Overview
Moses Seixas served as an officer of Newport’s Jewish congregation and composed its address welcoming President George Washington. The congregation expressed hope that the new government would protect religious liberty and reject inherited patterns of persecution. Washington’s reply adopted the address’s language while declaring that toleration was not merely a favor granted by one group to another. The exchange later became a foundational American text of Jewish civic inclusion. Its historical setting remained unequal and incomplete, but Seixas’ address shows a Sephardic congregation using public rhetoric to claim belonging, security, and constitutional principle.
