Gazette of the United States.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Saturday, June 19

New York

1790

Contains the full texts of the historic exchange of letters between Levi Sheftall of the Mickve Israel Synagogue, Savannah, Georgia and President George Washington.

George Washington's Letter to The Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia: A foundation stone of freedom and religious liberty for the Jews in the United States. Levi Sheftall (1739-1809) was the lay-leader of the Jewish congregation of Savannah, Georgia and the first Jew to seek and receive an official statement of religious toleration from the President of the United States. Sheftall's letter offers gratitude for Washington’s fostering of religious tolerance: “Your unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy have dispelled that cloud of bigotry and superstition…(and has) enfranchised us with all the privileges and immunities of free citizens and initiated us into the grand mass of legislative mechanism.” The address closes with a prayer for the President’s continued health, magnanimity and wisdom. Printed thereafter is President Washington’s gracious reply: “I thank you with great sincerity for your congratulations on my appointment to the office which I have the honour to hold and especially for the expressions which you are pleased to use in testifying the confidence that you reposed in me by your congregation.” Turning to the theme of religious tolerance, the President continues: “I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations on the earth, and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become more extensive.” Washington closes with a prayer: “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a 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 make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jeh-ovah.” The significance of the Washington pronouncement is testified by Governor Worthington employing it in 1824 in support of the Jew Bill, which conferred upon Maryland Jews the full political rights heretofore denied them. An important newspaper printing a congratulatory address from the Hebrew congregation of Savannah and Washington’s reply thereto. The first Jewish community to address the newly elected President.