There was, however, notwithstanding the statement of Dr. Benjamin Rush that “the Jews in all the States are Whigs,” a sprinkling of Tories in New York Jewry, who remained at home, and some of them occasionally held services in the Synagogue during the British occupation, under the presidency of Lyon Jonas, and subsequently of Alexander Zuntz, a Hessian officer, who settled in New York. On the reorganization of the congregation at the close of the Revolution, Hyman Levy succeeded Zuntz as president, and the congregation presented an address of congratulation to Governor Clinton on the outcome of the war. Rabbi Seixas was one of the fourteen ministers who participated in the inauguration of Washington as President, in New York, on April 30, 1789. A list of the residents of New York in 1799 whose residences were assessed at £2,000 or over includes the names of Benjamin Seixas, Solomon Sampson, Alexander Zuntz and Ephraim Hart. The community was still small――not quite half as large as that of Newport in the preceding period; there were only about 500 Jews in New York at the commencement of the War of 1812. But it was slowly growing and several of the first communal institutions date from that time. A Hebrah Gemilut Hasodim, for the burying of the dead, was organized in 1785; the Polonies Talmud Torah was founded in 1802, with a fund which Myer Polonies bequeathed to the congregation for that purpose in the preceding year. The Hebrah Hesed we-Emet was organized in the same year. The Jewish community which gained most in the time of the war was that of Philadelphia. The little building in Sterling Alley, where the Congregation Mickweh Israel prayed at that time, soon became too small, and a three-story brick house, in Cherry Alley, between Third and Fourth Streets, was hired. But even the new place was soon too small, and a plain building was constructed on a lot in Cherry Street, west of Third Street, which was bought for the purpose. It was dedicated on September 13, 1782, by Rabbi Seixas. A list of the members of the congregation at that time contains 102 names[18] and the percentage of Ashkenazic (German and Polish) names is much larger than in similar lists of earlier dates.