Beautiful post.
Thank you.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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A good editorial, unfortunately the Wall St Journal, so unavailable to non subscribers. A week old, I was hoping it would be republished elsewhere, like the Synagogues website, but I haven't found it yet.
This convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukah not having happened since 1888 and not predicted for thousands (not sure I believe that) of years, Shearith Israel has been celebrating Thanksgiving since 1789.
In his sermon, delivered Nov. 26, 1789, he expressed his profound gratitude for a government that was "founded upon the strictest principles of equal liberty and justice." In a Thanksgiving Day service several years later, Seixas declared: "As Jews, we are even more than others called upon to return thanks to God for placing us in such a country—where we are free to act according to the dictates of conscience, and where no exception is taken from following the principles of our religion."Throughout its history, the members of Shearith Israel have observed Thanksgiving by reciting in synagogue the same psalms of praise and gratitude sung by Jews all over the world on festive days like Hanukkah. This year, thanks to the coincidence of the two holidays, our members will be joined by a global chorus of their coreligionists.
So sad that we cannot read the whole thing. Perhaps a FReeper with a WSJ subscription will happen along and post the rest for us.
Thanks to the great American Rabbi Soloveichik for keeping some history true. That’s especially important during this time of increased publishing of revisionism from foreign interests.
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.
I can’t access the full story at the link.