American Jewish History

We the undersigned Master Masons professing the jewish religion, respectfully petition your M[ost] W[orshipful] body [the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts], to remove certain disabilities, which debar us from uniting with you on the grand Level of universal fellowship.²

Jews may become Masons, only, that … the Jewish brother must … reverendly bow and respond to Christian prayers: he must pretend to venerate Christian saints, and must submit patiently to be bored by the prating of Worshipful Dr. Cantwell's, or the Rev. Brother Maworm's dissertations about the "Blood of the Lamb."³

In 1851, Jacob Norton (1814–1897) wrote an appeal on behalf of his fellow Jewish Freemasons for a more universalistic understanding of Masonic identity. Fifteen years later, his tone had changed, and he complained that Jews were marginalized within the order by explicitly Christian prayers and lectures. The difference between Norton's two statements reflects both a personal story and a communal one centering around a sectarian debate which concerned the meaning of religion and universality within Freemasonry. The debate pitted universalist Jewish [End Page 479] (and non-Jewish) brethren against conservative Christian Masons. Evolving from a petition authored by Norton and signed by six Jewish brethren in 1851, it signaled the emergence of a Masonic public sphere. Ultimately, the Jewish press entered the debate, which thereby transcended closed Masonic circles and assumed relevance for society at large.

The sectarian debate took place within the broader context of Jewish-Christian relations in America. Following the revolutionary era, when liberal Protestantism and Freemasonry shared many republican and Enlightenment values, the fraternity shifted from a universalist outlook to one that emphasized religion. At the same time, American Protestants sought to counter the fragmentation brought about by the growing number of Christian denominations by emphasizing the notion of the shared essence of Christianity. Masonry's professed anti-sectarianism resonated well with these efforts.⁴ Clergymen started to join the ranks of the brotherhood in growing numbers, and this brought about an increasingly overt bond between Masonry and Christianity. The institution of the office of the "grand chaplain" by the Massachusetts Grand Lodge in 1796 attests to this development.⁵ Moreover, the Christianization of Masonry coincided with the Second Great Awakening, one manifestation of which was the establishment of societies dedicated to the evangelization of Jews. Conversely, the quest for the de-Christianization of Masonry coincided with Jewish antimissionary struggles and efforts to formulate a Jewish brand of Americanism.⁶ In this context, Jacob Norton became the moving spirit of the quest for a liberal universalistic nativism within an emerging Masonic public sphere.⁷ [End Page 480]

The paucity of scholarly studies on the relationship between American Jews and Freemasonry belies its true importance. While the issues involved are occasionally mentioned in more general works on American Jewish or Masonic history, and some scholars have looked at Jewish fraternal orders whose culture derived partly from Masonic culture, studies that deal specifically with the Jewish-Masonic relationship tend to focus on narrow aspects of it.⁸ A fuller treatment not only uncovers the evolution of a proud and self-conscious American Jewish Masonic identity, but shows the significance of this Masonic debate in the way it paralleled disputes over religion in American society and polity at large, and echoed many of the arguments in missionary and anti-missionary polemics. Moreover, it shows conspicuously the importance that American Jewry attached to Freemasonry owing not only to its societal significance, but also because of the republican and democratic ethos it professed, first and foremost in one of its central tenets: religious toleration. [End Page 481]