Revolution 250 Podcast

Jews and the American Revolution with Professor Jonathan Sarna

Jonathan Sarna Season 4 Episode 43

The allure of America with all of its possibilities brought many people to its shores during the Colonial period.  Jewish congregations in Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Newport formed small but important parts of American society.  We talk with Professor Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University about the impact Jews had on American independence--as soldiers and officers, and as merchants and financiers--and about the impact the American Revolution had on Jews in the United States and beyond.  Professor Sarna is the author or co-author more than 30 books on American Jewish history, including American Judaism:  A History,  which includes a chapter on the Jewish contributions to the Revolution. 

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

WEBVTT
 
 00:01.509 --> 00:22.389
 30 seconds yeah hello everyone welcome to the revolution 250 podcast i am bob allison i chair the rev 250 advisory group we are a collaboration among about 70 groups in massachusetts looking at ways to commemorate the beginnings of american independence and our
 
 00:22.915 --> 00:36.607
 Guest today is Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, who is a university professor, as well as the Joseph H. and Bell R. Brown Professor of American Jewish History, and also Director of the Schlisterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.
 
 00:37.027 --> 00:40.270
 Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Sarna, or I'll call you Jonathan.
 
 00:40.290 --> 00:43.473
 It's really a pleasure to be with you.
 
 00:43.493 --> 00:44.394
 Professor Sarna.
 
 00:55.362 --> 01:00.786
 I really want to thank you for inviting me to appear here.
 
 01:00.826 --> 01:03.569
 The revolution is a perennial interest.
 
 01:06.991 --> 01:07.672
 It certainly is.
 
 01:07.712 --> 01:10.594
 And you've talked about it in a couple of places.
 
 01:10.614 --> 01:18.261
 I will talk a little bit about your books, but you're also the chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
 
 01:19.602 --> 01:22.944
 But you've written, co-written, co-edited more than 30 books.
 
 01:26.234 --> 01:31.758
 American Judaism History has a chapter on Jews and the Revolution.
 
 01:31.778 --> 01:39.384
 Of course, you've also written about the Civil War with a book about Lincoln, a book about Grant, a book about the Jews of Boston, which I know well.
 
 01:39.404 --> 01:44.488
 Also, you've written about the Jewish community in Cincinnati, where you taught for a number of years.
 
 01:45.408 --> 01:53.314
 So we'll be talking about some of these books, but we really want to talk about Jews in America at the time of the Revolution.
 
 01:53.414 --> 01:54.115
 So can you tell us
 
 01:54.893 --> 01:56.294
 How many people are we talking about?
 
 01:56.354 --> 01:57.054
 Where were they?
 
 01:58.115 --> 01:58.475
 Sure.
 
 01:59.175 --> 02:02.217
 It's a very small community.
 
 02:03.177 --> 02:05.058
 The minimalists say 1,500.
 
 02:05.498 --> 02:10.161
 The maximalists say 3,000.
 
 02:10.581 --> 02:14.963
 We're talking about far fewer than one in 1,000.
 
 02:15.823 --> 02:19.265
 But what's very significant is
 
 02:20.649 --> 02:25.152
 that they were not distributed across the colonies.
 
 02:25.872 --> 02:31.636
 They basically were in port cities.
 
 02:32.356 --> 02:44.083
 So Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, and then Baltimore and Richmond are really
 
 02:44.696 --> 02:50.419
 formed as Jewish communities just in this era.
 
 02:50.779 --> 02:56.903
 But the historic colonial communities are those five port cities.
 
 02:57.563 --> 03:05.787
 And in each of them, including Philadelphia, there is a significant Jewish presence.
 
 03:06.668 --> 03:11.951
 And certainly as supporters of the revolution,
 
 03:13.270 --> 03:22.834
 come to Philadelphia often from other places, they naturally interact with Jews.
 
 03:23.814 --> 03:42.201
 And for a brief time, Philadelphia becomes the largest Jewish community in North America because Jews from New York and Jews from Savannah and elsewhere
 
 03:43.096 --> 03:47.318
 gravitated towards Philadelphia.
 
 03:54.461 --> 03:55.662
 Where had they come from?
 
 03:55.682 --> 04:00.064
 What parts of the world did these folks come from to America?
 
 04:02.785 --> 04:04.986
 That's a very interesting question.
 
 04:05.626 --> 04:10.929
 Some of the most famous were what we call Sephardic Jews.
 
 04:11.599 --> 04:16.223
 Jews originally from the Iberian Peninsula.
 
 04:16.824 --> 04:25.332
 They'd been expelled from Spain and then from Portugal at the very end of the 15th century.
 
 04:26.413 --> 04:28.975
 But many make their way to Holland.
 
 04:29.616 --> 04:36.002
 From there, some come to the Caribbean and also some come to North America.
 
 04:37.762 --> 04:48.571
 But by the time of the American Revolution, we also had what are called Ashkenazi Jews, Jews from the German lands.
 
 04:49.251 --> 04:59.439
 And it's interesting that the revolution itself contributes to the number of German-speaking Jews.
 
 04:59.519 --> 05:06.765
 Germany isn't united until the 1870s, but among the Hessian troops,
 
 05:07.843 --> 05:23.767
 who come to fight on the side of the British are some Jews, especially in positions like settlers, people who
 
 05:26.968 --> 05:33.432
 are feeding the troops and making arrangements for the troops.
 
 05:35.334 --> 05:39.957
 And, you know, an army then and now moves on its stomach.
 
 05:40.717 --> 05:49.663
 And so we know that some of them were Jews and later they stayed.
 
 05:49.823 --> 05:52.645
 And I guess the fact that they had...
 
 05:53.798 --> 06:02.730
 bin Hessians and on the British side wasn't sufficient to drive them out after independence was
 
 06:03.716 --> 06:04.737
 was declared.
 
 06:05.258 --> 06:26.715
 So you had a rich mix of Jews from different places, and they all had to try somehow and live together within a tiny community and even worship together, even though they came from somewhat different places and traditions.
 
 06:26.955 --> 06:29.137
 And figuring that out was
 
 06:29.717 --> 06:42.804
 not a small matter, especially in Philadelphia when they founded the synagogue in Philadelphia, which is going to be important, make for Israel.
 
 06:44.184 --> 06:48.066
 And in the revolution, it has very prominent members.
 
 06:48.546 --> 06:51.428
 We actually have a letter to the founders.
 
 06:51.448 --> 06:53.649
 It was one of the Graz family members.
 
 06:54.221 --> 06:57.143
 And the question was, well, what's our custom going to be?
 
 06:57.723 --> 07:05.008
 And he says, well, let's call it the American custom because we have to find a way.
 
 07:05.428 --> 07:10.832
 What he was hinting at is we have to give something to everybody.
 
 07:11.212 --> 07:23.500
 They didn't quite do that, but it's clear that they made room for a wide variety of people
 
 07:24.111 --> 07:27.234
 from different backgrounds, because that's what America was.
 
 07:27.695 --> 07:29.937
 It was true in the general community.
 
 07:31.319 --> 07:34.922
 And, you know, who is this American?
 
 07:35.243 --> 07:38.826
 This new man Kravker is going to ask.
 
 07:39.087 --> 07:45.533
 And his description could equally have applied, who is an American Jew?
 
 07:46.234 --> 07:46.774
 And he...
 
 07:47.794 --> 07:57.421
 that they came from all these different places, married one another, and had to create something that hadn't been seen before.
 
 07:58.542 --> 07:59.063
 Interesting.
 
 07:59.423 --> 08:00.003
 Very interesting.
 
 08:00.424 --> 08:08.150
 And of course, now our minds are very much on Israel being at war, Jews fighting, and you mentioned Jews being part of the Hessian forces.
 
 08:08.190 --> 08:12.273
 What about serving in the American army?
 
 08:13.233 --> 08:16.496
 So we know of about a hundred
 
 08:17.778 --> 08:21.921
 Jews who serve in different capacities.
 
 08:23.642 --> 08:43.294
 There seems to have been a group of Jews and they were known as Jews in Charleston, which was a significant community.
 
 08:44.495 --> 08:46.436
 What's important, I think,
 
 08:48.047 --> 09:03.101
 is not just the Jews fought, although they were very proud later of having shed blood for the revolution, but in America, Jews could move up on the basis of their merit.
 
 09:03.241 --> 09:08.406
 And we know there were Jewish colonels and other Jews who moved up in the military
 
 09:09.676 --> 09:19.102
 That was not true in most of the world because there was a taboo on how could a Jew give orders to a Christian.
 
 09:19.842 --> 09:25.025
 Even the British army didn't allow them to move up at that time.
 
 09:25.605 --> 09:38.253
 And of course, where the majority of Jews lived, which was in the Russian Empire at that time, they were basically cannon fodder, not allowed to do anything.
 
 09:39.238 --> 09:47.442
 of authority, which helps to explain why Jews in the Russian army tried to evade that military service.
 
 09:48.202 --> 09:53.385
 They weren't allowed to serve the way others were.
 
 10:00.729 --> 10:01.169
 Interesting.
 
 10:01.649 --> 10:07.872
 And I know recently there's been a very exciting discovery in Savannah about a man named Mordecai Shepton.
 
 10:08.336 --> 10:11.459
 Can you tell us a bit about this?
 
 10:11.500 --> 10:13.522
 Yes, I'm thrilled to talk about it.
 
 10:13.542 --> 10:14.823
 It's not in my book.
 
 10:15.804 --> 10:21.270
 We, of course, knew that the Schefter family was prominent in Savannah.
 
 10:21.290 --> 10:24.374
 That is an Ashkenazi family, the
 
 10:25.063 --> 10:29.405
 one of two major Jewish families in Savannah.
 
 10:30.146 --> 10:39.951
 And we knew that the Sheftals, both the father and the son, Mordecai Sheftal and Sheftal Sheftal, were taken prisoner.
 
 10:40.771 --> 10:49.075
 But now they pulled up a boat that had been sunk in the American Revolution.
 
 10:49.135 --> 10:51.716
 It was somewhere off the coast of Savannah.
 
 10:52.457 --> 10:54.738
 And lo and behold, on the boat,
 
 10:55.399 --> 11:01.560
 was the diary of a minister named Reverend Moses Allen.
 
 11:02.801 --> 11:10.002
 And they were, as you now can, they were able to sort of get the water out of the diary and began reading it.
 
 11:10.162 --> 11:18.284
 And in 1778, he described how the prisoners had pork for dinner.
 
 11:19.341 --> 11:20.441
 And then he went on.
 
 11:20.861 --> 11:26.843
 The Jews, Mr. Scheftel and son, refused to eat their pieces.
 
 11:27.403 --> 11:32.544
 And their knives and forks were ordered to be greased with it.
 
 11:34.285 --> 11:40.686
 Meaning that they, prisoners would bring their own knives and forks.
 
 11:41.346 --> 11:48.728
 And the British holding them prisoner made it deeply uncomfortable for them to eat the food served.
 
 11:49.472 --> 11:51.634
 which as Jews, they weren't prepared to eat.
 
 11:52.054 --> 11:55.576
 But listen to Reverend Allen, who is himself a prisoner.
 
 11:56.177 --> 12:01.140
 It is a happiness that Mr. Sheftal is a fellow Sapphira.
 
 12:01.460 --> 12:06.383
 He bears it with such fortitude as an example to me.
 
 12:07.704 --> 12:13.848
 So we never before had this kind of data
 
 12:14.857 --> 12:36.800
 on a Jewish prisoner of war, nor did we realize that there were troops in the British army who really used kind of primitive religious warfare in trying to break the spirit of the American people.
 
 12:39.497 --> 12:41.839
 of the American Revolutionary Troops.
 
 12:42.039 --> 12:53.626
 So it's interesting that even now, so many years later, you can still have a brand new find.
 
 12:57.130 --> 13:01.933
 Yeah, it's amazing what we're still learning about the revolution and about other things.
 
 13:02.213 --> 13:15.460
 We're talking with Jonathan Sarna, who is a university professor and the Joseph and Bell Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis, author of a number of books, including American Judaism History.
 
 13:16.261 --> 13:19.242
 And we're talking about Jews in the American Revolution.
 
 13:19.322 --> 13:20.483
 And here we're talking about the
 
 13:21.129 --> 13:33.077
 Some of the men who served, including the Sheftals, were both taken prisoner during the capture of Savannah and inspire then Reverend Moses Allen and others to fortitude in their common struggle.
 
 13:35.939 --> 13:44.885
 Probably one of the best known Jewish figures at the time of the revolution is Haim Solomon, and I don't think we can avoid saying something about his role in this.
 
 13:45.566 --> 13:45.906
 Sure.
 
 13:46.526 --> 13:47.947
 Haim Solomon,
 
 13:49.133 --> 14:01.515
 was actually a polish jew uh from a place called lissa and um as you say he's probably the best known jew
 
 14:03.861 --> 14:10.646
 His genius lay in his ability generally to market goods.
 
 14:11.066 --> 14:18.251
 There was a recent study of the advertisements that Chaim Salomon put in newspapers.
 
 14:19.152 --> 14:22.094
 And he was a kind of pioneer.
 
 14:22.114 --> 14:25.037
 He had an instinct for how to market.
 
 14:25.577 --> 14:29.320
 But particularly important was his role
 
 14:30.300 --> 14:38.281
 in marketing what were then called bills of exchange, which are roughly similar to modern checks.
 
 14:39.422 --> 14:46.163
 If you have funds somewhere else, you wanted your money available in Philadelphia.
 
 14:47.163 --> 14:54.244
 And Solomon knew many languages, especially French.
 
 14:54.344 --> 14:58.105
 And we know the French soldiers used him
 
 14:59.295 --> 15:01.716
 And the Spanish soldiers used him.
 
 15:02.296 --> 15:06.478
 So he becomes a kind of leading broker.
 
 15:07.178 --> 15:14.760
 And that, of course, catches the attention of Robert Morris, superintendent of finance.
 
 15:15.340 --> 15:19.502
 It's quite fascinating to look at Robert Morris's diary.
 
 15:20.522 --> 15:26.444
 In the beginning, he says, a Jew, Chaim Solomon, came to see me.
 
 15:27.298 --> 15:34.063
 But then he got to know Chaim Solomon and of course realized how successful and important he was.
 
 15:34.544 --> 15:39.408
 And later on, he talks about Mr. Solomon came to see me.
 
 15:40.028 --> 15:50.977
 And that shift in language is very subtle, but telling how the two forged a relationship.
 
 15:51.117 --> 15:52.678
 And in 1781, Solomon basically becomes
 
 15:56.610 --> 16:02.391
 the bill broker or certainly the principal one for Morris.
 
 16:03.491 --> 16:05.892
 And he markets.
 
 16:07.212 --> 16:14.973
 I once said he was the first Jewish junk on dealer and the junk bonds were the bonds of the new nation.
 
 16:15.633 --> 16:25.315
 And I am Solomon must have been very persuasive because he did manage, um,
 
 16:26.533 --> 16:29.374
 to bring in money.
 
 16:33.556 --> 16:43.680
 Exactly whether he loaned the government money, as was later claimed, most scholars think that was exaggerated.
 
 16:43.820 --> 16:54.144
 Rather, it was his role moving money in and out of his account and sharing it and making it available that was important.
 
 16:55.418 --> 17:07.683
 He also does loan money to various founding fathers who come to Philadelphia for the Constitution.
 
 17:07.743 --> 17:11.505
 They got Virginia money, not Philadelphia.
 
 17:12.645 --> 17:14.086
 He'll make it available.
 
 17:14.528 --> 17:25.810
 And he did it apparently on an interest-free basis because of his patriotic leanings.
 
 17:26.150 --> 17:32.872
 According to tradition, which is a strong tradition, he broke out of a British prison.
 
 17:33.952 --> 17:38.213
 According to the tradition, one of those Jewish Hessians
 
 17:39.241 --> 17:41.342
 found that there was a Jewish prisoner.
 
 17:41.382 --> 17:45.203
 They spoke to one another in a language they both understood.
 
 17:45.623 --> 17:50.305
 And before you knew it, Chaim Solomon was out of prison and in Philadelphia.
 
 17:50.765 --> 17:54.786
 But in any case, he dies.
 
 17:55.627 --> 17:58.988
 He helps build the synagogue in Philadelphia.
 
 17:59.028 --> 18:08.151
 It's the first one that's built and organizes a Jewish charity and even sends some money back to his relatives.
 
 18:09.086 --> 18:35.645
 in Poland, and is an example of someone who rather rapidly during this period moves from rags to riches, but he dies in 1785, and as was true of many, many people in this very turbulent period, by the time they settled the estate,
 
 18:37.786 --> 18:41.368
 The family was sort of left bankrupt and rather bitter.
 
 18:42.168 --> 18:47.891
 What would happen is that the value of different monies and so on would collapse.
 
 18:48.592 --> 18:54.115
 And they tried for many years to get the government to help them.
 
 18:57.836 --> 18:58.517
 Wow.
 
 18:59.495 --> 19:04.260
 And Aaron Lopez is another character who loses a fortune in the revolution.
 
 19:04.480 --> 19:06.682
 I mean, Robert Morris loses a fortune, too.
 
 19:06.802 --> 19:07.743
 But can you tell us about?
 
 19:08.584 --> 19:10.226
 And also ends up bankrupt.
 
 19:10.346 --> 19:11.807
 Aaron Lopez.
 
 19:14.122 --> 19:16.424
 actually is a fascinating figure.
 
 19:17.004 --> 19:30.914
 He comes directly from the Iberian Peninsula to Newport, which has a big community in Newport, more than some of the others had Jews who sided with the British.
 
 19:31.014 --> 19:36.738
 We now know that Lopez for a while played both sides, but eventually
 
 19:38.459 --> 19:39.399
 And it made sense.
 
 19:39.459 --> 19:46.463
 He was probably the largest merchant, period, in Newport and extremely wealthy.
 
 19:47.244 --> 19:55.409
 During the revolution, he leaves Newport.
 
 19:55.929 --> 19:57.650
 I think he comes to Leicester.
 
 19:57.690 --> 19:59.211
 He comes to Massachusetts.
 
 20:00.052 --> 20:05.235
 And we have a remarkable letter in which he describes
 
 20:06.304 --> 20:16.313
 what he's been hearing of how the people of Newport were treated during the British occupation of Newport.
 
 20:17.674 --> 20:18.535
 It wasn't pretty.
 
 20:21.718 --> 20:25.381
 Lopez loses a lot of money.
 
 20:26.942 --> 20:33.668
 After the revolution, he's making his way back to Newport to try and rebuild.
 
 20:35.550 --> 20:37.392
 and he drowns.
 
 20:38.953 --> 20:51.264
 Now, that's good for historians because there are huge numbers of Lopez papers which were put together to try and figure out who owed what to whom.
 
 20:52.725 --> 20:55.788
 Terrible, of course, for the Lopez family.
 
 20:56.228 --> 21:02.174
 The truth is that not only did the family never recover,
 
 21:03.171 --> 21:29.191
 but within 50 years of the revolution, Newport pretty well shuts down as a Jewish community and it was built, it was a free port and built on trade with England and they never were able to recover economically.
 
 21:30.052 --> 21:55.395
 uh from the revolution maybe aaron lopez would have found a way to do it he was also involved in in spermaceti and other things but in any case that's the story of the great um aaron aaron lopez and the reverend ezra styles of great fame in newport before it becomes yale memorializes
 
 21:56.467 --> 22:00.588
 And you really see how much he respected him.
 
 22:01.048 --> 22:09.631
 Again, that such an important Protestant divine in his diary writes a whole page about Aaron Lopez.
 
 22:09.651 --> 22:10.971
 It tells you something.
 
 22:11.792 --> 22:12.812
 It certainly does.
 
 22:13.476 --> 22:17.237
 We're talking with Jonathan Sarna from Brandeis University.
 
 22:17.677 --> 22:26.240
 And of course, since we're on the subject of Newport, one of the most famous letters in American history is the one that George Washington writes to the Toro Synagogue.
 
 22:26.280 --> 22:41.605
 I think we could, it's a remarkable letter where he talks about a government which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, and requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.
 
 22:42.503 --> 22:45.024
 It's a remarkable statement by the first president.
 
 22:45.644 --> 22:47.345
 It's absolutely remarkable.
 
 22:47.425 --> 22:52.607
 And I remind you that it precedes the passage of the First Amendment.
 
 22:56.128 --> 23:05.932
 Jews knew from long experience that what mattered were not just words, but what the leader said and did.
 
 23:06.636 --> 23:07.236
 the leader.
 
 23:08.157 --> 23:14.318
 And so George Washington comes to Newport not to visit Jews.
 
 23:14.379 --> 23:26.422
 George Washington had boycotted Rhode Island his first time traveling in New England because Rhode Island didn't sign on to the Constitution.
 
 23:27.263 --> 23:34.285
 And he let it be known, though, that if they would sign on, remember, he wanted it to be unanimous.
 
 23:35.784 --> 23:38.607
 They, of course, were very nervous about it as a small state.
 
 23:39.628 --> 23:52.383
 They do eventually sign on, and George Washington, we know he never told a lie, but George Washington then, with Thomas Jefferson and others, does come to Rhode Island.
 
 23:52.861 --> 24:02.705
 He comes to Newport as per the custom of the day, the whole bunch of public speeches are read out to George Washington.
 
 24:03.185 --> 24:06.846
 Most of them are, we have them are formal and not interesting.
 
 24:07.427 --> 24:19.992
 And then the Jews use the opportunity to really ask him, how are we going to be treated?
 
 24:22.053 --> 24:33.658
 And in fact, that line about bigotry, no sanction is actually, and persecution, no assistance, actually in their letter to him.
 
 24:33.678 --> 24:44.062
 And he then slightly improved the phrasing and sends it back, which means a lot because that's what presidents do.
 
 24:45.782 --> 24:47.263
 And it's clear that,
 
 24:48.334 --> 24:51.535
 that Washington labored over that letter.
 
 24:53.375 --> 24:57.896
 Some people think Thomas Jefferson also had a role in it.
 
 24:59.477 --> 25:09.879
 And it was important enough that they made sure that American newspapers would publish the letter.
 
 25:10.640 --> 25:15.261
 And there's a second piece that's not as often quoted as the wonderful lines still.
 
 25:16.181 --> 25:17.362
 worth reading that you did.
 
 25:17.942 --> 25:20.724
 But he also talks about toleration.
 
 25:21.484 --> 25:26.607
 And he says, it's not just toleration in America.
 
 25:28.388 --> 25:32.471
 It's an inherent natural right, religious liberty.
 
 25:33.266 --> 25:41.211
 There was no place on the planet that said religious liberty is an inherent natural right.
 
 25:41.711 --> 25:50.076
 And that was hugely important because if it's toleration, well, today we tolerate you and tomorrow we stop tolerating you.
 
 25:50.116 --> 25:53.899
 We change the law, which happened to Jews all the time.
 
 25:54.579 --> 25:56.720
 If it's an inherent natural right.
 
 26:06.001 --> 26:11.444
 It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was by the indulgence of one class.
 
 26:12.264 --> 26:18.708
 That another enjoys its inherent natural right.
 
 26:19.128 --> 26:30.334
 It's really a remarkable formulation and I think has had a big impact.
 
 26:30.974 --> 26:32.755
 I'm very interested in the fact that
 
 26:33.499 --> 26:40.725
 That letter is quoted all the way to our own time.
 
 26:41.625 --> 26:55.236
 Mayor Bloomberg quoted it when he allowed a Muslim chapel to be opened at the site of 9-11, what was called Ground Zero.
 
 26:55.736 --> 26:57.017
 He cited that letter.
 
 26:57.498 --> 26:58.839
 And you can find it cited everywhere.
 
 26:59.344 --> 27:08.114
 over and over as what we aspire to in in America.
 
 27:08.394 --> 27:09.215
 Right.
 
 27:09.916 --> 27:10.116
 And
 
 27:12.732 --> 27:29.719
 I mean, Washington wrote a great many letters to different groups, but I think there is a general consensus that this was the most important one with implications for religious liberty forever after.
 
 27:29.739 --> 27:33.160
 That definitely is.
 
 27:33.600 --> 27:41.123
 And he goes on to talk about that they had addressed, by the way, Moses Seixas, who was one who presented
 
 27:41.690 --> 27:42.712
 the Jewish community.
 
 27:42.732 --> 27:44.034
 He also was there for the Masons.
 
 27:44.074 --> 27:47.599
 That is, he was with both of these delegations greeting the president.
 
 27:47.619 --> 27:52.146
 The Masonic letter is not interesting, but it is interesting for the Jew
 
 27:54.788 --> 28:10.293
 Jews brought Spanish Rite Masonry, I think, to Newport and it's interesting, in Europe often Jews were excluded by the Masons, but in America you had a great many Masons who were Jews.
 
 28:10.353 --> 28:20.136
 There were places that didn't admit Jews and debated it in the 19th century, but as you say, Moses Satius, whose brother
 
 28:20.814 --> 28:23.155
 was the, we call him the Chazan.
 
 28:23.235 --> 28:29.859
 He was the minister in New York and Philadelphia, and then again New York.
 
 28:30.539 --> 28:37.343
 So this was a very well-connected family, and descendants are still with us today.
 
 28:43.306 --> 28:43.786
 Interesting.
 
 28:44.267 --> 28:46.628
 And then they address him as their
 
 28:47.998 --> 28:49.399
 From the stock of Abraham.
 
 28:49.439 --> 29:02.384
 So in his closing, he talks about them as may the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree.
 
 29:02.684 --> 29:06.405
 By the way, it's just something Washington often talked about yearning to do.
 
 29:06.765 --> 29:11.487
 And that was the purpose of the revolution, to let each of us sit under your own vine and fig tree.
 
 29:12.185 --> 29:12.365
 Right.
 
 29:12.385 --> 29:13.806
 That, of course, is not watching.
 
 29:13.846 --> 29:16.028
 And there shall be none to make him afraid.
 
 29:16.388 --> 29:17.509
 Right.
 
 29:17.569 --> 29:21.191
 That's a prophetic allusion.
 
 29:21.211 --> 29:23.212
 It's from the book of Micah.
 
 29:26.624 --> 29:31.207
 It was George Washington's favorite biblical verse, as you comment on.
 
 29:31.447 --> 29:32.628
 He used it all the time.
 
 29:32.768 --> 29:37.251
 I want to go back to Mount Vernon, sit under my own vine and fig tree.
 
 29:37.891 --> 29:46.436
 And how amazing that a man takes his favorite biblical verse and wishes that others would share it.
 
 29:46.496 --> 29:50.699
 It's not just that I want to be able to sit under my own vine and fig tree.
 
 29:51.292 --> 30:00.954
 I want Jews and minorities, even persecuted ones, to sit under their own vine and fig tree.
 
 30:01.394 --> 30:11.016
 And that, too, is going to become important during the debates over Mormonism later.
 
 30:11.336 --> 30:19.058
 I found someone who cited the same verse, let the Mormons sit under their own vine and fig tree.
 
 30:21.069 --> 30:22.070
 Well, it's amazing.
 
 30:22.630 --> 30:25.012
 We're talking with Jonathan Sarna.
 
 30:26.474 --> 30:26.654
 Yes.
 
 30:27.475 --> 30:28.936
 Yeah, it certainly is.
 
 30:29.036 --> 30:35.722
 And that is, tells us what the revolution meant to those who were fighting it, what the purpose really was.
 
 30:37.323 --> 30:37.824
 Yeah.
 
 30:37.864 --> 30:43.128
 We're talking with Jonathan Sarna, professor of history at Brandeis University.
 
 30:43.549 --> 30:43.629
 Now,
 
 30:44.216 --> 31:03.789
 One character a little bit after the Revolutionary period, but I think his story is very telling, is Mordecai Noah, who is a fascinating character, playwright, journalist, proponent of a Jewish community on the Niagara River, also briefly American consul to Tunis in 1815.
 
 31:04.850 --> 31:07.551
 I know you've written a book about him.
 
 31:10.652 --> 31:13.918
 looked at him and thought, what a fascinating story this is.
 
 31:14.979 --> 31:19.006
 And he is, although he's born just after the Revolution, 1785, it's clear that
 
 31:25.029 --> 31:33.716
 He feels, well, thanks to this revolution, I can be both an American politician and a Jew.
 
 31:33.817 --> 31:38.280
 I don't have to choose between my identities.
 
 31:38.881 --> 31:39.882
 I can be both.
 
 31:40.102 --> 31:45.947
 And he is, in his day, probably the most prominent American Jew.
 
 31:45.967 --> 31:47.428
 He speaks out.
 
 31:47.488 --> 31:49.170
 He's a newspaper editor.
 
 31:49.990 --> 31:51.632
 He writes plays that are...
 
 31:52.512 --> 31:54.714
 are widely performed and so on.
 
 31:55.615 --> 32:04.922
 And it's in both worlds.
 
 32:05.522 --> 32:10.887
 It's interesting, he's of course recalled from Tunis.
 
 32:12.328 --> 32:20.935
 And it's perfectly clear, as I say in the book, he was actually recalled because the government wasn't happy with the way
 
 32:21.513 --> 32:23.534
 He handled a hostage release.
 
 32:23.654 --> 32:25.855
 It sounds very contemporary.
 
 32:25.895 --> 32:28.156
 They thought he overpaid.
 
 32:28.956 --> 32:45.723
 But instead of saying that, because everything about hostage releases is secret then and now, they recall him because, well, he's a Jew and the Bay of Tunis might not appreciate having a Jew there, which probably wasn't true.
 
 32:46.563 --> 32:48.264
 But there was a storm.
 
 32:51.687 --> 32:58.797
 when James Madison, I think it was Madison, issues that.
 
 32:59.578 --> 33:04.184
 And not only does Noah write a whole protest
 
 33:04.687 --> 33:11.829
 But there are other protests by Jews and they quote George Washington's letter.
 
 33:12.209 --> 33:15.770
 I thought that bigotry, no sanction, persecution.
 
 33:16.150 --> 33:20.031
 What difference does it make if he's a Jew or not a Jew?
 
 33:20.951 --> 33:24.572
 And the administration has quickly to backtrack.
 
 33:24.592 --> 33:26.513
 No, it had nothing to do with that.
 
 33:29.553 --> 33:33.316
 We recalled him for what we considered to be cause.
 
 33:33.776 --> 33:47.985
 But never again, to my knowledge, is an American diplomat officially recalled because his religion wasn't comfortable to the foreign country.
 
 33:48.405 --> 33:54.629
 Indeed, Abraham Lincoln faced the problem when one of his diplomats
 
 33:55.382 --> 34:01.587
 was accused by the country of having Jewish ancestry and they wouldn't accept him.
 
 34:02.287 --> 34:24.084
 And Lincoln sent the man somewhere else in the diplomatic war to Denmark, which had a different name then, and was not at all interested in hearing about discrimination against people because of their background.
 
 34:29.261 --> 34:29.461
 Hmm.
 
 34:30.081 --> 34:30.502
 Interesting.
 
 34:31.082 --> 34:41.007
 We're talking with Jonathan Sarna, professor of, um, university professor and the Joseph and Bell Braun professor of American and Jewish history at Brandeis.
 
 34:41.087 --> 34:49.152
 And I wonder if we could talk a little bit, we've talked a bit about the impact that Jews had on the revolution.
 
 34:49.192 --> 34:58.697
 What about the impact of the revolution itself on Jews or on Judaism on its practice or on the Jewish community beyond the borders of the United States or within the borders of the United
 
 34:59.819 --> 35:15.535
 And I have to say that I think the impact on Jews is more important even than the impact that Jews had.
 
 35:17.116 --> 35:20.320
 It creates new norms.
 
 35:21.108 --> 35:24.832
 The Constitution creates norms.
 
 35:25.312 --> 35:32.038
 Suddenly, religious freedom, church-state separation, denominationalism.
 
 35:32.098 --> 35:38.124
 In other words, we no longer allow a state religion.
 
 35:38.924 --> 35:40.846
 There's a no-establishment clause.
 
 35:41.066 --> 35:45.090
 Every denomination is equal, including Judaism.
 
 35:45.530 --> 35:47.212
 Well, those ideas...
 
 35:48.678 --> 36:17.596
 are new, they're new to everybody, but in the ensuing years we see Judaism changed in America and it tries to meet the needs of young Jews like Mordecai Noah, born after the revolution, who inhaled this atmosphere of freedom and democracy
 
 36:18.548 --> 36:20.350
 and religious ferment.
 
 36:21.891 --> 36:27.436
 And in the 1820s, we have what is really a great revolution.
 
 36:27.696 --> 36:41.908
 We move from a synagogue community, meaning one synagogue in all of those communities I mentioned in the beginning, and suddenly people break away from synagogues.
 
 36:42.321 --> 36:48.365
 just like Methodists and Baptists and so on, are going to break away from churches.
 
 36:48.785 --> 36:50.586
 And they say, hey, it's a free country.
 
 36:51.247 --> 36:57.311
 We can create our own way of being Jewish.
 
 36:57.731 --> 36:59.752
 We can call ourselves reform.
 
 37:00.693 --> 37:02.534
 And the government has no interest.
 
 37:02.674 --> 37:09.218
 And indeed, by the Civil War, practically every Jewish community by then, 150,000 Jews,
 
 37:11.124 --> 37:15.746
 has multiple synagogues reflecting different traditions.
 
 37:16.787 --> 37:20.268
 And there's nothing like that in other countries.
 
 37:22.429 --> 37:25.891
 So the revolution really reminds us.
 
 37:31.213 --> 37:36.595
 Yeah, the revolution really rejects Judaism.
 
 37:36.756 --> 37:36.916
 Yeah.
 
 37:45.842 --> 38:13.696
 fascinating story about i mean it does remind us of how important this event was in kind of philosophical terms and in terms of uh what it means the fact that this religious freedom extends not just to protestants or dissenters and not just to christians but to jews muslims others who are able to enjoy as sit under their own vine and fig tree as
 
 38:14.642 --> 38:16.203
 Washington reminded them.
 
 38:18.204 --> 38:21.546
 Yeah, no, I think that's that's absolutely right.
 
 38:21.666 --> 38:24.428
 And it was
 
 38:24.735 --> 38:35.182
 Particularly important for religious groups that historically had suffered in different places.
 
 38:35.582 --> 38:37.984
 And they, of course, were the first to write to Washington.
 
 38:38.044 --> 38:41.506
 So there's letters from Quakers and Catholics and so on.
 
 38:42.107 --> 38:45.829
 Washington reassures them that there's a place.
 
 38:47.050 --> 38:54.695
 And, you know, America at its best, not always at its best, but America at its best.
 
 38:55.310 --> 39:10.729
 is going to look back at these revolutionary traditions and say, ah, that's how minority faiths and minority groups generally should be treated.
 
 39:10.749 --> 39:12.571
 Mm-hmm.
 
 39:14.665 --> 39:29.112
 We've been talking with Jonathan Sarna, who is a university professor, as well as the Joseph H. and Bell Arbron Professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Schlusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.
 
 39:29.653 --> 39:32.994
 Been at Brandeis now for quite a while, 20 years.
 
 39:33.875 --> 39:36.756
 No, no, much longer than that, since 1990.
 
 39:37.897 --> 39:38.497
 Oh, my goodness.
 
 39:38.557 --> 39:38.717
 Wow.
 
 39:41.460 --> 40:03.369
 And author, editor, co-author of about three dozen books and co-editor of three different series of books on Jewish history and American Jewish history and former president of the Association for Jewish Studies as well as chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
 
 40:03.629 --> 40:04.910
 Thank you so much for joining us.
 
 40:05.010 --> 40:06.950
 It's been a tremendous conversation.
 
 40:06.990 --> 40:07.671
 I've learned a lot.
 
 40:08.751 --> 40:10.232
 Well, thank you for inviting me.
 
 40:10.272 --> 40:10.972
 I appreciate it.
 
 40:11.584 --> 40:13.885
 I want to thank our producer, Jonathan Lane.
 
 40:13.905 --> 40:18.247
 It's been great to talk to you, Jonathan Lane, our producer.
 
 40:18.327 --> 40:22.429
 And I want to thank we have listeners, viewers actually all over the world.
 
 40:22.529 --> 40:26.750
 It's been interesting talking to folks from different parts of the world and sharing this.
 
 40:26.850 --> 40:30.952
 And so every week I thank people in different areas who are tuning in.
 
 40:31.052 --> 40:40.116
 So this week in Newbury in West Berkshire, as well as Newbury in Massachusetts and New Delhi and Mount Olive, North Carolina.
 
 40:40.814 --> 40:51.596
 and Concord in Massachusetts and Concord in North Carolina, Clifton Park, New York, Watertown, Massachusetts, and all places beyond and between.
 
 40:51.636 --> 40:52.536
 Thanks for joining us.
 
 40:52.596 --> 41:01.298
 And now these places and would like to get some of our Revolution 250 gear, send Jonathan Lane an email, jlane at revolution250.org.
 
 41:02.078 --> 41:05.359
 And now we will be piped out on the road to Boston.
 
 41:05.439 --> 41:06.279
 Thanks for joining us.