In 1790, the new American republic was home to some 2,000 Jews, out of a total population of 2.5 million. That year, President Washington visited Newport, Rhode Island, where he received a letter from the members of the local synagogue. “Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens,” it read, “we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People—a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.” John Berlau describes the president’s response, which came the next day:

[I]n that letter, Washington promised even more than the religious liberties the Jewish congregation had asked for: that Jews would be full citizens of the new republic. . . . Washington was quick to add, though, that the U.S. Constitution goes beyond mere religious toleration and explicitly grants religious freedom and full citizenship to people of every creed. “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights,” he wrote.

Washington then made an allusion to the passage of Micah 4:4 in the Hebrew Scriptures . . . which reads, “but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” Washington stated emphatically to the Jewish congregation that in the new nation, “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Scholars of religious freedom have called Washington’s letter to . . . the congregation a milestone in human rights. For the first time, members of religious minorities were granted full partnership in the nation they inhabited as a matter of policy, as stated by the nation’s leader. The late political philosopher Harry Jaffa . . . wrote that Washington’s letter meant that Jews would be “full citizens for the first time, not merely in American history, but since the end of their own polity in the ancient world, more than 2,000 years before.”

Jews, however, were not the only religious minority to whom Washington would provide much-needed aid and comfort. In Great Britain and most of her American colonies, Catholics couldn’t hold public office or serve on juries. And in George Washington’s Virginia, Catholics couldn’t even pray publicly during the colonial days. But to Catholics, as to Jews, Washington personified the Constitution’s promise of religious freedom through his words and deeds.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.