President Abraham Lincoln maintained the Union and freed America’s slaves. Less known is that he also championed the rights of Jewish Americans, even when it was difficult and unfashionable to do so.
Here are ten snapshots of President Lincoln’s remarkable relationship with Jews and examples of Lincoln’s support for full rights for his fellow Jewish citizens.
1. Biblical Education
Pres. Lincoln has been called America’s most biblically literate president. He regularly quoted from the Bible in letters, speeches and ordinary conversation. Unlike many American Christians of his time, Lincoln eschewed the habit of focusing primarily on the Christian parts of his Bible, and seemed remarkably comfortable with the Torah (the so-called “Old Testament”).
According to historian Jonathan Sarna, Lincoln quoted from the Old Testament much more often than from the New Testament. In his surviving letters, Lincoln mentions God over 420 times, yet remarkably never refers directly to Jesus.
One example of Lincoln’s familiarity with the Jewish Bible can be seen in his June 29, 1863 letter to General Robert Milroy. Reprimanding the general for his disobedience, Lincoln referenced the Jewish story of Moses, who sinned by losing his temper and struck a rock. “This, my dear general, is I fear, the rock on which you have split”, Lincoln chided the general, vividly drawing on this famous Jewish story.
2. First Jewish Friend
Unlike many 19th Century American Christians, Abraham Lincoln considered many Jews his friends. The first Jew whom Lincoln might have befriended was Julius Hammerslough, a young store owner in the Illinois state capitol of Springfield. When Lincoln was elected to the Illinois State Legislature in 1834, he met Hammerslough and took the unusual step of socializing with the young merchant.
By all accounts, Hammerslough was a proud Jew. As a young man he’d served as secretary of Baltimore’s Hebrew Assistance Society. In 1865, when his new home town of Springfield built its first synagogue, Hammerslough served as its president. At a time when Jews were viewed with suspicion, Lincoln treated Hammerslough as an equal. Once Lincoln became president, Hammerslough was a frequent guest at the White House. Hammerslough died in 1908; his obituary in the New York Times described him as a “warm friend of Abraham Lincoln”.
3. Jewish Best Friend
One of Lincoln’s closest friends was Abraham Jonas, a Kentucky merchant, lawyer and politician who supported and encouraged Lincoln for most of his life. Jonas was one of the very first public figures to encourage Lincoln to run for president; he was also the only person Lincoln ever referred to as “one of my most valued friends”.
Abraham Jonas
Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in England, Jonas moved to Cincinnati with his brother as a teenager in 1819. The pair established Ohio’s first synagogue. Jonas later served in the Kentucky House of Representatives, and eventually settled in Quincy, Illinois, where he became a lawyer and politician. There, Jonas’ religion was plain to all: his law office was in the same building as Quincy’s Congregation B’nai Abraham synagogue, which Jonas and his brothers had helped establish.
Congress’ passage of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing the westward expansion of slavery into new states, horrified both Jonas and Lincoln; both spoke out against the measure and against slavery. It was Abraham Jonas who first invited Lincoln to debate Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, who supported the Act, in what would become the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates, some of the most seminal American political speeches ever made, concerning slavery and the nature of the American union.
When the Civil War broke out, both Lincoln’s and Jonas’ own families found themselves on both sides of the divide: two of Abraham Jonas’ five sons fought for the Confederacy. When his neighbors in Quincy demanded that Jonas resign his position as the city’s postmaster because he had sons fighting Illinois, Jonas issued an anguished response:
If it be true, as they say, that two of my sons are in the rebel army, however grieved I may be at the knowledge thereof, all true men who know me will sympathize with me and admit that I have no control in the matter. My five boys were in the South many years before the rebellion, and when last heard from were all loyal to the Union. That two of them, like hundreds of other loyal men, should have been compelled to join the rebel army I am not prepared to deny, since I have not received a line from any of one of them since the commencement of this unhappy war.
Jonas’ son Charles was captured and sent to a Union prisoner of war camp in Ohio. Abraham Jonas’ health began to deteriorate, and in 1864, as Jonas lay on his deathbed, his daughter Annie sent word to Lincoln that his old friend wasn’t long for the world, and asked that Charles be released so he could visit his father once more before he died. Lincoln at once penned a note to Charles’ jailers: “Allow Charles H. Jonas, now of prisoner of war at Johnson’s Island, a parol(e) of three weeks to visit his dying father.” Charles rushed home to Quincy on June 8, 1864, just in time for Abraham Jonas to see and recognize him. Abraham Jonas died later that day and was buried in the Jewish Sunset Cemetery in Quincy, Illinois.
4. Jewish Photographer
Lincoln lived at the dawn of the invention of photography. Some of the most iconic photos of him were taken by Samuel Alschuler, a Jewish photographer in Illinois.
Samuel Alschuler
The photo of Abraham Lincoln taken by S. Alschuler
Born in Bavaria in 1826, Samuel Alschuler moved to the United States and opened a portrait studio in Urbana, Illinois. On April 25, 1858, Alschuler received a distinguished visitor: Abraham Lincoln, then campaigning for Senate. The then-beardless Lincoln was dressed in an old linen coat that Alschuler felt was too shabby for a photo. He asked Lincoln if he had another coat to change into. Lincoln replied he’d left his other coats at home, and Alschuler – who was about a foot shorter than the future president – offered his own velvet-trimmed coat instead.
Alschuler’s photo of president-elect.
Lincoln sat for Alschuler again two years later, after he was elected President. The second photo shows a very different looking Lincoln: he’d started to grow his famous beard – and had also brought his own formal coat for the sitting.
5. “I believe we have not yet appointed a Hebrew”
As Civil War raged, Lincoln recruited military and civilian leaders to help lead the fight. He openly appointed Jews, never disparaging them for their religion, as many of his contemporaries routinely did. One of Lincoln’s earliest Jewish wartime appointments was Alfred Mordecai, Jr., whom Lincoln appointed second lieutenant in 1861, after the fall of Fort Sumter. In addition to officers, Pres. Lincoln also appointed about 50 Jews to be Quartermasters, overseeing housing, supplies, transportation and clothing for the troops.
Lincoln’s memo to appoint a Hebrew
In 1862, when an Orthodox Jew, Cheme Moise Levy, who came from a distinguished New York rabbinic family, applied to be a military Quartermaster, his very obvious Jewishness seems to have endeared him to Lincoln. “I believe we have not yet appointed a Hebrew,” Pres. Lincoln wrote to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, urging Levy’s appointment. Cheme Levy became Captain Levy in the Union Army, and helped distribute food and clothing to Jewish soldiers who’d been wounded in battle.
6. Pardoning a Deserter
In the middle of the night one day in 1861, Pres. Lincoln was informed that two men were at the White House and demanded to see him. They were Thomas Corwin, a former Ohio senator who was now working as a lawyer in Washington DC, and Simon Wolf, a Jewish lawyer whose family had moved to the United States from Germany and was one of Lincoln’s many Jewish friends. Wolf had just received word of a Jewish soldier in the Union Army who was about to be shot for desertion; the two lawyers paid a midnight visit to Lincoln to plead the soldier’s case and save his life.
The Jewish soldier’s “crime” was rushing to the bedside of his dying mother, who’d begged to give him one last blessing and see him again before she died. Lincoln was generally sympathetic to the cause. He’d recently written “When I think of these mere lads, who had never before left their homes...and then in the camp or on the battlefield a thousand miles from home, longing for its rest and safety, I have so much sympathy for him that I cannot condemn him to die for forgetting the obligations of the soldier in the longing for home life. There is death and woe enough in this war without such a sacrifice”. Yet it was Lincoln’s generally willingness to pardon deserters that nearly cost this one Jewish soldier his life.
Secretary of War Edward McMasters Stanton had had enough of Lincoln’s leniency, and threatened to resign if the President pardoned one more deserter. Lincoln told Wolf and Corwin there was nothing he could do. Instead of leaving, Simon Wolf made one last impassioned plea:
What would you have done in the boy’s place? If your dying mother had summoned you to her bedside to receive her last message before her soul would be summoned to its Maker, would you rather have been a deserter to her who gave you birth or a deserter in law but not in fact to the flag to which you had sworn allegiance?
Lincoln was very moved, and rang a bell to summon his secretary, ordering him to send a telegram immediately, in the middle of the night, to stay the Jewish soldier’s execution. The soldier went on to serve heroically and was killed in 1864 at the Battle of Cold Harbor as he lead a charge against the enemy, holding the Union flag as he fell. When Lincoln heard of the boy’s death, he said “I thank God for having done the right thing” in staying his execution years before.
7. Jewish Chaplains
At the start of the Civil War, 30 chaplains served in the American army; none of them were Jewish since federal law stipulated that chaplains must be Christian. In 1861, one heavily Jewish Pennsylvania regiment tried to circumvent this rule by appointing a young Hebrew teacher from Philadelphia named Michael Allen as a volunteer Jewish chaplain. Since the letter of the law stipulated that a military chaplain received pay, this was a way of getting around the ban. Allen’s appointment sparked a vigorous backlash and he was soon forced to resign.
Cincinnati’s Isaac Mayer Wise, who led a Reform congregation and also published a Jewish newspaper called the Israelite, began a campaign, calling on Jews across the country to “petition (Congress) from all parts of the U.S.”, to encourage their non-Jewish neighbors to sign petitions, and to send petitions calling for Jewish military chaplains “to your representative or senator”. Petitions began pouring in, from both big cities with large Jewish populations like Baltimore, as well as tiny towns with hardly any Jews such as Edinburgh, Indiana and Columbus, Iowa.
Rabbi Arnold Fischel
A Jewish communal organization sent Rabbi Arnold Fischel, a learned Philadelphia Jew, to Washington DC to lobby for Jewish chaplains in person. After petitioning for a meeting with President Lincoln, on December 11, 1861, Fischel was invited to the White House and, as he later described “at once invited to (Pres. Lincoln’s) room and was received with marked courtesy”. Fischel later recalled Lincoln’s words: “He truly admitted the justice of my remarks, that he believed the exclusion of Jewish chaplains to have been altogether unintentional on the part of Congress (and) that something ought to be done to meet this case.”
Lincoln himself went to work lobbying Congress to allow Jewish chaplains. He faced strong opposition from some Christian denominations, but eventually succeeded: a 1862 law changed the requirements to become a military chaplain, made the vetting process more rigorous and professional, and for the first time in history allowed non-Christians in the post. Lincoln threw his support behind Jewish chaplains, and approved the first Jewish military chaplain on September 18, 1862: Rev. Jacob Frankel of Rodef Shalom congregation in Philadelphia.
8. Expelling the Jews
On December 17, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant issued a hateful decree: General Orders No. 11, which expelled all Jews (“Jews as a class”) from the areas under his control, which stretched from northern Mississippi to the southern tip of Illinois, and from the Mississippi to the Tennessee Rivers.
A long-time anti-Semite, Grant had come to think of Jews as speculators and war profiteers. The fact that thousands of Jews were heroically serving in the Union Army at the time seemingly did nothing to change his anti-Jewish hatred. Luckily for many of the Jews in the area, news of General Orders No. 11 moved slowly, hampered by fighting that damaged telegraph lines.
While many communities didn’t receive Grant’s expulsion orders, several individual Jews were robbed and abused by people who’d heard of them. On December 28, 1862, news of the orders reached the town of Paducah, Kentucky. Chillingly, the city elders seem to have had no trouble putting them into action, giving the town’s Jewish residents 24 hours to leave. Women and children were forced out of their homes too. The scene was chaotic: one baby was nearly lost, and two Jewish women who were elderly and very sick were unable to move. Non-Jewish neighbors volunteered to take them in and care for them.
Cesar Kaskel
Cesar Kaskel, a prominent Jewish resident of Paducah, sent a desperate telegram to Pres. Lincoln which never arrived. Kaskel then rushed in person to Washington DC and called on a friend who was a Congressman for help in reaching the President. Kaskel received and audience with Lincoln right away and discovered that Lincoln had not yet been informed of his General’s anti-Jewish decree. The President reassured Kaskel that America’s Jews would have Lincoln’s “protection...at once”.
Lincoln immediately turned to Henry Halleck, the General in Chief of the Union Army, ordering him to counter General Grant’s odious order. On January 6, 1863, Grant’s headquarters was forced to send out several telegrams to all corners notifying those in the areas he controlled that “By direction of the General in Chief of the Army at Washington, the General Order from these Head Quarters expelling Jews from this Department is hereby revoked.” (General Grant went on to become the 18th President of the United States, running in the same Republican party that was home to the very different, and very tolerant, President Lincoln.)
The day after the order was revoked, a delegation of Jewish leaders travelled to Washington DC to thank the President. Lincoln carved out time in his busy day to meet with them, and, according to Isaac Mayer Wise, who attended and later wrote about the encounter, assured his Jewish visitors that he knew “of no distinction between Jews and Gentile” and stressed his revulsion at Gen. Grant’s orders and virulent anti-Semitism.
9. Jew Telegraphing the Emancipation Proclamation
In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, eight telegraphers staffed the Union Army’s telegraph office in Washington DC. One of the young telegraphers was a 19 year old Jew from Bohemia named Edward Rosewater. Rosewater described the president in letters to his fiancé Leah: “Every morning about 8 o’clock (Pres. Lincoln) comes in to read Dispatches which are copied into books…. His house being near to this, he is here often. Sometimes, he tells an anecdote, or reads as Story aloud and laughs [You could hear him ½ mile].”
Edward Rosewater
Rosewater was present on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln signed a historic decree, and declared “I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper.” It was the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing over 3 million slaves. A few hours later, as Pres. Lincoln watched, Rosewater typed the document into the telegraph’s machinery, sending it far and wide throughout the country. “And upon this act,” Rosewater typed, “sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
10. Death and Remembrance
Abraham and Mary Lincoln were ardent theatre-goers. Surprisingly, they seem to have particularly enjoyed plays with Jewish themes. In the years before Lincoln’s assassination they watched a play called Gamea, or The Jewish Mother and enjoyed it so much they went back to see it again a few days later. They also watched The Merchant of Venice and a Leah, the Forsaken about a Jewish woman facing down prejudice and persecution.
On April 14, 1865, the Lincolns were watching a play in Washington DC’s Ford Theatre when Lincoln was gunned down by John Wilkes Booth, an enraged and unbalanced actor. Later, Mary Todd Lincoln said Abraham had just a few minutes earlier said that he hoped one day they could travel to visit the land of Israel together.
At least one Jewish doctor was among those who treated the wounded president: Charles H. Liebermann, a prominent Jewish doctor who was born in Russia and lived in Washington DC, where he’d helped create Georgetown University’s Medical School. Dr. Liebermann tried to pour brandy down Lincoln’s throat in a desperate effort to revive him, but was unsuccessful. Lincoln died the following day.
Among the millions who mourned the 16th President, many Jewish congregations held special services and composed prayers for their beloved president. When Lincoln’s coffin was paraded through the streets of New York, a local newspaper estimated that 7,000 Jews came out to pay their respects. In Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln was buried on May 4, 1865, his old friend Julius Hammerslough closed his store and displayed a portrait of Lincoln with a declaration that captured what so many felt: “Millions bless thy name.”
Today, in addition to monuments to Abraham Lincoln in the United States, a beautiful street in central Jerusalem is named for Lincoln, a fitting tribute to the Jewish people’s gratitude to a president who championed and defended America’s Jews.
Books for further reading include:
Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell (2015).
The Presidents of the United States & the Jews by David G. Dalin & Alfred J. Kolatch (2000).
When General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna (2012).
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006).
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(27) Linda Noland, July 17, 2020 8:58 PM
Good but incomplete
Mr. Lincoln believed that he had Jewish ancestors and said so to Isaac Mayer Wise. President Lincoln’s family came from Lincoln, England which was a safe haven for Jews for centuries. This can be found in “We called him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, A Documentary History” By Gary Phillip Zola; copyright 2014, pages 388-389. Professor Zola is the executive director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and Professor of the American Jewish experience at Hebrew Union College. Thank - you for your fine article and the work that you put in to it. Shalom, Linda Noland
(26) Laurence Stern, September 25, 2019 10:12 PM
Grant was the first president to appoint a Jew to the cabinet. The man did not accept stating the salary was inadequate.
(25) Anonymous, September 3, 2019 6:00 PM
I Discovered Abraham Lincoln was Jewish on my blood relation geni tree,no intermarriages there
Abraham Lincoln must have been Jewish
(24) Charles kaltwasser, February 21, 2019 5:06 AM
I have been fired many times because of political correctness
I lived in Taiwan 1977, saw many swastikas there，but of course a Taiwan swastika has no world war two association，it denotes Buddhism. but the Lady Gaga generation only watches wicked TV movies etc and has no time for “book learning” so the esoteric notion that a swastika might mean Buddhist meditation bliss is too much for todays over sexed overly violent illiterate masses.
(23) Anonymous, February 11, 2019 3:40 AM
I was deeply moved by this article, did not know any of this. Thank you!
Love this e-mail news..................and LOVE ISRAEL.
(22) Chuck Andelman, January 21, 2019 11:29 PM
Misleading on Grant
While historically correct on Grant's orders regarding removing Jews from military districts, I believe your were misleading on Grant as an congenital anti semite. Grant openly regretted this order in later life and as you should know became the first President to attend a Jewish religious service and appointed many Jews to his administration. He also strongly defended the Reconstruction era state southern governments and newky free Blacks against resurgent neo Confederate activity including the Klan. Overall your depiction of Grant was needlessly one sided and inaccurate.
(21) Steve, December 27, 2018 5:33 PM
Lincoln And The Jews - General Grant
I read that General Grant claims he was mislead by people in the field about the jews illegal commerce involvements, which cause him to issue Order #11. Also, when Grant became President, he had more Jews in his cabinet then any previous President.
(20) Dobra Levitt, December 18, 2018 9:40 PM
Praising article for enlightening both Jews and non-Jews
Thank you, Dr. Miller, for your very fine article on Abraham Lincoln's benevolent actions on behalf of Jews. It serves to confirm even more strongly the love and respect all Americans feel for this great President. It would be wonderful if this article would be recommended for inclusion in high school and college American History texts especially now at a difficult time in America's history.
(19) Anonymous, December 7, 2018 6:55 PM
Jews & CSA
several in cabinet, Judah Benjamin, Meyers, DeLeon. Only known military Jewish cemetery outside of Israel is in Richmond for Confederate Jewish soldier,
(18) Sanjay S D, December 4, 2018 8:31 AM
Bettering Indo Israeli brotherhood
Shalom,
We are a film production house, are working on a film project that aims to further empower our relationship with Israeli's along with the Bene-Israeli community that returned back to their fatherland, wish to discuss how we wish to go about it.
Looking forward to hear from you,
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(REsearch based writer and CSR strategist)
Flamingo Motion Pictures
(17) Ande Harkov, November 27, 2018 3:18 PM
Grant and the Jews
very interesting article. However, although grant's edict was clearly antisemitic according to the great biographer Ron Chernow, Grant was not an anti-Semite and made the mistake on relying on the advise of others in issuing the awful decree.
He spent a great deal of his life trying to make up for his awful mistake.
(16) Anne Snyder, November 26, 2018 2:46 AM
I have read that Grant was not antisemitic and had Jewish friends . His soldiers were complaining that Jewish Peddlers were following the troops and wanted it stopped . They were expelled for that and not for being Jewish. He later apologized.
(15) George Daws, November 25, 2018 11:10 PM
Brilliant
I never knew any of this and I am so glad this man realised that Christianity would have been nothing without first there were JEWS.
(14) jay, November 24, 2018 3:54 AM
To Life
Abe Lincoln was not perfect. Who is? But actions like those described are indeed perfect.
Anonymous, December 2, 2018 9:53 PM
A Man of His Time
Indeed, he was a man of his time. Lincoln clearly stated he did not believe black people should vote or hold public office.
Additionally, a careful look at the Proclamation will show it was not what people believe it to be.
Slavery existed in both Union and Confederate States. The Proclamation only freed slaves in Confederate States IF those states did not return to the Union.
Raymond, August 31, 2019 3:21 AM
Final, Fatal Speech
Actually, in the very last speech he gave, President Lincoln not only expressed his support for the right of Black people to vote, but for that right to be given to women as well. One person among the crowd listening to him, was none other than John Wilkes Booth. When Booth heard President Lincoln express such views, it was the last straw for Booth. He famously said, "He is talking N---ger citizenship. That is the last speech he (Lincoln) will ever give. I will put him through!" Booth could not tolerate the idea of Blacks voting, so he decided then and there to murder our greatest President.
(13) Anonymous, November 24, 2018 12:21 AM
I believe lincoln was descended from the jews of lincoln, england.
This community was destroyed by a blood libel triggered by a jewish wedding celebration. Jewish blood ran in the hilly streets and jews were ordered( by rabbinical edict) not to visit lincoln until Quite recently
(12) Lawrence D Levine, November 23, 2018 10:29 PM
wonderful story
I never knew anything about Lincoln and the Jews. many thanks
(11) B Pflumm, November 23, 2018 11:21 AM
Most Enlightening
History and Truth win out at a time of scapegoats continuing and newly promoted.
(10) David Levine, November 23, 2018 1:38 AM
Two Glaring Errors
The article contained two GLARING errors. 1. Early American presidents, particularly those who had university educations were all familiar with the Bible, as was George Washington who did not have one. Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were able to read the Bible in Hebrew as were many Declaration of Independence signers. 2. General and later President Grant was no anti-Semite despite his unfortunate issuance of Order Number 11 in Peducah, KY. Early in his career he became friendly with the Seligman family and they became contractors with the Army unit he commanded, according to Steven Birmingham's "Our Crowd." He later expressed regret over the Order verbally and in the memoir he wrote together with Mark Twain. While President he appointed numerous Jews to public office. He deserves to be criticized for Order Number 11 but not the blanked criticism he received in the article.
(9) Michael, November 22, 2018 8:16 PM
Blessings
Thank you for writing this. Blessings
(8) Raymond, November 22, 2018 7:33 PM
Was Abraham Lincoln Jewish?
I have heard that Abraham Lincoln may have actually been Jewish. Certainly, his great love of reading, emphasis on education, his strong moral sense, and compassion even for his enemies, are all strongly Jewish traits. He looked like a Sephardic Jew, and his mother had a rather murky background. Her ancestry came from a part of England that was very heavily populated by Jews. And then there is his strong emphasis on our Torah, while almost completely ignoring the New Testament, which the above article actually mentions.
David Levine, November 23, 2018 1:41 AM
Early America
Early America was highly literate in the Bible and Old Testament themes were often used in daily speech. Shame that there was no DNA test available but there's no proof of this assertion and it need not be made (although it would be great if it could be proved).
Raymond, November 24, 2018 2:31 AM
Robert Lincoln
Rumors of Abraham Lincoln being Jewish were circulating even when President Lincoln's one surviving son, Robert, was alive and well. Robert laughed at the idea, calling it absurd. That would seem to settle things on the matter. However, President Lincoln, while a truly great man, was not perfect, and one of his major flaws was the stone cold lack of relationship that he had with his son Robert. Maybe that somehow affected how Robert answered this question of his father's alleged Jewishness. Also, even though it was President Lincoln's own son denying his father's Jewishness, maybe science, such as DNA testing, not being nearly as sophisticated as it is now, made Robert's testimony on this issue not necessarily credible. Still, I do admit that I like Abraham Lincoln so much, really he is my favorite non-Jew who ever lived, that I am probably engaged in wishful thinking when I speculate that he may have been Jewish. You know what, though? I have been told by many people that I have a highly sensitive nature. I mention this because normally when I study Torah, I have a completely different feeling than I have when I study any secular subject. The one exception to that is when I read books about Abraham Lincoln. When I do, I get the exact same feeling I get when I study the Torah.
Anonymous, November 26, 2018 10:59 PM
Abe Lincoln
Abe Lincoln's maternal grandfather, after whom he is named, was Jewish.
(7) David Kerner, November 22, 2018 6:06 PM
A song about Abraham Lincoln
Here's a song I wrotevabout President Lincoln. The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Got me to think'in How every person is born to be free He delivered his proclamation That brought about the emancipation To end this nation's scourge of slavery. Abraham, Abraham He saw what was fly'in and he took a stand To uphold human rights and dignity He saved the union but he paid the price Some dirty little coward went and took his life Now his soul shines bright for all eternity. Born in 1809 in frontier Kentucky This world you know it sure was lucky To see Abe Lincoln walk across its stage. From his youth he loved to read and to share a good joke He worked hard in the fields and on a river boat And he grew up to be a great leader and a sage. Well acquainted with hardship and sorrow Why the righteous suffer, everybody would like to know But Abraham, he persevered There was one strong man behind that beard And his heart, with kindness overflowed ... Abraham Lincoln Got me to think'in How every person is born to be free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jZryy1BKQg
(6) Andy Schwartz, November 22, 2018 5:50 PM
Very interesting and informative.
I was in the Navy 50 years ago and was a victim of anti-semitism. I don't know if it will ever change. We need another Lincoln.
Clifton Webb, November 22, 2018 7:50 PM
You could have 100 Lincolns, the bigotry of man is a deep stain.
It is as if man had every thing each could ever want, since the Garden, they would just want someone else NOT to have what they had.
Pride is an evil thing.
I will stand with you.
(5) Rabbi Sam Cohon, November 22, 2018 5:37 PM
Correcting minor errors in a good article
Two corrections to this article on Lincoln and the Jews:
1. In the Edward Rosewater section, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, not 1864. Lincoln signed it in the fall of 1862, not on January 1st.
2. There is no evidence whatsoever that, prior to his infamous Order No. 10, Ulysses Grant was an Anti-Semite. He had previously demonstrated no biases against Jews and had Jewish friends and supporters, and during his presidency he appointed Jews to prominent positions, including a nomination to his cabinet. No one really knows why he issued that terrible order, the only officially Anti-Semitic act of the US Government ever. Ron Chernow, his Jewish biographer, thinks that it was a response to Grant's own father, Jesse, running contraband cotton and other merchandise from the Confederacy and his association with Jewish merchants. To say that Grant was some kind of life-long virulent Anti-Semite is simply wrong.
Anonymous, November 24, 2018 2:35 AM
Thank You
Thank you for clarifying that. That actually does make me feel a lot better. I am not kidding when I say this. I hate to think that any American President prior to Jimmy Carter was antisemitic. More importantly for me, though, is that I am such a huge fan of President Lincoln, that I hate the idea that anybody whom President Lincoln favored, could possibly be antisemitic. So I am glad that President Grant's action against the Jews, was not emblematic of his general attitude toward our Jewish people, but was rather just a temporary glitch.
Raymond, November 24, 2018 2:47 AM
I Wrote That
This comment here labelled Anonymous, was actually written by me. It is frustrating that my name wasn't mentioned as its author, as I am quite proud of my very open admiration of our greatest President, namely Abraham Lincoln, whom I also regard to be the greatest non-Jewish American who ever lived.
(4) James Arcuri, November 22, 2018 4:54 PM
A Beautiful compilation of facts!
Nicely done something to be very proud of. Thank you.
(3) Anonymous, November 22, 2018 4:25 PM
Be fair to Grant
The article "Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews" gives a very different picture of Grant than you do. He did issue that infamous order, but he also came to regret it worked hard to make amends.
(2) Bob Burg, November 22, 2018 4:16 PM
Wonderful Article!
What a wonderful article, Dr. Miller. Thank you so much for sharing that with us!
Anonymous, November 24, 2018 2:49 AM
Not the First TIme
This is definitely not the first time that Yvette Miller wrote a great history article on this website, although I will say that this one is probably her very best one. I hope she is reading what I am saying here, as I would imagine that writers as good as she is, likes to be appreciated.
(1) Anonymous, November 22, 2018 3:58 PM
Great Article
But doesnt Sarna's book also point out there were also Jews who opposed the abolition of slavery because they believed they would be marginalized instead?