June 17: The Whites of Their Eyes

The battle of Breed’s Hill, often referred to as Bunker Hill (which was the adjacent hill), was fought between American colonists and British troops on this date in 1775. Among the 1,200 Americans who stationed themselves in the hills surrounding the occupied city of Boston and fought off the British army twice — killing 226 British troops, including many officers — was Aaron Solomon, a Jewish member of Colonel John Glover’s 21st Regiment from Gloucester. The British drove the colonists out in their third attack, but the victory was costly and convinced the colonists that they could stand against professional soldiers. Solomon was one of fewer than 2,500 Jews who lived in the thirteen colonies at the time of the American Revolution, few of whom lived in the Boston area because of the religious discrimination cultivated by Puritan culture. The Jewish philanthropist Judah Touro (1775-1854) donated the last $10,000 needed to complete the Bunker Hill Monument in 1843 after it had languished incomplete for twenty years.

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” —General Israel Putnam (so legend has it)