Knowing Our History

This essay is based on a sermon delivered by Rabbi Lebovitz to his congregation, Valley Beth Shalom, on Rosh Hashanah, September 12.

Under the cover of night, on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere took his historic ride through Boston to warn American Patriots of the impending arrival of British troops. Two lanterns were hung to signal that the invasion would arrive by sea. We teach Paul Revere’s midnight ride as one of the opening scenes of the Revolutionary War. Each new chapter of American history arrives to these shores on the shifting sands of time, carrying a new sense of challenge and opportunity, not quite yet firmly attached to the foundation of what preceded it.

As we mark 250 years of this nation’s existence, and we reflect on its blessings and its transgressions, it also feels responsible to recognize that we are now entering a new chapter of American Jewish History. It’s been 18 months since we all felt the earthquake of Franklin Foer’s article in The Atlantic, “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending.” We ought to now ask, so what’s next? Even if many of us understand the next chapter to be challenging, it should be in sanctuaries like this, across this great nation, that American Jewish communities light the proverbial lantern of warning. How can we better prepare?

We must understand our rightful place here. We are not outsiders. We need never apologize for the Jewish community in America. The Jewish community helped inspire and build America. Jews have always been part of the fabric of this country. The founders of this nation adopted our language to describe this extraordinary experiment. Well before our independence, in 1630, John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, described the colony as a “city upon a hill,” an earthly representation of the eternal Jewish political and spiritual capital. In 1638, Puritan minister John Davenport, who co-founded the New Haven Colony, expressed this endeavor as a “New Jerusalem.” Later in 1861, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln referred to Americans as God’s “chosen people.”

Colonial Jewish communities founded Congregation Shearith Israel in New York in 1654 and the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island in 1763. Following the Revolutionary War, the first prayer for this country was composed in Hebrew in 1784 by the Sephardic Cantor Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel. It includes the following passage:

“As you gave strength to Sampson,

so may you strengthen and support our saving shield and commanding general George Washington …

O how goodly, how beautiful might it be would you confirm the peace that you have planted on the hearts of kings and rulers that they should beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning forks, that nation should not lift up sword against nation nor should they any more learn war.”

From the infancy of this country, our clergy stood firm in their patriotism. Unlike so many concurrent enlightened European national movements that publicly debated the Jewish ability to be loyal citizens, we enjoyed equal status here from the outset. We contributed to American society as true stakeholders. Hebrew Bible quotations and our traditional symbolism adorn our most cherished civic landmarks from the halls of Congress to the Liberty Bell.  

Unlike so many concurrent enlightened European national movements that publicly debated the Jewish ability to be loyal citizens, we enjoyed equal status here from the outset. We contributed to American society as true stakeholders.

I speak of this because I fear that too many American Jews are completely unfamiliar with American Jewish history. How many of us travel to exotic foreign places but have never visited the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island? How many of us have never heard of Cantor van Oettingen? Whether your family came here on the Mayflower or arrived here recently, those of us gathered here today are part of the American Jewish story. We ought to familiarize ourselves with our own story before it is rewritten by others, because suddenly, history is up for debate.

A recent article by Niall Ferguson and John-Clark Levin, “The Death of History,” published by The Free Press, claimed that the fact-based approach proves futile in a world of artificial intelligence and algorithm-based social media. They point to the sharp rise in Holocaust denial amongst podcasters and social media influencers — whom they call “anti-historians” — who question basic suppositions of history such as, “Was Hitler a villain?”

A week later, The Free Press published reactions to the piece by thinkers from the political left and right under the question, “Is History Dead?” One of the responses, written by French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was subtitled “Do Not Surrender.” He wrote, and I quote, “… Yes Jews are under attack as they have not been for decades. Yes, this hatred has become viral, elegant, almost fashionable… But that is no reason to surrender. On the contrary, we must rearm ourselves.”

Rearming ourselves with historical literacy seems even less likely when we consider the declining interest amongst young people in pursuing history as a degree or as a profession. The journal Sapir recently published an article by Allen C. Guelzo, “A Return to Teaching History: How ignorance of the past endangers us all.” In the piece, he provides some concerning statistics about the way Americans have learned or unlearned our history:

“By 2014, the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that only 18% of American middle schoolers could be considered ‘proficient’ in American history; by 2022, it had sunk to 13%. Several years ago, I quizzed one of my classes at Gettysburg College about their high school history textbooks. Half of them hadn’t had one. The other half — literally half — had been issued Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ which reduces that history to a series of simple binaries of ‘slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor.’”

These brief, shortcut history lessons presented in simple binaries, such as “colonizer versus indigenous people” or “oppressed versus oppressor,” have not benefited American society. They have pointed us toward unprecedented levels of Jew-hatred. As an example, Zinn has called the State of Israel a mistake. This style of study has sowed the soil for young Americans to view Israeli Jews as colonizers despite our claim to our rightful homeland with 3,000 years of evidence. Our people’s narrative is too long or complex for Zinn’s style of study. Historical complexity is impossible for a TikTok generation without any attention span or appetite for history. 

Historical illiteracy is not only dangerous for Jews. It is dangerous for America. Ignorance of our past is what allows a resurgence of failed ideas such as totalitarianism and communism. We, the American Jewish community, must begin elevating good ideas. The greatest idea ever proclaimed in this country was derived from our Torah.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence claimed that “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” Before Thomas Jefferson penned those words, I would argue if you looked around the world, there was no reason to believe that claim as self-evident, unless you believe the first chapter of Genesis: “God created all of humanity in the image of God …” (Gen. 1:27) Genesis teaches us that all of life emanates from a singular life source. 

Of all of the world narratives, the founders of this nation grafted its story onto the Jewish narrative, onto our scripture’s basic beliefs and assumptions, onto our history. It was a decision celebrated by colonial Jews. It goes unappreciated today because unfortunately American Jews no longer know our own history. This blind spot is unacceptable for our people. We must understand our own history to be our authentic selves. We’ve learned that any allyship built on a compromised version of our Jewish identity or undermined version of the truth of our Jewish history proves weak and does not endure times of peril. The Torah understands this and commands us over and over to remember. Deuteronomy teaches us, “Take utmost care and watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not fade from your mind as long as you live. And make them known to your children and to your children’s children.” (Deut. 4:9)

Our history provides us with the lantern that will guide us out of this dark time. This can be the special role we play for this country, for its sake and for our own.

The Torah offers us a phrase, “Achar HaDevarim Ha’Elah,” which means “After those events” and introduces new narratives. Most famously, we will read these words at the beginning of the Torah reading tomorrow – Achar HaDevarim Ha’Elah – after those events of Abraham and Sarah having Isaac, God decided to test Abraham’s faith by calling upon him to sacrifice his son.

I recently heard a beautiful teaching by Professor Meron Isaacson, retired from Bar Ilan University, who explained that the etymology of the Hebrew word “Acharei — afterward” is derived from the word “Acher” meaning different or changed. The question that should be prompted by the expression “Achar HaDevarim HaElah” is the connection between the two stories. Did one story simply follow after the other, or did one story fundamentally change the setting in a way that served as a catalyst for what follows? Does the Torah teach us to read these narratives in a linear fashion, transitioning us between event after event, or is the phrase “Achar HaDevarim HaElah” meant to raise our antenna to appreciate how the circumstances have changed?

We are living through an Achar HaDevarim HaElah moment. Our circumstances here have changed. How might we look back at previous chapters of our own history and gain knowledge and inspiration? Well, let’s return to the midnight ride of Paul Revere. 

We don’t know much about Paul Revere’s ride from the history of that night more than 250 years ago. Mostly, our understanding of his ride arrives to us in the form of the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860, almost a century later. Longfellow focuses on Paul Revere’s story to inspire a sense of patriotism and heroism for his own time, for a tepid America on the brink of the Civil War. Longfellow’s poem serves as a beautiful Midrash that elevates a previous hero of American history in an effort to teach us the lessons needed for his moment. He wrote:

“So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,

a cry of defiance and not of fear,

a voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!”

It is precisely now that I would commission Longfellow to lift up for us an American Jewish figure of our past to model for all of us that the pride and courage and resolve that we require has been exhibited before. American Jews have faced daunting challenges before and in fact overcome.

The next chapter of American history will be different. It will be more daunting for Jews. Will we be different, learned, prepared in time to meet it? It will not necessarily resemble Germany in 1933, but it could look like America in 1950. America in the 1950s was not the American Jewish Golden Age of the 1980s, ‘90s and 2000s. During the ’50s, Congressional records include references to a conspiracy theory about a Rabbi Emanuel Rabinovich and an imaginary Jewish plot to begin World War III. We hear anti-Jewish rhetoric on the floor of Congress today. In the 1950s, many universities maintained quotas for the number of Jews they would accept. Many elite universities today are accepting fewer Jewish students. And you know what? Our kids are going to be smart and successful without those diplomas. The lessons of the 1950s and prior is that the American Jewish community met the challenges and thrived. The grit and determination and activism of the American Jews of the 1950s is what set the stage for our golden age that followed. 

Are we going to mourn the loss of the previous American Jewish golden age, or can we work to set the stage for the next one?  

Are we going to mourn the loss of the previous American Jewish golden age, or can we work to set the stage for the next one? 

We have to reacquaint ourselves with the obstacles and lessons of the extraordinary legal careers of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Louis Brandeis, the relationships of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr., and before them Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, the sports prowess and Jewish identity of Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, the enduring friendship of Eddie Jacobson and Harry Truman, the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hassenfeld Brothers who formed Hasbro, the largest toy company in the world, and the audacious creative zeal of the Warner Brothers and Louis B. Meyer and all of the Jews who founded Hollywood, the Jewish pride of Harry Houdini, all the way back to Sephardic colonists like Haym Salomon and his prominent role in the Revolutionary War. We need to read the great American Jewish authors such as Chaim Potok, Philip Roth, and Saul Bellow. We need to read the poetry of Emma Lazarus. These people never considered themselves heroes. They simply met their time as American Jews and changed the course of American history for us.

Today we have Jewish medical professionals facing discrimination, such as the case against Boston Medical Center, which alleges that the hospital discriminated and retaliated against a Jewish-Israeli mental health counseling intern after she reported anti-Israel desk displays that violated hospital policy. How can we help advocate for California District Attorney Jeff Rosen after a Santa Clara judge prohibited him from retrying a property-damage case against pro-Palestinian protesters because of his “conflict of interest” due to his Jewish identity?

We are not the first American Jews to face challenges and bigotry. Yet, we cannot write this new chapter of history without understanding what preceded it. We need the resolve as American Jews to begin crafting our story anew — chadesh yameynu kekedem — Renew our days like our days before.

To quote Longfellow one more time:

“For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

May this year bring blessings of wisdom and courage and fortitude to our American Jewish community. May it be a good year for us, Jews everywhere, and the United States of America. Shanah Tova! 

Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz, PhD, is the senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, CA, and the author of the recently published bestseller “The Case for Dual Loyalty: Healing the Divided Soul of American Jews.” He currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel and on the Advisory Board of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition.