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Was Ben Franklin and George Washington antisemitic ?

December 19th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

GEORGE WASHINGTON: They (The Hebrews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy’s armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in… It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. (From The Maxims of George Washington by A. A. Appleton & Co.)

(This prophecy, by Benjamin Franklin, was made in a "CHIT CHAT AROUND THE TABLE DURING INTERMISSION", at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. This statement was recorded in the diary of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina.)

I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.

In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within the state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.

For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.

If you do not exclude them from these United States, in this Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardized our liberty.

If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. —– Benjamin Franklin

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Possibly. It was honestly the predominant view at the time all over the world in almost every community EXCEPT the jewish community.

  1. David M
    December 19th, 2009 at 08:12 | #1

    Possibly. It was honestly the predominant view at the time all over the world in almost every community EXCEPT the jewish community.
    References :

  2. tracy211968
    December 19th, 2009 at 08:20 | #2

    Ben Franklin was a mason. Don’t know about George Washington
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  3. avarage white dude
    December 19th, 2009 at 08:44 | #3

    yes
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  4. Feivel
    December 19th, 2009 at 09:21 | #4

    Franklin and Washington were both Freemasons which held anti-semitism as one of it’s beliefs. There were and are many Freemasons in the government.
    I believe Jefferson and Adams though have been quoted as writing pro-Jewish statments in later years, in letters to each other. Both, I believe, could speak Hebrew.
    Anti-semitism was a product of the times and still is to a certain extent. Also, there was not a huge Jewish population in America at the time and what was there was Sephardic so that was even a little more different than an Ashkenasic Shul of today.
    I don’t think that anti-Semitism of the men should diminish what they did for America though. Their legacy should remain intact, just maybe a little more honest.
    References :

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