400 years of special affinity
, עודכן
Unlike European anti-Semitism, the recent episodes of anti-Semitism in the United States -- such as the march by hundreds of torch-bearing, Nazi-saluting white supremacists -- represent a negligible American minority, religiously, socially, ethnically, and politically. These episodes defy the civic, moral and religious foundations of the U.S., as well as American political, media and civic discourse, which have demonstrated high esteem for Judaism from the era of the Pilgrims through the Founding Fathers until today.
"The Colonial Origin of the American Constitution," by University of Houston Professor Donald Lutz, highlights "the continuity from the Mayflower Compact [of 1620] to the American state and national constitutions of the late 18th century, [which] clearly evolves from basic symbols in the Judeo-Christian tradition. ... Protestants writing [constitutional] documents viewed their work as equivalent to the Jewish biblical covenants ... between God and his chosen people. ... The political compact eventually evolved into what we now recognize as the American form of constitutionalism."
The 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties -- the first modern compilation of civil and religious liberties -- which inspired the 1791 U.S. Bill of Rights, "drew heavily on the Pilgrim Code of Law proposed by John Cotton in 1636, which was based on Mosaic principles."
The Torah portion read in synagogues this week (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9) inspired a cardinal distinction of the U.S. Constitution: a government of laws, not of men. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy inspired the 1629 Salem Covenant, the 1637 Providence Agreement, the 1650 Connecticut Code of Laws, the 1680 New Hampshire General Laws and Liberties, the 1701 Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties, and additional codes of civil liberties compiled by the early colonists, setting the Founding Fathers on the constitutional course.
In 2017, conservative Republican Vice President Mike Pence revealed that his faith is largely guided by the biblical verse Jeremiah 29:11, which hangs above his mantle: "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
In 2014, liberal Democratic President Barack Obama quoted Exodus 22:21 ("You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt") to justify his decision to defer the deportation of up to 5 million people who had entered the U.S. illegally.
Today there are eight statues and carvings of Moses and the Ten Commandments in the U.S. Supreme Court, in addition to similar monuments in the federal House of Representatives, the National Archives and additional government offices throughout the U.S. In its Main Reading Room, the Library of Congress features Micah 6:8: "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."
"The Story of Hebrew," by Dartmouth University Professor Lewis Glinert, indicates that the first book written and printed in British North America, in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the "Bay Psalm Book," a translation of Psalms, documenting the prominent stature of the Old Testament and Hebrew among the early colonists.
"Familiarity with Hebrew was quite common among the intelligentsia and the better-trained of the clergy. ... Harvard's first two presidents were Hebrew scholars, as were the first president of King's College (later Columbia) and Ezra Stiles, the first president of Yale ... a world-renowned intellectual, the leading American Hebraist of the era and a prominent supporter of the American Revolution. ... The study of Hebrew marched hand-in-hand with the enlightenment principles of the American founding. ... [President Stiles] learned much about Hebrew from his friend, Rabbi Hayyim Carigal from [the original] Hebron."
While there is only one Hebron in the land of Israel -- King David's first capital -- there are 18 Hebrons in the U.S., among the thousands of locations in the U.S. bearing biblical names. This reflects the state of mind of the early colonists and the Founding Fathers, who considered themselves to be "the modern-day chosen people" and viewed the New World as "the modern-day Promised Land." They established the 400-year-old foundation for the special affinity of the American people for the Jewish state and for America's high esteem for the Old Testament, which dwarf the significance of supremacists and any other form of anti-Israel or anti-Semitic sentiments.
Yoram Ettinger is a former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.
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