Jews and Freemasonry: A quest for assimilation

Abraham Redwood

Redwood Lodge No. 35, founded in 1878, is often referred to as Providence’s first Jewish Masonic Lodge. The driving force behind its formation was Myer Noot, who, according to Redwood lore, “visualized a lodge wherein the question of religion or race should be no criterion of membership.” In addition to founding Redwood that year, Noot also led the 1877 restructuring of the then-Orthodox Congregation Sons of Israel and David into Rhode Island’s first moderate Reform synagogue: Providence’s Temple Beth-El.

Noot subsequently served the congregation in such varied capacities as secretary, vice president, teacher, dues collector, cantor and – though not ordained – rabbi. Most of the other men whose names appear in Redwood’s 1878 petition for a charter from the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island were members of the Sons of Israel and David as well.

Founded in 1854, the Congregation Sons of Israel and David’s 1877 shift from Orthodox to moderate Reform Judaism was a manifestation of its members’ successful acculturation, despite public prejudice against Jews in Rhode Island. Its leadership also hoped that by embracing Reform Judaism, the congregation would be able to draw in more of the city’s Jews and increase membership.

Between 1865 and 1877, the Jewish population of Providence and Pawtucket grew from perhaps several dozen people to about 500. This community was comprised mainly of immigrants from Western Europe, primarily Germany. In her “The Jews in Rhode Island: A Brief History” (1985), Geraldine S. Foster emphasizes the degree to which these immigrants sought “to acquire those manners and customs that would make them appear more like their American neighbors.” Forming and joining fraternities was one side of this Americanization effort for which the Jews from Germany were especially well-suited. “In addition to an appreciation of social amenities, the German Jews had a genius for communal systems; by tradition they were organizers and joiners,” according to Foster. 

The moderate Reform goal in 19th-century Europe and America was acculturation, which the late Brandeis University Prof. Bernard Reisman defines as “the process by which members of a newly arrived or minority culture take on aspects of their host culture, but at the same time seek to maintain a continuing identification and involvement with their original culture. The goal is to achieve a synthesis of the two cultures, for example, to be Jewish and American.” Redwood’s moderate Reform founders sought to be Jews, Americans and Freemasons. 

Jewish association with Rhode Island Freemasonry predates the establishment of the Redwood Lodge by more than 100 years. Of early Jewish involvement in American Freemasonry, Samuel Oppenheim (“The Jews and Masonry in the United States before 1810”) suggests: “The relationship of the Jews to the Order brought them naturally more directly in contact with their Christian brethren than would otherwise have probably been the case, and the respect and esteem with which the individual members of the race were regarded no doubt tended to the advantage of their coreligionists as a body.” Redwood’s Jewish founders sought similar results in 1877, hoping for more amiable contact with their Christian neighbors, while also maintaining Jewish cohesion.

By then there were also non-Masonic fraternal options available to Redwood’s founding members, and several of them already belonged to exclusively Jewish fraternities in Rhode Island, including B’nai B’rith, Free Sons of Israel and Free Sons of Benjamin. However, Redwood’s Jewish founders were not satisfied with directing their energies toward these Jewish fraternities.

Redwood’s founders originally considered calling their Masonic Lodge “Liberty.” Earl H. Mason’s “Historical Sketch and other Pertinent Data of Redwood Lodge” (1953) explains that in deciding to name the lodge after Abraham Redwood (1709-1788), “the organizers chose to honor a non-Mason from Newport, famed for his philanthropy, broadmindedness and general good citizenship … a staunch Quaker, who numbered many Masonic and Jewish leaders of his day among his closest and most loyal friends.” 

This naming of a mostly Jewish Masonic Lodge after a tolerant Newport Quaker who had “befriended many of the Jewish people in that city” points to the cosmopolitanism Redwood’s founders were striving for, and on which its subsequent members have prided themselves. Rhode Island’s exclusively Jewish fraternities, though closely associated with the Sons of Israel and David and of great importance to most of Redwood’s founders, were insufficient to satisfy this cosmopolitan aspiration, as were the state’s existing Masonic lodges.

SHAI AFSAI (ggbi@juno.com) lives in Providence. At the invitation of Collegium Luminosum, on Nov. 30 Afsai delivered a lecture at the Freemasons’ Hall in East Providence about the ways Jews have negotiated membership in a sometimes avowedly Christian Masonic fraternity and the reasons why they chose to do so.