Being singled out for hatred because you’re a Jew is the eternal trauma of the Jewish people. All Jewish calamities, from the pogroms to the Inquisition to the Holocaust to today’s alarming rise of antisemitism, trace back to that one idea: All I need to know to hate you is that you’re Jewish.
The miracle of the Jewish story is our ability to prevail despite this chronic handicap.
America interrupted this handicap. Because it was founded on ideas and ideals, it brought out our very best. Suddenly, even our biblical roots, the source of so much animosity, became an essential asset.
“It is no accident that the Founders of America turned to the Hebrew Bible, or that successive presidents have done likewise,” Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik writes in his essay, “What Jews Mean to America.”
Our first president, George Washington, “tells his fellow citizens that the tales of the Exodus and of America parallel each other,” Soloveichik writes. “The Jews were not only to be welcomed as equals in America; their story inspired America.”
Indeed, the extraordinary story of how Jews inspired the founding of America and contributed to the unique American project is one of the great chapters in Jewish history. Not only were we no longer persecuted or at best tolerated, we were actually needed. It’s hard to overstate the liberating value of this development in the collective Jewish consciousness.
So, as we peruse the Jewish condition today, it’s worth asking: Where did this extraordinary Jewish story go? Is it on anyone’s mind?
Gradually and tragically, our story is being erased from American and Jewish minds by another, more urgent story—the rise of antisemitism. Instead of a people engaged with advancing America, we’re becoming a people under siege, justifiably fighting for security and protection.
This must make Jew-haters very happy: they’re covering up our best in the hope of showing our worst.
That troubling thought was on my mind as I went through a thoughtful new book of essays titled, “Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story,” edited by Wilfred M. McClay and Journal contributor Stuart Halpern, who is one of the leaders of the “Restoring the American Story” initiative at Yeshiva University.
A quick glance at some of the book’s essay titles (we will publish a formal book review) gives you a sense of what Jews and Judaism have meant to America:
The Hebrew Bible and the Political Culture of the American Founding
The Hebraically-Inspired Liberty Bell and Its Role in the American Story
Psalms and the American Founding
America’s Favorite Prophet
Why Everyone Loves Daniel
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Hebraic Strain in American Thought
The Bible and the Presidents
Correspondence between Hebrew Congregations and George Washington
Jewish Contributions to American Democracy
What Jews Mean to America
Why Study American Jewish History?
The book could not come at a better time.
Just as we’re mired in one of our ugliest chapters, just when we’ve taken an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to fighting antisemitism– well, that strikes me as the ideal time to remember who we are and why we’re fighting.
For one thing, we’re a lot more than a people under siege.
The American Jewish story is so consequential precisely because it is inseparable from the American story. Today, the American story itself is under siege. The very notion of patriotism has been politicized; the American Dream is no longer in our discourse.
If Jews need America, America also needs the Jews.
Of course, no one is saying we should stop fighting Jew-hatred. What I’m advancing is that we should include in our arsenal a massive educational effort to disseminate what the Jews and Judaism have meant and continue to mean to America. That kind of education, by countering the poisoned dialogue around Jews and Israel today, also fights antisemitism. We already have multiple centers, educators and resources for this effort. It’s a question of mobilizing them towards a concerted campaign.
It turns out that a great example of this effort is opening next month in Washington, D.C.: The Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, an initiative close to my immigrant heart that I’ve written about.
The Center may have been dreamed up by a Jew, but, as it says on its website, it’s for everyone: “The ideal at the heart of the American Dream speaks to the aspirations of people everywhere: No matter who you are or where you come from, you should have an equal opportunity to succeed.”
America gave the Jews that opportunity to succeed, and it led to one of the most gratifying and enriching experiences in Jewish history.
That story is now being overshadowed by the urgency of our fight against antisemitism. I get that. But I also get that Jews are at their best when they aim high. With both the Jews and America at a low point, perhaps now is also an urgent time to aim high, to reclaim the foundational stories that remind us who we are and what we’re fighting for.
