Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIV, Number 6 June
1, 2017
SAVANNAH: Early
Friday afternoon, May 5, was a perfect spring day in Savannah, Georgia, with
blue skies, a pleasant breeze, and temperatures in the low seventies. Making things even
more perfect was the fact that I walked into historic Mickve Israel synagogue that
afternoon (with my wife Janna and old friends Moses and Sarah Lyn Robbins) to
be greeted by two active members of the Congregation—Margie Levy and Kerry
Rosen.
They had invited me to be that weekend’s Scholar in
Residence at Mickve Israel, and give talks on my books Flag: An American Biography and Saving
Monticello. And it was my absolute pleasure to do so.
Margie and Kerry sat us down in the spectacular sanctuary
and gave us a personalized guided tour of the building. They covered the
Congregation’s long history—including the fact that it’s the third-oldest
Jewish congregation in the nation, having been founded by 42 Jews who had
escaped the Spanish Inquisition (in Lisbon) and come to Savannah in 1733. Among
that group, as I wrote in Saving
Monticello, was Dr. Samuel Nunez, Uriah Levy’s great great grandfather.
Executive Director Jennifer Rich and Rabbi Robert Haas came
by to welcome us, then Margie and Kerry took us upstairs to the terrific
museum, which includes the two oldest Torah scrolls in North America, a collection
of letters from thirteen presidents including George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, and James Madison, plus a short history of Uriah Levy and
Monticello.
We attended Friday night services
and I did the talk on the American flag after dinner in the temple’s hall with
Jennifer’s valuable A/V assistance. The next day we were back for Saturday
morning services, welcomed heartily by the Congregation’s President Bubba
Rosenthal, who had introduced me before my flag talk Friday evening.
Rabbi Haas invited me to say a
few words near the end of the service. He also reminded everyone that I would
be talking about Monticello, and said (with a smile) that few people knew that
Thomas Jefferson was Jewish—and had had a bar mitzvah.
I thanked everyone
for inviting me and said how special it felt to physically be in the place I had
read so much—and written so much—about. It’s the same feeling I had when I did
a talk in March 2002 on Saving Monticello
in New York City at Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the
nation, and the place where members of the Levy family worshiped. That
included Uriah Levy and his nephew L. Napoleon Levy, who was the president of the
congregation in the 1890s, and his brother Jefferson Monroe Levy, who plays
such a big role in Saving Monticello.
I posed for the picture below after services, then we had lunch in the hall, and I did the talk. I was
pleased to meet my Facebook friend, Connie Eunice Nunes, who runs a Nunez
family Facebook group, and who drove up from Jacksonsville for the occasion.
I also met many members of the
Congregation. It was a memorable weekend and I thank everyone for inviting me
and for being terrifically welcoming.
AT
MONTICELLO: The day after I spoke in Savannah, Sunday, May 7, Rabbi Meir
Soloveichik led a service (the Kaddish) with members of his Shearith Israel congregation
and Yeshiva University students at the grave of Rachel Levy, Uriah Phillips Levy’s
mother who is buried along Mulberry Row a Monticello.
The rabbi also included a
memorial service for the Phillips family and for all Jewish American patriots.The
Kaddish marked the first such Jewish ceremony at Rachel Levy’s grave in nearly two hundred
years.Later that day the rabbi took part in a Conversation
on Religious Freedom with the noted historian and biographer Jon Meacham at Monticello.
EVENTS: My new book,
Ballad of the Green Beret, the first-ever
biography of Barry Sadler, was published May 1. With the help of a publicist, I
am working on arranging radio and TV appearances for the month of June. For info
on them, go to the Author Evens page on my website: http://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
For info on Ballad of the Green Beret, go to http://bit.ly/GBBallad
Here are my in-person June events:
- Friday,
June 2 – 8:00 a.m. talk on Ballad
of the Green Beret for the Dulles Airport Rotary Club in Herndon,
Virginia.
- Saturday, June 24 – 12:00 noon talk on Francis Scott Key at
the Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims luncheon in Charlottesville,
Virginia
If you’d like to arrange an event
for Saving Monticello—or for any of
my other books, including Ballad of the
Green Beret—please email me at marc527psc@aol.com
For details on other upcoming
events, go to http://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
Gift Ideas:
If you would like a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy
of Saving Monticello, e-mail me at Marc527psc@aol.com I also have a few
as-new, unopened hardcover copies. 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, and What So
Proudly We Hailed, and Ballad of the
Green Beret.
