THE FOURTH OF JULY 1863 was a Saturday, and Sabato Morais, a Sephardi immigrant from Italy serving as religious leader of the Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, delivered a sabbath morning sermon as he did each week. This particular sabbath was unusual, for three reasons. In America it was Independence Day, an occasion for celebration of a distinctive national identity. For Jews it was the seventeenth day of Tammuz, a traditional day of mourning and fasting, commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem, that began a three-week period of solemnity (though when it falls on the sabbath, the actual fast is postponed until the following day). This contrast in moods between the American and the Jewish calendars created a challenge for the preacher, one that could recur periodically, as we shall see. But there was a third component that made the 1863 date unique: it followed immediately upon the conclusion of the Battle of Gettysburg. That Saturday morning, the news of the outcome of the battle was not yet accessible to Morais in Philadelphia—it would be published in special-edition newspapers that afternoon. When he prepared the text of his sermon, and when he delivered the words from the pulpit, it was still unclear to the preacher and his congregants whether the Confederate armies that had penetrated into Pennsylvania would break through the Union lines and threaten Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, DC.

Yet another factor influenced the content of the sermon. The heading over the published text, which appeared in a Jewish weekly six days later, states that it had been delivered on the previous sabbath ‘at the request of the Philadelphia Union League’. This patriotic organization was founded in 1862 in strong support of the war effort and the policies of President Lincoln. In the text of the sermon, Morais confirms the heading, saying that he was ‘officially asked to recall [the occasion, that is, Independence Day] to your memory’, and that ‘A stirring oration on political topics may perhaps be anticipated as the most fitting manner of complying with the request.’ This suggests that there were Christians in Philadelphia who cared about opinions in the Jewish community and recognized the role of the preacher in influencing their attitudes.