Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the contributions of a scholarly article recently published by the Jewish Review of Books, titled ``When Freedom Began to Ring.'' Authored by Paul Finkelman and South-Eastern Pennsylvanian Lance J.…
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the contributions of a scholarly article recently published by the Jewish Review of Books, titled ``When Freedom Began to Ring.'' Authored by Paul Finkelman and South-Eastern Pennsylvanian Lance J. Sussman, this article explores how the patriotism of Jews during the American Revolution contributed to political equality and a national policy of religious liberty in the newly formed nation. Religious liberty is a critical component to our identity as Americans and this research highlights the important contributions of Jews in shaping this culture of religious tolerance in our Republic. I include in the Record the full article by Paul Finkelman and Lance J. Sussman.
When Freedom Began to Ring
(By Paul Finkelman and Lance J. Sussman)
In his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish community of
Newport, Rhode Island, George Washington wrote that ``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 all occasions their
effectual support.'' These words were not the kind of quid
pro quo sometimes offered by European Enlightenment leaders
of the time to Jews; it was not an implicit warning that they
ought to behave themselves if they wanted to be tolerated.
President Washington, under whose leadership many Jews had
fought during the Revolutionary War, was simply recognizing
that America only required of its Jews what it required of
all its citizens. At the founding, America was already not a
Christian nation, and this was in large part because of its
Jews.
Everywhere else in the world, prior to the American
Revolution, Jews were disfranchised, politically isolated,
and vulnerable. Even where they were relatively secure, such
as in England, they were not full citizens. In 1775, on the
eve of the Revolutionary War, English Jews could not vote,
serve on juries, serve in Parliament, be military officers,
attend a university, engage in some businesses, become
barristers, or practice some other professions. Jewish
immigrants had to pay special ``alien'' taxes forever,
because they could not naturalize. And as aliens, immigrant
Jews were prohibited from owning real estate or seagoing
vessels, and from engaging in colonial or foreign trade.
Things had been somewhat better in England's North American
colonies, where momentum toward full equality built as the
Revolution grew nearer, in part because of Jewish support for
the patriot cause. In 1765, ten Jewish merchants in New York
City, along with nearly two hundred Christian businessmen,
signed a non-importation agreement to boycott British goods.
Jewish merchants in Philadelphia and Newport, signed similar
agreements. Others, most famously Haym Salomon, joined the
Sons of Liberty. Gershom Mendes Seixas, the spiritual leader
of New York's Shearith Israel--the first synagogue in what
became the United States--actively supported Independence. In
1774, Francis Salvador had won a
seat in South Carolina's Provincial Congress. He was
reelected in 1776, thus becoming the first Jewish elected
public official in the new United States. He served until he
was killed in battle that August.
Most Jews in New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston,
and Savannah--where the Revolution was brewing--joined the
cause early. In doing so, they staked their claim to
political equality as a right, not a set of privileges to be
granted.
As they did nowhere in Europe, Jews served as officers in
the patriot armies. Mordecai Sheftall, a Savannah
businessman, was a full colonel, then the third highest rank
in the American army. David Salisbury Franks rose to the rank
of Lieutenant Colonel, served as a diplomat to France and
Morocco during the war, and later became the assistant
cashier of the Bank of the United States. Solomon Bush, whose
father had signed a non-importation agreement, ended the war
as a Lieutenant Colonel and the deputy adjutant-general of
the Pennsylvania militia. His younger brother, Captain Lewis
Bush, died in combat. There were no Jewish officers in the
British army or among the Hessian mercenaries during the
Revolutionary War. (However, Alexander Zuntz, a Hessian
civilian commissary, served as the Hazzan of Shearith Israel
congregation while the British occupied New York City.
Impressed with American religious liberty, he stayed in New
York after the war, and eventually became president of the
synagogue.)
In the independent United States, every new state
constitution granted Jews the right to vote, though nine of
the first eleven of them originally limited office holding to
Protestants or Christians. A few states retained established
churches or special state benefits for some faiths. Religious
tests for office directly denied Jews full political
equality. These state establishments did not deny Jews
religious liberty or legal rights, but they made them (and
members of other non-favored faiths) less than equal
citizens. This situation, however, was not destined to last
very long.
When Pennsylvania's 1776 constitution, for instance,
required state legislators to ``acknowledge the Scriptures of
the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine
inspiration,'' the state's Jews protested. Members of
Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel studied and
annotated all state constitutions, noting where Jews faced
discrimination, and then published letters in newspapers
calling attention to the new constitutions' objectionable
features. In late 1783, Philadelphia's Jewish leaders
petitioned the Pennsylvania government to allow Jews to hold
public office. Seven years later, Pennsylvania's new
constitution removed the religious test for office holding.
In 1787 Congress, operating under the Articles of
Confederation, passed the Northwest Ordinance, the forerunner
of subsequent laws regulating the settlement of western
territories and the creation of new states. The Ordinance
provided for ``extending the fundamental principles of civil
and religious liberty'' in the national territories. Written
before the Constitution, this was the first national
guarantee of religious freedom. The Confederation Congress,
which included no Jews and only the occasional Catholic,
could have easily established some kind of non-denominational
Protestantism or Christianity. But it did no such thing.
In that same year, on behalf of Congregation Mikveh Israel,
Revolutionary War veteran Jonas Phillips wrote to George
Washington, who was then serving as the presiding officer of
the Constitutional Convention, requesting the Convention
protect Jewish political rights. As it turned out, the
Convention had already agreed to prohibit religious tests for
office holding, but the willingness of Philadelphia Jews to
lobby for their rights further illustrates American Jewry's
newfound boldness.
On July 4, 1788, Philadelphia held a parade to celebrate
the ratification of the new constitution. The Grand Federal
Procession was led by an interfaith group of clergymen,
including a rabbi, their arms interlocked. Later, when George
Washington took the first presidential oath of office in New
York City, Hazzan Gershom Mendes Seixas joined other clergy
from the city as a witness.
The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, confirmed the right
of religious free exercise for all Americans and guaranteed
separation of church and state. Under the Constitution, Jews
held federal offices, even where they could not hold offices
under existing state constitutions. Thus, in 1801 President
Thomas Jefferson appointed Reuben Etting to be the US marshal
in Maryland, even though he would not have been allowed to
hold any office under that state's constitution until 1826.
Joel Hart and Mordecai Manuel Noah served as diplomats under
Jefferson and Madison. Noah was later the sheriff of New York
City, the ``boss'' of Tammany Hall, and a local judge.
The Constitution did not preclude individual states from
barring Jews from public office. Maryland, Massachusetts, and
New Jersey repealed these rules before the Civil War, while
North Carolina did so during Reconstruction. New Hampshire
finally abolished the practice in 1877. Nor could the
constitutional expansion of Jewish rights end social
antisemitism. Antisemitism, rooted in Christian theology,
nationalisms, bigotry, private fears and ignorance, and the
rantings of demagogues and conspiracy theorists, will, of
course, never be abolished by government decree. A political
system can regulate behavior and even promote tolerance, but
cannot end private intolerance and hatred. In the Old World,
however, anti-Jewish prejudice was often encouraged,
supported, or even mandated, by governments. In America, from
the outset, the law was on the Jews' side.
Furthermore, America's unprecedented acceptance of the Jews
helped to induce other western nations, including
Revolutionary France and mid-nineteenth-century Great
Britain, to grant Jews similar rights, although the process
in both countries was piecemeal, halting, and incomplete for
many years. In Britain, for example, Lionel Rothschild won
multiple elections to Parliament starting in 1847 but was
unable to take his seat until 1859, after the Jews Relief Act
had been passed. Full Jewish political equality in Britain
was not achieved until 1871.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American
Revolution, on July 4, 2026, it is important to recall how
the patriotism of Jews led to their political equality and a
national policy of religious liberty. The United States
became the first western nation to prohibit any religious
test for national public office, have no national or official
faith, have no laws restricting Jewish secular life or
religious observance, and allow for freedom of worship and
belief on a broad national scale.
When George Washington wrote to the Newport Jewish
community, this process was not yet complete, but the
holdouts were few and relatively insignificant. The
Revolutionary era set the stage for the ensuing two and a
half centuries of Jewish flourishing in a country where, to
return again to the words of Washington's historic letter.
minorities enjoy religious freedom not because mere tolerance
has been extended to them but because ``all possess alike
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.''