It’s a big year for the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, and on April 22 at the museum, it got started with a cannon salute.
OK, not a literal cannon salute, as they merely shot confetti into the air. But nonetheless, it marked the opening of the Weitzman’s “First Salute” exhibition, about the tiny Caribbean island — St. Eustatius — that became the first to offer a cannon salute to the young American nation after the Revolution.
The exhibition also tells the story of how British Adm. George Rodney blamed the island’s Jewish population and responded by stripping them of their property and possessions. His focus on St. Eustatius allowed French ships to cross the Atlantic and provide support to the U.S. during the Battle of Yorktown, considered the decisive victory of the war. Jews also played a role in shipping gunpowder and other necessities to the Continental Army, which was part of the reason Rodney blamed them.
“The First Salute” opened on April 23 and runs through April 2027, according to the museum, and is displayed in the museum’s new second-floor exhibition space. It’s also the first in a series of three new exhibitions at the Weitzman in 2026, as the museum makes its case to Congress to become a Smithsonian Institution. A children’s display that tells the biblical story of creation to kids will open in July. An exhibit on contemporary antisemitism will follow in the fall. Both of those will be permanent, along with the Weitzman’s continued focus on Jewish contributions to American life and great Jews in America. The second-floor exhibition space is also going to house future exhibits.
“It is a perfect story to tell on the occasion of the semiquincentennial here on Independence Mall,” said Weitzman CEO Dan Tadmor at the event on April 22, opening the exhibit. “It’s, first and foremost, an American story. But it’s also a story of how Jews played an integral part in the fight for freedom.”
Tadmor was joined on stage by Josh Perelman, the curator of the exhibit; Jonathan Sarna, the Brandeis University professor of American Jewish history who also serves as the Weitzman’s chief historian; Pamela Nadell, the American University professor of American Jewish history who consulted for the exhibit; and Laura A. Leibman, the Princeton University professor of American Jewish studies who also consulted for it. Alida Francis — the Dutch-appointed governor of St. Eustatius — came up to give a speech about how the island’s Jewish community made a lasting contribution by supporting American independence.
After the speeches, a George Washington impersonator led the group in the mock cannon salute for the assembled media members.
“Let us mark that first recognition, the first salute, with a salute of our own!” Washington said.
Following the salute, the Weitzman’s marketing team led a tour of the 4,500-square-foot exhibition.
It includes boards with short paragraphs explaining both the story of “The First Salute” and the deeper history of the time: St. Eustatius was one of the 18th century’s busiest ports, a thoroughfare for sugar, coffee and other goods; the island’s European population of about 2,000 was roughly 30% Jewish; and Jews ended up in the Caribbean after Spain’s Catholic monarchs ordered them out of the country in 1492.
It also includes artifacts that Perelman collected with the help of Francis and other community leaders on the island: A chanukiyah from 1761 shows the name of the island’s synagogue engraved in Hebrew; a headstone from the Jewish cemetery in St. Eustatius displays the name of Hannah Mears, the wife of a leading merchant who connected to prominent Jewish Philadelphians and aided the Revolution; a giant, 250-plus year old antique cannon from the island helps to express the type of cannon that was likely used to make the salute.
“The closer we get to opening The First Salute, the more powerful it feels to see these objects coming together in one place,” said Perelman in a Weitzman press release. “This Chanukah lamp is not just rare — it is a surviving witness to a Jewish community that helped shape the Atlantic world around the Revolution. Bringing it to Philadelphia lets visitors encounter that history as something tangible, human and real.”
In addition to exploring the story of “The First Salute,” the display features explanations and artifacts relating to the Jewish contribution to the Revolution and early America. During the press tour, Sarna gave a live lecture in front of a display about Jonas Phillips, the Philadelphia Jew and Mikveh Israel founder who famously wrote a letter to the Constitutional Convention advocating for the abolishment of religious oath tests for public officeholders.
“One of the great contributions of this exhibit, at this particular moment, is that it serves as a reminder: Jews were actually here in 1776,” Sarna said during his speech at the start of the event. “We are at a moment in American history where some are questioning whether non-Christians were involved at all in this story.”