Commissioned by B’nai B’rith for the United States Centennial, “Religious Liberty” was dedicated in Fairmount Park on Thanksgiving Day in 1876. Carved in Rome from a single block of Carrara marble, the statue is by Sir Moses Ezekiel, an American Jewish sculptor. (A southerner who fought in the Confederate Army, his best-known commission was the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, removed on December 20, 2023.) Founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith was then a fraternal organization founded to confront “the deplorable condition of Jews in this, our newly adopted country.”
The monument was rededicated by B’nai B’rith International for the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976 and relocated to a site in front of the National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall on May 4, 1986. The photo on the left is of the statue at its original location, on the right, its current location.
Carved into the plinth: Dedicated to the people of the United States by the order B’nai B’rith and Israelites of America in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of American Independence.
The allegorical group represents liberty protecting religious freedom. The female figure wears the liberty cap bordered by thirteen stars for each of the original American colonies. In her left hand she holds the constitution of the United States. Religion is personified by a youth standing beside Liberty, whose outstretched arm extends over him protectively. His right hand reaches toward her, while in his left, he holds the inextinguishable flame of faith. At the base of the group is an American eagle crushing a serpent in its talons, signifying the triumph of American democracy over the tyranny of intolerance and oppression.
The Centennial Exhibition ran from May 10 to November 10 1876 and welcomed nearly ten million visitors. The statue was meant to occupy a prominent location at Memorial Hall which showcased art from the western world. Delayed by the sculptor’s perfectionism and B’nai B’rith’s delay in paying him, Religious Liberty did not make it to the U.S. before the exhibition ended its six-month run and was shuffled off to another location in Fairmont Park.
