Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIV, Number 1 January
1, 2017
JONAS PHILLIPS: The website
Jewoftheweek.com devoted its mid-December page to Jonas Phillips, Uriah
Phillips Levy’s beloved grandfather, and a remarkable man. Phillips is best
known for his Revolutionary War patriotism and his dedication to securing full
religious freedom for Jews in the new nation he fought to create.
As I wrote in Saving
Monticello, he was born Jonah Phaibush in 1735 in Busek, a village in
Prussia. He left Prussia in 1756 at age twenty-one to seek his fortune in the
American colonies, stopping in England, and then arriving in Charleston, South
Carolina. Along the way he Anglicized his names to Jonas Phillips.
A few years later Jonas Phillips moved to Albany, New York,
where he became a Freemason and opened a store in which he sold food and
spirits. Jonas Phillips left Albany in 1761, married Rebecca Machado a year
later, and settled in New York City where he again owned and operated a retail
store. He also was an auctioneer and served the Jewish community as a shohet (ritual slaughterer) and bodek (meat examiner). Jonas Phillips became
a naturalized citizen in April 1771. Around 1774 he moved his growing family to
Philadelphia where he opened a “vendue store” at the upper end of Third Street.
Swept up in the revolutionary fervor in New York and
Philadelphia in the 1770s, Jonas Phillips spoke out publicly on British abuses
of colonists’ rights. He signed a letter published in the January 23, 1770, New York Gazette supporting the strongly
anti-British Non Importation Resolutions of 1765. He also participated in
running the British blockade of Philadelphia .
On October 31, 1778, at age 43, Jonas Phillips became a private in Capt. John
Linton’s Company of Col. William Bradford’s Battalion, a Philadelphia militia
unit in the Continental Army.
His most famous public religious act was the September 7,
1787, letter Jonas Phillips wrote to the Constitutional Convention in
Philadelphia. Identifying himself as “one of the people called Jews of the City
of Philadelphia,” he called on the body to include provisions in the
Constitution they were writing to provide “all men” the “natural and
unalienable Right to worship almighty God according to their own Conscience and
understanding.”
He
also was instrumental in raising funds to purchase a new building for the
Mikveh Israel synagogue in Philadelphia in 1782. Jonas Phillips later was
elected the president of that historic Spanish and Portuguese Congregation,
which had been established in 1740. As the head of the congregation, he invited
George Washington to attend the dedication ceremonies of its new building.
Jonas Phillips died in Philadelphia on January 29, 1803.
He
and Rebecca Phillips had 21 children, and many more grandchildren, including
Uriah Phillips Levy. Uriah inherited his grandfather’s patriotism and love of
the sea, running away from home at age ten to be a cabin boy on a ship. He
joined the Navy when he was twenty years old, and served heroically in the War
of 1812. He went on to a fifty-year Navy career (the first Jewish-American to
do so), and achieved the rank of Commodore, then the highest in the Navy.
Uriah Levy also purchased Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in
1834, and repaired, restored and preserved that American architectural treasure.
THE
FIRST JEWISH AMERICANS: I was delighted to get an email from Harley
Lewis, a grandniece of Uriah Levy’s nephew Jefferson Levy, who owed Monticello
from 1879-1923. Mrs. Lewis was extremely helpful to me when I was doing the
research for Saving Monticello, and
has been one of the book’s most enthusiastic supporters.
She told me she had read the item in the December newsletter
about the First Jewish Americans exhibit at the New York Historical Society
Museum and Library. Mrs. Lewis, who just turned 91, went on to say that she
took in the exhibit with her sons and one of her grandchildren and found it “very
interesting.” Uriah Levy’s “full-length portrait [above] was very exciting to see,” she said, noting that she had
seen the painting at its previous homes, the Jewish Chapel at the Norfolk Naval
Station, and the museum at the U.S. Naval Academy.
For more info on the exhibit, go to http://bit.ly/2NYHistSoc
EVENTS: My next book, the first-ever biography of
Barry Sadler, will be published May 1. For more info on Ballad of the Green Beret, go to http://bit.ly/GBBallad
One event in January:
- Sunday,
January 29, 1:30 p.m. talk on What
So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life , and book signing at
the Manassas Museum, 9101 Prince Street in Manassas, Virginia. The talk is
free and open to the public. For more info, go to http://bit.ly/ManassasMusee
Please email if you’d like to arrange an event for Saving Monticello—or for any of my other
books, including What So Proudly We
Hailed, Lafayette: Idealist General,
and the Barry Sadler bio (starting in May)—please email me at marc527psc@aol.com
For details on other upcoming events, go to bit.ly/SMOnline
That’s the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com
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 marcleepson.com/signedbooks.html to
order copies through my local bookstore, Second Chapter Books in Middleburg,
Virginia. We also have copies of Desperate
Engagement, Flag, Lafayette
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