Click on image to ENLARGE a photo of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, being presented with a copy of President George Washington’s now famous 1790 letter to the Touro Synagogue & Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, by leadership of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.  The Touro Synagogue is the oldest congregation to be a member of the UOJCA.  In the letter, President Washington wrote stirringly the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” and expressed hope “the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants”.

The presentation was made in the chambers of the US Supreme Court following Justice Alito’s remarks and Q & A to the UOJCA’s Leadership Mission to Washington on June 12, 2007.  (in photo: L-R, Nathan J. Diament, UOJCA Director of Public Policy; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, UOJCA Executive VP; Justice Alito; Mark I. Bane, Chair, UOJCA Public Affairs Commission and Co-Head of the Bankruptcy & Business Restructuring Group, Rope & Gray LLP; Allen I. Fagin; UOJCA Senior Vice President and Chairman, Proskauer Rose LLP; Stephen J. Savitsky, UOJCA President)