PHILADELPHIA — Jewish people were a very small minority in Colonial America, said Josh Perelman. But, he added, they played an outsized role in thefight for freedom.
A senior advisor for content and strategic projects at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Perelman recently gave USA TODAY a tour of the museum ahead of its exhibit, "The First Salute," opening April 23, which highlights the role of a tiny Jewish community − and a tiny Caribbean island − in the Revolutionary War effort.
Jewish people had first permanently settled in the New World in 1654, coming from Amsterdam to live in New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony that would eventually become New York City. Others came from Brazil, where they'd enjoyed some measure of self-determination while it was under Dutch rule but, when the colony came under Portuguese rule, decided to leave rather than face forced conversion to Christianity, persecution or worse.
Many of America's earliest Jewish families had surnames likeLopez, Rodriguez and Gomezfrom their roots on the Iberian Peninsula,from which they were expelled in 1492by order of the Catholic King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I after the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition.
"As Isabella and Ferdinand were waving goodbye to Christopher Columbus, they were waving goodbye to the Jews, too," Perelman said. "... by kicking them out of the country."
Like so many others before and after them, Perelman said, Jewish people came to America because they saw it as a land of opportunity, a place to start anew, and a place where they could determine their own future.
New Amsterdam, old prejudices
"There are mythologies about Jews that exist to this day," Perelman said as he walked through the museum steps from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. "But Jews are no different than any other minority. Not one is a monolith."
The Jews who landed in New Amsterdam found it wasn't so immediately welcoming. Peter Stuyvesant, the governor and a strict Calvinist, considered Jewish people "hateful enemies and blasphemers," and warned that if they were allowed to stay, then "we cannot refuse the Lutherans and the Papists."
Jewish leaders − and those who valued their skills as merchants and traders − advocated successfully for them to stay in New Amsterdam, but under the conditions that they not worship publicly. Jewish people were also forbidden from owning real estate, serving in the militia, opening shops or holding public office. They were to take care of their own, Perelman said, so they did, forming their own mutual aid groups and community organizations.
"There was this confrontation," Perelman explained. "Would this New World be a monoculture, or an open society with diversity and homogeneity?"
Soon, there would be Jewish communities in Newport, Rhode Island; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Philadelphia, as well as in New York.
A dispute over economics turns to war
In the pre-industrial Old World, wealth meant owning land, so Jewish people were relegated to "lower" professions like finance, mercantilism and trade. They brought those skills and connections to the New World, settling in cities with busy ports. Philadelphia, with its Quaker tradition of religious tolerance, New York and Newport were particularly hospitable to Jewish people.
"In many ways, Jews enjoyed more freedom here than in Europe," Perelman said, and while antisemitism was a reality in America, it wasn't the violent, virulent antisemitism of the Old World. Jews here "felt a greater sense of agency, and they were able to navigate through it without the fear of violent reprisal."
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The American Revolution began as a series of grievances over taxation, representation and self-determination that evolved into more high-minded ideas about liberty, Perelman noted.
"One of the more remarkable aspects of it is that you see these ideas about liberty gestating and coming to live," he said. "Something that is a revolution, and is revolutionary."
The island that helped arm a revolution
St. Eustatius is a small island in the Caribbean that,according to the U.S. Naval Institute, served as "the arsenal of the American Revolution," an 8-square mile Dutch outpost that became a way of eluding British blockades once war broke out, with ships bringing gunpowder and munitions to the Continental Army, facilitated by Jewish traders and merchants.
Jewish traders' connections "became invaluable to supplying the Continental Army with gunpowder, munitions and clothing," Perelman said. "Their networks of family and trading put them in places like Amsterdam, Paris and the Caribbean" that were out of reach for the British military, crucial because there was no munitions industry in the colonies.
In 1781, British forces led by General John Vaughan and Admiral George Rodneyseized the island, and Rodney's first order of business was to imprison all the Jewish men on the island, stripping them of their wealth and deporting them, even exhuming graves to plunder them, drawing widespread condemnation. But Rodney, an inveterate gambler, lingered too long on the island − giving French forces the opening they needed to reach the Americans with much-needed aid.
A plea from Gen. Washington: 'Send for Haym Salomon'
Haym Salomonwas born in Poland but arrived in New York in 1775, joining the Sons of Liberty and establishing a brokerage house, working alongsideRobert Morris, a Philadelphia merchant, to secure and manage funding for the Revolutionary cause. Salomon, though, was captured by the British, accused of being a spy.
During his captivity, Salomon, who was multilingual, served as a translator between British and Hessian forces — convincing some of them to desert or turn to the American side. Arrested again in 1778, Salomon escaped to Philadelphia, where he worked alongside Morris again, securing money for the Continental Army, even donating much of his own money to the cause. At Yorktown, Congress and General George Washington found themselves low on funds to pay troops; Washington told Morris, "Send for Haym Salomon," who got the financing, and turned the tide of the war's final battle.
But Salomon, for all his efforts, is often overlooked in historical accounts,wrote historian James A. Percocoin Battlefields.org. He died penniless in 1785.
A risk worth taking
Jewish people in America, Perelman said, saw their efforts to support the American Revolution as "a risk worth taking," and for many of them, the risk paid off. Washington, as the new nation's first president, reiterated the guarantee of religious freedom. After a 1790 visit to Newport and meeting one of its Jewish leaders,Moses Seixas, Washington wrote that the new nation's government should give "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."
By leveraging their skills and connections, Jewish people were "participating side by side [with the Founding Fathers]" in the Revolutionary cause, including about 100 Jews who fought with the Continental Army.
"Like everyone else, they had to choose between the status quo, or risk everything, their lives and their livelihoods for these aspirational ideals and an uncertain future," Perelman said. "Most of them in the colonies and in the Caribbean believed in those ideals."
Phaedra Trethan is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writing about history and Americana. Contact her by email at ptrethan@usatoday.com, on X @wordsbyphaedra, on BlueSky @byphaedra, or on Threads @by_phaedra
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:How a Jewish minority and a tiny island helped America win its freedom