A year after the Synagogue was built the Jews of Philadelphia for the first time appeared as an organized body in any public proceeding. On the 23d of December, 1783, the minister, Gershom Mendez Seixas; the parnass, Simon Nathan; and Asher Myers, Barnard Gratz and Haym Salomon, as members of the _Mahamad_ or Board of Trustees, in behalf of themselves and brethren, addressed the Council of Censors in relation to the declaration required to be made by each member of the Assembly, which affirmed that “the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments were given by Divine inspiration,” and also in relation to that part of the Constitution which declared that “no other test should be required of any other civil magistrate in that State.” They represented that the provisions deprived them of the right of ever becoming representatives. They did not covet office, they said, but they thought the provision improper, and an injustice to the members of a persuasion that had always been attached to the American cause. This memorial appeared to have had no immediate effect; but it doubtless had its influence in procuring the ultimate modification of the test clause in the Constitution of Pennsylvania. Rabbi Seixas was succeeded in Philadelphia by the Rev. Jacob Raphael Cohen (d. Sept., 1811), who was formerly a reader or hazzan in Montreal, Canada, and New York. The congregation was weakened by the departure of a considerable number of members after the war, and probably also by the death of Haym Salomon, who was one of its most generous contributors, and found itself in financial difficulties about the year 1788. After an application to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for permission to set up a lottery to pay the amount due on the Synagogue building was not granted, the congregation issued a general appeal to citizens of all sects. Among the non-Jews who sent in contributions in response to this appeal was the great Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) and the astronomer, David Rittenhouse (1732–96), the former contributing five pounds and the latter two. In April, 1790, the Legislature passed an act to allow the Hebrew Congregation to raise eight hundred pounds sterling by a lottery. The managers were: Manuel Josephson, Solomon Lyon, Solomon Hays, Solomon Etting, William Wistar and John Duffield. The last two were not Jews, but were placed among the trustees probably to give the project some influence with members of other denominations. The inevitable secession of the Ashkenazic element took place in 1802, when the “Hebrew-German Society Rodef Shalom,” one of the earliest German-Jewish congregations in America was formed. It was reorganized and chartered in 1812. Among its earliest rabbis were Wolf Benjamin, Jacob Lipman, Bernhard Illowy, Henry Vidaver, Moses Sulzbacher and Moses Rau.