Jews in America - 250 years later

Rabbi Avi Friedman's Weekly Online Rabbi's Dvar Torah (W.O.R.D)

In 1776, the Jewish population of the newly independent United States of America was somewhere around 1,000. By way of comparison, that’s about the same as the Jewish population of North Dakota today.

In 1790, the first census of the United States recorded between 1,300 and 1,500 Jewish inhabitants out of a total population of three million. There were synagogues in only five American cities: Newport, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Savannah. Even though there was freedom of religion at the federal level, the states maintained varying degrees of religious restrictions on who could vote and hold public office. Jews were welcome to settle here, but they were not yet full citizens.

While much has changed in the 250 years since America declared its independence, some things remain remarkably familiar. American Jews are still trying to figure out how we fit into the great American experiment. Are we the same as everyone else? Are we accepted as fully American while remaining fully Jewish?

In 1790, shortly after his inauguration as our first president, George Washington received a letter of congratulations from Moses Seixas, the leader of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport.

President Washington replied with words that have become justly famous: “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 all occasions their effectual support.”

He also offered this blessing to the Jewish community: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one [sic] shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

What is especially notable is that President Washington did not place conditions on his acceptance of the Jewish community. At almost the same moment that Washington was becoming president, the French were wrestling with what came to be known as “the Jewish Question.” It was then that Count Clermont-Tonnerre famously declared, “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals.” To become full French citizens, he argued, Jews would have to surrender both their adherence to Jewish law and their sense of Jewish peoplehood.

Needless to say, I am grateful to live in the country that followed President Washington’s lead rather than Count Clermont-Tonnerre’s. Unfortunately, as we celebrate 250 years of American independence, it seems that some people want to revisit this very question.

Today, across the country, Jews are increasingly being subjected to loyalty tests. If we renounce our peoplehood and our support for the State of Israel in the Land of Israel, we pass. If we insist that Judaism is more than a religion—that it is also a culture, an ethnicity, a nationality, and a peoplehood—we fail the test, and our loyalty to American ideals is called into question.

It is my hope that our celebration of what has made this country great over the past 250 years will also serve as a reminder of the principles on which it was founded. Perhaps it will be a wake-up call to those who seek to marginalize Jews in our public and political life. Hopefully, they will embrace President Washington’s vision—not only for the Jewish community, but for every minority group in America.

After all, Jews have been part of the American story since the very beginning, and all we have ever asked is what President Washington wished for us in 1790: to sit in safety under our own vines and fig trees, with none to make us afraid.