The Jews, Exile, and America’s Honor

On August 18, 1790, George Washington sent a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. It’s a moving artifact of the character and the promise of the early republic, and of our first president’s intentions for it.

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves,” Washington wrote, “for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.”