June 19, 2026
Praying for Independence, Then and Now
On the 250th anniversary of America's founding, Rabbi Soloveichik explores how Jews have expressed their patriotism through prayer from the Revolution to today.
Six weeks before the semiquincentennial of American independence, I experienced an unusual 250th American anniversary of my own—one that joined my Jewishness with my heritage as an American.
In March 1776, with George Washington’s forces engaged in combat with British troops, but with American independence not yet declared, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation promoting prayer. Given the “warlike preparations of the British ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and privileges,” it announced, and “duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence,” the members of the Congress asserted that they “earnestly recommend that Friday May 17th next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.”
As Christians across the colonies gathered in their churches on May 17, they were joined in this worshipful endeavor by the Jews of New York, who met in their small sanctuary in what is now downtown Manhattan. Even as they prayed as Americans, they sought to express their Jewishness. A special prayer in Hebrew was composed by their spiritual leader, Gershom Mendes Seixas, and was said after the community recited 12 psalms—also, of course, in the original Hebrew.
