Washington's letter to Touro Synagogue was not widely known when it was written in 1790, so it did not get referenced much in the United States or abroad. It’s only really through commemoration by later generations of American Jews that it achieved any real notability. Its assurance of religious toleration from the federal government strongly resembled the kinds of replies that Washington had already made to Christian communities outside the Protestant mainstream, such as Roman Catholics, Quakers and Baptists. I'm not aware of the letter causing any issues for Washington at all.

Newport as One of Three Letters

The letter from Newport that is often cited is actually the second of three communications Washington had with Jewish congregations during his presidency. All three replies are fairly consistent with how Washington responded to the other nineteen religious communities that wrote him during his presidency. Initially, a group of six Jewish congregations tried to write a joint letter to Washington, but slow communication made this difficult to coordinate. In May of 1790, Levi Sheftall, president of the Savannah Jewish congregation, sent a letter on behalf of that community to congratulate Washington on his inauguration as president.

I don’t know exactly why the Savannah letter and Washington’s reply are not quoted often, but my guess is it is because the prose is pretty florid even by eighteenth century standards. In his letter, Sheftall happily declared that Washington had aided American Jews with his “unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy [which] have dispelled that cloud of bigotry and superstition which has long, as a veil, shaded religion-unriveted the fetters of enthusiasm- and enfranchised us with the privileges and immunities of free citizens, and initiated us into the grand mass of legislative mechanism.”

Washington responded to the Savannah letter gratefully, and his reply to the congregation repeated many of the Sheftall’s phrases back to them. He rejoiced “that a spirit of liberality of philanthropy is much more prevalent than it was formally among enlightened nations of the earth; that your brethren will benefit thereby in position as it shall become more extensive.” It closes with a wish that the deity “who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors planted them in the promised land” would bless all religious denominations “whose God is Jehovah.”

The Newport congregation, Jeshuat Israel (later renamed Touro synagogue in the nineteenth century), wrote their own letter when it became clear that Washington would visit Rhode Island. They welcomed Washington to Newport and praised “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance- but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship- deeming everyone whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great government machine.”

Washington visited the synagogue, which was probably politically expedient as he was courting support for ratification of the Bill of Rights. He read his reply aloud. As with the Savannah letter, he repeated most of what his correspondences had written him: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship…. happily the government of the United States, which gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it in all occasions their effectual support.”

Washington’s last engagement with American Jews was when a Philadelphia congregation wrote him on behalf of four Jewish congregations in December 1790 to congratulate him for becoming president. Washington again expressed his appreciation and regard for American Jews. Jews and Judaism are not mentioned in any of Washington’s personal papers to my knowledge, other than these letters.

Mythmaking and Why the Newport Letter Does Not Matter

The main reason that people now know about the Newport letter, as opposed to say Washington’s letters to the Baptists, is because American Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth century seized on it to show their connection with Washington. They wanted to highlight their connection with the revolutionary era and America’s founding, to show that Jews had not simply arrived as immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. There were only around a thousand Jews in the United States on the eve of the American revolution, so the letter was one of the few documented interactions available between the American founders and Jews.

Jewish groups were hardly alone in trying to claim kinship to the founders. Presbyterians claimed Washington took communion with them. Roman Catholics circulated the story he had converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. These were invented tales; the Newport letter at least was a real document, even if it was not very significant at the time.

Basically, the letter was the eighteenth century equivalent of a brief photo-op. As a document about religious liberty, it’s far less important than the First Amendment, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, or James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance.

Religious Liberty and Why the Newport Letter Actually Does Matter

The Newport letter probably shouldn’t be taken to indicate that Washington spent much time thinking about the role of American Jews. Yet it is useful as one minor document that shows historians and legal scholars Washington saw religious liberty as an important value for the new federal government. The United States was remarkable in not having a state-mandated religion at the federal level, and this was something that had not been attempted on a large scale in Europe.

The majority of states in the United States did have established state religions in 1790. Even Christian groups like Baptists and Catholics feared being persecuted by state governments. Some states restricted legal rights and franchise to Christians (New Hampshire was the last state to remove these barriers in 1877). In this light, even if the Newport letter is full of vague platitudes, it's important to know that Washington and many of the American founders felt a strong desire to reassure religious minorities they did not have to fear the federal government.

Sources Consulted:

Boller, Paul F.. “George Washington and the Jews.” Southwest Review 47, no. 2 (1962): 120–27.

Hirschfeld, Fritz. George Washington and the Jews. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2005.

Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.