MDDM Washington, Gershom, Great Dismal Swamp

[Doug Millison]

Thanks for digging out that possible source for the name of Washington's
manservant, Gershom.

Here's another Gershom that googles up in a search in connection with
Washington:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Seixas.html
In 1768, Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue
in New York City, appointed 23-year-old Gershom Mendes Seixas as its
hazzan, or reader. Seixas was one of six children of Isaac Mendes Seixas, a
Portuguese converso whose family had to flee to London after Isaac's father
was accused, in 1725, of secretly continuing to practice his ancient faith.
In 1730, Isaac left London for New York, where in 1741 he married Rachel
Levy, an Ashkenazic Jew. Their son Gershom was the product of this "mixed"
Sephardic-Ashkenazic marriage common to the New York Jewish community in
the 1700s.

New York City in the 1760s had fewer than 300 Jews, and one synagogue,
Shearith Israel, which followed the ancient Sephardic minhag despite having
a majority of Ashkenazic members. The congregation was a kehillah, or
synagogue community, the center of Jewish life for this tightly knit group.
The community gathered at Shearith Israel to celebrate holidays and life
events together: marriages, births and deaths. As hazzan of the
congregation, Gershom Mendes Seixas was at the center of the community's
effort to I've Jewishly while immersed in the relatively tolerant
atmosphere of America - a setting much less hostile than the one that drove
Seixas' family, one generation earlier, from Portugal.

We note that Seixas was hazzan of Shearith Israel, not its rabbi. It was
not until the mid-19th century that America attracted its first permanent
ordained rabbi, that is, a religious leader and teacher trained by senior
rabbis and certified as competent in Torah, Talmud and Halacha. Prior to
the 1850s, ordained European rabbis would not remain in North America; they
were apparently unwilling to live without learned colleagues, or to serve
congregants who had, with few exceptions, fallen away from strict Orthodox
practices. Seixas, as the only religious official in the congregation,
functioned as spiritual leader, interpreter of religious law, supervisor of
kashrut, performer of marriages and funerals and all the varied duties we
now associate with ordained rabbis.

Seixas received his Jewish education primarily from his father. He was not
a college graduate, but self educated in Talmud and secular literature,
including Christian texts. New York's Jewish community was simply too small
to live isolated from its non-Jewish neighbors, and Seixas had many friends
and associates among the city's Protestant elite. One sign of the respect
in which Seixas was held was his appointment, in 1784, as trustee of
Columbia College, now Columbia University.

Perhaps nothing better accounts for Seixas' esteem in the general New York
community than his actions during the American Revolution. Despite the fact
that his congregation was split on the issue, in 1775 Seixas -- a strong
advocate for American independence -- persuaded a majority that Shearith
Israel should close, rather than operate during a British occupation of New
York. Just three weeks after, his wife Elkaleh had a miscarriage, and
doubtless with a heavy heart at leaving his flock behind, Seixas packed the
congregation's books and sacred scrolls and removed them, with his family,
to his father-in-law's home in Strafford, Connecticut. In 1780, Seixas
relocated to Philadelphia to become hazzan of congregation Mickve Israel.
Despite his personal abhorrence of war, in his sermons Seixas regularly
called on G-d to bless the Revolution, the Congress and George Washington,
the commander-in-chief of the patriot armies. He considered the American
cause, with its emphasis on individual liberty, as a just war, and
independence a blessing for America's Jews.

At wars end in 1784, Congregation Shearith Israel invited Seixas to resume
his pulpit. At the time, Elkaleh was ill and Gershom was content in his
Philadelphia post, but was ultimately persuaded to return to New York,
where he served as hazzan or "minister" at Shearith Israel until his death
in 1816. In 1787, when George Washington was inaugurated as the first
president of the United States, Seixas was one of three clergymen who
participated a sign of respect for Seixas and the role that Jews had played
in the founding of the new nation, and a reflection of Washington's own
ecumenical views.

Seixas devoted much of his time and prestige to encouraging charity toward
the poor. Contrary to Christian doctrine, Seixas preached that riches were
no sign of grace, nor poverty a sign of disgrace. Each status was a
challenge from G-d: for the poor to endure and overcome hardship, and for
the wealthy to grow virtuous by acts of charity. Seixas believed that the
very purpose of a fortunate person's life was to help others, regardless of
whether they were rewarded for their generosity.

When he died, Seixas was mourned throughout New York City. The trustees of
Columbia College commissioned a medal with his likeness, shown here. His
friend, Dr. Jacob de la Motta, noted that, during the last seven years of
his life, "his sufferings were beyond the ken of human conception," yet
Seixas served his congregation until near the every end. The first
American-born hazzan of Shearith Israel, Seixas still serves as a model for
the contemporary American rabbi.

see also
http://www.amuseum.org/jahf/virtour/page5.html



Some Biblical context:

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/gershom.html

Gershom

Meaning: expulsion

(1.) The eldest son of Levi (1 Chr. 6:16, 17, 20, 43, 62, 71; 15:7)=Gershon
(q.v.).

(2.) The elder of the two sons of Moses born to him in Midian (Ex. 2:22;
18:3). On his way to Egypt with his family, in obedience to the command of
the Lord, Moses was attacked by a sudden and dangerous illness (4:24-26),
which Zipporah his wife believed to have been sent because he had neglected
to circumcise his son. She accordingly took a "sharp stone" and circumcised
her son Gershom, saying, "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me", i.e., by
the blood of her child she had, as it were, purchased her husband, had won
him back again.

(3.) A descendant of Phinehas who returned with Ezra from Babylon (Ezra 8:2).

(4.) The son of Manasseh (Judg. 18:30), in R.V. "of Moses."