Rev Gershom Mendes Seixas led New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, for five decades beginning in the 1760s. A passionate advocate for the Patriots’ cause in the American War of Independence, Sexias echoed George Washington’s establishment of a national day of Thanksgiving in 1789 with a sermon in which he urged his fellow congregants “to make a joyful noise” and “to live, as Jews ought to do, in brotherhood and amity.” In celebration of this year’s Thanksgiving holiday, we offer this excerpt of Sexias’ sermon:“...it is necessary that we, each of us in our respective stations, behave in such a manner as to give strength and stability to the law entered into by our representatives; to consider the burden imposed on those who are appointed to act in the executive department; to contribute, as much as lays in our power, to support that government which is founded upon the strictest principles of equal liberty and justice. If to seek the peace and prosperity of the city wherein we dwell be a duty even under bad governments, what must it be when we are situated under the best of constitutions? It behooves us to use our utmost endeavors to suppress every species of licentiousness; to unite, with cheerfulness and uprightness, upon all occasions that may occur in the political as well as in the moral world, [and] to promote that which has a tendency to the public good....”