America’s early Jews fought hard for equal rights, and got results. They Came For Good, Part I recounts the decisive ideological battles they waged and their resounding victories that made even George Washington take notice.

“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid,” wrote then-President Washington to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, at a time when other world leaders were loath to give public support to their Jewish populations.

Through the use of correspondence, diaries and actor portrayals, They Came For Good paints a rich and varied portrait of the acts that merited such supportive words.

American Jewry began in 1654, with the arrival of 23 Sephardic, South American refugees in New Amsterdam. From these humble beginnings, Jewish individuals soon became influential throughout the colonies, and we are introduced to a gallery of important early Jewish Americans, both celebrated and obscure. In colonial New York, men like Asser Levy and Louis Moses Gomes helped win the right for Jews to serve on the watch, own property, openly observe their religion and have their own burial grounds. Aaron Lopes, a convert to Judaism, founded one of the colonial era’s richest merchant empires. Later, Francis Salvador became both the first Jew to serve on a state assembly (in South Carolina) and the first to die while serving in the American Revolution. Further north, Haym Salomon financed the Continental Congress through his Philadelphia brokerage, asking for no repayment.

Looking beyond these great accomplishments, the film also examines the ways in which early American society often complicated the religious lives of its Jews. Apart from times of worship, many early American Jews strove to show no outward signs of their faith. We are told that this submergence of Jewish identity stemmed in part from the Sephardic tradition: Sephardic Jews had sustained their synagogues and religious devotion for centuries, but without expressing their religion in public life. To examine the changing face of early American Jewish pride, the film subtly but effectively juxtaposes the pre-Revolutionary War era of publicly-secret Jewishness, with the post-war rise in publicly-overt Jewishness.

Attitudes about marriage outside the faith are especially telling of early American Jews’ changing religious attitudes. In the 17th century, Abigail Frank helplessly mourned the marriage and religious conversion of her Jewish daughter to a French Huguenot. In the 19th century, however, renowned educator Rebecca Gratz refused the marriage proposal of a suitor she loved, because he was a gentile.

The film gives life to a few of Gratz’s colorful Jewish contemporaries, who were not above using dramatics of their own in order to further their causes. An actor skillfully recreates Mordecai Manuel Noah’s 1825 announcement to an Episcopalian congregation about the founding of “Ararat.” Dressed as Richard III (the only costume he could find on short notice), Noah offered up Grand Island in western New York’s Niagara River as a homeland for Jews everywhere. Another actor channels the emotional fire of 19th century Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, who fought for the abolition of flogging in the American Navy, while dodging several court marshals and dueling pistol bullets.

The common tie between Gratz, Noah and Levy is their pioneering dual-identities as both outspoken Jews and equally-proud Americans. And as Part I of They Came For Good closes, this newfound national and religious pride sets the stage for the next generations of Jews to put their stamp on the American experience.