Simon Sibelman
Jefferson and the Jews
Professor Simon Sibelman - Jefferson and the Jews
- Well, good evening everyone. It’s my very, very great pleasure to introduce Professor Simon Siberman to you. He is a very old friend of mine. He actually did… he was of course born in the States, you can tell from the accent, in the certain states. He did his doctorate in both Paris and in London. His PhD is fascinating. It’s actually on the silence in the novels of Elie Wiesel. I met him when he was director of studies at the Spiro Institute. We worked together for 10 years, was it Simon? Longer maybe.
At least.
Yeah, it seemed a lot longer to you, I’m sure. He then moved back to the States, where he had a position at the University of Wisconsin. Then he became the executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. And in 2013, his last position before he retired, he was director of the Center for Holocaust, Judaic and Peace Studies. He now lives in Massachusetts and he is coming over to visit next month. So, welcome Simon, and it’s great to have you back and I hope this will be the first of many. God bless.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all of you. It is my pleasure to be here with you. And if you will give me just a second, I’m going to get all of this going. So the topic of this is Thomas Jefferson and the Jews, and very often, people don’t think about Jews being in Thomas Jefferson’s life in his work, in his thought. And it’s very surprising that, they are actually there in relatively small numbers, but very important ones. Now in April, April 29th, 1962, John Kennedy gave a state dinner and it was for Nobel Peace Prize winners. And in his welcome he said the following, I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Jefferson was a remarkable man. Everybody knows that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and he believed in the power of the word and of reason. He would also as president, almost double the size of the United States with the Louisiana purchase in 1803. And he was an architect.
He said many times that he loved building up and pulling down and Monticello, his home in Virginia is in fact the only privately owned home in the United States that is on the back of a coin. And that is the nickel, the 5 cent piece. He was a farmer and owned slaves and he had to make inventions. He always wanted to know how much water had fallen after the rain. And so the implement on the left is in fact a rain gauge. He created the equivalent of a Swiss army knife and it has small tools on it that any farmer would need out in the field. And because Monticello Little Mountain is on a mountain, many of his fields were at an angle and he realized that the regular plow would not work. And so he created, invented a plow that could be used on hillsides. He liked simplifying life, especially when he had individuals to dine with him. And he always tried to make sure that his servants, slaves, were not around. And so on the left hand side of your screen, you were seeing a revolving shelf where food could be placed there and then taken over to the table by Jefferson or anyone else. And then once they were empty, he could turn it around and another set of dishes would be on the other side. On the right hand side of the screen, this is the fireplace that is in the dining room. And he created a waiter. A dumb waiter that would go down to his wine cellar and bring bottles of wine up. But Jefferson is the imperfect American hero. His, notion of slavery was always something that he battled with. And when he was president of the United States, it became known that he had a black mistress, Sally Hemmings. And, there’s a long story there, but that’s not really what we’re going after. Our question this evening, this afternoon is, did Thomas Jefferson know any Jews? Well, you would’ve heard from Trudy yesterday that Jews arrived in the colonies in the 17th century.
Now this shows the English colonies, the British colonies, and they hugged the shoreline from what is today Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts, all the way down to Georgia. And this is a drawing of new Amsterdam roughly in 1650. And in August of that year, one single Jew arrived. His name was Yaka Basiman. And he arrived prior to the arrival of 23 other port Spanish Portuguese Jews who were coming from Recife in Brazil. And Asser Levy, was one of the poorest members of that crowd. But he had great common sense and he had a notion of how to lead. And so he becomes the first leader of the Jewish community that arrives in New Amsterdam. Of course, he had to deal with Pieter Stuyvesant. He was the governor of the colony and he was often called Peter The Headstrong. He was not particularly friendly towards Jews and tried to prevent the Jews from settling there. But they won out in the long run. This is an old image of the Mill Street Synagogue. The congregation was called Congregation Sherith Israel, and it was founded in 1654, but they did not have an independent Synagogue. They met and prayed in one person’s home and this first building would be built only in 1730 and it was located on South William Street. And the congregation still is functioning today and it is now located on West 70th Street in New York City. This is Congregation Jeshuat Israel. It was founded in 1658. So the group who had arrived in New York begin moving outward and they’re going to other seaports. The current synagogue building was constructed and consecrated in 1763. It is a perfect Georgian building and it was undoubtedly influenced by Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, which is that nation’s oldest functioning synagogue. So, by the time Jefferson is born in 1743, there were five, established Jewish communities in colonial America going from north to south in roughly the Newport Rhode Island area in New York, in Philadelphia, in Charleston.
Here it says Charlestown, it’s later contracted into Charleston, South Carolina, and then in Savannah, Georgia. Here’s where Jefferson is buried, he is buried on… born… he is born in Albemarle County, Virginia, which was literally on the border moving west and you move much farther and that would’ve taken you into French territory. His birthplace was called Shadwell. And the middle picture is the only known photograph of Shadwell plantation. It is not what we consider the big plantation houses, it was a very small farm. And his father, whose portrait is on the right, Peter Jefferson, was a surveyor. And this is the Peter Jefferson map of Colonial Virginia. And it also takes in areas of Maryland and Pennsylvania as well as the very northern parts of North Carolina. And, the only place where there is a possibility of being a small Jewish community at this point in time was in Norfolk, Virginia. That’s that little red dot. And the community would’ve been involved in trade and that trade would’ve been the tobacco trade. And so Jefferson’s map was primarily a map for economic and political purposes. And this little drawing that we see here, this engraving is on the bottom of the map. Virginia’s wealth came from tobacco and the only reason that tobacco was king was because in 1619 slaves are introduced into the colony to allow them to till the fields because tobacco culture is very, very difficult and very time consuming. Jefferson was also born into a very, very wealthy family. They were called the Randolph’s of Virginia. They were amongst the first families of Virginia. And the plantation house that we see in the bottom right corner, this is Wilton Plantation and it was one of the seats of the Randolph’s of Virginia. The top left before we see that lady’s picture, that is the central hallway and then their sitting room. And then that is William Randolph IV who lived here. And the lady on the far left is Thomas Jefferson’s mother.
When Jefferson’s father died, it was determined that he would go and live with his relations, another set of Randolph’s and they lived at Tuckahoe Plantation. There we see the building as it is today. There is their formal sitting room and that little white building down below is the Tuckahoe schoolhouse. This is where Jefferson began his formal education. He studied mathematics, religion, english, and he also studied math. I said math, he also studied Latin and Greek. One of his distant cousins, Peyton Randolph who we see here on the left hand side of the screen, was a very important political figure in Colonial Virginia. The house that we see on the far right is his house in Williamsburg, Virginia. Williamsburg had become the new capital of the colony in 1699. And there are a couple of interior shots of the house. Peyton Randolph convinced Jefferson’s mother that he should leave the middle school house because he could not learn enough and what he did is suggested he come to Williamsburg. And these are some images of Colonial Williamsburg today. And, what he did is he matriculated into the College of William and Mary. The College of William and Mary is America’s second university after Harvard. And here is the main building at that time. The building is called the Ren Building. And that is because Sir Christopher Ren sent plans to the colony for building a main structure. And in that building you had both secular and religious worlds, very much like you found in many of the Oxbridge colleges in England. So on the left what we see is the room that was where there would be dinners held and there would be lectures held. On the right hand side, we see the chapel, which to this day is still a functioning chapel in the Church of England tradition. And these are just some of the other buildings that Ren created. And I draw your attention to the chapel. And that chapel is very much like the chapel that you see in Williamsburg at the College of William and Mary. Jefferson had three major mentors and we see them here. And those mentors were on the far left, you have George Wythe who was the first professor of law at the College of William and Mary. In the middle we have James Wyatt.
He was a professor of literature and philosophy. And on the far right we see the colonial governor. This is Governor Folkier this is the governor’s palace. This is where the governor lived. And of course the palace meant that was where power was. Folkier believed that he wanted to get to know the best minds of the colony. And the same after him with the governor who came after him. And so what he would do in the palace would be to have small, intimate dinners. And on the bottom left we actually see a setting for some of those small intimate dinners. Now, they were not going to be the wild sort of dinners that William Hogarth portrays in midnight modern conversation in 1733. Apparently they were deeply considering many great ideas. One of the ideas that they were dealing with from the 1740s to the 1760s, there was a great spiritual awakening in the American colonies, especially in Virginia. In Virginia there was one official religion and that was the Church of England. But this spiritual awakening began to have people thinking in other terms. So that Methodism is going to be introduced, the Baptist religion is going to be introduced and should they be allowed to practice openly. And another thing that was discussed were tomatoes. Now we sort of think, what tomatoes? Why? Well, they were introduced very, very oddly. The tomato was in some ways unknown. It was unknown and it’s funny because ex extent documents from some of these dinners showed that there was a real awareness of tomatoes and it was an issue for discussion at some of these dinners. Jefferson, as one of the bright minds in the college, was often at these dinners. And he began to hear about a particular individual, a Dr Sekodya who was introducing the tomato as an edible fruit in Virginia. And subsequently to its cultivation spread to the Mid-Atlantic and southern colonies.
John Custis the fourth of Williamsburg said that he wanted to know what was this thing, the tomato. And of course it is both a South American and African fruit and it was popular amongst the slave populations as well as peanuts. John Hill asked the question, those who are used to eat with Portuguese Jews know the value of it. Now John Hill, was a member of the House of Burgesses and he was very much into what was going on in the broader colonies. And so by his saying those used to eat with Portuguese Jews said a very great deal about what he is learning about the tomato but also about Jewish communities. Because you have to remember that the first Jews who arrive are going to be Portuguese and Spanish . And this is Dr. John de Sequeyra. There he is, this is the only known portrait of him and it shows him there. And he was in fact a doctor of medicine. Did Jefferson know The Good Doctor personally? And I’m using The Good Doctor in quotation marks because he comes up, his name comes up in some of the correspondence between Jefferson and his very dear friend, James Madison. Norborne Berkeley, Baron De Botetourt followed Folkier as the Royal Governor of Virginia. And what he does is we know from his records that The Good Doctor was at at least one of these dinners every quarter. So who was this individual? Who was he? He was born in London in 1712 into a Sephardi family whose ancestors had been physicians to the kings and queens of Spain and Portugal.
His Brit Milah was celebrated in Bevis Marks Synagogue where his father was a significant figure. He traveled to Holland in 1736 to study medicine at the University of Laden from which he received his degree in 1739. And in 1745 he decided to immigrate to Virginia. No reason is ever given. Perhaps he saw great possibility there. When he first arrives, he takes rooms in Wetherburn’s Tavern and that’s on the right hand side of your screen. And he also had another room that could be set aside for him to see various patients. On the left hand side, sometime in the 1860s, he rented a small house and that served both as his home and his consulting office. His initial successes by 1747, now he’s only been there two years, he has introduced the tomato to the colony. In 1747/48, he attends about 85 households during a smallpox epidemic. Between 1745 and 1781, he compiles a manuscript entitled ‘Diseases in Virginia’ with some suggested cures for them. This manuscript is going to be copied by other doctors because they believed that this individual had new and important methods for curing people. And this is an actual document from that manuscript and it outlines some of his patients. In 1769, Dr Sequeyra began treating George Washington’s stepdaughter Patsy. She was the daughter of Martha Parke Custis, who became Martha Washington, for debilitating epileptic seizures. Though his medical treatments assisted her immensely, Patty’s condition eventually led to her early death. We do know from correspondence between Washington and Jefferson for they were both Burgesses in the General Assembly of Virginia that he told Jefferson about the doctor and what he had done to help his stepdaughter, Patsy. And this is where the General assembly met. On the far right you see a plan of the Capitol building and the House of Burgesses sat downstairs on the far right. And on the left we see the doors that would lead into it and you can notice that there are the two portraits of George II and Queen Charlotte by Ramsey.
And then in the middle there is the chamber itself. When there were problems, we know that the Burgesses would meet in the Raleigh Tavern. And on several occasions we know that The Good Doctor was there listening and contributing. And these are some satirical views of 18th century medicine and we can see that they were fairly crude and these sorts of treatments were not things that Dr. Sequeyra believed in. He believed in being very, very logical, reasoned and doing what you can to heal the patient and not kill the patient. In 1773, the Colony of Virginia founded the first insane asylum and it was the first on the continent. And it was called Eastern State Hospital and it was constructed in Williamsburg and The Good Doctor was one of the first physicians attached to the facility. What we see here is on the bottom right that is a 1773 cell. All that was there was a bowl to eat out of and at times to use for bodily functions. That was it. That was all you had in your room. The Hogarth view up above is a vision of bedlam in London and it’s the final engraving from the rake’s tail. And then we see any patients who were in any way violent, you would’ve been placed in a straight jacket. The insane were deemed absolutely incurable. And here we see a woman who has been chained to a pipe and cannot get up, cannot move about. And up above we see a sketch of a number of people and notice that all of them are also chained to the wall at their neck. This was inhumane treatment and The Good Doctor over and over again, tried to get the general assembly to pass laws that would’ve prohibited this sort of treatment of individuals. Chaining them to chairs, bringing down a box over their heads so they could see out. And we know that such treatment would be used on George The third. What we see on the far left is a Gil Ray drawing and it’s of George being chained to a chair. Jefferson’s little mountain became his retreat and it was there that he engaged in correspondence not only with his friend Madison, whom we see here on the right hand side, but with other figures within the colonies.
And one of the things that we do know is that on several occasions in his letters he asks questions about individuals who were of the Hebraic faith. They would’ve also followed the news about the war and what was happening. The first South Carolinian of Jewish faith was going to be killed in a battle in 1776. The little diorama on the top shows him being ambushed by Indians who were working with the British. Down below we see that he has been scalped by an Indian and this is a marker. And he had come to South Carolina in 1774 and he was elected to the provincial Congress and served in 1775-1776. And he dies for his adopted home, his adopted country, on August 1st, 1776. This news is transferred to Philadelphia and it was read in one of the many dispatches that were read to the continental Congress where Jefferson served. So he would’ve learned of this heroic action. This is Benjamin Nones. He served with his former classmate, the Marquis de Lafayette in the continental Army. He also served with Count Pulaski, a Polish hero who came and worked in his legion in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina. And he also served as ADC to General Washington. Now what’s interesting is, over the course of the war, there would be between 100 and 200 Jews who would serve in the Continental Army. But that represented a significant portion of young men from a Jewish population of between 1500 and 2500 in America. From South Carolina there was actually a Jews company and it had been recruited from a section of Charleston where Jews were the majority of the population. And unfortunately in that contingent of 60 men, there were only 10 to 15 who were actually Jews. This is Aaron Lopez.
He was a merchant of the first eminence for honor and extent of commerce, probably surpassed by no merchant in America. He had amassed a massive fortune and he gave his fortune to the continental forces. He wanted to make sure that the United States would be a free nation and that it would be served well by his giving his money to the cause. And this quote that’s on the screen is by Ezra Stiles, who is then the president of Yale University. This is Mordecai Sheftell of Savannah. He is responsible for founding the congregation Mikveh Israel, which we see on the left. This is the 19th century building. The original building was smaller and the congregation simply expanded over time. Sheftell was again a merchant who had a very large fortune. And what he did is he gave his fortune to the continental cause. He was also a sailor and his ship was captured by the English and he was put on a prisoner ship. And on that prisoner ship he found a way of escaping. He was later recaptured and was sent to Antica, where he was in another prison camp and he escaped from that in order to get back to Savannah and help the Continental Army’s cause for freedom. All of these individuals would’ve been known to Jefferson. And here you have this small population, 1500 to 2,500 individuals who are giving their all for the cause. Shelftell by the way, would die almost bankrupt and he never was repaid by the United States government. Michael and Bernard Gratz of Philadelphia were also merchants and bankers. And what they did is they had contacts with other Jewish merchants, all up and down the Eastern Coast. Such as Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, Joseph Jacobs, Hyman Levy, David Franks, Matthias Bush, and Moses Mordecai.
And all of these individuals had contacts in Europe. Obviously not in Britain, but in Germany, in the German principalities and Dutchess, in France, and even some in Spain. This is a petition for the new nation. This was written by Thomas Paine in 1783. And it says, I quote, “we do not amuse the world with calling on Congress to do justice to the army and to the creditors of America. And yet without the means by which that justice is to be fulfilled. On the contrary, we freely offer ourselves to bear our share in any national measure to affect those purposes and to establish the character of America equal to her rank. End quot He was criticizing America and petitioning for the new Congress to repay those individuals who had given their fortunes and in some cases their lives for the cause of freedom. This is a portrait of Haym Solomon, the statue that we see on the right was unveiled in Chicago on the 15th of December, 1941. It shows George Washington in the middle and to his right is Robert Morris. And to the left we see Haym Solomon, who had come to this country from Lesko, Poland. And he was responsible for getting incredible money lent to the American cause. He would die almost penniless, while the government owed him as much as then $350,000, none of which was ever repaid. And this is too little, too late. This is from Franklin Roosevelt, about the same time that the statue was unveiled. It was never disputed that at a critical period in the affairs of the revolution, Haym Solomon came to the rescue of the continental Congress with loans freely extended. The debt of gratitude which the nation owes Solomon’s memory will in part be paid through the fulfillment of plans of the patriotic foundation to erect in Chicago, a monument that will portray Solomon with his fellow Patriots, George Washington and Robert Morris. I bespeak for the understanding the fullest measure of success. End quote. What good does a statue do in 1941, when during the revolution, during that war that man had given everything to the cause? A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life. That’s by Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was our second ambassador to Paris.
And this is him in a powdered wig looking very Frenchified. While he was there, philosophers whose works Jefferson had read in Virginia, he was able to meet. On the left hand side, we see Voltaire, in the middle Denis Diderot on the right the Comte de Buffon And it’s interesting because Voltaire was somewhat anti-Jewish. He, felt however that burning Jews and murdering them was not the right way to go. Diderot in the encyclopedia had written several articles about Jews. About the Jewish religion. And the Comte de Buffon, Well he was a biologist and a botanist, but at the same time he believed that Jews had a right in this world. And of course Jefferson would’ve attended the Parisian Salon where all of the great minds of the day would gather and discuss ideas. This is a statue of Jefferson in Paris today. And he’s looking across the sand and he’s looking at a particular structure. Doesn’t matter what it is, it’s actually the the home of the légion d'honneur and it’s a dome structure. But I point this out because just slightly away from that, where that statue stands today is the hotel de Langeac. And that’s on the right hand side of your screen. That is the larger building. And it is at the end of the and it was here that he had his own small salon. He would’ve also gone to the Cafe Procope and he would’ve there met other individuals. And we do know from a letter that he sent back home that he met one individual with whom he had a very important conversation. That person is the Abbe Gregoire. And he had written an essay, that was part of a contest that was done by the academy de mes. and it is called, It is an essay on the region, the physical, moral and political regeneration of the Jews. As a member of the church, he believed that Jews very definitely needed to be emancipated. And he made some very strong observations in the essay and apparently he made very, very powerful, a very powerful impression on Jefferson himself. At the same time, Jefferson would’ve met several of the important Jews who were beginning to push for emancipation in France.
That would not happen until after the revolution. And in 1789 a bill would be passed by the National Assembly that would in January of 1790 begin giving freedom and emancipate the Jews who were in the Southwest and the Southeast. And an additional bill would be added in the Spring of 1790 that would then emancipate all of the other Jews and they would’ve been in Alzas and Logan. And many of these ideas are going to go back and forth in the Jefferson Madison correspondence. And one of the things that Jefferson sends back to Madison who is now in the General Assembly is a proposal to put before the General Assembly a bill for religious freedom of all faiths. And that actually is going to pass the general assembly in 1785. And this is a plaque in Richmond, Virginia. And it is on the street where the bill was passed in was finally passed. It is known in Virginia as the first freedom declaration of religious freedom. So what influencing role did The Good Doctor and the other Jews have in Jefferson promoting his bill of religious freedom? And I believe there was a great deal of influence. For someone who had been born on the frontier and someone who had such an incredible mind, I think that he would’ve been absolutely impressed by what these Jews had done. On the 14th of July, 1789, we know that the French Revolution breaks forth and another individual, this is the Abbe Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, on the left hand side of the screen and the Marquis Lafayette on the right. They are trying to pull together some sort of document that will basically say all faiths will be observed. and what Marquis Lafayette does, he consults Jefferson. And Article 10 of the Déclaration is no one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law. And this in France will lead to the emancipation articles of the Jews of Protestants.
The struggle for religious freedom in the United States has always been important. Religious freedom is enshrined in the first amendment to the Constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And Patrick Henry would not vote for the Constitution because there was no such statement. And this quote from him is indicating that only when all people of all faiths can be protected and not be forced by violence to break someone’s back because of their religion. That was all important to him. And George Washington when he was making the rounds of the new states as the first president, he stops in Rhode Island at Newport and eventually he will send a letter and the letter is going to be repeated almost continually throughout most of the states. And he says in that letter, it is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to 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 on all occasions their effectual support. And then he adds at the very end, may the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of other inhabitants while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and shall be none to make him afraid. And once again, this is Washington and again in 1796, calling on the people of the United States to abide by that first amendment and by his belief in all individuals of whatever faith practicing that faith. And for Jefferson, there was a fundamental belief and that is a separation between church and state. James Madison wrote The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship or shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscious be in any manner or in any pretext infringed. Does Jefferson still live? Very much so.
And in fact Ronald Reagan, when he was president said, quote, we establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate. And this again is Nones Benjamin Nones, who had served in the Continental Army. And there is a silver coin that is done in in his honor. And he supported Jefferson. Jefferson was attacked as being a shylock. He was too friendly to the Jews. If by the word Shylock you mean a Jew, from my knowledge of the vice president, I dare say he would think himself honored by the Appalachian. Judaism being his religious profession as democracy is his creed. All seem like their vice president of the tribe of Shylock. Nones, would actually stand by Jefferson. And what he says in his response is, I am a Jew, I glory in belonging to that persuasion. I am a Jew and so were Abraham and Isaac and Moses and the prophets and so too were Christ and his apostles. And I feel no disgrace in ranking in their society. What he is doing here is he is establishing the fact that Jefferson and laws that Jefferson had promoted and the other founders of the American republic had promoted are in fact absolute truths that need to be regardless of the religion, they need to be protected. This is what he wrote in defense of Jefferson. An American Zionist. This is Mordecai M Noah, and he wanted to establish a little independent area called Arrow Rat. It was going to be an all Jewish area. And in this lengthy quote, Jefferson was sent a discourse on the consecration of their synagogue. And he says, I have read it with pleasure and instruction, having learned from it valuable facts in Jewish history, which I did not know before. Your sect by its suffering has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every sect.
Disclaimed by all well feeble and practices 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 equal footing. But more remains to be done for opinion itself into an inquisition and exercise its offices with as much fanaticism as fans the flames of an auto defay. Very powerful words. This is Jefferson’s tombstone at Monticello. And it’s interesting because of all the various things that he did on his tombstone are inscribed, a really remarkable epitaph. It says, author of the Declaration of America should not have a religious quota or a religious background. By the way, Jefferson died on the 4th of July, 1826, four hours before John Adams. Jefferson’s Monticello had to be sold to pay for his debts. And the Marquis de Lafayette who visited Monticello in 1824, spent a week there. And in 1833 he wondered what had happened to the most beautiful house in America. And this is by 1833, the house was almost a ruin. But it is saved. Uriah Phillips Levy born in Philadelphia. He wrote, I am an American, a sailor and a Jew. Levy would pay for a statue honoring Jefferson to be placed in the US Capitol. This is Levy’s tomb, in Be Ola Cemetery in Queens New York. Commodore Levy and his son, Monroe Jefferson Levy, would actually save Monticello. They would try to find many of the pieces of furniture, books, paintings, that had been there based on Jefferson’s own listing of his properties. This is Monticello today and it is only there, it is only saved because of Levy and his son. And what’s interesting there is a Jewish connection there. Recently, the tombstone of Uriah Levy’s mother, was replaced with a new stone and it was Reconsecrated in a ceremony.
And we can actually see it being reconsecrated on the bottom left. And then you can see his mother’s portrait. The inimitable freedom of the human mind. That is Thomas Jefferson, an imperfect hero, but at the same time an individual who knew what had to be done. Much of it thanks to The Good Doctor. Alright, I believe there’s some questions.
Q&A and Comments:
[Host] Trudy, would you like me to go through these?
Yes. If you don’t mind, if you could read them.
Q - [Host] Sure. So Ruth is saying, you mentioned that the first Jews were Sa-Party, but some of the names in Savannas seem to be Ashkenazi Gratz, for example. Where did they come from and when?
A - They came in the early 18th century from Germany.
Q - [Host] David is asking, will you comment on Jefferson’s disputes with Alexander Hamilton, please?
A - That’s sort of out of the purview of this, so not really.
[Host] Harold says, just an observation. You have a lovely voice and speak in excellent French. And Madeleine says, thank you for this fascinating and beautifully prepared lecture. I hope this will be the first of many.
and so do I.
[Host] Myrna comments, unfortunately in the US there has been elected as a speaker of the house, a gentleman who believes this is a Christian nation and the Bible has all the answers.
Yes.
[Host] Comments there. Stewart says fantastic presentation, thank you. Clara says thank you. And Rita says, thank you. Wonderful presentation. That is what we have today.
Well thank all of you for being here. It’s been a real pleasure.
Let me thank you properly, Simon. It’s been absolutely fabulous. Well, you heard what the people want. Look, Simon and I worked together for over 10 years. I’m so glad that he’s joined us on lockdown and I’m going to twist his arm to see what else he can do for us. Welcome back, Shaman.
My pleasure. Take care.
See you in a fortnight.
Absolutely. Take care. Lots of love.
[Host] Take care.
Bye everyone, be safe.