American Jewish Historical Quarterly Volume 14 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...Eliminate these three dates and there are few other dates in our history worth remembering. Without these dates, that proudest date of ours, 1776, would never have been written large on the pages of our history. Within the cabins of the Mayflower and the St. Catarina were those principles conceived that gave birth to the battle cry of 1776. From the Pilgrim Fathers fleeing their English persecutors, from the Dutch, fresh from having overthrown the tyranny of bigoted Spain, from the Jew fleeing the cruelty of the South American Spaniard and Portuguese, have sprung these free and independent, these libertyloving and liberty-bestowing United States. Their yearning for religious and political liberty dictated our Declaration of Independence, drafted our Constitution, severed the church from the state, cast into our liberty bell the words of our Bible: " Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." / Significant as is the part the Jew has had in the I/ founding of the nation, yet more significant is the aid he rendered in its development. The handful of Jews of the year 1655 has grown to over one million in 1905, and of all the immigrants of this nation of immigrants, none--to cite the words of our late secretary of state, the lamented John Hay--none has proven himself more worthy of American citizenship than he. Scarcely had he settled at New Amsterdam, when he voluntarily asked to be permitted to render military service alongside the other burghers. From the first he recognized that the sharing of communal privileges involved the necessity of sharing communal duties. Well may our heart swell with pride as we follow the record of the Jew in the War of Independence. Look over the roll of honor containing...