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| Touro Synagogue (Photo by dbking) |
According to Wikipedia, this song is thought to have been composed by early 19th-century slaves. The word “fit” was a dialect-version of today’s word “fought.” Although this spiritual ostensibly refers to Joshua's long-ago battle, it (like many other spirituals) has a double-entendre that refers to the slaves’ struggle for freedom in America. Their fondest hope was for the walls of slavery “to come tumbling down,” and the use of spirituals such as these helped to set that course in motion.
Long before that - in 1790 - another oppressed group was also hoping to make America more of a Promised Land. This was the Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, otherwise known as the Hebrew
Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. This congregation (which has evolved into today's Touro Synagogue) extended a hearty welcome to then newly-elected President George Washington as he came through their city during a promotional tour.
What Washington was mainly promoting was the next phase of the overall American Revolution, i.e. the 1787 U. S. Constitution. Moses (yes, that was his actual name) Seixas, warden of the Hebrew Congregation, saw this as a wonderful opportunity to promote enhanced rights for the Jews who lived under that Constitution. In now-famous words (the first use of which is often mistakenly attributed to Washington), this Moses urged the president to uphold “a Government to which Bigotry gives no sanction…”
To further the Jericho analogy, Moses concluded his letter to Washington by petitioning God to send the “Angel who conducted our forefathers into the Promised Land” to assist Washington. He then hoped that Washington, “when like Joshua full of days, and full of honour,” would be “admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life and the tree of immortality.”
Resources
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/bigotry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Fit_the_Battle_of_Jericho
Copyright February 21, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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