The Letter That Will Change How You Think About George Washington
Does America’s First President Deserve More Credit for One Bedrock of America?
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George Washington was born 290 years ago this week. If you created a word cloud of people’s first impressions of America’s premier founding father, you could expect to find certain words featured prominently: president, general, war, colonies. Places would appear prominently: Philadelphia, Virginia, Mount Vernon, the Delaware. As would values: honesty, leadership, freedom, humility.
But there’s one idea that would not likely appear anywhere on that cloud: religion. Not spirituality, not faith, not godliness, not Christianity. If anything, that absence makes Washington somewhat of an outliner among the founding fathers. Jefferson is associated with the separation of Church and State and created his own handmade Bible, minus the miracles. Franklin and Adams proposed that Moses be on the seal of the United States. Washington chose to say the oath of office on the Bible from his Mason Temple but otherwise has very little outward association with religion.
The first presidential inauguration of George Washington
But one of the first president’s earliest, forgotten acts deserves revisiting and should cause us to reconsider his place in securing freedom of religion in his beloved United States. I recently learned the untold backstory of this moment, causing me to rethink my view of one of our most emotionally distant, ever-present figures.
George Washington was sworn into the presidency on April 30, 1789, on Wall Street. He voluntarily suggested using the Bible from New York’s Mason Temple; Washington himself was a Mason. His hand rested on the final chapters of Genesis, where Joseph reunites with his brothers. (I argued in my book, America’s Prophet: How the Story of Moses Shaped America, that this passage was not accidentally chosen, as many have suggested, but was intentionally chosen to send a message of unity.)
Following this occasion, the members of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, the country’s oldest synagogue, suggested that all six Jewish congregations in the United States at the time send a joint letter of congratulations. But the six could never agree on a plan. A full year later, the leadership of the country’s third-oldest congregation, Mickve Israel, in Savannah, GA, decided to go ahead and act on their own. As the dean of Jewish historians Jacob Rader Marcus wrote, the Savannah Jews took “the bull by the horns, much to the chagrin of Jewish leaders in New York.”
Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah, GA
A hand-written letter was delivered to the president: “Sir, We have long been anxious of congratulating you on your appointment by unanimous approbation to the Presidential dignity of this country, and of testifying our unbounded confidence in your integrity and unblemished virtue.” It goes on:
Your unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy have dispelled that cloud of bigotry and superstition which has long, as a veil, shaded religion—unrivetted the fetters of enthusiasm—enfranchised us with all the privileges and immunities of free citizens, and initiated us into the grand mass of legislative mechanism. By example you have taught us to endure the ravages of war with manly fortitude, and to enjoy the blessings of peace with reverence to the Deity, and benignity and love to our fellow-creatures.
Mickve Israel is my childhood synagogue. My father served as its president; my mother was its first female president in its 275-year history. Saul Rubin, who presided over my Bar Mitzvah, describes in his book, Third to None, what happened next.
On June 14, 1790, President Washington wrote the congregation in return.
Gentlemen,
I thank you with great sincerity for your congratulations on my appointment to the office, which I have the honor to hold by the unanimous choice of my fellow-citizens: and especially for the expressions which you are pleased to use in testifying the confidence that is reposed in me by your congregation.
He went on to discuss his views of Americans.
I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations of the earth; and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive. Happily the people of the United States of America have, in many instances, exhibited examples worthy of imitation—The salutary influence of which will doubtless extend much farther, if gratefully enjoying those blessings of peace which (under favor of Heaven) have been obtained by fortitude in war, they shall conduct themselves with reverence to the Deity, and charity towards their fellow-creatures.
Finally, he offers his view of the role of Jews in the United States:
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land—whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation—still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.
G. Washington
Several things are important in this largely forgotten letter.
The letter to the Jews of Savannah predates the much more famous letter that Washington sent to the Jews of Newport later that summer. The fact that he took the time to send two such letters to a Jewish community that numbered in the low thousands is a mark of how seriously he took the presence of minority religions.
Washington clearly believes the United States came into being as a result of “providential agency” by the “wonder-working Deith” who “has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation.”
He exhibited none of the well-known hostility to Jews that many Enlightenment leaders did.
He offered a passionate vision for America as a place where “inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”
As we celebrate Washington’s birthday this week and approach the 300th anniversary of his birth, I find it gratifying that we can still discover new nuances to his life. Some of these, as we know, include unflattering aspects. Even the museum in his home, Mount Vernon, now includes a display, “10 Facts About Washington & Slavery.” But some, like his treatment of the fragile Jewish communities across the United States, are flattering. Maybe it’s time to add interfaith visionary to the collective word cloud around the man still known as the father of his country.
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