Between Crown and Congress: New York's Jews During the American Revolution - Liberty 250® Lecture

About this event

Join us for a special Liberty 250 lecture by Zachary Edinger, Sexton (Shamash) of Congregation Shearith Israel. This talk explores how New York's small Jewish community experienced the American Revolution and emerged fundamentally transformed by it. The Revolution forced every member of the community to make difficult choices. Some fled with the Patriot cause, others remained loyal to the Crown, families were divided, even as the synagogue itself continued to function under British occupation. By examining the lives of figures such as Gershom Mendes Seixas, Myer Myers, Uriah Hendricks, and the Gomez and Hays families, together with the stories preserved in Shearith Israel's ritual objects and archival documents, we gain a more nuanced understanding of Jewish life during the conflict than the familiar narrative of Patriots versus Loyalists.For the Jews of America, the Revolution's lasting significance lay not only in political independence, but also in the emergence of a distinctly American Judaism. In the years following 1783, Shearith Israel consciously reshaped its communal identity, embracing the language and ideals of republican government while maintaining its historic Sephardic traditions. Jews increasingly came to understand themselves as equal participants in the American civic experiment. The Revolution did not erase the congregation's Sephardic heritage; rather, it redefined how that heritage would flourish within a new nation founded on civil and religious liberty.*