Jonas Phillips

Jonas Phillips was born in 1736 to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Germany, in either Buseck or Frankfort am Main (Frankfurt). He was the son of Aaron Phillips, who had anglicized his name, and his wife. Phillips grew up speaking Yiddish and later learned English.

At the age of 20, the ambitious Phillips emigrated to the British colonies in North America, sailing from London in November 1756. Working as an indentured servant to pay off his passage, he lived in Charleston, South Carolina. He was employed by Moses Lindo, an indigo planter and Sephardic Jew who was part of the growing Jewish community in the city. By the beginning of the 19th century, Charleston was home to the largest and wealthiest Jewish community in North America, a status it would hold until about 1830.{{cite web|url=http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/0103137.html |title=A "portion of the People" |publisher=Harvardmagazine.com |accessdate=September 17, 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201193427/http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/0103137.html |archivedate=December 1, 2008 }}

In 1759, Jonas Phillips completed his indenture and became a "freeman." He left the South, moving first to Albany, New York, the state capital. He soon moved to New York City, where he became a merchant. By 1760, Phillips had joined a lodge of Freemasons in New York. Phillips left Albany to secure an introduction to Rebecca Mendez Machado, daughter of a Sephardic Jewish family in New York City.[http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/28-F1-Ben-Ur.pdf Aviva Ben-Ur, "The Exceptional and the Mundane: A Biographical Portrait of Rebecca (Machado) Phillips, 1746-1831"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100529103656/http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/28-F1-Ben-Ur.pdf |date=2010-05-29 }}, p. 370, Published electronically in Textures and Meaning: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ed. L. Ehrlich, S. Bolozky, R. Rothstein, M. Schwartz, J. Berkovitz, J. Young, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, © 2004. They married and eventually had 21 children together.

Phillips was attracted to the ideals that led to the American Revolutionary War. In 1770 he strongly supported the Non-Importation Agreement, and favored the Patriot cause at the outbreak of war. In 1776 he used his influence in his Jewish congregation to close the synagogue and leave New York, rather than continue under British rule. The building was abandoned.

Together with the majority of the congregation, Phillips and his family moved to Philadelphia, where he continued in business until 1778. In that year he joined the revolutionary Continental Army, serving in the Philadelphia Militia under Colonel Bradford.

On July 28, 1776, Phillips wrote in Yiddish to a relative and business correspondent, Gumpel Samson of the Netherlands. He discussed the conflict with Great Britain and said the Americans (Patriots) had 100,000 soldiers compared to the 25,000 of the British. He included an appendix of items he wanted to import for sale in America.{{Cite journal |date=1975 |title=Jews and the American Revolution, A Bicentennial Documentary |url=https://sites.americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1975_27_02_00_doc_bicent.pdf |journal=American Jewish Archive Journal The_Jacob_Rader_Marcus_Center_of_the_American_Jewish_Archives |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=111}}{{Cite journal |last=Oppenheim |first=Samuel |date=1917 |title=Letter of Jonas Phillips, July 28, 1776, Mentioning the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058066 |journal=Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society |issue=25 |pages=128–131 |issn=0146-5511}} Thrilled with the Revolution, Phillips enclosed a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Phillips' use of Yiddish prevented most British from being able to read the letter (although they also had German Jewish immigrants in their culture). The British who intercepted the letter did not recognize the language and thought the letter was in code.

In a petition dated September 7, 1787, Phillips addressed the Constitutional Convention, which was meeting in Philadelphia. To support religious freedom, he asked them to avoid making a Christian religious test in the constitution for Federal office holders.{{Cite web|url=http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_3s11.html|title = Article 6, Clause 3: Jonas Phillips to President and Members of the Convention}}

Phillips was one of the founder members of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. When its synagogue on Pine Street was consecrated in 1782, he was serving as president of the congregation. After the Revolution, he and his family moved to New York for a time, but soon after returned to Philadelphia. Phillips continued to reside there until his death. While the congregation left that first synagogue and the property was redeveloped, its cemetery at the site has been preserved and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Phillips died at Philadelphia, on January 29, 1803. His remains were interred at New York in the cemetery on New Bowery of Congregation Shearith Israel. His widow Rebecca Machado Phillips lived until 1831.

Phillips and Rebecca had 21 children together. Their descendants became educated and continued to contribute to the United States. One of their great-grandsons was Franklin J. Moses, Jr., who was elected as governor of South Carolina in 1872. His father, Franklin J. Moses, Sr. was elected as Chief Justice of the state supreme court in 1868. Another grandson was Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish Commodore in the United States Navy. In 1834, he bought Monticello eight years after President Thomas Jefferson's death, and used his own money to preserve the house and estate for the American people.Marc Leepson, Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built (University of Virginia Press, 2003) An additional descendant was Mordechai Manuel Noah, American Consul to the Kingdom of Tunis.{{cite web| title = Jewish Virtual Library, Four Founders: Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785 - 1851)| url= https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/four-founders-emma-lazarus-judaic-treasures|accessdate = 2025-04-27}}

• Jonas Phillips Levy

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• {{cite journal|last=Ben-Ur|first=Aviva|title=The Exceptional and the Mundane: A Biographical Portrait of Rebecca (Machado) Phillips (1746-1831)|journal=Textures and Meanings: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst|year=2006|url=http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/28-F1-Ben-Ur.pdf|accessdate=5 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100529103656/http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/28-F1-Ben-Ur.pdf|archive-date=29 May 2010|url-status=dead}}
• {{JewishEncyclopedia}}[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=273&letter=P&search=Rachel%20Phillips Jewish Encyclopedia article on the Phillips family]
• Leepson, Marc, Saving Monticello: the Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built, University of Virginia Press, 2003. [http://www.marcleepson.com]
• {{cite journal|last=Marcus|first=Jacob|title=Jews and the American Revolution A Bicentennial Documentary|journal=American Jewish Archives|year=1975|volume=27|issue=2|url=http://americanjewisharchives.org/journal/PDF/1975_27_02_00.pdf}}
• Stern, Malclm, First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies 1654-1977, American Jewish Archives & American Jewish Historical Society, 1978, [http://americanjewisharchives.org/FAJF/intro.php]

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• [https://books.google.com/books?id=ErUSAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22jonas%20phillips%22%20gumpel&pg=RA1-PA128 Letter Of Jonas Phillips, July 28,1776]( English and Yiddish )

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Category:1736 births

Category:1803 deaths

Category:18th-century American merchants

Category:American indentured servants

Category:American people of German-Jewish descent

Category:German emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies

Category:People from colonial Pennsylvania

Category:18th-century American Jews

Category:Merchants from colonial New York