In America, the July Fourth holiday is a day of picnics, barbecues and
fireworks. For me, as for many American Jews, however, it is much more:
Independence Day represents the safe haven and the opportunities that the United
States gave to our grandparents 100 years ago and to us today. American Jews –
like all Americans – cherish the values of freedom of speech and assembly
enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
We understand that more
than two centuries ago Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought for a
separation of religion and state that in our own time allows us to worship our
God in freedom.
Although Jews comprised a small part of the population of
colonial America, the country’s Founding Fathers realized the importance
of
freedom of worship for even this small minority. George Washington’s
1790 letter
to the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island affirms the American commitment
that
bigotry would have no place in the US and that Jews would not be a
tolerated
minority but would “possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities
of
citizenship.”
That commitment has withstood the test of
time.
WHILE AMERICAN Jews have always admired the nation’s Founding
Fathers for their genius and vision, they tend to ignore that these
great men
had little respect for Judaism as a faith. It is true that John Adams
praised
Jews on many occasions in his personal correspondence.
America’s second
president called the Jews “the most glorious nation that ever inhabited
the
earth.”
Adams, challenging the anti-Semitism of French Enlightenment
luminaries like Voltaire, argued that Jews “have influenced the affairs
of
mankind more and happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”
God,
Adams exclaimed in a letter of 1809, had “ordained the Jews to be the
most
essential instrument for civilizing nations.”
Why was this American
Founding Father so full of praise in his assessment of Judaism? Adams,
in the
reality of his life and as a leader of the Federalist Party, knew few
Jews and
had no Jewish friends. Jews, indeed, supported Adam’s political nemesis
Thomas
Jefferson. What was Adams’ point of reference for understanding the
Jewish
contribution to civilization? The answer to this question comes in
another
letter that Adams wrote to an American-Jewish admirer in 1819. In the
letter,
Adams endorses the return of the Jews to their homeland in Israel. This
proto-Zionist impulse sounds wonderful on the surface – but then Adams
explains
the reason for it: Once Jews return to the Land of Israel, they will
“wear away
some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character and possibly
in time
become liberal Unitarian Christians.”
It is clear that Adams, like all of
America’s Founding Fathers, supported the Jews’ right to worship their
God in
peace and prosperity. But as a typical man of the Enlightenment, Adams
expects
Jews to “see the light” and to leave Judaism. Jews embrace Enlightenment
and
Emancipation even today, without realizing its ground rules. The
American and
French revolutionaries granted Jews citizenship and equality but did so
fully
expecting that Jews would assimilate into the majority culture. And, in
fact,
that is what is happening in America today. Assimilation and
intermarriage are
eroding American Jewry and sapping its vitality. Today’s ethnic pride
and
multiculturalism are not forces that are strong enough to stem the tide
of the
phenomenon of “the vanishing American Jew.”
Thomas Jefferson was a
zealous defender of the wall of separation between church and state. For
that,
American Jews should be thankful. But, as with Adams, we should not
ignore
Jefferson’s attitude toward Judaism. While Thomas Jefferson upheld
freedom of
Jews in America to hold fast to their faith, he belittled Judaism in
private. In
an 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson accused Jews of having a
“degrading and injurious” understanding of God that was “imperfect” and
was
devoid of “sound dictates of reason and morality.” Jews “needed
reformation,”
the Founding Father wrote, “in an eminent degree.”
Seventeen years later,
in a letter to William Short, Jefferson claimed “Moses had bound the
Jews to
many idle ceremonies, mummeries and observances, of no effect towards
producing
the social utilities which constitute the essence of virtue.” It was
Jesus,
Jefferson wrote, who “exposed their futility and
insignificance.”
Jefferson was the creature of his place and time. He
could write the famous words that all men are created equal yet own
African
slaves. The logic of his political ideology led him to defend freedom of
religion in America, while at the same time ridiculing the Jewish faith.
In
fact, there were many Jews who agreed with Jefferson that the Judaism of
the
ghetto was superstitious and tribal.
As an American Jew, I am a great
admirer of the Protestant men who founded this great country. But I am
troubled
by the reality that most of the founders only knew Jewish reality
through the
“Israelites” of the Hebrew Bible and had little understanding of Jewish
history,
belief and culture as they all developed in the Diaspora. The granting
of
religious freedom was not done with an understanding of the rich
heritage of
Judaism. Rather, this freedom was given with the understanding that it
would be
used to negate traditional Jewish identity. It was simply the logical
outcome of
political ideology, not love of Jews.
And, if we, as American Jews, want
to understand why our numbers are dwindling and our influence waning,
perhaps we
should realize that America, as a nation, addresses our needs as
Americans, but
is indifferent to our fate as Jews.
The writer is on the faculty of Nova
Southeastern University’s Lifelong Learning Institute in Davie, Florida.