A Letter’s Legacy: Washington, the Founding Presidents, and the Jews

A religious Jew who served in the Revolution and the bravery he displayed.

Jefferson and Adams clash over faction and the Sedition Acts as America's first political parties take shape.

A dinner among unlikely guests carries the same story of civic equality that Washington had already set in motion.

Jefferson saw the French Revolution as heir to 1776. Adams saw it as a betrayal of the American Revolution's principles.

Two revolutionaries, two theologies, and two ways of reading America's Hebraic inheritance.

Before they wrote a revolution together, Adams and Jefferson first clashed over faith.

Longfellow's elegy for the dead meets Lazarus's hymn to the living—together marking a religious liberty unique to America, and still unfolding.

Washington's letters to American Jews reveal a nation built on both unity and religious difference. Why does the Newport letter loom larger than the rest?

Washington’s Rhode Island visit reflected the same principle behind his outreach to religious minorities: no member of the Union was too small to belong.

How Rhode Island's tradition of religious liberty and distrust of centralized power shaped its reluctant path to ratifying the Constitution.

Washington's letter to the Jews of Savannah illuminates the theological foundations of America's uniquely warm embrace of its Jewish citizens.

The history of the Sheftall family helps explain why the Jews of Savannah were the first to write to President Washington.

A study of President Washington's letters to the Quakers and Catholics shows how he sought to unify a religiously diverse nation under his leadership.

The Touro Synagogue in Newport was near collapse 30 years after its founding, but not before it transformed American history. 

American Jews play prominent roles in celebratory parades in New York and Philadelphia.

A centuries-old prayerbook, and the remarkable family to whom it belonged, introduces us to the story behind George Washington's famous letter to the Jews.