Church-state separation historically preceded Jewish civic equality

Evidence

Real secularism, that is to say the separation of church and state, the aban­ donment of any kind of formal religious commitment by the state, begins in fairly modern times, theoretically from the seventeenth century, constitutionally with the American and French Revolutions. In principle, this separation provided the first opportunity for Jewish equality, not just legal equality but genuine equality with full membership and participation. Just three hundred years ago the English philosopher John Locke published his Letter concerning Toleration in which he observed that “neither pagan, nor Mohammedan, nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.” George Washington, in a letter to a Jewish community leader in Newport, Rhode Island, dismissed the idea of toleration as essentially intolerant, as if “it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.” — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 332

Categorization

• XREF: Washington’s rejection of toleration-as-indulgence parallels Orientalist-critique arguments about liberal inclusion masking hierarchy.