This Jewish Thanksgiving Tradition Dates Back to 1789

When George Washington announced the first national Thanksgiving in 1789, he called for all Americans to gather in their houses of worship, and to thank God for Independence. A group of Jewish New Yorkers heeded that call and gathered at Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue that still stands on Manhattan’s Mill Street, where they held history’s first Jewish Thanksgiving service . Gershom Mendes Seixas , the hazzan and religious leader of the synagogue—and the country’s first native-born Jewish leader, to boot—delivered a “Discourse” on the subject of Thanksgiving. Seixas said that it was “incumbent on Jews…to be more circumspect in our conduct—inasmuch as we are this day, living examples of His Divine Power and Unity.” Given that Jews, forever maligned and iso