Address from the Hebrew Congregation of … Savannah … to the President of the United States: printed in Thomas’ Massachusetts Spy: or, The Worcester Gazette, Worcester: July 1, 1790

The Worcester Spy, originally known as the Massachusetts Spy, was a newspaper founded in 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts by Isaiah Thomas, dedicated to supporting the Revolutionary cause against the British. In 1775, under threat from "Boston Tories", Thomas removed the newspaper's presses to Worcester, Massachusetts and in 1781 the title was changed to Thomas's Massachusetts Spy; or the Worcester Gazette. Famously, the newspaper’s motto “The Liberty of the Press is Essential to the Security of Freedom,” appears on the masthead in English, French, Greek and Latin. Infrequently noted, is the single three-letter Hebrew word that also appears on the masthead: hofesh, meaning Liberty.

The Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia was the first Jewish community to address the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington. On May 6, 1789, Levi Sheftal (1730-1809) wrote on behalf of the congregation what was largely a statement addressed to the subject of religious toleration. Sheftal thanked the new President for his support of such tolerance: "Your unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy have dispelled the cloud of bigotry and superstition." Washington replied, thanking the congregation for its congratulations and confidence in him. He rejoiced that the spirit of liberality and philanthropy "is much more prevalent than it formally was among the enlightened nations of the earth." His concluding prayer featured a recognizably Old Testament cadence:

"May the same wonder-working Deity who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."