The American Jew as Patriot. Soldier and Citizen

The keen and responsive sense of duty with which, through Torah and Talmud, the Jewish character is so deeply imbued, has never failed to become manifest when occasion has called it forth. Jews have never been wanting in patriotism and though a peace-loving people, (the very mission of Israel being peace, and good-will towards neighbors a cardinal teaching of Judaism) they have always espoused, eagerly and earnestly, the cause of their countrymen. The heroism and self-devotion which marks the course of Jewish history from the earliest Biblical records, emblazoning the era of the Maccabees, signalizing the Roman period and illuminating the Dark Ages, has found many a worthy example in these modern days. We have here to deal with the records of but one country, yet these records are replete with instances of bravery and undaunted courage, of earnest devotion and of faithful service performed by men of Israel in behalf of this land of their adoption. These records begin at a time before the Revolutionary epoch, when the Jewish settlers in America were very few indeed. At the date of the first census, in 1790, just after the close of the Revolution, when the total population of the country was figured at almost 4,000,000, the number of Jewish inhabitants could scarcely be estimated at 3,000, or only one to 1,330 of the population.