Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 3, 2026

When Jews Prayed for America in an Unborn Israel

William Seward visits Jerusalem.

Nearly a century after those Manhattan Jews prayed that God protect the colonies from the wrath of George III, a prayer was offered for the American president at a Jerusalem synagogue. The scene was described by the former secretary of state William Seward who, in 1871, was visiting Palestine for the second time. Lenny Ben-David cites Seward’s travelogue, which first recounts the intense prayers and lamentations offered at the Western Wall on Fridays, before Shabbat began:

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