Hanukkah and Our Founding Father's Clarity on Religious Freedom for the Jewish People in America

On the final night of Hanukkah, when Jews are commanded to bring light into darkness, it is impossible to ignore how this season began under the shadow of violence—marked by a senseless attack in Bondi, Australia, where 15 innocent and unarmed Jews (including one Holocaust Survivor) were targeted simply for who they are.

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Against that backdrop, it felt especially fitting—and deeply unsettling—that a Christian woman shared with me a “water-cooler” conversation that had taken place earlier that day at her church. In that discussion, several members of the congregation argued that the word Judeo should be removed from Judeo-Christian values, as if erasing the Jewish root would somehow strengthen Christian identity. - Unfortunately, I am not surprised.

Rising Biblical Illiteracy Meets Alt-Right Ideologies (and Holocaust Deniers)

What is emerging in America today is a toxic convergence: biblically illiterate religious actors aligning with alt-right political movements to promote a new form of Christian nationalism—one that preaches an ideology right of MAGA while normalizing supersessionism and replacement theology. In doing so, it treats Judaism not merely as irrelevant, but as expendable. Variations of this conversation are increasingly common, amplified by social-media algorithms and extremist participants (likely funded by Muslim State Actors of Qatar) at events such as AmFest, where radical Christian rhetoric (not based on sound scripture) and radical right politics (based on sound bytes) increasingly overlap.

Source - Institute for Black Solidarity With Israel

While we could focus on the growing problem of biblical illiteracy that feeds this trend, that is a discussion for another day.

Time for an American History Lesson

What matters here is that the Founding Fathers got religious freedom right at the very beginning. It is therefore best to leave the final word to George Washington, who in 1790 responded to a letter from the Jewish congregation worshipping in Newport, Rhode Island, at what is now known as Touro Synagogue.

That historical setting carries its own quiet symbolism. The Newport synagogue itself was dedicated on the second day of Hanukkah, December 2, 1763—a deliberate act of public Jewish presence and continuity, decades before our American independence and a generation before Washington’s letter would affirm Jewish security in the new republic.

George Washington rejected the European idea of religious “tolerance” outright. He wrote that toleration was no longer to be spoken of as if rights were granted by indulgence rather than inherent. Washington declared that the United States is a government that gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance, and he affirmed equal citizenship by addressing Jews as the children of the stock of Abraham, entitled to dwell in safety under their own vine and fig tree, with none to make them afraid.

With those words, George Washington anchored American law and liberty (and religious freedom) in a moral order that predates Christianity itself—law above rulers, human dignity endowed by God, and rights not created by government and therefore rights that no government can revoke.

If you have never read this letter, it is barely a page long and yet one of the most significant documents ever penned in American history. In it, Washington fundamentally answered the concerns of a small community of religious Jews who had settled in America as early as 1658 in Newport, Rhode Island—affirming that their rights (as the Children of the Stock of Abraham) were not conditional, their faith was not foreign, and their place in the American experiment was secure forever.

Another Maccabee Moment

We are living through another Maccabee moment in the world—a moment that demands moral clarity, courage, and the refusal to surrender identity in the face of antisemitism. Then, as now, the threat is not only physical violence, but cultural erasure and the demand that Jews disappear quietly for the sake of ideological comfort.

A Christian Call to Action - Read Romans 11:17

Let this serve as a call to action for all Christians: stand up against replacement ideologies, and stand up unequivocally against antisemitism. Christianity does not exist apart from the Jewish people—it is grafted in, not self-generated. As warned in Romans 11:17, the Gentile branch does not support the root; the root supports the branch.

So to those preaching a narrow Christian nationalism, the answer is neither novel nor partisan: return to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, where the nation’s principles are actually articulated, and engage the full sweep of Scripture—including what Christians have long called the Old Testament. America’s founding clarity does not require reinvention. It requires remembrance of our founding fathers—and, especially on Hanukkah, the courage to keep lighting candles when others would rather extinguish them.

Even Washington said in closing: “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

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WASHINGTON’S LETTER REPRODUCED BELOW

Gentlemen:

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

— G. Washington

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