This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And we love to tell stories about America's founding.

We also love to tell stories about America's founding. We also love to tell stories about America's faith heritage. And this next story combines both. Here to tell the story about Jews in

America around the time of the revolution is Adam Jortner. He's a professor of history and religion at Auburn University.

His book, A Promise Land, Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the birth of religious

freedom. Professor Jortner, what brought you to study this idea of Jews in the Revolution?

I'm a real history buff.

I had no idea, no clue that Jews had been a part of the fighting of the war effort.

Yeah, it sounds fake.

It sounds like a comedy routine.

I'll tell you about Jews in the Revolution.

That's the shocking thing to me.

And the more I read about it,

the more there was to find about it. Talk about how you came to write about this subject.

I wrote a book about Mormons. I've written a book about Native American prophets. And my wife was

pregnant with my second kid. I was very nervous. And I was like, well, I need a small project.

I'll work on Jews and the revolution because that won't take very long.

My second son's now 10 years old.

So it did take a while.

But what I found out was not only are there Jews in the United States during the revolution,

they're really passionate patriots for the most part. A lot of Jews rush to sign up and a lot of them end up because

of the way the Revolutionary War works out. A lot of them end up in the same city. They're all in

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