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THE VIEW FROM HERE - For 2,000 years, Diaspora has seldom been a safe place for Jews. For over 250 years, however, the safest place has been the United States of America. The Jewish community’s prosperity rests on three documents: The Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and George Washington’s 1790 Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island. The Declaration is relevant to everyone in the world since all persons have inalienable rights; the second is relevant to all in the United States (even illegals have some constitutional rights), but the third document, George Washington’s letter to the Newport Jews, was dovetailed to the Jewish Community.
Brief Jewish History in America
In 1654 when twenty-three Jews arrived in New Amsterdam from Recife, Brazil, in order to escape the Portuguese inquisition, Peter Stuyvesant, Dutch Director General (1647-1664), threw them in jail and sought permission from the Company’s owners to expel them. (See America’s first Jews from a longer history of America’s first Jews). Some owners of the Dutch West India Company were Jewish. Also, despite the Recife Jews’ temporary dire financial straits, it was believed that they would economically benefit the colony. Thus, the Company ordered Stuyvesant to allow the Jews to stay. However, we had to provide for the poor among us, which was our wont to do for thousands of years. (In 1664, England assumed control of the New Amsterdam.)
Document 1: The Declaration of Independence
About 125 years later in 1776, the Declaration of Independence declared that all persons are born with equal inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration demolished the concept that one’s rights derive from God or from the group to which he belonged. The word “equal” was inserted to make clear to a population which was accustomed to Peerage, where some people had more or better rights than others, that no one’s inalienable rights were better, superior to, or greater in scope than anyone else’s. Otherwise, a population which had only know Peerage would accord more or better inalienable rights to those born into the aristocracy. The Declaration held that purpose of government is to protect everyone’s inalienable rights.
Document 2: The US Constitution
The US Constitution afforded individual Jews the same inalienable rights as others. When setting qualifications to vote or hold office, there was no religious test. The First Amendment was more explicit that no religion could claim special rights or incur special liabilities for its adherents. The first clause is known as the anti-establishment clause and the second is known as the free exercise clause; together they are referred to as The Separation of Church and State. They have been the guidepost that no rights or liabilities may attach to one’s group; one’s inalienable rights are unaffected by one’s ascriptive status, e.g., ethnicity, creed, sex, etc.
Document 3: George Washington’s 1790 Letter to the Jews of New Port, RI
For millennia of Diaspora, we had existed upon the sufferance of whoever was sovereign. Thus, when President Washington visited Newport RI, the Jewish congregation sent him a letter whose purpose was show gratitude for President’s favorable treatment of Jews. In reply, Washington thanked the congregation for its well wishes but expressly pointed out to them that such entreaties to government officials were unnecessary, as each person did not owe his well-being to other men’s toleration but to the inherent nature of American values and the law, i.e., individual inalienable rights. Washington wrote:
“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. 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 protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.” See Washington’s Letter
In less flowery language, Washington reiterated that no man’s inalienable rights rested on the tolerance or opinions of other men, but upon each person’s inherent natural rights (i.e., individual inalienable rights.) Thus, no thanks were due to Washington, but that Jews like all others should make the most of their opportunities.
Real life in America, however, operated similar a rather vicious college fraternity where Hell Week lasted at least a generation. Nonetheless, Jews, Italians, the Irish and others preserved to become accepted as Americans. The group which came the farthest in overcoming were Blacks. Their theme was “We Shall Overcome,” and despite tons of existing racism, they were overcoming.
The Grand Betrayal of the Blacks and All Other Americans
In 1954, America’s most unconstitutional Supreme Court case eviscerated America’s core values of individual inalienable rights. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), refused to base itself upon the inalienable rights of individual Blacks to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but instead Black rights were based on Equality of Outcome as compared to Whites, i.e., Group Rights replaced inalienable rights as a core constitutional value. At the time, almost no one noticed the pernicious evil of the Brown Decision. See Liberty vs Equality for longer explanation.
It took decades for the new Group Rights Ideology to gain steam. At first it was merely saying that Blacks had to be hired and promoted according to a quota system without regard to merit as this was the only way to overcome prior discrimination.
In the 2000's, Brown’s philosophy morphed into a full-blown racist group rights ideology where the world was divided into the Oppressors (Whites and Jews) and the Oppressed (all minorities except Jews.) The sole cause of any and all problems facing minorities was White (Jewish) racism and the solution was removal of Whites and Jews. The American values of individual inalienable rights were held to be a plot by White Americans to keep Blacks poor and subjected. The only hope for the Blacks was to vote for Democrats who would take power, position, and wealth away from the Oppressor Whites and Jews and distribute everything to the Blacks and other minorities.
Rather than alert the nation to the grand betrayal of our individual inalienable rights, the Jewish traditions agencies such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Anti-Defamation league (ADL) and many local Jewish Federations (JFEDs) thought it wise to endorse pernicious group rights and try to get us Jews removed from the Oppressor category and added to the Oppressor victim category. See Bernstein Article for a more detailed description of the Jewish agencies response to Woke Identity Politics.
Of course, the racist anti-Semitic Wokers had no intention of transferring us Jews from Oppressors to victims as that would destroy their entire ideology. See Under Wokeism all minorities suffered due to the White oppression, but Jews were wildly successful. By definition, Jews had to be villains and not victims. See Why Wokers Hate Jews
It appears that a deal was struck between the Dem Party and these major Jewish institutions that As long as AJC, the ADL and JFEDs supported the racist Identity Politics – Wokeism, the Dems would have the state and federal governments give them millions of dollars to protect the Jewish Community from violence. The Jewish agencies could decry anti-Semitism as long as they did not link it to Wokeism. The words Shanda and Bosht are far too mild to describe these agencies’ betrayal of America and of the Jewish community. These agencies’ support for Woke DEI ideology is a hideous dagger in America’s heart. The best that may be said for the bulk of American Jewry is that we were not told what treachery was afoot behind our backs.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])
