In the early 1780s, Philadelphia emerged as the capital of America’s Jews—it was, of course, already the wartime capital of the United States. Philadelphia’s Jews had taken in their patriot coreligionists, exiled from New York (1776), Savannah (1778), and Charleston (1780). The population of some 300 prewar Jews in Philadelphia swelled by over a thousand during the Revolution because so many “fled here from different Parts of refuge.” 

In Philadelphia, Jews paid attention to rapid political change. Gershom Mendes Seixas, the hazan and religious leader of Jews in town, studied state constitutions and the extent to which they granted freedom to people of all religions. Historian Adam Jortner examined the notes recorded by Seixas’s committee. Seixas followed the trend to extend religious freedoms in New York, Virginia, and underlined the troubling statements they found in South Carolina’s bylaws. In November 1783, the Philadelphia Jewish community felt sufficiently strong and confident to lobby Pennsylvania’s lawmakers to follow the leads of their religiously tolerant counterparts. 

But things changed quickly in Philadelphia. The member ranks of Mikveh Israel deflated after the American Revolution. Seixas, for instance, packed his bags for New York. These Jews, by and large, returned to their pre-Revolution homes. Hannah Adams tallied “about thirty families of Jews” in Philadelphia.  Its synagogue, Mikveh Israel, was empty, and so was its coffers. What remained was mostly due to the generosity of the wealthy merchants, Michael and Barnard Gratz. It did not redound well for the congregation’s financial security that Benjamin Franklin’s donation of £5 in 1788 rendered him one of the congregation’s top donors. 

The small band of local Jews still made some impact. A case in point: one of the few longstanding Mikveh Israel members (although he too had several fallings out with the synagogue) was the merchant immigrant, Jonas Phillips. On September 7, 1787, Phillips wrote a letter to the Constitutional Convention, to the immediate attention of George Washington.  

The document is an heirloom—a real rarity—in American history. The correspondence was one of the very few correspondences to the Federal Convention that spoke to the notion of religious freedom. Quite plainly, Phillips’s goal was to ensure that religious liberty remained on the Framers’ agenda. He beseeched the Convention’s members to consider that “all men have a natural and unalienable Right to worship almighty God according to the dectates of their own Conscience and understanding.” He likewise demanded that “no man aught or of Right can be Compelled to attend any Relegious Worship or Erect or support any place of worship.” 

It helped Phillips’s cause, so he believed, that most of America’s Jews chose the patriots’ side of the war. “It is well known among all the Citizens of the 13 united States that the Jews have been true and faithful whigs, and during the late Contest with England they have been foremost in aiding and assisting the States with their lifes and fortunes, they have supported the Cause,” a term that resonated deeply, Phillips doubtlessly knew, with General Washington. Owing to this, “the Israelites will think themself happy,” forecasted Phillips, “to live under a government where all Religious societys are on an Eaquel footing.”  

As it happened, Jonas Phillips’s 670-word dissertation arrived a bit too late for the August convening. Two weeks earlier, the Convention had approved Article VI of the U.S. Constitution: “No religious test or qualification shall ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the United States.”  

Whether this assuaged Phillips’s concerns is unknown. If he wasn’t satisfied, Phillips might have been appeased two years later when James Madison Introduced the Bill of Rights that promised that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Did Phillips have a role in swaying the Framers? Likely not. But his sentiment was certainly shared by them—and represented one of the great contributions of the Constitution and its subsequent amendments.