1776: Jews and the American Revolution with Laura Arnold Leibman

Join Library of Congress for a lecture by award-winning historian and author Professor Laura Arnold Leibman on how Jews shaped the American Revolution and how the Revolution remapped American Jewish life.

Although numerically a small proportion of the population in the thirteen colonies, Jews played a disproportionate role in the Revolution. They fought on both sides, with the war fracturing the small community between loyalists and patriots. In addition to serving in militias, Jews contributed essential funding and ran supplies. The war also reshaped Jewish communities: as patriots fled the British invasion, families were reunited and romances and marriages flourished. In the wake of displacements, new communities arose while some older centers of Jewish life declined. For generations after the war ended, many families kept mementos of the conflict, weaving the objects into the story of Jewish belonging.

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Lilly Endowment Inc.

Part of Afternoons With the Library; Jewish American Heritage Month