Jew Bill (Maryland)

The Jew Bill (more formally, "An Act to extend to the sect of people professing the Jewish religion, the same rights and privileges enjoyed by Christians") was passed in 1826 by the Maryland General Assembly to allow Jews to hold public office in the state.[1]

Jew Bill
Coat of arms of Maryland
Maryland General Assembly
PassedJanuary 5, 1826
Signed bySamuel Stevens, Jr.
Introduced byThomas Kennedy

The bill was passed on January 5, 1826, "after a long and arduous struggle."[2] It altered the state's Test Act to allow members of the Jewish faith to hold public office upon swearing to a belief in "a future state of rewards and punishments;" previously, the state's constitution required public officeholders to make "a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion."[3] The fight to pass it was led in the early 1820s by Jacob I. Cohen Jr. (1789–1869) and Solomon Etting (1764–1847), who subsequently ran successfully for Baltimore City Council and became the first Jews to hold elected office in Maryland.[4] Maryland was among the last US states to remove a prohibition on Jews holding public office.[1]

Arguing on behalf of the change, Thomas Kennedy, a Christian who had been elected to the Maryland legislature, said, "There are few Jews in the United States. In Maryland there are very few. But if there was only one — to that one, we ought to do justice."[5]

References
  1. Eisner, Eric (September 2020). ""Suffer Not the Evil One": Unitarianism and the 1826 Maryland Jew Bill". Journal of Religious History. 44: 338–355.
  2. Eitches, Edwards (June 1971). "Maryland's "Jew Bill"" (PDF). American Jewish Historical Quarterly. 60 (1–4): 258–78.
  3. Bock, James (April 13, 1992). "19th-century advocate of rights for Jews gets his due; Pikesville woman persists to success". Baltimore Sun.
  4. Wiernik, Peter (1912). History of the Jews in America: From the Period of the Discovery of the New World to the Present Time. New York: Jewish Press Publishing Company. pp. 127. jew bill maryland jacob cohen.
  5. Niebuhr, Gustav (Jul 31, 2008). Beyond Tolerance: How People Across America Are Building Bridges Between Faiths. Penguin.
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