(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Hays, Moses Michael (1739-1805). Autograph Letter Signed written to Myer Polock on behalf of Michael Gratz.
Strongly worded letter in which Hays urges Polock to comply with a promise to Michael Gratz and offers a carrot to temper the stick. Hays says he will assist him in “any matter Honorable & Just” if he does.
One page. With autograph address panel on verso. 4to.
New York: 18th December 1770
Moses Michael Hays, a friend of Paul Revere, was a prominent 18th century American Jew and Bostonian. While living in Newport, RI in 1776, Hays, though a patriot, refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the cause of the American Revolution because he felt he had been singled out as for questionable loyalty simply for being a Jew. Persuasively pointing out ways in which he had been discriminated against in matters of voting, he prevailed in his argument and was not forced to sign.===Myer Polock (d. 1779) was Hays’ former business partner. Polock was in fact a Tory. He declined to sign the aforementioned loyalty oath on religious grounds, but in the end was forced to.===Michael Gratz (1740-1811) of Philadelphia an eminent American patriot, was among the widely-known Colonial American Jews.===On the loyalty oath in Newport, see Oscar Reiss, The Jews in Colonial America (2003) pp. 53-4.