George Washington and the Real History Behind a Yom Kippur Legend

In many ways, Yom Kippur — the Jewish day of atonement that begins Friday evening — is a time to start anew. So it was an apt backdrop for one of the most sensational legends about an important turning point in the birth of a nation. As the story goes, during the American Revolution, in either 1779 or 1781 depending on whom you ask, General George Washington (or a messenger sent by him) burst into a Yom Kippur service at Philadelphia’s first synagogue to beg for money to feed a starving, bankrupt Continental Army. One of the synagogue’s founders, Haym Salomon, interrupted the holiest service of the year to write him a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars, throwing in the contents of the collection box on top of that. That’s how he became known as the “The Financier of the Revolution” in children’s books, textbooks and the 1939 film The Sons of Liberty, starring Claude Rains as Haym Salomon. Experts say that, while exact sequence of events almost certainly didn’t happen, there are some kernels of truth in there. The little that’s known about Salomon’s early life leaves much to the imagination. Born in Poland around 1740, to Jewish parents who had fled religious persecution in Portugal, he may have immigrated to colonial America in the early 1770s, around the time of the first partition of Poland. He may have gotten involved with the war effort first as a merchant selling provisions to soldiers on the Cana...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized faith Source Type: news