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07/24/2007: "Wikipedia identifies Jewish financier of American revolution"

He was the paymaster-general of the French military forces in the early years of the United States. It is asserted that more than $10,000 which he advanced was never repaid. He lent the young United States government about $600,000, and at his death about $400,000 of this amount had not been repaid. This sum was in addition to what he had lent to statesmen and others while performing public duties and trusts. Jacob Bader Marcus wrote in Early American Jewry that the sum owed to Solomon was $800,000. That amount in 1785 is equivalent in purchasing power to about US$22 million in 2005 dollars. [1]

During the American Revolution, Solomon went to France and raised an additional £3.5 million from the Sassoon and Rothschild banking houses and families. He spoke eight languages. When Solomon was in France, he passed himself off as a French diplomat.

Solomon came to New York in 1772 and joined the Sons of Liberty. He was a brilliant financier and one of George Washington's personal friends. In 1776 he was captured and sentenced to death by the British, but he used his knowledge of German to convince his Hessian jailer to let him out and desert to the American forces. He then escaped penniless to Philadelphia. It was during this period of incarceration where he contracted tuberculosis.

[ Jews have been looking for a homeland for centuries, until the political viability of Israel was achieved. On the way, this Jew helped achieve a mixed bag: a new nation with greater freedoms, but by its lack of explicitly inherent culture, despite its Anglo-Germanic mix, a nation which would eventually head toward political confusion as it has. We all owe Haym Solomon a big thanks forever for helping start the USA! ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haym_Solomon