PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — At a moment when institutions across the country are asking how to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia is putting Jews at the center of the origin story.

Its new exhibition, “The First Salute,” is about the tiny Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius and the relative handful of Sephardic Jewish merchants who were at the center of what became a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War.

The show opens with a cinematic retelling of November 16, 1776, when the American brig Andrew Doria sailed into the island’s harbor flying the Grand Union flag, an early iteration of what became the Stars and Stripes.…