Читать книгу The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen - Simon Wolf - Страница 7

Table of Contents

The keen and responsive sense of duty with which, through Torah and Talmud, the Jewish character is so deeply imbued, has never failed to become manifest when occasion has called it forth. Jews have never been wanting in patriotism and though a peace-loving people, (the very mission of Israel being peace, and good-will towards neighbors a cardinal teaching of Judaism) they have always espoused, eagerly and earnestly, the cause of their countrymen. The heroism and self-devotion which marks the course of Jewish history from the earliest Biblical records, emblazoning the era of the Maccabees, signalizing the Roman period and illuminating the Dark Ages, has found many a worthy example in these modern days. We have here to deal with the records of but one country, yet these records are replete with instances of bravery and undaunted courage, of earnest devotion and of faithful service performed by men of Israel in behalf of this land of their adoption. These records begin at a time before the Revolutionary epoch, when the Jewish settlers in America were very few indeed. At the date of the first census, in 1790, just after the close of the Revolution, when the total population of the country was figured at almost 4,000,000, the number of Jewish inhabitants could scarcely be estimated at 3,000, or only one to 1,330 of the population.[2]

The dearth of accessible records of a detailed character rendered it practically impossible to present more than a very imperfect list of the Jewish participants in the Revolutionary struggle. However, sufficient data are at hand to prove conclusively that the Jewish colonists of that period, comparatively recent settlers and few in number as they were, furnished, as usual in all struggles for liberty and freedom, more than their proportion of supporters to the colonial cause. They not only risked their lives in the war for independence, but aided materially with their money to equip and maintain the armies of the Revolution. That they took their part in the earliest stages of resistance to the encroachments of the mother country is proved by the signatures to the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765. Nine Jews were among the signers of these resolutions, the adoption of which was the first organized movement in the agitation which eventually led to the independence of the colonies. The original document is still preserved in Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia, and following are the names of the Jews on that early roll of patriots:

Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, Joseph Jacobs, Hyman Levy, Jr., David Franks, Mathias Bush, Michael Gratz, Barnard Gratz, Moses Mordecai.

With these as worthy precursors of the Jewish patriots of the Revolution we may proceed to note the list of Jews whose names have come to us from the Revolutionary period, through various published sources, as men of special distinction among their fellows. One of the most notable of these was Haym Salomon, a man who, while not the only Jewish patriot that lavished his ample fortune in behalf of liberty and independence, yet stands out as so unique a figure in the history of the American Revolution that the record of his part in the making of that history may well take precedence. Fragmentary presentations of this subject have been made in public documents and in historic essays at various times since the submission by Salomon himself of his memorial to the Continental Congress in August, 1778.[3] However, as embracing a succinct statement and detailed review of the whole matter to the present time, the following paper from the "Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society" (No. 2, 1894) may be quoted in full:—