National Museum of American Religion Inc - This Month in History

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Mount Sinai Hospital

1/5/2026

On January 15, 1852, nine men representing Jewish charitable organizations came together with a shared goal: to provide free medical care for needy Jews in New York City. At the time, most hospitals discriminated against Jewish patients and physicians alike, often refusing treatment or barring Jewish doctors from staff positions. Their vision became reality in 1855 with the opening of the Jews’ Hospital in New York, a 45-bed facility on West 28th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, then a rural area, now the site of the Ritz Plaza. It was only the second Jewish hospital in the United States, following one established in Cincinnati in 1847.

Christmas in the United States

12/1/2025

Christmas was not always a celebrated holiday in the United States. In fact, it was once outlawed in some colonies. In 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law called Penalty for Keeping Christmas, declaring such “superstitious” festivals a “great dishonor of God.” Anyone caught feasting or taking the day off could be fined five shillings. The law was repealed in 1681, but suspicion lingered. While colonists in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York observed the day freely, many New Englanders rejected it as frivolous. After the American Revolution, Christmas fell further out of favor, dismissed as an English custom. It would not become a national holiday until 1870, when President Ulysses S. Grant declared it a legal, unpaid holiday for federal employees in Washington, D.C.

Theosophical Society Founded

11/3/2025

“There is no religion higher than Truth” — Henry Steel Olcott, Theosophical Society motto

The Theosophical Society was founded 150 years ago in New York City on November 17, 1875. Theosophy, from the Greek theos (god) and sophia (wisdom), means “divine wisdom.” Its early aim was the scientific investigation of psychic and “spiritualist” phenomena. By the end of the 19th Century, the goals of the Society were:

To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color;
To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; and
To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.

Today, the international Theosophical Society’s mission statement (adopted in 2018) reads: “To serve humanity by cultivating an ever-deepening understanding and realization of the Ageless Wisdom, spiritual self-transformation, and the unity of all life.”

Diwali

10/17/2025

Diwali, the festival of lights, is a five-day celebration observed by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains. Following the lunar calendar, it usually falls in autumn; this year in October. The name comes from the Sanskrit dipavali, meaning “row of lights.”

At its heart, Diwali marks the triumph of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil. Families celebrate by lighting lamps and candles, exchanging gifts, enjoying festive foods, decorating their homes, and setting off fireworks.

September 15, 1985: Rev. Benjamin Weir Released from Captivity in Lebanon

9/8/2025

Presbyterian missionary Benjamin Weir was released after sixteen months in captivity on September 15, 1985. He had been a missionary in Lebanon since 1953 when he was kidnapped off the streets of Beirut in May of 1984 by Islamic Jihad, which latter became Hezbollah. His release was negotiated as part of what became known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Press conference about his release (Rev. Weir starts speaking at about 2:37)

Time article available here.

July 3, 2024: First Muslim Promoted to Rank of General in U.S. Military

7/31/2025

Cindy Saladin-Muhammed is the first Muslim to earn the rank of general in the U.S. military.

Saladin-Muhammed, from Newark, New Jersey, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on July 3, 2024 and serves as the Deputy Commanding General of the 807th Medical Command.

Saladin-Muhammed’s career began in 1984 when she graduated from high school, joined the U.S. Army, and completed Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She enlisted as a private, only intending to fulfill her entry obligation of four years. “My goal was to obtain funding to further my studies after high school,” she says. “I never imagined a day I would be a brigadier general” (Rutgers).

June 1636: Founding of Rhode Island

6/20/2025

Roger Williams (1603?-1683) was a Puritan minister and a vocal advocate for the separation of church and state. This conviction would guide Williams to the founding of Rhode Island as part of his quest to provide a haven for religious liberty in the American colonies. Williams was born and educated in England and moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631 to escape persecution. Once he arrived, however, he was frustrated with the same type of blending of government with religion that he experienced in England.

First bat mitzvah in the United States: March 18, 1922

4/11/2025

Judith Kaplan Eisenstein (1909-1996) was the first woman in the United States to publicly celebrate a bat mitzvah, the traditional Jewish coming-of-age ceremony historically available for 13-year-old boys. Becoming a bat mitzvah, or “daughter of the commandments,” signifies that a young woman has attained legal adulthood under Jewish law (PBS). Eisenstein was the daughter of the influential rabbi, Mordecai Kaplan, one of the founding figures of Reconstructionist Judaism. Rabbi Kaplan had his daughter read the Torah on a Shabbat morning at his New York City synagogue.

February 13, 1962—The first Filet-O-Fish sandwich is sold at McDonald’s to cater to the Cincinnati-area Catholic Community

2/28/2025

In 1962 Lou Groen, the owner of a new McDonald’s franchise, was trying to figure out how to save his failing hamburger restaurant in Monfort Heights, Ohio. The problem he was facing was that his clientele was largely Catholic and in the early 1960s, most Catholics abstained from meat every Friday, not just during Lent. Vatican II (1962-1965) did not abolish the requirement to abstain from meat on Fridays. But in 1966 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops removed the obligation for meatless Fridays for Catholics in the United States outside of Lent. In a pre-Vatican II world, Groen had to find something that observant Catholic clients could eat on Fridays that made enough money to keep his restaurant afloat.

NMAR Interviews Scholar of Christmas Brent Landau

12/26/2024

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

NMAR: You teach this class on the History of Christmas this semester. How did that come together? What drew you to Christmas studies?

Landau: Yeah, I mean, I think I had been sort of playing around with the idea of doing a class like this for quite a long time. I mean, I would say way back into my days as a doctoral student, as a sort of a New Testament/early Christianity person, my main area of study and concentration was on infancy narratives – traditions about Jesus's birth and childhood. And I was particularly interested in the apocryphal traditions about...

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