There has been much controversy recently about naming the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge over the Charles River between Boston and Charlestown, as part of the " Big Dig. " Reports surfaced of anti-Semitism from a small group of Charlestown residents, one of whom was quoted as saying, " I don't see the relationship between a bridge in this area and a Jewish fellow ... there were no Jews at Bunker Hill. " A brief review of the role of the Jews in the Revolutionary era should add some needed historical perspective. It has been a seldom told tale.
The first group of Jews to settle in North America were 23 refugees from Brazil in 1654. They were escaping persecution that resulted when Portugal took over Brazil from Holland. They settled in New Amsterdam (later New York). They were descendents of Sephardic (Spanish) Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492. Like their forebears, who had been denied basic human rights for over 1,600 years in their wanderings between the restrictive ghettos of Europe, the Jews who landed in the small Dutch town of New Amsterdam had little freedom. They were forbidden by law to own land, worship in public, hold public office, vote, travel, serve in the military and enter most professions.
After the British recaptured New York 10 years later, many of these restrictions stayed in place in various colonies. Especially onerous to religious Jews were laws prohibiting voting and office holding unless they swore oaths " as Christians. " In Puritan Massachusetts in the 1600s and 1700s these restrictions were more severe than most colonies. Puritans fled England for religious liberty, but did not grant it to others. They viewed Jews mainly as targets for conversion. The first professor of Hebrew at Harvard University was an Italian Jew named Judah Moniz, who in 1722 was persuaded to convert to Christianity as a necessary qualification to teach at Harvard.
Because of these objectionable religious restrictions, all but a handful of early Jewish American settlers avoided Boston. They clustered instead in six cities along the Eastern seaboard: Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Atlanta and Savannah.
These cities had the framework for Jewish communities: observant families, synagogues, rabbis, burial and benevolent societies. But there were still precious few Jews in America. At the time of the Revolution it is estimated that only 2,500 out 2.5 million Americans (or 0.1 percent) were Jewish.
Let me tell you about a few. Haym Salomon was a Polish immigrant who settled in New York about 1773. There he joined the patriotic cause and became active in the Sons of Liberty. He was captured by the British, accused of spying for the patriots and sentenced to hang. He escaped and fled with his young family to Philadelphia. There he prospered as an import-export broker.
He volunteered his services to raise money for the insolvent Continental Congress, which was often so broke that it could not pay American soldiers. Relying only on his honest reputation and his good word, he was able to raise money by selling bills of exchange from France and Spain, so the troops could be paid and desertions avoided. When he died, Haym Solomon was destitute, having exhausted his private resources for his new country.
Benjamin Nones from Bordeaux, France, came to Philadelphia in time to fight for the patriots. He was captured by the British in the siege of Charlestown (South Carolina, that is) and not released until the battle of Yorktown. He later became a major in the Pennsylvania Militia. In 1800 he was involved in a political feud and was subjected to a personal anti-Semitic attack in a Philadelphia paper. He replied with a ringing attack against anti-Semitism: " But I am a Jew. I am so - and so were Abraham and Isaac and Moses and the prophets, and so too were Christ and his apostles. I feel no disgrace in ranking with such society may be subject to the illiberal buffoonery of such men as your correspondents. "
There were hundreds of other Jewish soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolution and patriots who supported it. There was Phillip Russell, a surgeon at Valley Forge; Col. David Franks an aide to George Washington; a " Jew Company, " which fought in South Carolina; Moses Myers, who fought in Virginia; the Sheftall family, which fought and were captured in Savannah. In Manhattan's Chatham Square cemetery, 22 Revolutionary Jewish soldiers lie. Many had sacrificed their lives for their new country. Just like the approximately 500 Americans who were killed or wounded during the three British assaults at Bunker Hill in 1775. (New evidence has surfaced that a Jewish soldier, Abraham Solomon, participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a member of Colonel John Glover's 21st Regiment from Gloucester.)
In 1790, seven years after the Revolution was over, President George Washington delivered a speech to the Synagogue in Newport, R.I. He stated that " happily the government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. " After 2,000 years of wandering, Jews - and all other Americans - were at last guaranteed religious freedom.
There is an important footnote to the " What have Jews got to do with Bunker Hill? " question. In 1825 at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a cornerstone was laid for a proposed monument. But because funding dwindled, the monument was uncompleted 14 years later. Boston industrialist Amos Lawrence offered $10,000, if the remaining funds could be raised. There were no backers until a Jewish philanthropist from New Orleans, Judah Touro, a man born one day before the Battle of Bunker Hill, broke the impasse by contributing $10,000. The inscription at the base of the monument recognizes both the differences and shared humanity and aims of Lawrence and Touro: "Christian and Jew, they carry out one plan. For though of different faith, each is in heart a man."
Hopefully, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge will honor both the men who gave their lives at Bunker Hill in 1775 and Lenny Zakim, who spent his life building trust by bridging the communities of Greater Boston.
Joseph L. Andrews, M.D., of Concord, is the author of " Revolutionary Boston, Lexington and Concord: The Shots Heard Round the World! " He is currently at work writing a book, tentatively titled, " Moses and Miriam in America: Revolutionary Jews Fight for Freedom and Human Rights. " For the sake of full disclosure, he states proudly that he is the great-great-great grandson of both Haym Salomon and Benjamin Nones.