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This Thanksgiving, 3 generations of my circle of relatives will drink a champagne toast, consume the hors d’oeuvres that my mom used to make and my grandchildren now lend a hand produce, take on the turkey that may succumb to my inexpert chopping, after which transfer directly to the pecan and pumpkin pies.
However first, as now we have for many years now, we will be able to learn George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. The letter comprises his declaration that the U.S. govt gives “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no help.” It’s frequently quoted, maximum lately by way of Deborah Lipstadt, the federal government’s particular envoy to watch and counter anti-Semitism, on the huge pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., on November 14.
We additionally learn the preliminary letter of greeting to Washington from Moses Seixas, the warden of Newport’s Touro Synagogue (which we attended after I taught on the Naval Struggle Faculty). The instance used to be the primary president’s stately excursion of the brand new nation in the summertime of 1790, when native dignitaries like Seixas would prolong salutations and he would graciously answer.
Each and every time we learn the letters, a number of qualities of this trade stand out.
For something, it used to be Seixas who first used the well-known word. It bears repeating in complete:
Disadvantaged as we heretofore had been of the beneficial rights of unfastened Voters, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all occasions) behold a Executive, erected by way of the Majesty of the Other people—a Executive, which to bigotry offers no sanction, to persecution no help—however generously affording to All liberty of moral sense, and immunities of Citizenship.
“To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no help,” in different phrases, mirrored the Jews of Newport’s enjoyment of a brand new fact, no longer a press release of a brand new or unique coverage by way of the president. They identified that the bedrock of the brand new nation lay in a elementary equality of citizenship underneath liberty.
Washington appreciated the word such a lot, on the other hand, that he repeated it again in his reaction:
It’s now not more that toleration is spoken of, as though it used to be by way of the indulgence of 1 elegance of folks, that any other loved the workout in their inherent herbal rights. For fortunately the Executive of the US, which provides to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no help calls for best that they who are living underneath its coverage will have to demean themselves as just right voters, in giving it on all events their effectual give a boost to.
That’s the level: no longer spiritual toleration, however herbal proper. 8 years previous, the enlightened Emperor Joseph II of Austria had issued his deservedly applauded Toleranzpatent, later expanded by way of a Toleranzedikt, that gave Jews a wide variety of rights they’d heretofore lacked. However the phrase used to be tolerance, and it used to be a present from the federal government.
If one needs to grasp the fierce patriotism that has so frequently animated American Jews, glance so far of foundation. On this country, we didn’t need to earn our rights, or meekly obtain them; they’re, and all the time had been, ours by way of proper. Jews have identified, as Washington stated, that rights suggest tasks as voters, which in all probability is helping provide an explanation for their pervasive and long-standing engagement in public affairs.
So long as the US stays the US, so it’s going to be. It’s not like our historical past in another state. Glance carefully and you’re going to in finding within the Jewish historical past of alternative international locations phrases like toleration and emancipation, permission and encouragement, no longer inherent herbal rights. It’s the large factor for which my circle of relatives, no less than, is profoundly grateful all the way through this season.
However Washington’s heat reaction to Seixas comprises any other sentiment that might be extra troubling this yr.
Would possibly the Kids of the Inventory of Abraham, who stay on this land, proceed to benefit and benefit from the just right will of the opposite Population; whilst each one shall take a seat in protection underneath his personal vine and figtree, and there will probably be none to make him afraid.
That quote, from the prophet Micah 4:4, rings hole this yr. The FBI director lately declared that absolutely 60 p.c of religiously motivated hate crimes are directed at Jews, who quantity slightly 2 p.c of the inhabitants. On college campuses, Jewish scholars had been pressured, humiliated, and assaulted. And in reaction, too many college leaders have simpered and mumbled, or taken shelter in denouncing the anti-Semitism of a century long gone by way of quite than settle for responsibility for attacks that have been performed on their watch nowadays.
Those occasions have on occasion befell underneath the excusing banner of anti-Zionism. In some instances, the masks slips, and the deeper hatred displays itself. However even those that sincerely insist that they’re simply “anti-Zionist” will have to observe that the Zionist venture used to be the introduction of a Jewish state. To be anti-Zionist is possibly to consider that the venture will have to be undone. If so, you will have to know the way any such dissolution would occur and what it will entail. Take a look at the movies and images from the pogrom of October 7, and observe that the epithet that used to be shouted exultantly by way of the murderers used to be no longer “Israeli,” however “Jew.” And this could also be why nowadays, American Jews know worry.
Worse than the truth that my synagogue has to have an armed police officer on guard all the way through services and products, worse even than the detest spewed at the extremes of proper and left—together with by way of swaggering billionaires and distinguished politicians—is the silence from the ones of whom many Jews anticipated higher. It’s the silence of feminists concerning the rape of girls; it’s the silence of civil-rights activists concerning the homicide of small children; it’s the silence of human-rights advocates about torture and burning folks alive.
And so, that hope—no longer a promise, to make sure—presented by way of George Washington turns out some distance from fact. That’s what we will be able to need to paintings via this Thanksgiving.
The best way to take action starts with the phrases of a modern of Seixas and Washington, from an international away. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav used to be a Hasidic grasp, a mystic, a afflicted and tormented soul, who died of tuberculosis whilst but a tender guy in Uman, Ukraine, the place tens of hundreds of Hasidic Jews nonetheless make a pilgrimage to his grave annually. One among his sayings, abbreviated and edited into a well-liked spiritual tune, is related: “Know that Guy has to pass an excessively, very slim bridge, and that the guideline and the crucial factor isn’t to make oneself afraid.”
This is a refined level: Worry is herbal and can come, however that doesn’t imply we need to yield to it. Jewish historical past and Jewish thriving are about crossing that slim bridge, frequently to the amazement of pals in addition to foes. Certainly, frequently to our personal astonishment.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited Newport in 1852 and brooded concerning the Jewish cemetery there. He noticed a synagogue that used to be closed and, admiring although he used to be of Jewish civilization, noticed in the ones graves a finality about their that means:
However ah! what as soon as has been will probably be not more!
The groaning earth in travail and in ache
Brings forth its races, however does no longer repair,
And the lifeless countries by no means upward thrust once more.
However one such country did upward thrust once more. It survived way more horrible issues than the poet may just ever have imagined. Moses Seixas’s Touro Synagogue—the oldest in the US, predating the American founding by way of greater than a century—continues to behavior services and products to nowadays. Once we named our youngest daughter there, the sanctuary used to be complete. For the resilience and braveness that historical past and that wisdom offers in this Thanksgiving, we will have to be, and we will be able to be, deeply thankful.
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