[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 119 (Wednesday, July 12, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E665-E666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   RECOGNIZING THE PATRIOTISM OF JEWS DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

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                       HON. BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 12, 2023

  Mr. FITZPATRICK. 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

[[Page E666]]

     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.''

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