Separated by thousands of miles, Vienna and Philadelphia during the early 1780s developed into major centers for the promotion of Jewish civic rights.1 Moreover, at this time, high degree Freemasonry, which conferred degrees beyond the third, flourished as well in both urban environments. More importantly, Freemasonry, whose rituals embodied salient secular and ethical tenets of the Enlightenment, helped to advance the cause of Jews in numerous ways. This essay examines and contrasts the thinking and activities of Viennese Josephinian Masonic enlighteners and Philadelphia republican Masons concerning Jewish civic rights during the late eighteenth century. Such an analysis is warranted, for it reveals much in the comparative sense about Freemasonry’s role in Atlantic history. That is to say, Freemasonry, in various ways, assisted in diffusing pertinent Enlightenment ideologies in these two urban hubs located on both sides of the Atlantic.
Several central theses are developed in this article. In striving to uplift the status of Jews, Masons connected with the True Harmony Lodge of Vienna supported major Josephinian reform proposals, while those in the Lodge of Perfection of Philadelphia espoused liberal and republican ideologies.2 The second thesis is that to improve the plight of Jews, Masons in both urban settings favored the implementation of Enlightenment and Masonic doctrines concerning state building, natural liberties, economic and business incentive, and social assimilation. The third thesis is that these principles and other moral tenets of the Enlightenment would constitute the basis of Masonic civil religions in both cities and would be embraced in efforts to further the cause of Jews.3 The last thesis is that Viennese and Philadelphia Masons often operated within the institutional structure of high degree Masonry to promote Jewish civic rights.
After becoming Habsburg emperor in 1780, Joseph II for several reasons did institute measures to ameliorate the status of some propertied Jews in Vienna. There certainly were ideological motives. Tenets in literature evidently helped to shape Joseph’s thinking about Jews in the Habsburg Empire; concepts regarding religious toleration and civic betterment for Jews appeared in major treatises by Moses Mendelssohn and in Nathan the Wise (1779) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.4 Joseph became a proponent of civic liberties for Jews and other minority groups within his empire. He also was a strong advocate of cameralist and utilitarian ideologies; the emperor realized that to improve Habsburg banking, industrial, and business life, he would be required to extend civic liberties to important minority and religious groups within the empire. As part of his embracing imperial reform program, Joseph issued on October 20, 1781, an Edict of Toleration to abolish disabilities imposed on Lutherans and Calvinists within the empire.5 The emperor also realized that similar to these Protestant sects, Jews constituted an important component for the economic viability of his empire. Consequently, the next year, he provided help especially to wealthy Viennese Jewish families, who had been expelled in 1670 from the imperial capital by Leopold I, but who gradually during the next hundred years were allowed to return to it.6
The measures of Joseph in 1782 to assist Jews in the imperial capital reflected major recommendations of the Staatsrat. In endorsing most of the proposals of this body, the emperor on January 2 of that year promulgated a patent with rather moderate provisions relating to the civic and economic activities of Jews in Vienna and in other Austrian provinces. This edict, among other things, stipulated that to participate in civic life, Jews in Vienna were required to purchase from the government letters of toleration; it also stipulated that Jews with a tolerated status were allowed to attend state schools and universities. According to this Josephinian patent, tolerated Jews could engage in trade and in business and could serve as moneylenders. Finally, tolerated Jews were no longer required to pay the Leibmaut, a tax levied on livestock.7
This Josephinian patent concerning Jewish civic rights in Vienna and in Austrian lands produced several major effects. The emperor’s edict was to be pretty much restricted to the economic realm; it was intended to encourage tolerated Court Jews to participate in business, in industry, in finance, and especially in military contracting. The Josephinian patent as well did help to produce some economic and social assimilation. A few upper middle-class Jewish Viennese families did benefit from this patent: namely, the Oppenheimers, who were financiers and military contractors, and the Wertheimers and Arnsteins, who were wholesale merchants. This edict, however, failed to grant wealthy Viennese Jews religious toleration, political privileges, and other citizenship rights.8 The last significant effect concerned the thinking of Josephinian enlighteners about this edict. Some moderate enlighteners, who were in many instances actively involved in Viennese Freemasonry, praised Joseph for his efforts to improve the status of Jews in that city. Other radical Josephinian writers, who also were associated with the Craft in the imperial capital, felt that the emperor had not gone far enough in granting Jews their civic rights.9
As a result of the Masonic Patent of January 1781, which demonstrated that Joseph would permit the operations of the Craft in the Empire, Vienna developed into a center of Freemasonry.10 The imperial capital became the home first of the Austrian Provincial Grand Lodge between 1777 and 1783 and then of the Grand Lodge of Austria between 1784 and 1787. Aristocratic leadership as well surfaced in Viennese Masonry at this time. Prince Dietrichstein between 1777 and 1787 headed both high degree grand lodge bodies and governed a huge Masonic empire which consisted of lodges in Austria, Croatia, Hungary, and Transylvania. More importantly, he succeeded in recruiting Josephinian enlighteners to administrative offices in the grand lodge and to leadership positions in Viennese local lodges.11 Consequently, under Dietrichstein, Zinnendorf Freemasonry was perceived by Viennese enlighteners as a valuable institution involved with the implementation of the emperor’s reform program. Paradoxically, Zinnendorf Freemasonry, which never recognized in Vienna the Jewish dominated secret Order of the Asiatic Brethren, consisted practically of no Jewish members. However, prominent Josephinians associated with Zinnendorf lodges in the imperial capital solidly backed the cause of improving the civil status of Jews in Vienna.12
Another major reason for the appeal of Zinnendorf Masonry to Josephinian advocates of imperial reforms and Jewish civic rights concerned the operations of the Viennese True Harmony. Organized in March of 178l by Ignatz von Born, who served as its first master, this lodge was empowered to function as a Viennese learned society and filled a cultural void in a city that lacked such institutions. Recognized as the most significant learned society in the history of the Masonic order, the True Harmony Lodge promoted a variety of cultural activities; it served as a locus for scientific research and encouraged the study of literature and philosophy. Moreover, this lodge especially developed into a center for Josephinian Masons who embraced the cause of state reforms. In addition to issuing a scientific journal which was edited by the geologist Ignatz von Born, the lodge also published a literary journal which was edited by the eminent writer Alois Blumauer.13 The Journal für Freymaurer proved to be of special importance, for some articles appearing in this Masonic literary organ focused on issues relating to Jewish rights in Vienna and to other reforms of the emperor.14 Blumauer succinctly explains how members of the True Harmony should strive to abolish religious inequities and civic injustices and to foster the cause of the Enlightenment in the imperial capital:
Masonry is dedicated to the advancement of the arts, sciences, and humanity…. Members of the Eintracht have been assigned to determine the laws of Nature and to work for the improvement of society; they are members of the cultural nobility, writing poetry, philosophizing about society, and opposing fanaticism and intolerance directed against religious groups…. Dedicated to the advancement of wisdom and virtue, lodge members have probed Nature and have attempted to apply her laws for the improvement of the state. Similar to the ancients, the modern Masons of the Eintracht are striving to end the injustices of contemporary society.15
Members of the cultural nobility of the True Harmony Lodge perceived significant ethical teachings and legends of Zinnendorf Masonry as being meaningful; these aristocratic and middle-class enlighteners seemed to associate moral tenets of this nine degree ritual system with a civil religion based on state reform. Zinnendorf Masonry consisted of a Templar Degree. This degree emphasized medieval legends and tenets relating to the powers of the monarchy and to the role and virtues of the nobility; this degree and others of Zinnendorf Masonry also embodied doctrines concerning courage, honor, charity, civil obedience, justice, and religious toleration. Moreover, these tenets seemed to appeal to leaders and members of the True Harmony who lauded Joseph for trying to abolish civic injustices and for introducing measures to extend toleration to wealthy Jews in Vienna.16
There was a prominent lodge administrator who had been actively involved with the issue of Jewish rights in Vienna and in other Austrian regions. Joseph von Sonnenfels, who served as Deputy Master of the True Harmony between 1782 and 1786, had occupied various cultural and political roles in eighteenth-century Vienna. Consequently, his career as an enlightener reveals why he acted to improve conditions for Jews in the imperial capital. The grandson of a rabbi, Sonnenfels, who was born in 1732 to a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Vienna, was reared as a Jew as a child; however, along with his parents, he converted to Catholicism as a young man and began to advance in his career. With an interest in classical and German literature and in political science, Sonnenfels attended the University of Vienna, graduating from this institution in 1755; eight years later, he was appointed to the Chair of Political Economy at the University of Vienna.17 Sonnenfels as well helped to promote Viennese Enlightenment literature, serving as President of the Deutsche Gesellschaft in 1761 and publishing four years later Der Mann Ohne Vorurteil. Through Capa-kaum, the hero of this work, Sonnenfels favors in the Habsburg Empire the creation of a noble class based on merit. As an enlightener, Sonnenfels in this book also calls for the abolition of torture and capital punishment in the empire and for the improvement of the conditions of its Jews and its other religious groups.18 Seventeen years later, he did significantly contribute to the cause of tolerated Jews in Vienna. Sonnenfels played a major role in the Staatsrat in composing the final draft of the 1782 Patent concerning Viennese Jews.19
Tobias von Gebler, who was a member of the True Harmony Lodge, also became involved with the literature of reform. In the play “Der Minister,” published in 1771, he, through the activities of the virtuous noble Hohenberg, calls for the abolition of capital punishment and torture and for the creation of a qualified aristocratic class which would faithfully serve the Habsburg crown.20 Gebler also developed a fairly conservative stance concerning the issue of civic rights for Jews in Vienna. As a member of the Staatsrat in 1782, he believed that Joseph should extend some civic rights to tolerated Jews in the imperial capital. However, Gebler favored the continuation of the imposition of the Jewish toleration tax. He evidently thought that this tax would serve as a source of income for Joseph and that tolerated Viennese Jews were capable of making significant economic and financial contributions to the Habsburg monarchy.21
The editor of the Journal für Freymaurer and other writers of the True Harmony Lodge became important to the promotion of the Josephinian state reform program and supported the cause of Jewish civic rights in Vienna during the early 1780s. Several interesting and important social and cultural features characterized this literary elite associated with the True Harmony. Several members of this elite either were former Jesuits or had attended Jesuit colleges. After the dissolution of this order in the Habsburg Empire in 1773, they were unemployed and went to Vienna in search of new careers; they found positions within the imperial bureaucracy and became writer-bureaucrats. As lesser ranking aristocrats for the most part and as Masonic enlighteners, they embraced the cause of Josephinian reforms and denounced the Catholic Church. Likewise, Alois Blumauer, Johann Alxinger, Heinrich Watteroth, and Karl Reinhold established the Wiener Freunde.22 The writers in this circle wrote in the lodge’s literary journal articles about measures to abolish some disabilities of Viennese Jews and about other reform edicts to improve political and economic conditions in the Habsburg Empire. With financial backing from members of the True Harmony, they also published essays and poems concerning religious toleration and other significant imperial reforms in the Wiener Realzeitung and in the Wiener Musenalmanach. These writers, for the most part, were moderates, lauding the emperor for his embracing reform program and for his edict to recognize tolerated Viennese Jews. However, the True Harmony consisted of several radical enlighteners who thought that the religious, political, and economic decrees of Joseph were too restrictive.23
Alois Blumauer was a moderate Josephinian and revealed his respect to the emperor for promulgating the 1782 Edict regarding Viennese Jews. He had been ordained into the Jesuit Order and after its dissolution was required to seek a new career. He held several minor posts in the imperial bureaucracy and was widely acclaimed in Viennese literary circles for “A Travesty of the Aeneid.” This lengthy poem, which was published in 1782, praised Joseph for implementing political and religious reform doctrines of ancient Greek and Roman leaders in the Habsburg Empire. Soon thereafter, Blumauer occupied a central place in the Josephinian literary world: he became a member of the Wiener Freunde, edited the True Harmony’s literary journal, and became a frequent contributor to the Wiener Realzeitung.24 Appearing in the lodge’s literary journal, the article, which is entitled “Es leben unsre sehr ehrwürd Schwester Logen,” reflects Blumauer’s thinking about the efforts of Joseph to extend privileges to Jews in Vienna and Protestants in the empire. In this article and others, he also explains in Masonic and Enlightenment terms that Joseph should attempt to implement the principle of religious toleration in order to cement the blocks of his empire firmly: “Our lodges have praised Joseph, for his policies have been comforting and humane. Let us hope that the Eintracht and sister lodges will revere his name…. Religious toleration has been granted to Jews in Vienna and Protestants in the empire. These accomplishments have been our hope…. My brothers, unite as virtuous men and act to end suffering in society. Work with state authorities to help the oppressed. Let reason and virtue serve as your guide in striving for the reform of society and for the welfare of humanity.”25
Heinrich Watteroth, who was a member of the True Harmony Lodge and a professor of history in the University of Vienna, also developed a fairly moderate stance about rights for Jews in Vienna and for Protestants in the empire. In Für Toleranz überhaupt und Bürgerrechte der Protestanten in katholischen Staaten, published in late 1781, he advances his views about the place of religion in the state and accentuates the principle of religious toleration. To Watteroth, religion is identified with natural morality and is intended to make citizens loyal to the state.26 He speaks of religion in Masonic terms, claiming that the major religions of the world share in common such principles as brotherly love and benevolence. Watteroth also maintains that monarchs should recognize religions within their realms; he therefore calls for Joseph to extend civic rights to Protestants within his empire and to Jews in Vienna. Furthermore, he believes that by granting religious toleration to Habsburg Protestants and Jews, Joseph would succeed in bonding more closely individuals of different faiths and in diffusing the doctrines of a public morality.27
Karl Reinhold, who was admitted to the True Harmony Lodge in 1782, became an ardent advocate of Josephinian religious reforms. In his poems and essays appearing in Viennese literary journals, Reinhold defends the emperor for extending rights to tolerated Jews in the imperial capital; he also praises Joseph for granting religious toleration to Protestants within the empire. While supporting minority religious groups within the empire, Reinhold launched scathing attacks against the Catholic Church and in 1784 was forced to leave Vienna. Disguised as a woman and with financial support from members of the Wiener Freunde, he left the imperial capital, first going to Leipzig and then to Weimar. Reinhold was well received in Weimar, was housed by Wieland, and in 1785 married one of his daughters. After his marriage, Reinhold received an appointment in the University of Jena. Moreover, he continued to espouse the cause of civic privileges for oppressed religious groups within the Habsburg Empire in his writings to Johann Alxinger and other members of the Wiener Freunde.28
Johann von Alxinger firmly backed the cause of tolerated Viennese Jews and became the most radical of the Josephinian enlighteners associated with the True Harmony Lodge. Born in 1755 in Vienna and reared in that city, he first was educated by the Jesuits and then studied law under Karl Martini at the University of Vienna. Having received a doctorate of law from this university in 1780, Alxinger decided against a career in law and pursued his interests in literature. He married Maria Anna von Wetzlar, whose father was a Jew. By the early 1780s, Alxinger vehemently raised his voice in support of Jews in the imperial capital: he composed in 1781 “Lied eines alten Juden,” and lauded Joseph for extending some civic rights to Viennese Jews.29 In 1783, Alxinger maintained that the emperor should grant Viennese Jews additional civic rights. He wrote that year “Die Duldung” and conveyed in it a radical message: Alxinger claimed that Viennese Jews, who had been granted limited privileges, should be empowered with civic liberties. He furthermore believed that by being endowed with these liberties, Viennese Jews would be able to make significant economic and political contributions to Joseph’s monarchy.30
Alxinger’s radical stance regarding the status of Viennese Jews, the strident criticisms of other members of the True Harmony against the emperor’s reform program, and the increased circulation of anti–Masonic literature in the Habsburg capital constrained Joseph in 1785 to take action against Freemasonry in Vienna.31 Issued by Joseph on December 1, 1785, the Freimaurerpatent restricted Vienna and other Habsburg cities to one lodge. The True Harmony Lodge suspended its cultural operations in 1788, and Masonic lodges in Vienna terminated their activities that same year.32 Freemasonry, which practically disappeared in the imperial capital between 1789 and 1848, would no longer serve as an effective source of Jewish civic rights. Moreover, the status of Jews in Vienna during this era was not significantly enhanced.33
Across the Atlantic, Jews in the American colonies between 1654 and about 1775 were gradually endowed with some civic rights and were partially integrated into colonial life and society.34 Many Jews, who came to settle in colonial America and who constituted about one-tenth of one percent of its population, accrued some benefits from the forces and fortunes of market capitalism.35 During the lengthy colonial era, many Sephardic and some Ashkenazic Jews came to America to engage in varying business activities and helped to promote merchant capitalism in New York, Newport, Philadelphia, and Charleston. As their ranks slowly increased in these cities, Jews derived benefits from the provisions of the 1740 Naturalization Bill. This bill allowed Jews after a residency period of seven years in the British colonies of America to relinquish their status as aliens and to be naturalized as residents of the colony in which they resided. Although not empowering them either with legal or political rights, this bill helped to uplift the economic status of colonial American Jews and to assimilate them into the ranks of middle-class business life.36
A public institution and a private one also affected the civic status of Jews in the American colonies. Several colonial legislatures during the first half of the eighteenth century did enact laws to prohibit the formation of synagogues; however, these laws often were not enforced. Consequently, synagogues emerged during the first six decades of the eighteenth century in colonial cities: Yeshuat Israel in Newport, Shearith Israel in New York, Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and Beth Elohim in Charleston. By the middle years of the eighteenth century, Jews, in many instances, were allowed to practice their religion.37
Likewise, Blue Degree Freemasonry, which consisted of the first three degrees, supported freedom of religion and religious toleration and in other ways helped to foster the cause of Jewish civic rights. Unlike their counterparts in Vienna, middle-class Jews in colonial cities were initiated into American lodges and in some cases occupied leadership positions in these bodies: Moses Seixas served as Master of Newport’s St. John’s Lodge; the prominent merchant Jonas Phillips was associated with New York’s Trinity Lodge; Solomon Bush and Michael Gratz held membership in Philadelphia’s Lodge # 2; and Isaac Da Costa served as treasurer of Charleston’s King Solomon’s Lodge.38 These lodges enabled these colonial Jews and approximately fifty-one others to engage in sociable activities and to expand their business networks. These bodies as well enabled American Jewish Masons to achieve social acceptance and equality and to be assimilated into colonial society. Accentuating major teachings and legends concerning King Solomon’s Temple, the ritual system of these lodges seemed to contain tenets of a civil religion. Justice, religious toleration, the work ethic, and benevolence constituted the major doctrines of this colonial civil religion and were as well important to civic Judaism in eighteenth-century America.39
Another Masonic movement also played a significant role in eighteenth-century America and greatly contributed to furthering the cause of Jewish civic rights at this time. Degrees four through twenty-five were known as high degree Masonry and were the forerunners of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, a ritual system that in fact started in France during the early 1750s. More importantly, degrees four through fourteen especially accentuated legends and themes from ancient Jewish history and expanded upon stories and teachings concerning King Solomon’s Temple.40 By the early 1760s, this high degree system was brought across the Atlantic and made its first appearance in the West Indies: the French merchant Etienne Morin in about 1763 conferred the Degrees of Perfection upon the obscure Henry Andrew Francken41; Francken then brought these degrees during the late 1760s to Albany: he first conferred them upon William Gamble and Francis Joseph von Pfister on December 26, 1767. More significantly, on December 6, 1768, Francken inducted into the Albany Lodge of Perfection Moses Michael Hays. Francken in a lengthy patent also empowered this prominent Jewish merchant, who then was residing in New York City, to appoint Inspector Generals in North America to head new Lodges of Perfection.42 “Henry Andrew Francken attests that Brother Moses Michael Hays (of the Jewish Nation and Merchant of the City of New York in North America) has taken all the Degrees of the Lodge of Perfection and that he be given full powers to create Deputy Inspectors.”43 Hays did not forget these significant developments in late 1768 in Albany. As the War of Independence was drawing to a close, he would establish in Philadelphia an important Lodge of Perfection to advance the cause of Jewish civic rights.
The British occupation of major American coastal cities between 1777 and 1780 constrained numerous members of Jewish patriotic families to seek refuge in Philadelphia. Prominent Jewish émigrés in this city engaged in a significant public project to display their solidarity as a religious community and to illustrate their respect for the American Revolution. By late 1781, Benjamin Seixas and Simon Nathan of New York, Isaac Da Costa of Charleston, and Barnard and Michael Gratz of Philadelphia believed that a new and dignified house of worship was needed to replace the small and inadequate quarters which had been rented on Cherry Alley. Large donations from the Gratzes and from Haym Salomon, Isaac Moses, and Jonas Phillips of New York enabled the Philadelphia Jewish community in the summer of 1782 to build its new synagogue in the block from Third Street to Sterling Alley. On September 13, 1782, dedication ceremonies for the new Mikveh Israel Synagogue were held: respect was especially paid to “His Excellency George Washington, Commander and Chief of the Federal Army of these States.”44 Consequently, émigré and Philadelphia Jews perceived their new religious edifice and Washington as being visible symbols of their efforts to achieve religious freedom in revolutionary America.
During the early 1780s, a private Philadelphia institution in different ways rendered support to promoting the cause of Jewish civic liberties. The “Ancient” Philadelphia Lodge # 2 became significant to this cause.45 This body was established in approximately 1765 and seemed, for the most part, to consist of members from the Philadelphia lower middle-class. By the time of the War of Independence, this lodge attracted to its ranks some Continental officers and soldiers.46 In 1781, this lodge engaged in “irregular” Masonic activities, suddenly began to confer degrees four through fourteen, and became known as the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection.
There are reasons why Moses Michael Hays became important to the Lodge of Perfection and why he ardently campaigned for the recognition of Jewish natural liberties. He had been an active merchant patriot, purchasing and selling merchandise to assist the revolutionary cause. Hays especially had conducted business affairs with Samuel Myers, with Michael Gratz, and with other prominent Masonic members of Jewish merchant elites in Philadelphia during the War of Independence. Moreover, while residing in Newport, he became a strong advocate of Jewish civic rights. He sent a letter on July 17, 1776, to the Rhode Island Assembly, proposing the granting by this body of “rights due to Jews” as citizens of this revolutionary colony.47 However, this assembly at this time refused to confer citizenship rights to Jews.
There was another convincing reason why Hays envisioned the Lodge of Perfection as being an important vehicle for the promotion of Jewish civic rights. Major doctrines of degrees four through fourteen served as the basis of a high degree civil religion. Furthermore, concepts from specific degrees in this ritual system embodied tenets concerning capitalism, republicanism, and natural liberties and consequently assisted in bolstering the cause of Jewish civic rights in revolutionary America. The eighth degree is known as the Intendant of the Building; it explains how Solomon attempted to complete the building of his temple. This degree, among other things, alludes to an Omnipotent Deity that watches over all nations. It as well emphasizes the work ethic and the suffrage right.48
Two other degrees also embodied salient doctrines of this high degree Masonic civil religion. Significant tenets also appear in the tenth degree, one that is called the Elu of the Fifteen and one that takes place in the audience chamber of King Solomon. It is explained in this degree that Masons should act to abolish fanaticism and tyranny and that they should work to achieve religious toleration and freedom for both large and small groups within the state.49 Likewise, the thirteenth degree takes place in Solomon’s audience chamber and is known as the Royal Arch of Solomon. This degree places emphasis on themes of constitutional and republican government. It accentuates complying with the provisions of a nation’s constitution, the functioning of an executive and of a bicameral legislature, and the operating of an independent judiciary. This degree as well embodies doctrines of civic Judaism, for it stresses the importance of natural liberties: namely, justice and the freedoms of speech and religion.50
The Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection consequently emerged as an important institution for prominent Jews in this city prior to the end of the War of Independence. Some of the lodge’s early activities, however, seemed to be rather unusual. The Pennsylvania Packet, for unknown reasons, made a brief public statement to announce the lodge’s first meeting in Elbow Lane on June 25, 1781.51 More importantly, Jewish predominance characterized the leadership and membership of the first meeting of the lodge; assimilation did not occur at this meeting, for there was only one Protestant at it. Lastly, Moses Michael Hays presided over the lodge’s first meeting but never appeared in this body again. During the first meeting, Hays appointed several Jews residing in Philadelphia as Inspector Generals for states in the revolutionary nation: Solomon Bush for Pennsylvania, Isaac DaCosta for South Carolina, and Simon Nathan for North Carolina.52 Hays as well named two other Jewish émigrés as Inspector Generals: Barnard Spitzer for Georgia and the New York merchant Samuel Myers for the Leeward Islands.53 The significance then of these appointments was that most of these Masons rendered assistance to the Jewish civic rights movement.
The year following the end of the War of Independence, this Philadelphia lodge met several times. In late 1782, the lodge began to hold its meetings in Videll’s Alley. During the meetings of October 23rd, 30th, and 31st of that year, Jews occupied all of the leadership positions in the lodge: Solomon Bush served as its Master, Isaac DaCosta as its Warden, Benjamin Seixas as its Treasurer, and Joseph M. Myers as its Secretary. In 1782, the membership of the lodge had changed somewhat. An examination of its roster reveals that five members were Huguenots and that five were Jews.54
Specific features characterized the Lodge of Perfection between 1783 and 1790. Unlike its Viennese counterpart, this Philadelphia lodge did not function as a learned society; the Lodge of Perfection served as a ritual center for high degree Masonry. This lodge continued to meet in Videll’s Alley; Masonic sociability was prevalent, for dinner and conversation followed ritualistic activities.55 Between 1783 and late1785, Solomon Bush continued to direct the affairs of the lodge.56 From 1786 until 1790, the lodge’s leadership primarily consisted of Protestants of various denominations. Likewise, its membership began to reveal fundamental changes and to reflect the concept of assimilation. Most of the lodge’s forty-eight members came from the ranks of the Philadelphia middle class; they were recruited from merchant, military, and political elites. Forty-two members were associated with Protestant denominations. The Jewish presence in the lodge by the late 1780s had diminished considerably, for many of the émigrés who had resided in revolutionary Philadelphia returned to their homes. There were at this time six Jews who belonged to the Philadelphia lodge.57
Yet, its Jewish leaders and members, for various reasons, perceived the Lodge of Perfection as a valuable vehicle to achieve civic emancipation during the 1780s. Many Jewish members had fought in the American Revolution, believing that an American victory would enable them to acquire their civic freedoms. Numerous Jews associated with the lodge were merchants: they had provided American troops with needed military supplies. A few Jewish members of this lodge were financiers; they sold securities for and extended loans to the revolutionary government. These merchants and financiers, who in some instances were not to be remunerated in full either for their merchandise or for their loans by the American government, also shared in common the aim of acquiring their civic liberties.58
With a fervent desire to earn their civic rights, several Jews from the Lodge of Perfection became involved in military activities during the War of Independence. Two of its prominent members belonged to revolutionary militias. A metal dealer in New York prior to the British occupation of the city, Benjamin Seixas became a third lieutenant in the Fusilier’s Company of the First Battalion of the New York Militia and in late 1778 went to Philadelphia.59 His brother-in-law Simon Nathan strongly supported the American cause, selling to the revolutionaries arms and food and extending a large loan for the 1779 George Rogers Clark expedition to Fort Pitt. Nathan went to Philadelphia in 1781 and served in Captain Andrew Geyer’s Third Company of the Pennsylvania Militia.60 The Jewish civic rights movement was also important to Nathan and Seixas. The 1777 New York state law, which granted both economic and political privileges to Jews, enabled both men to go to New York City and to pursue careers in business.61 By 1785, Seixas operated a dry goods house in that city and later became a founder of the New York Stock Exchange. Nathan at this time went to New York and ran an auction firm.62
Solomon Bush became an active participant in the War of Independence and emerged as an important spokesman for the Jewish civic rights movement in Pennsylvania. The son of a Bohemian immigrant who went to Philadelphia in 1742 to operate a general merchandise store, Solomon rendered his services to the patriots soon after the eruption of the American Revolution. Bush in September of 1777 met with misfortune: a bullet shattered his thigh during the Battle of Brandywine. In October of 1779, members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Revolutionary Council granted Bush for his honorable service both food and pay. Furthermore, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and became the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the Continental Army. As an advocate of Jewish liberties, Bush in 1783 requested that the Pennsylvania Assembly abolish a Christian test oath which denied Jews the right to hold offices in that state. That body in 1783 rejected his request. However, Bush in 1790 lauded members of this legislature for eliminating the test oath in the newly enacted state constitution and for extending full rights of citizenship to Jews in Pennsylvania.63
Jewish merchants belonging to the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection backed the American Revolution and supported the Jewish civic rights movement. Since his arrival from London in 1750, Isaac Da Costa for about a decade operated a retail firm in Charleston with Thomas Farr. Between the late 1760s and 1775, the ambitious Da Costa, who served as a hazzan or Hebrew reader for Charleston’s Beth Elohim Congregation, operated a wholesale firm, selling indigo, rice, and sugar to Newport and New York merchants. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he dispensed needed food products and arms to revolutionaries in South Carolina and, with the British occupation of Charleston, was forced to leave the city in December of 1781. While residing in Philadelphia, Da Costa engaged in some merchant activities, selling military supplies to the Continental Army. Da Costa, who returned to Charleston in 1782 and, who died a year later, had been a champion of Jewish liberties. He spoke against Christian oaths embodied in the 1776 and 1778 South Carolina constitutions. Seven years after the death of Da Costa, a constitution in this state was ratified. That document embodied no test oath and granted to Jews full citizenship privileges.64
Business activities and civic liberties as well occupied the attention of Michael Gratz, an eminent Philadelphian belonging to the Lodge of Perfection. Gratz, who was born in 1740 in Langendorf, Upper Silesia, first went to London in 1756 to work in the export and import business of his cousin Solomon. This ambitious young man then crossed the Atlantic, going in 1759 to Philadelphia and forming that year with his older brother Barnard the mercantile house of B. & M. Gratz. An especially astute marketer, Michael between 1760 and 1775 developed for this firm business ties with merchants in Europe, in the West Indies, and in colonial coastal cities. Furthermore, the young Gratz brother played a central role in building a huge western American commercial empire that extended from Fort Pitt to settlements along the Mississippi River in the Illinois country. To defend his business interests and to protect his western properties, Gratz in 1776 sided with the patriots. During the American Revolution, he did a lucrative business as a military supplier, dispensing food, clothes, and arms to the revolutionary armies in the Carolinas and to those at Fort Pitt. A partial owner of the ship Neptune, Gratz engaged in privateering, capturing several British ships and selling to the patriots at low prices merchandise confiscated from them. During the 1780s, he also defended the Jewish civic rights movement in Pennsylvania. In 1783, he wrote to the Pennsylvania Assembly to protest against the Christian test oath that was required to hold office in that state. With the passage of the 1790 Pennsylvania constitution, Gratz, along with other Jews in Philadelphia, accomplished their objectives: namely, the elimination of the test oath and the recognition of citizenship rights to Jews in that state.65
Two Jewish Masons from New York, who sided with the patriots to secure their civic freedoms, played important roles in merchant and financial activities during the War of Independence. Born in April of 1755 as the second eldest son of an eminent New York goldsmith, Samuel Myers during the late colonial era was a merchant-shipper and a partner in the trading firm of Isaac Moses & Company. After the War of Independence broke out, the energetic Myers became a merchant of the Atlantic world, sending successfully guns, bullets, and shoes from Amsterdam and sugar, meats, and military clothing from St. Eustatius to revolutionary soldiers.66 Likewise, Isaac Moses, who was associated with New York City’s Union Lodge, but who did not belong to the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection, proved during the American Revolution to be an effective financier. The third wealthiest man in Philadelphia in 1780 and a member of the financial elite of Robert Morris and Thomas Willing, Moses was known for using his own money to outfit American sailors. He also became one of the largest stockholders of the Bank of North America, an institution that greatly funded the War of Independence.67
By no means the wealthiest financier in revolutionary Philadelphia, Haym Salomon, who became a member of the Lodge of Perfection the year before his death in 1785, belonged to the circle of Morris and Willing and contributed to the War of Independence.68 A Polish Jew who was born in 1740 in Lissa, Salomon went to New York in 1772 and married five years later the wealthy Rachel Franks. Supporting ardently the cause of the patriots, he left New York in 1778 and went to Philadelphia. Salomon proved to be a skilled financier. He sold securities to support the American Revolution to wealthy French clients in 1780, was appointed the next year as the personal broker for Robert Morris, and took action between 1783 and 1785 to ameliorate the weak American monetary system.69 This patriot as well gave direct support to the cause of Jewish civic rights in Pennsylvania. Without success in 1783, Salomon called for the Pennsylvania assembly to repeal a test oath mandated for holding positions in this state.70
The merchant Jonas Phillips, who resided in New York and in Philadelphia, contributed to the War of Independence and later to the Jewish emancipation movement. A Mason who belonged to New York City’s Trinity Lodge # 4, but who was not associated with the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection, Phillips emerged as an active merchant during the American Revolution. He was a native of Buseck, Germany, who crossed the Atlantic to serve as an indentured servant in South Carolina and who then ran a general merchandise establishment in Albany during the French and Indian Wars. Phillips thereafter operated a food and clothing firm first in New York between 1770 and 1774 and then in Philadelphia between 1775 and 1776.71 Following the outbreak of the War of Independence, Phillips became a commissioned merchant, providing revolutionary troops with food, with shoes, and with woolen blankets. He also strongly embraced the cause of natural liberties, even sending to a Dutch merchant a Yiddish translation of the Declaration of Independence. In addition to denouncing in 1783 the Pennsylvania test oath, Phillips, four years later, voiced his concerns about Jewish rights to the members of the American Constitutional Convention. In his letter of September 7, 1787, Phillips stated that Jews had made great sacrifices for America. He also argued that “the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” should be endowed with the right to be “free in the Exercise of Religious Worship.” Phillips, moreover, maintained that Jews should be permitted to vote and to occupy political and administrative positions in the newly created federal republic.72
Although the impact of the letter of Phillips upon delegates meeting in Philadelphia has never been fully determined, the provisions of the Federal Constitution and those of its Bill of Rights did enhance radically the status of Jews in America. Similar to other religious groups, Jews were not to be mentioned in this document. However, they were endowed with salient privileges and liberties: Jews would not be hampered by the requirements of a national religion and would experience the separation of church and state. Furthermore, they would be granted the freedom of worship and the rights to vote and to hold office in the new federal republic.73 Consequently, the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection and its members had played important roles in helping to earn Jewish citizenship rights in the new nation. Their contributions to the cause of Jewish emancipation should now be assessed within a comparative context.
In Enlightenment Europe, the Viennese True Harmony Lodge succeeded in giving impetus to the Jewish emancipation movement. Sonnenfels, Blumauer, Watteroth, and other writers in this lodge had effectively used its literary journal to publish articles and poems to justify Joseph’s top-down strategy concerning rights for tolerated Jews in the imperial capital. Moreover, these writers warmly embraced the moderate imperial reforms for upper middle-class Viennese Jews, even vividly explaining Joseph’s achievements in light of salient Enlightenment and high degree Masonic doctrines. In backing the emperor’s edicts for select Viennese Jews, they also advanced the tenets of a Masonic civil religion based on economic incentive and natural liberties. It seems as well that these writers in their works concerning Jewish rights succeeded in illustrating the importance of a distinctive Masonic literary legacy in Josephinian Vienna.
In addition to these successes, the True Harmony Lodge, Viennese Freemasonry, and the Jewish emancipation movement in the imperial capital met with failures. This lodge, which primarily consisted of aristocratic members who were former Jesuits, Catholics, and Protestants, backed Joseph’s edicts for Viennese Court Jews, but had no Jews in its ranks. Therefore, this lodge and others in the imperial capital during the early 1780s could not assist in contributing to the process of assimilation. After Joseph, who became fearful of proposals concerning Jewish rights advanced by radicals in the lodge, closed the doors of the True Harmony, Freemasonry in Vienna between 1788 and 1840 played practically no role either in reform or in revolutionary movements. Furthermore, even despite pledges during the 1848 Revolution for their civic rights, Viennese Jews at this time did not secure civic emancipation. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Jews in the imperial capital, experienced, for the most part, minimal assimilation and continued ghettoization. Jews as well were exposed at this time to assaults from Karl Lueger and from other political anti–Semites in Vienna.74
Across the Atlantic, the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection and its members, who in several instances had come to America from Habsburg lands, succeeded in advancing the cause of Jewish civic rights during the 1780s. Unlike members of the Viennese True Harmony, those of the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection were activists who supported revolutionary and republican doctrines as opposed to being writers and theorists who defended imperial reforms. Unlike their counterparts in Vienna, members in this Philadelphia lodge came from merchant and financial middle-class elites, were accepted into the ranks of the Masonic order, and even provided noted leadership to high degree Masonry in colonial and revolutionary America. Through high degree Freemasonry, Michael Gratz, Samuel Myers, and other members of this Philadelphia lodge succeeded in enhancing their business opportunities and in achieving assimilation and social equality. Equally important, the tenets of this ritual system embodied ideologies of civic Judaism and Enlightenment doctrines of an American Masonic civil religion: this ritual system provided lucid explanations relating to the capitalistic work ethic, to constitutional government, to republican institutions, to religious toleration, and to natural liberties. Certainly, the concepts contained in this civil religion were of special significance to Jews who were attempting to earn citizenship rights.
The ratification of the Federal Constitution revealed much about the successes of Jews who belonged to the Lodge of Perfection. Having used a bottom-up approach, these Masons assisted in achieving civic emancipation and perceived George Washington as a modern Moses and as a protector of Jewish civic rights. Either in speeches or in letters, the president of the new federal republic proved to be quite supportive of American Jewry. He even used deistic and Masonic language in responding to its leaders. Washington explained to the Mason Moses Seixas of Newport in July of 1790 that “the Government of the United States should be tolerant of and protect all good citizens,” and that “the Wise and Benevolent Father of all nations should scatter light upon the paths of our citizens.”75
Despite these successes, some members of the Lodge of Perfection encountered problems during the early American republic. Supporting the cause of the patriots to secure Jewish citizenship proved to be costly to some merchants associated with the lodge. After the American Revolution, Samuel Myers, Michael Gratz, and several other lodge members went bankrupt. Myers and Gratz ultimately were able to recover their fortunes, but several merchants in the lodge did not. Moreover, the problems of several lodge members related to various forms of anti–Semitism. Solomon Bush met with occupational discrimination, failing in 1793 to secure a naval appointment to head the port of Philadelphia.76 More importantly, Benjamin Nones and Solomon Etting experienced political anti–Semitism. A securities broker in Philadelphia during the 1780s and an active member of the lodge during the last years of this decade, Nones, who was a Jeffersonian Democrat, was assailed in 1800 by the Federalists for his alleged support of the French Revolution. He replied to the Federalist editor of The Gazette of the United States, maintaining that he was “a Jew and a Republican, but not an Infidel and a Heretic,” and that his right of free speech had been violated.77 Likewise, Solomon Etting, who became an immensely successful Baltimore merchant during the early nineteenth century, encountered anti–Semitic attacks in his efforts to end Jewish disabilities in Maryland. Having struggled for approximately twenty-eight years, the persistent Etting in January of 1826 played a major role in securing the passage of the “Jew Bill” by the Maryland Assembly. As a result of his tireless efforts, Jews in Maryland were recognized as citizens and were allowed to occupy administrative and political positions in that state.78
Several important implications concerning the Jewish civic rights movements in Vienna and in Philadelphia can be suggested. Both movements were related to Enlightenment state building programs and were justified by cardinal tenets postulated in Masonic ritual systems. Moreover, the Viennese True Harmony Lodge and the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection evolved into central institutions for furthering the cause of Jewish civic liberties but achieved different results. Members of the True Harmony Lodge praised Joseph for being the first modern monarch to deal with the issue of Jewish rights. Yet the emperor’s edict, which granted economic privileges to tolerated upper middle-class Viennese Jews and which received support in the essays and poems of these Masonic enlighteners, appears to be a rather modest achievement.
Another implication is that Freemasonry and the Enlightenment were intimately involved with Atlantic history. Both movements were brought across the Atlantic and did much in their new setting to advance the cause of Jewish rights during the eras of the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention. Members of the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection utilized this body with great success as a center for the Jewish civic liberties movement. As a result of the efforts of members of this lodge, Jews in America, after the War of Independence, had acquired economic liberties and social equality. Moreover, the Federal Constitution endowed Jews with full citizenship rights, thus enabling them to achieve political equality. The granting of citizenship rights to American Jews was a sterling achievement for the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection. Jewish civic emancipation in America also was one of the most significant contributions of the American republican revolutionary movement and became one of the most radical moments in eighteenth-century Atlantic history. Finally, this event marked the first time since the year 212 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Caracalla that Jews had been fully emancipated.79