned in European armies, or they're banned from the officer class.
(22:56):
In Europe, virtually all the armies fight under the state Church.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
State Church. You cannot have a Jew command a Christian.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Russia, for example, lets Jews into the army, and they're
so open they let Jews in at age twelve. So
everyone who saw a kid in the Russian army knows
who they can be anti submitic to, and of course
they can't be officers. So there's no existing tradition of
Jewish military service in the United States. But you get
(23:23):
this very high level of participation that seems to suggest
that there is a strong patriot backing. Of course, it's
not always true. There are guys who live, particularly in
New York, who stick around. In fact, the New York
Synagogue itself splits. The leader of the synagogue, a guy
(23:45):
named Grisham Satius. When the British invade leads people out
of New York into Connecticut to establish a kind of synagogue,
a Jewish community in exile, and a few people sort
of stay back in New York. And actually there's a Hessian,
one of the Germans who comes over with the British.
(24:05):
There's a Hessian Jew who ends up leading the synagogue
during the Revolutionary War while the British occupy New York
for almost the whole war. Interesting that guy's name is
Abraham Zunz. And when the war is over and the
Jews come back to the Patriot Jews come back, they
actually ask Zuntz to stay on as a member of
the board. And zunts is like this, well, I could
(24:28):
go back to Europe, but this seems I think this
is a good thing.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
You guys have going. I'm paraphrasing.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So there are loyalist Jews who do stick around. What
I found was interesting is I didn't find as many
of them, And of course that might be because you know,
loyalists don't as often have their stuff saved.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
But what I do think is.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Interesting is that, at least in the places where we
can trace this in New York's the best place, the
breakdown between loyalists and patriots doesn't seem to correspond to
any previous divisions within the synagogue. In other words, it's
not like the people who preferred their services in the
Sephardic style joined one side and people who preferred it
(25:10):
in the Ashkenazic style joined the other side. Or the
families who had fought between you, because of course, you
know it's a religious organization. Families fight. The breakdown between
loyalist and patriot doesn't follow those divides, which again I
think suggests that American Jews are thinking about this not
as a way to settle old scores or to further
(25:31):
their pre existing agenda, but to say, oh, this is
a new, interesting problem, this is an opportunity. How do
we really think about the idea that all people are
created equal? How do we really feel about the idea
that we should be able to choose have a voice
in creating our own government. So there are Jewish loyalists.
(25:53):
I don't think there are as many as Jewish patriots.
But again, if you want hard numbers, those do not exist.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And you've been listening to Professor Adam Jortner. He teaches
history and religion at Auburn University. His book A Promised Land,
Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution and the Birth of Religious
Freedom is available to Amazon or wherever you get your books.
And we learn so much here about religious freedom in
this country and the revolutionary period, and it's not as
(26:23):
tidy as we'd come to believe from anything we've been taught.
I know, at least for me, I learned a lot
just listening thus far. And by the way, we hear
about not just the Jews role in the revolution, but
particular people too. Jonas Phillips, for one, a serious patriot,
and my goodness, we learn he even took a chance
(26:44):
shipping a copy of the Declaration of Independence overseas in
Yiddish because the king thought this document was dangerous.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And my goodness, the king was right.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
A document like this was dangerous to kings, monarchs, tyrants everywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
When we come back, more of the story of Jews
in the Revolution here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories and with Adam Jortner. He's
a professor of history and religion at Auburn University. And
we're talking about Jews during the American Revolution, their participation,
and their fight to secure our liberties. Let's talk about
George Washington. He did a major first in world history
(27:59):
that is spoken of very often. He appointed Jews as
military officers that never happened in Europe. Talk about how
this made Jewish people feel about Washington.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, Washington appoints people to higher offices without regard for
their religion, and that in itself is a remarkable achievement.
Washington doesn't write very much about this. It could just
be he needed the bodies. But here's the thing, so
does everybody else, his contemporaries. You know, white European soldiers
(28:35):
also need soldiers and good officers, but they allow this
discrimination to take place.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And Washington does not.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That probably secures Washington a real place in the heart
of early US Jews, to the extent that the Richmond
Synagogue will eventually write a prayer for George Washington, and
you know it's for Washington because it's spell It's an
acrosstic in Hebrew, so the letters spell out Washington because
(29:05):
there's no w sound in Hebrew. So it's a prayer
they write, and it spells out the letters in Washington's
name using the Hebrew alphabet. But he has a real
place in the hearts of the Jews, and he becomes
a kind of touchstone for what he then later writes
about how he doesn't see any difference between a Christian
(29:27):
citizen and a Jewish citizen. For the record, he writes
this for all kinds of different minority religions, Washington did
seem quite serious about the fact that religious freedom meant
religious freedom. No single sect, no single church, no single
religious tradition was to have pre eminence.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Indeed, let's talk about George Washington's visit to Rhode Island.
It occurs in seventeen ninety Why is he in Rhode Island.
That's a long trip from Washington, DC and his home
at Mount Vernon. And who's this character to the up
exchanging these beautiful letters which we're about to hear the
audience is about to hear, but set up this story
for us.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Why is Washington in Rhode Island? To begin with?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
So President Washington goes to Rhode Island in seventeen ninety
one because that's when Rhode Island finally joins the Union.
And part of the reason Washington goes up there is
of course, to you know, welcome to the Union. We're
so glad to have you guys. And some of it
is to sort of shore up support for his own
political program. What he probably wasn't expecting was that he
(30:35):
was going to run into a guy named Moses Satius,
brother of Gersham, who is the leader of the Jewish
community in Newport Rhode Island. Moses Satius had been a
Loyalist at one point, but he switches signs and once
the war is over, he sort of becomes he's the
(30:55):
most one of the most prominent Jews in Newport, functionally
president of the congregation. And they write a letter to
Washington because in road, remember in Rhode Island, there had
been attempts in the previous century to seize all Jewish property,
and so they don't have and Rhode Island again doesn't
at that time have many religious freedom guarantees in its laws.
(31:20):
So Moses and the Jews of Newport are writing a
letter to Washington to ask them, are you going to
protect our rights? We have these federal rights under the Constitution.
Are you going to recognize them because we feel like
we've earned them? Is this really going to be a
place where everyone has the same religious rights?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
If you wouldn't mind, could you read that letter to us.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
To George Washington from the Synagogue of Rhode Island. Permit
the children of the Stock of Abraham to approach you
with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person
and merits, and to join with our fellow citizens in
welcoming you to Newport. With pleasure. We reflect on those days,
those days of difficulty and danger, when the God of Israel,
(32:09):
who delivered David from the peril of the sword, shielded
your head in the day of battle, And we rejoice
to think that the same spirit who rested in the
bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel, enabling him to preside
over the provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and will
ever rest upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous
duties of chief Magistrate in these states. Deprived, as we
(32:31):
heretofore have been, of the invaluable rights of free citizens,
We now, with a deep sense of gratitude to the
almighty disposer of all events, behold a government erected by
the majesty of the people, a government which, to bigotry,
gives no sanction to persecution, no assistance, but generously offering
(32:53):
to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship, deeming
every one of whatever nation, tongue, or language, equal parts
of the great governmental machine. This so ample and extensive
federal union, whose basis is philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue.
(33:14):
We cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the
Great God, who ruleth in the armies of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.
For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which
we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire
to send up our thanks to the Ancient of days,
the great Preserver of men, beseeching him that the Angel
(33:37):
who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land,
may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers
of this mortal life. And when, like Joshua, full of
days and full of honor, you are gathered to your fathers,
may you be admitted into the heavenly paradise to partake
of the water of life and the Tree of immortality.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's just beautiful. And this is Washington reply.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Gentlemen, the citizens of the United States of America have
a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind
examples of an enlarged and liberal policy, a policy worthy
of imitation. All possess a like liberty of conscience and
immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration
is spoken of as if it was by the indulgence
(34:23):
of one class of people that another enjoy the exercise
of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of
the United States, which gives to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution,
no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection,
should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it, on
(34:44):
all occasions their effectual support. He continues, May the children
of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land
continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of all of
the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under
his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be
(35:05):
none to make him afraid. May the Father of all
mercy scatter light and not darkness in our paths. They
make us all, in our several vocations, useful here and
in his own due time, and way everlastingly happy.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Talk about that, I get shells reading that. I think
it is so profound to me for two reasons. One
is that it sets up an ideal, and we all
know that the ideals of freedom are not.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Fully realized in the revolution.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
We know that the country doesn't come close to giving
everyone here citizenship. But what Satius and Washington do in
these letters is they're setting up that standard. The goal
is that you have a country where there is to bigotry,
no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, where everyone is going
to be judged on the kind of citizen they are,
(35:58):
not on what kind of beliefs they have, not on
who their parents are, as a standard to live up to.
It's been very influential for me, and I think it's
been influential for a lot of other people, both successful
and unsuccessful, and trying to secure that ideal, to make
that freedom a real thing. And it's nice to see
that Satius is actually succeeds in it. The other thing
(36:21):
that I think is so significant is that we often
there's so much talk about what the founding fathers believed,
and you know, where did they go to church, what
did they think the relationship between church and state was. Well,
this is where Washington, as we Jews say, the big
Macha Washington comes right out and he says it. He says,
you know, this is not a place where we're going
(36:42):
to judge you based on your theological beliefs. All we
require is that you demean yourself as good citizens and
they're Satius saying we have all alike liberty of conscience
and immunities of citizenship, deeming everyone, whatever, nation tonger language,
equal parts of the great governmental machine. For seventeen ninety one,
(37:06):
that's really remarkable to say, we're gonna put it together
a functioning country here, guys. We're not going to require
people to take an oath to a certain god, or
to a certain church, or to a certain ceremony. We're
gonna take the oath to the country.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Monte Montgomery and Reagan Habib, and a special
thanks to Professor Adam Joortner. He teaches history and religion
at Auburn University. He's the author of A Promised Land,
Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom.
Go to Amazon or the usual suspects and pick up
(37:47):
a copy of this terrific book. And my goodness, those
two letters between Washington and Satius set a standard for
the nation to live up to and to secure an
ideal worthy of a new nation anchored in liberty. The
story of the Jews in America and how they fought
and participated in our revolution. Here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love to tell stories about America's founding. We
also love to tell stories about America's faith heritage, and
this next story combines both. Here to tell the story
about Jews in America around the time of the Revolution
(00:34):
is Adam Jortner. He's a professor of history and religion
at Auburn University. His book A Promised Land, Jewish Patriots,
the American Revolution and the Birth of Religious Freedom. Professor Jortner,
what brought you to study this idea of Jews in
the Revolution. I'm a real history buff. I had no idea,
(00:57):
no clue that Jews had been a part of the
fighting of the war effort.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, it sounds fake. It sounds like a comedy routine.
I'll tell you about Jews and the Revolution. That's the
shocking thing to me. And the more I read about it,
the more there was to find about it.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Talk about how you came to write about this subject.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I wrote a book about Mormons, I've written a book
about Native American prophets, and my wife was pregnant with
my second kid.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I was very nervous, and I was like, well, I
need a small project.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'll work on Jews and the Revolution, because that won't
that won't take very long. My second son's now ten
years old, so it did take a while. But what
I found out was, not only are there Jews in
the United States during the Revolution, they're really passionate patriots.
For the most part, A lot of Jews rush to
(01:50):
sign up, and a lot of them end up because
of the way the revolutionary war works out, a lot
of them end up in the same city. They're all
in Philadelphia, and they form this synagogue. They reform the
local synagogue Mickfit Israel in Philadelphia in the seventeen eighties,
which makes them one of the very first kind of
(02:12):
national religious groups. So not only is there, you know,
Jews in the Revolution, not only are Jews part of
the American religious history, they're there from the very beginning
of the Republic. And that really made me stop and say,
I need to know about these guys. I need to
really think about religion and the revolution, just just to
(02:35):
get the basic question of well, what were people doing,
what did they believe? What kind of beliefs are bouncing
around there? In Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and all
these places.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You said they came to Philadelphia. Where did the Jews
come from? And when were the first Jews here in America?
When did the Jews arrive and why did they arrive?
Did they arrive for the same reason the Puritans arrived.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They all end up in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War
because most of the cities they're living in, Savannah, Charleston,
New York. By seventeen eighty those have all been taken
over by the British. So Philadelphia is sort of the
last city standing that still has a functioning synagogue. If
(03:21):
you want to be patriotic and you're a Jew, if
you can get to Philadelphia, you got to get there.
And this is something you know in terms of studying Jews.
Judaism requires there's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Stuff you need for Judaism.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You need to have a torah, you need to have
a minion, and these things are things that a Methodist
or an Episcopalian doesn't necessarily need. So a lot of
Jews end up in Philadelphia. But Jews have been in
the Americas ever since Europeans got here. There were Jews
coming over when Spain invaded with the Aztecs. Of course,
(03:58):
Judaism is banned in Spain, so a number of Jews
are hiding out in New Mexico in the fifteen hundreds,
so this is a very old tradition. In North America,
Jews end up in the British colonies, places like New
York and Georgia, mostly.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
As a result of accidents.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A lot of some of those Jews were living in
Brazil when it was under Dutch control and the Dutch
offered some kind of religious freedom. Then Portugal takes over,
so a bunch of Brazilian Jews end up heading to
New York City. And there are other cases where various
Jews from Britain or Jews who have been hiding in
Spain sort of end up in British North America. They
(04:45):
know British North America is a better place for religious
freedom than Spain under the Spanish monarchy, but it's still
not a place where religious freedom is full and celebrated.
There are still state churches in the British colonies. If
you're Jewish, you're not a subject, you're a resident, and
(05:07):
the rules are different for residents. So I mean, I
think most of the Jews end up I mean, there
aren't a ton of them. There may be something like
one tenth of one percent of the population, a tiny,
tiny number, but they have built several synagogues by the
time the Revolutionary War is underway, and people who are
(05:27):
visitors to the colonies are sort of shocked that, you know,
there's no political equality, but they are shocked that there
are Jews in the taverns along with everybody else. They're
surprised that in the day today life they don't see
the kinds of distinctions between Christians and Jews that you
might find in say Central Europe or Poland there isn't
(05:51):
that kind of distinction that's made.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And it's not just the.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Jews who are sort of residents but not citizens. You
write a bit about the Catholics and the Baptists, talk
about that as well, because it's a sort of an
alliance little form as the revolution occurs, where a war
ultimately brings a lot of these folks together seeking a
common ideal, which would be religious freedom. But that wasn't
also why they fought either, to talk about both of
(06:15):
those things.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The thing that I think I found out writing this
book is that religious freedom was not a given in
seventeen seventy six. It wasn't that the British colonies were
this place where everybody had religious freedom, and then the
Revolution just kind of codifies it. Religious freedom is something
you have to work for, it something you have to build.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And you're listening to Professor Adam Jortner, and he's a
professor of history and religion at Auburn University, and his
book A Promised Land is a must read. I urge
you to go to Amazon or the usual suspects, pick
up the book, and you'll learn a lot about the
founding of this nation and the role Jews played in it.
And my goodness, we're learning something already, the fact that
(06:57):
there were Jews in America at the time, that Jews
were in in this patriotic struggle, and that so many
Jews ended up in the city of Philadelphia because it
was the one place where as the war was beginning
to commence, they felt free and they felt secure to
represent and fight on behalf of and for their country
(07:17):
and more importantly, for religious freedom. When we come back,
we're going to learn more about the state of religious
freedom in the United States, and so much more when
we continue with our American stories leh Abib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. If you want to
(07:40):
help inspire countless others to love America like we do,
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Go to Ouramericanstories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot, any amount helps. Go
to Ouramericanstories dot com and give. And we continue with
(08:10):
our American Stories and with the story of the Jews
around the American Revolution and how Jews played a part
in our nation's founding and the Jews had been here
well for a very long time. Before picking up where
we last left off is Adam Jortner. He's a professor
of history and religion at Auburn University.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So what you have in the British colonies, and of
course these are not equal places. We know slavery is
legal in every British colony, even Massachusetts has enslaved people.
And it's not a world where it's assumed that each
human being has natural rights. And therefore it's not a
(08:54):
big problem to say, well, there's going to be a
state church the church sort of varies place to place. Congregationalist,
Puritan in Connecticut, and it's Episcopalian in Virginia and so on.
But these are all connected to the Empire. All these
state churches go back to the center of power in London,
(09:15):
and when the church is supported by a state, then
the church will back up what the state wants. Other
smarter people than me have pointed this out. When do
we get real abolitionist churches in the United States. It's
after the state churches have gone away. So the state
churches want stability, they want peace, and they want the
social order. That's how it works. So if you are
(09:36):
not a member of the state church, depending on the colony,
you just don't have the same religious rights. This is
the case with Jews, with Catholics, Baptists, that's a bit
of a surprise for many of my students down here
in Alabama. But Baptists in Virginia are technically not allowed
(09:56):
to preach without permission from the Episcopalia and the Anglican
state Church. Now what is that My students always wanted
to know, what does that mean? Does that mean that
they go around hunting up the Baptists.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well, no.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The way it works is like this. If you're a
Baptist preacher or you attend Baptist services, you got to
pay taxes, and you pay a tax to support the
state church. And then, unless you want your preacher to
go hungry, if you want a meeting house to meet in,
you got to also pay for your own church. So
you're paying for two churches, only one of which you use.
(10:29):
Second thing is everybody's got a If you're a Baptist preacher,
you got to be licensed and known by the state.
And of course the state can come in any time
it wants and says this is this is not official
church state church business. And of course when would the
officials do this. They do it if any Baptists become troublesome,
(10:50):
particularly if a Baptist starts preaching against enslavement, or if
a Baptist starts preaching about freedom of conscience, that is
the right to choose your own pastor then the next
Sunday you can be sure the sheriff might show up
and say, oh, this is not a legal meeting, or
someone might, as sometimes happened, throw a beehive into your services,
(11:13):
and then nobody investigates it. Or your preacher might get arrested.
This happens a couple of times when the preachers are arrested.
So Baptists don't have that kind of when we talk
about them not having full freedom, we really do mean
they're not rounded up, but they're not allowed to worship,
and for the powers that be, that's okay because they're
not worshiping the right way. Same thing happens with Jews
(11:36):
in Rhode Island. There's a Jewish community in the town
of Newport, Rhode Island, and again they are allowed to
be there their residents, but there's a couple of times
when the governor comes in and tries to seize all
Jewish property based on the idea that well, this is
a Christian kingdom. That means Jews don't have property rights.
And they work it out, but that had to be
(11:59):
pretty scary. And when one Jew in Rhode Island by
the name of Aaron Lopez, he's trying to become a subject.
He wants to become an Englishman in the colonies, Rhode
Island won't let him. So you know, it's the same situation.
And this is true Catholics in Maryland. Catholics could practice
but not outside and not in it. You had to
(12:21):
be in a private house if you wanted to worship
and you were Catholic, you dared to be Catholic in Maryland.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Situation at the beginning of the revolution. And here is
something I sort of realized, which is, what do the
revolutionaries do before they write the declaration of independence, before
they write the constitution, before even.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Before they fire a shot.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
What they are saying seventeen seventy four, seventy seventy five
is the British government is no longer valid here. They
have violated our rights and we break from them. And
once the patriots say that, then all of those rules
about which church you go to don't apply to the patriots.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Again, we can argue about this, what are the legal details,
But the reality is if you were Jewish and you
wanted to be a patriot and sign up, you can.
And Mordecai Cheftall in Georgia becomes leader of kind of
the de facto government of Savannah, even though he's Jewish
because it's not under British control anymore. The same thing
(13:25):
happens with a guy named Charles Carroll in Maryland who
becomes a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He couldn't
hold office in Maryland because he's Catholic, But the Patriots
don't have those rules. Come one, come all, and this
is sort of how the Patriots. They have a lot
of support from these minority religious groups and support from
all kinds of different people, but this is sort of
(13:48):
how these minority groups who had been legally banned from
full participation in the Patriot movement they're in.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
How did the revolution change Judie?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Well, first of all, it gave Jews freedom to form
their own synagogues. In most European and colonial places, and
in Europe itself, there's one synagogue per town. But that's
not going to fly with the First Amendment because you
have freedom of religion, and what you get is actually
multiplying synagogue. So that really, for the first time in
(14:24):
the history of European Jewry and American Jewry, you have
more than one synagogue to choose from, which is not
always great because there aren't that many Jews in a
lot of these towns, but it's a real expression of freedom,
which is to say, we're going to choose to worship
this way and be Jews and y'all can choose to
worship a different way and be Jews, and the state
(14:47):
and the rabbis cannot come in and stop them.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
So it leads to a.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Proliferation of voices about Judaism. The other thing that is
very interesting is that it leads to the first re
really the first Jewish critiques of Christianity in hundreds and
hundreds of years, because freedom of the press meant that
Jews could finally write about that. And of course there
(15:12):
are Christian groups who say this is great. This religious
freedom allows us to preach to Jews, because in Europe
it's hard to preach the Gospel to Jews because they
don't have full rights, they're being oppressed, they won't be
able to hear the real.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Message of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But here in the United States there are several organizations
founded specifically too preach to Jews. So, okay, we've gotten
rid of the Union of Church and States, so this
is a great time to preach. And they start publishing
books and Jews kind of respond and most of the
stuff is actually very very polite and very tepid, but
it does sort of lay out the foundations of a
(15:54):
new set of arguments between Jews and Christians based on
theological issues, and there are some some real whoppers in there,
where you know, Jewish leaders say, well, we believe in
the promises of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and
they bring up things that they don't agree with in
(16:14):
the New Testament, and they talk. They're able to openly
talk about you know, when we find Christian missionaries in
the doorways of our synagogues, this is really annoying. This
doesn't encourage us to convert. It is a way for
Jews and Christians to speak to each other on what
(16:35):
are very touchy issues, but they're able to speak openly.
They're able to sort of sort of speak as equals.
And there's even times when Jews and Christians will debate
each other in public and then nothing happens to either
of them, which again is a just a huge step forward.
It leads to a real flowering of Jews thinking about, Okay,
(17:01):
now that we have religious choice, why Judaism, what is
it that makes our faith distinctive? So it leads to
a lot of self analysis of Jews, and that in
turn is part of what makes new synagogues.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And of course all this debate within and among Jews
and Christians. Well, this battle of ideas was not only
good for the churches and the synagogues.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It was good for America.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And when we come back more from Adam Jordner on
the story of the Jews in America during the Revolution.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Here on our American.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Stories, and we continue with our American stories and with
(18:11):
the story of the Jews around the American Revolution. Picking
up where we last left off is Adam Jortner and
he teaches history and religion at Auburn University and his
book A Promised Land is a must read. I urge
you to go to Amazon or the usual suspects pick
up the book. You start your book in July of
seventeen seventy six with a man named Jonas Phillips shipping
(18:36):
a copy of a very dangerous document across the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Who was he and what was that dangerous document?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Jonas Phillips is a Jewish merchant. He's living in Philadelphia,
he's a Patriot, and he's sending the Declaration of Independence
to some friends back in Europe. And he writes the
letter in Yiddish because again you're not allowed, it's illegal
to ship the Declaration of independence. It's an illegal document.
(19:05):
So he writes the letter in Yiddish. We have a
copy of it, fortunately that it got saved because it
got captured by the British.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
And he says this.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
He says, the American army is full of one hundred
thousand rook them and rook them is Yiddish for tough guys.
And the British found this letter, could not translate the
Yiddish and assumed it was written in some kind of code,
and it got stuck in British archives for one hundred
and fifty years. But I think it's really I love
this story. And Phillips goes on to become president of
(19:37):
the synagogue in Philadelphia, funds money for naval operations, joins
the militia. He's a really serious patriot, and he's a
guy who speaks both Yiddish and English, a very devoted
Jew as well. And it's seventeen seventy six and the
declaration is just hot off the presses. It's an example
(20:00):
of how Jews saw this moment of revolution, this moment
of becoming a separate nation, to cleave to the idea
that all people are born naturally free. This is something
that resonates in the Jewish mind, and it resonates right
here in the United States. I think one of the
(20:22):
reasons why Jews and the Revolution seems so odd is because,
of course, the vast majority of American Jews are descended
from later generations who come in the end of the
nineteenth century and who are inspired by, among other reasons,
this idea of freedom. But I also want to point
out that it was also inspiring for Jews who were
(20:45):
already there and who were able to come to the
aid of the cause. And Phillips is deeply involved in
the war, He's deeply involved in creating this new American Synagogue,
and later he's deeply involved writing to Washington and the
Constitutional Convention about hey, let's get full rights for Jews
(21:10):
and have no religious restrictions.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Let's talk about Jews that were loyal to the crown too,
because look, Ben Franklin had a war inside his own house.
His son was the Royal Governor of New Jersey and
sided with the Crown, and Ben Franklin did and his
son ended up in jail. A lot of people don't
know that, and they never were to speak again. Were
there Jews that was sympathetic to the Crown, and was
(21:34):
this a minority? Was it evenly split as many historians
believe Americans were. I think that many historians believe it
was sort of a third for the Crown, a third
with the Patriots, and a third hiding under their tables,
wondering what would happen. Talk about what you think that
mix was within the Jewish community.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
First of all, everybody, remember, if it's before nineteen fifty,
numbers are squishy, which I mean to say when we
say X amount of Americans believe this, X amount of
Americans did that. The numbers are always squishy because there's
no there's no polling data. But here is what the
(22:12):
evidence sort of suggests. American Jews serve in the Patriot
Army in the exact proportion to their numbers in the population,
which is to say that you know, again, about one
tenth of one percent of Americans are Jewish, about one
tenth of one percent of the American army and militias
(22:34):
are Jewish. That probably indicates a very high degree of
alliance to the Patriot cause, because no Jew in America
would have had a military tradition, because Jews are either
banned in European armies, or they're banned from the officer class.
(22:56):
In Europe, virtually all the armies fight under the state Church.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
State Church. You cannot have a Jew command a Christian.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Russia, for example, lets Jews into the army, and they're
so open they let Jews in at age twelve. So
everyone who saw a kid in the Russian army knows
who they can be anti submitic to, and of course
they can't be officers. So there's no existing tradition of
Jewish military service in the United States. But you get
(23:23):
this very high level of participation that seems to suggest
that there is a strong patriot backing. Of course, it's
not always true. There are guys who live, particularly in
New York, who stick around. In fact, the New York
Synagogue itself splits. The leader of the synagogue, a guy
(23:45):
named Grisham Satius. When the British invade leads people out
of New York into Connecticut to establish a kind of synagogue,
a Jewish community in exile, and a few people sort
of stay back in New York. And actually there's a Hessian,
one of the Germans who comes over with the British.
(24:05):
There's a Hessian Jew who ends up leading the synagogue
during the Revolutionary War while the British occupy New York
for almost the whole war. Interesting that guy's name is
Abraham Zunz. And when the war is over and the
Jews come back to the Patriot Jews come back, they
actually ask Zuntz to stay on as a member of
the board. And zunts is like this, well, I could
(24:28):
go back to Europe, but this seems I think this
is a good thing.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
You guys have going. I'm paraphrasing.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
So there are loyalist Jews who do stick around. What
I found was interesting is I didn't find as many
of them, And of course that might be because you know,
loyalists don't as often have their stuff saved.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
But what I do think is.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Interesting is that, at least in the places where we
can trace this in New York's the best place, the
breakdown between loyalists and patriots doesn't seem to correspond to
any previous divisions within the synagogue. In other words, it's
not like the people who preferred their services in the
Sephardic style joined one side and people who preferred it
(25:10):
in the Ashkenazic style joined the other side. Or the
families who had fought between you, because of course, you
know it's a religious organization. Families fight. The breakdown between
loyalist and patriot doesn't follow those divides, which again I
think suggests that American Jews are thinking about this not
as a way to settle old scores or to further
(25:31):
their pre existing agenda, but to say, oh, this is
a new, interesting problem, this is an opportunity. How do
we really think about the idea that all people are
created equal? How do we really feel about the idea
that we should be able to choose have a voice
in creating our own government. So there are Jewish loyalists.
(25:53):
I don't think there are as many as Jewish patriots.
But again, if you want hard numbers, those do not exist.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And you've been listening to Professor Adam Jortner. He teaches
history and religion at Auburn University. His book A Promised Land,
Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution and the Birth of Religious
Freedom is available to Amazon or wherever you get your books.
And we learn so much here about religious freedom in
this country and the revolutionary period, and it's not as
(26:23):
tidy as we'd come to believe from anything we've been taught.
I know, at least for me, I learned a lot
just listening thus far. And by the way, we hear
about not just the Jews role in the revolution, but
particular people too. Jonas Phillips, for one, a serious patriot,
and my goodness, we learn he even took a chance
(26:44):
shipping a copy of the Declaration of Independence overseas in
Yiddish because the king thought this document was dangerous.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And my goodness, the king was right.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
A document like this was dangerous to kings, monarchs, tyrants everywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
When we come back, more of the story of Jews
in the Revolution here on our American stories, and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories and with Adam Jortner. He's
a professor of history and religion at Auburn University. And
we're talking about Jews during the American Revolution, their participation,
and their fight to secure our liberties. Let's talk about
George Washington. He did a major first in world history
(27:59):
that is spoken of very often. He appointed Jews as
military officers that never happened in Europe. Talk about how
this made Jewish people feel about Washington.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, Washington appoints people to higher offices without regard for
their religion, and that in itself is a remarkable achievement.
Washington doesn't write very much about this. It could just
be he needed the bodies. But here's the thing, so
does everybody else, his contemporaries. You know, white European soldiers
(28:35):
also need soldiers and good officers, but they allow this
discrimination to take place.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And Washington does not.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That probably secures Washington a real place in the heart
of early US Jews, to the extent that the Richmond
Synagogue will eventually write a prayer for George Washington, and
you know it's for Washington because it's spell It's an
acrosstic in Hebrew, so the letters spell out Washington because
(29:05):
there's no w sound in Hebrew. So it's a prayer
they write, and it spells out the letters in Washington's
name using the Hebrew alphabet. But he has a real
place in the hearts of the Jews, and he becomes
a kind of touchstone for what he then later writes
about how he doesn't see any difference between a Christian
(29:27):
citizen and a Jewish citizen. For the record, he writes
this for all kinds of different minority religions, Washington did
seem quite serious about the fact that religious freedom meant
religious freedom. No single sect, no single church, no single
religious tradition was to have pre eminence.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Indeed, let's talk about George Washington's visit to Rhode Island.
It occurs in seventeen ninety Why is he in Rhode Island.
That's a long trip from Washington, DC and his home
at Mount Vernon. And who's this character to the up
exchanging these beautiful letters which we're about to hear the
audience is about to hear, but set up this story
for us.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Why is Washington in Rhode Island? To begin with?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
So President Washington goes to Rhode Island in seventeen ninety
one because that's when Rhode Island finally joins the Union.
And part of the reason Washington goes up there is
of course, to you know, welcome to the Union. We're
so glad to have you guys. And some of it
is to sort of shore up support for his own
political program. What he probably wasn't expecting was that he
(30:35):
was going to run into a guy named Moses Satius,
brother of Gersham, who is the leader of the Jewish
community in Newport Rhode Island. Moses Satius had been a
Loyalist at one point, but he switches signs and once
the war is over, he sort of becomes he's the
(30:55):
most one of the most prominent Jews in Newport, functionally
president of the congregation. And they write a letter to
Washington because in road, remember in Rhode Island, there had
been attempts in the previous century to seize all Jewish property,
and so they don't have and Rhode Island again doesn't
at that time have many religious freedom guarantees in its laws.
(31:20):
So Moses and the Jews of Newport are writing a
letter to Washington to ask them, are you going to
protect our rights? We have these federal rights under the Constitution.
Are you going to recognize them because we feel like
we've earned them? Is this really going to be a
place where everyone has the same religious rights?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
If you wouldn't mind, could you read that letter to us.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
To George Washington from the Synagogue of Rhode Island. Permit
the children of the Stock of Abraham to approach you
with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person
and merits, and to join with our fellow citizens in
welcoming you to Newport. With pleasure. We reflect on those days,
those days of difficulty and danger, when the God of Israel,
(32:09):
who delivered David from the peril of the sword, shielded
your head in the day of battle, And we rejoice
to think that the same spirit who rested in the
bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel, enabling him to preside
over the provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and will
ever rest upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous
duties of chief Magistrate in these states. Deprived, as we
(32:31):
heretofore have been, of the invaluable rights of free citizens,
We now, with a deep sense of gratitude to the
almighty disposer of all events, behold a government erected by
the majesty of the people, a government which, to bigotry,
gives no sanction to persecution, no assistance, but generously offering
(32:53):
to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship, deeming
every one of whatever nation, tongue, or language, equal parts
of the great governmental machine. This so ample and extensive
federal union, whose basis is philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue.
(33:14):
We cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the
Great God, who ruleth in the armies of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.
For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which
we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire
to send up our thanks to the Ancient of days,
the great Preserver of men, beseeching him that the Angel
(33:37):
who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land,
may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers
of this mortal life. And when, like Joshua, full of
days and full of honor, you are gathered to your fathers,
may you be admitted into the heavenly paradise to partake
of the water of life and the Tree of immortality.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's just beautiful. And this is Washington reply.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Gentlemen, the citizens of the United States of America have
a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind
examples of an enlarged and liberal policy, a policy worthy
of imitation. All possess a like liberty of conscience and
immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration
is spoken of as if it was by the indulgence
(34:23):
of one class of people that another enjoy the exercise
of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of
the United States, which gives to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution,
no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection,
should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it, on
(34:44):
all occasions their effectual support. He continues, May the children
of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land
continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of all of
the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under
his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be
(35:05):
none to make him afraid. May the Father of all
mercy scatter light and not darkness in our paths. They
make us all, in our several vocations, useful here and
in his own due time, and way everlastingly happy.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Talk about that, I get shells reading that. I think
it is so profound to me for two reasons. One
is that it sets up an ideal, and we all
know that the ideals of freedom are not.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Fully realized in the revolution.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
We know that the country doesn't come close to giving
everyone here citizenship. But what Satius and Washington do in
these letters is they're setting up that standard. The goal
is that you have a country where there is to bigotry,
no sanction, to persecution, no assistance, where everyone is going
to be judged on the kind of citizen they are,
(35:58):
not on what kind of beliefs they have, not on
who their parents are, as a standard to live up to.
It's been very influential for me, and I think it's
been influential for a lot of other people, both successful
and unsuccessful, and trying to secure that ideal, to make
that freedom a real thing. And it's nice to see
that Satius is actually succeeds in it. The other thing
(36:21):
that I think is so significant is that we often
there's so much talk about what the founding fathers believed,
and you know, where did they go to church, what
did they think the relationship between church and state was. Well,
this is where Washington, as we Jews say, the big
Macha Washington comes right out and he says it. He says,
you know, this is not a place where we're going
(36:42):
to judge you based on your theological beliefs. All we
require is that you demean yourself as good citizens and
they're Satius saying we have all alike liberty of conscience
and immunities of citizenship, deeming everyone, whatever, nation tonger language,
equal parts of the great governmental machine. For seventeen ninety one,
(37:06):
that's really remarkable to say, we're gonna put it together
a functioning country here, guys. We're not going to require
people to take an oath to a certain god, or
to a certain church, or to a certain ceremony. We're
gonna take the oath to the country.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Monte Montgomery and Reagan Habib, and a special
thanks to Professor Adam Joortner. He teaches history and religion
at Auburn University. He's the author of A Promised Land,
Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom.
Go to Amazon or the usual suspects and pick up
(37:47):
a copy of this terrific book. And my goodness, those
two letters between Washington and Satius set a standard for
the nation to live up to and to secure an
ideal worthy of a new nation anchored in liberty. The
story of the Jews in America and how they fought
and participated in our revolution. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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