American presidents have long appreciated Jews and the Jewish state. Here are some inspiring quotes from presidents expressing their appreciation for their Jewish citizens and for the Land of Israel

1. Pres. George Washington, Letter to Touro Synagogue, Aug. 18, 1790:

For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protections should demean themselves as good citizens… May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

2. Pres. John Adams, Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, Feb. 18, 1809:

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe, or pretend to believe, that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, Almighty Sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

3. Pres. Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Mordecai Manuel Noah, May 28, 1818:

[The Jewish people] by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on an equal footing.

4. Pres. John Tyler, in one of the first speeches he made after taking office, 1841:

The Hebrews, persecuted and downtrodden in other regions, takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid. He may boast...of his descent from the patriarchs of old - of his wise men in council and strong men in battle. He may even turn his eye to Judea, resting with strong confidence on the promise that is made him of the restoration to the Holy Land, and he may worship the God of his fathers after the manner that worship was conducted by Aaron and his successors in the priesthood, and the aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him.

5. Letter sent by Pres. Abraham Lincoln to Sec. of War Edwin M. Stanton, Nov. 4, 1862, breaking with tradition by appointing Jewish quartermasters to the US Army:

I believe we have not yet appointed a Hebrew...

6. Pres. Abraham Lincoln, responding to a visitor who proposed restoring a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, 1863:

I myself have a regard for the Jews… My chiropodist is a Jew, and he has so many times ‘put me on my feet’ that I would have no objection to giving his countrymen ‘a leg up’.

7. Pres. Grover Cleveland (after he’d left office) responding to the 1903 aftermath of the Kishinev Pogroms:

Every American human sentiment has been shocked by a late attack on the Jews of Russia - an attack murderous, atrocious and in every way revolting. As members of the family of mankind, and as citizens of a free nation, we are here to give voice to the feeling that should stir...every American worthy of the name. There is something intensely horrible in the wholesale murder of unoffending, defense-less men, women and children…

8. Pres. Benjamin Harrison, Annual Message to Congress, December 9, 1891:

The Hebrew is never a beggar; he always kept the law - lives by toil - often under severe and oppressive civil restrictions, is also true that no race, sect or class has more fully cared for its own.

9. Pres. William McKinley, letter to Simon Wolf, 1897:

No better class of citizens than the Jewish exists in our country, many of whom have been and are my personal friends

10. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in his autobiography (1913):

While I was Police Commissioner (in New York City), an anti-Semitic preacher from Berlin...came over to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many of the New York Jews were much excited and asked me to prevent him from speaking and not to give him police protection. This, I told them was impossible; and if possible would have been undesirable because it would have made him a martyr. The proper thing to do was to make him ridiculous. Accordingly I detailed or his protection a Jew sergeant and a score or two of Jew policemen. He made his harangue against the Jews under the active protection of some forty policemen, every one of them a Jew.

11. Pres. Woodrow Wilson appointed the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis. When a friend remarked to Pres. Wilson “Isn’t it a shame, Mr. President, that a man as great as Mr. Justice Brandeis should be a Jew?” Pres. Wilson replied, “But he would not be Mr. Brandeis if he were not a Jew!"

12. Pres. Woodrow Wilson, 1917, after the Balfour Declaration affirming the Jewish people’s right to a homeland in the Land of Israel, which Pres. Wilson vigorously supported:

How proud I am that because of the teachings instilled in me by my father, it has been my privilege to restore the Holy Land to its rightful owners.

13. Pres. Warren G. Harding, in a letter to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations 1923:

One of the marvels of humanity’s story has been the strength and persistence of the Jewish faith and its continuing influence and power of the Jewish people. I cannot but feel that these things are in large measure owing to the Hebrew conception of a personal God and of the individual accountability of men and women.

14. Pres. Herbert Hoover, 1932, on the 15th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration:

I have watched with genuine admiration the steady and unmistakable progress made in the rehabilitation of Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through the enthusiasm, hard work, and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice.

15. Pres. Harry Truman, in speech two days after becoming president, April 14, 1945:

This is the time for action. No one can any longer doubt the horrible intention of the Nazi beasts. We know that they plan the systematic slaughter throughout all of Europe, not only of the Jews but of vast numbers of other innocent peoples...This is not a Jewish problem, it is an American problem - and we must and we will face it squarely and honorably. (cited in Truman and Israel by Michael J. Cohen. University of California Press: 1991.)

16. Pres. Harry Truman, May 14, 1948:

This government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.

17. Pres. Harry Truman, 1948 (cited in The Presidents of the United States and the Jews by David G. Dalin and Alfred J. Kolatch. Jonathan David Publishers: 2000.):

One of the proudest days in my life occurred at 6:12pm on Friday May 14 (1948) when I was able to announce recognition of the new state of Israel by the government of the United States. In view of the long friendship of the American people for the Zionist ideal, it was particularly appropriate that our government should be the first to recognize the new state.

18. Pres. John F. Kennedy, Speech to Zionists of America Convention, August 26, 1960:

Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

19. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, June 1, 1964:

The USA and Israel “share many common objectives - chief of which is the building of a better world in which every nation can develop its resources and develop them in freedom and peace.”

20. Pres. Ronald Reagan, September 1, 1982:

Israel exists: it has a right to exist in peace behind secure and defensible borders, and it has a right to demand of its neighbors that they recognize those facts. I have personally followed and supported Israel’s heroic struggle for survival, ever since the founding of the State of Israel 34 years ago. In the pre-1967 borders Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel’s population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.

21. Pres. Bill Clinton, April 30, 1996:

The United States stands with Israel through good times and bad because our countries share the same ideals: freedom, tolerance, democracy. We know that whenever those ideals are under siege in one country, they are threatened everywhere.

22. George W. Bush, April 19, 2001:

Through centuries of struggle, Jews across the world have been witnesses not only against the crimes of men, but for faith in God, and God alone. Theirs is a story of defiance in oppression and patience in tribulation - reaching back to the Exodus and their exile into the Diaspora. That story continued in the founding of the State of Israel. The story continues in the defense of the State of Israel.

23. Pres. Barack Obama, May 21, 2015:

...Make no mistake – those who adhere to the ideology of rejecting Israel’s right to exist, they might as well reject the earth beneath them or the sky above, because Israel is not going anywhere. And today, I want to tell you – particularly the young people – so that there's no mistake here, so long as there is a United States of America – Atem lo levad. You are not alone.

24. Pres Donald J. Trump, December 7, 2019

The story of Israel is a tale of triumph in the face of centuries oppression and persecution. The Jewish people endured, persevered, and flourished beyond measure, building a thriving, proud, beautiful, and mighty nation in the Holy Land. The friendship between our countries is essential to achieving a more safe, just and peaceful world. That is why every single day since I took the Oath of Office, I have stood firmly, strongly, and proudly with the people of Israel.