City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, 3-volume box set

6 A Republican Faith

113 In 1790, the congregation of Shearith Israel drafted a new constitution . It included a bill of rights, which opened with a ringing statement: “Whereas in free states all power originates and is derived from the people who always retain every right necessary for their well being individually, . . . therefore we the profession [professors] of the Divine laws . . . conceive it our duty to make this declaration of our rights and privileges.” The first right, entitling “every free person professing the Jewish religion, and who lives according to its holy precepts” to a seat in the synagogue “as a brother” and as a “subject of every fraternal duty,” hinted at a worldwide brotherhood of Jews, perhaps reflecting the French Revolution’s idea of fraternité. While most rights were traditional, such as a member’s prerogative to have the hazan officiate at a wedding, these compelling words marked a new era in the practice of Judaism in New York. As republicanism reshaped the Jewish community’s secular world, it also dramatically changed the world of Jewish spirituality.1 ■ Republicanism and Shearith Israel Shearith Israel resumed services immediately after the British evacuation, but its future course was in doubt. The concept of the synagogue-community was incompatible with a republican society in which Jews no longer had to seclude themselves around a plainly constructed sanctuary. Could their synagogue redefine itself to remain central to the community? The congregation’s new constitution , completed under the leadership of Jeffersonian Solomon Simson a year after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, attempted to combine both synagogue traditions and republican ideals. C H A P T E R 6 A Republican Faith 114 ■ h av e n o f l i b e r t y The charter’s preamble, similar to the opening lines of the Bill of Rights, declared that the congregation had authority, “in the presence of the Almighty” and in “a state happily constituted upon the principles of equal liberty civil and religious,” to formulate a “compact” containing “rules, and regulations” for the “general good.” The “congregation of yehudim,” fulfilling their duty “to themselves and posterity,” pledged to “perform all acts” required for the support of their “religious and holy divine service.”2 The constitution offered membership to every Jewish male at least twentyone years old (except indentured or hired servants), not married “contrary to the rules of [the Jewish] religion,” and “conforming hereunto.” It enumerated the duties of the president or parnas and the council of elders, the maamad. The new compact allowed all members to vote for members of the board. (The By the end of the eighteenth century, New York had grown northward toward the present Houston Street. While all neighborhoods were mixed, the wealthy tended to move from their downtown residences to new brownstones in the center of the island above Chatham Park and, after 1812, the new city hall. The working classes tended to reside in the wards adjoining the East and Hudson Rivers. (Courtesy Prints Division, New York Public Library) A Republican Faith ■ 115 transfer and settlement of power from the elders to the trustees was still in progress, and the constitution was unclear about the relationship of the two.) The constitution directed that arbitration would end the internal controversies that had so often divided the congregation.3 The congregation’s bylaws detailed duties of the hazan, shochet, and shamash ; the right of three members to call a synagogue meeting; and the means to secure revenue. They included a clause forbidding any Jew who violated Jewish “religious laws by eating trafa, breakeing the Sabath, or any other sacred day” from being called to the Torah or running for congregational office. On July 11, 1790, the Board of Trustees ratified the charter, repealing all prior congregational laws, and reminded the congregation that the “temporalities” of the congregation were vested in its hands.4 The writing of the 1790 constitution coincided with a second expression of the congregation’s republicanism. Following the example of the Newport congregation, they penned a joint letter (with congregations in Richmond, Charleston, and Philadelphia) to President Washington. The congregations declared that they would “yield to no class of their fellow-citizens . . . in affection ” for the nation’s glorious leader. The “wonders . . . the Lord of Hosts had worked” in ancient Israel were visible in the “late glorious revolution” and in the federal Constitution, a compact that sealed “in peace what [Washington ] had achieved in...