Cantor’s Note: I hope you had a great Fourth of July. I flew to Israel that day. However, it’s never too late to share stories of Jewish patriots who helped shape this nation.

Haym Salomon (ca. 1740-1785) was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant to America who played an important role in financing the Revolution. When the war began, Salomon was operating as a financial broker in New York City.

Salomon arrived in Philadelphia as the Continental Congress was struggling to raise money to support the war. Congress had no powers of direct taxation and had to rely on requests for money directed to the states, which were mostly refused. The government had no choice but to borrow money. From 1781 on, Salomon brokered bills of exchange for the American government and extended interest-free personal loans to members of Congress, including James Madison.

Salomon married Rachel Franks in 1777 and had four children with her. He was an influential member of Philadelphia’s Mikveh Israel congregation, founded in 1740. He helped lead the fight to overturn restrictive Pennsylvania laws barring non-Christians from holding public office. Like many elite citizens of Philadelphia, he owned at least one slave, a man named Joe, who ran away in 1780. Possibly as a result of his purchases of government debt, Salomon died penniless in 1785. His descendants in the nineteenth century attempted to obtain compensation from Congress, but were unsuccessful. The extent of Salomon’s claim on the government cannot be determined, because the documentation disappeared long ago.

Another Jewish patriot was Francis Salvador. Arriving in South Carolina from London in 1773, Salvador involved himself in politics and was elected to the General Assembly of Carolina. He also served as a delegate to South Carolina's revolutionary Provincial Congress, which prepared the colony's complaint against the British Crown. When war broke out, the British made an alliance with the nearby Cherokees, who attacked frontier settlements. According to legend, Salvador galloped nearly thirty miles to warn the settlers of an impending attack and then returned to the front lines. During one such Cherokee attack, Salvador was hit by a bullet and fell from his horse. Discovered by a Cherokee warrior, he was scalped -- becoming the first Jew to die fighting in the American Revolution.

President George Washington remembered the Jewish contribution when the first synagogue opened in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790. It was called the Touro Synagogue and it was Sephardic. It can be prayed in and visited to this day. He sent this letter, dated August 17, 1790: "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in the land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants. While everyone shall sit safely under his own vine and fig-tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."

In 1941, the George Washington-Robert Morris-Haym Salomon Memorial was erected along Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. The bronze and stone memorial was conceived by sculptor Lorado Taft and finished by his student, Leonard Crunelle. Although Salomon’s role in financing the Revolution has at times been exaggerated, his willingness to take financial risks for the Patriot cause helped establish the new nation.