Saving Monticello : The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIII, Number 5 May
1, 2016
‘BY DAWN’S EARLY
LIGHT’: That’s the name of an exhibit, subtitled “Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the
Nation’s Founding to the Civil War,” on view at the Princeton University
Art Museum through June 14.
The exhibit, which opened in February, contains more than
170 objects—novels, poems, books, maps, religious works, paintings,
photographs, newspapers, and scientific treatises—produced by, or relating to, Jews
in the Early Republic.
The items are on loan from museums, synagogues, and
private collections, including many objects from the collection of Princeton
alum Leonard L. Milberg. That includes this 1831 portrait of strikingly
beautiful Rebecca Gratz (above) by the
famed, Philadelphia-based portrait painter Thomas Sully (1783-1872).
Several of the items in the exhibit are connected to Phillips/Levy
family. That includes the famous June 27, 1787, letter written by the noted
Philadelphia physician (and signer of the Declaration of Independence) Dr.
Benjamin Rush to his wife, in which he described the June 1787 wedding of Uriah
Levy’s mother and father, Rachel
Phillips and Michael Levy in Philadelphia. Rush’s description of their wedding
is thought to be the first written record of a Jewish wedding ceremony in the
New World.
Family tradition
holds, by the way (as I wrote in Saving
Monticello), that George Washington, then president of the Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia, attended the wedding. Other family stories claim that
Washington had danced at the wedding of Uriah Levy’s grandparents, Jonas
Phillips and Rebecca Machado back in 1762.
Also in the Princeton
exhibit is another important letter in the annals of Jewish-American history.
It was written on May 28, 1818, by Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Levy’s second
cousin Mordecai Manuel Noah—a diplomat and journalist, and the first
American-born Jewish person to become nationally prominent. Earlier that year
Noah had given a speech at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, a copy of
which made its way to Monticello.
Jefferson wrote to
Noah on May 28, 1818, expressing his views on freedom of religion and his
condemnation of anti-Semitism. Jefferson wrote that he had read Noah’s speech “with
pleasure and instruction, having learnt from it some valuable facts in Jewish
history which I did not know before.”
Judiasm, Jefferson said, “by its sufferings has furnished a
remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in
every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced by all when in
power.Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our
religious, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on an equal footing. But
more remains to be done, for although we are free by the law, we are not so in
practice.... I salute you with great respect and esteem.”
The letter is in the
collection of the Yeshiva University Museum.
The exhibit’s lavishly illustrated catalog, with thirteen scholarly
essays, is being sold at the Art Museum Store. For more info, go to artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1655
EVENTS: I just sent in my manuscript for my next book,
a biography of Barry Sadler, “The Ballad of the Green Berets” guy, which will
come out in March of next year. I soon will be doing more speaking on my books,
including Saving Monticello.
Just one event this month, on Sunday, May 15, at the Manassas Museum in Manassas, Virginia, a
talk on Lafayette at 1:30 p.m. It’s free and open to the public. For info, go
to manassascity.org/1657/Free-Book-Talks
Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for Saving Monticello—or for any of my other
books, including my Francis Scott Key, biography, What So Proudly We Hailed, and Lafayette:
Idealist General, my concise bio of the Marquis de Lafayette—at marc527psc@aol.com For more details on other upcoming events, go
to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That’s the “Author Events” page on my website,
www.marcleepson.com
Facebook,
Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If
you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower.
Gift
Ideas: If you would like a
personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, e-mail me at Marc527psc@aol.com Or go to this page of my website: http://marcleepson.com/signedbooks.html
to order copies through my local bookstore, Second Chapter Books in Middleburg , Virginia Lafayette
