‘Old Isaiah’ and Proud Patriotic Judaism
“Comfort, comfort my people,” God instructed the ancient prophet Isaiah in the 40th chapter of his biblical book, words that begin this Shabbat’s haftarah. This prophetic portion, read annually as Jews emerge from the morose period of mourning known as the Three Weeks, offers a vision of recovery, redemption and flourishing. As American Jews in particular seek to navigate both the annually-commemorated period of sadness and the anxiety-inducing current wave of antisemitism, they might find particular comfort in considering why an early 20th-century Jewish figure was, in admiration, called “Isaiah” by none other than the President of the United States.
As the legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen notes in his “Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, who served from 1916 to 1939, “old Isaiah” to aides or “my dear Isaiah” in letters between the two men until Brandeis’ death in 1941.
FDR’s habit of calling Brandeis by the prophetic nickname was due in part to the judge’s appearance. “Brandeis’ wife and others compared him to Lincoln,” Rosen writes, “with his imposing height, high cheekbones, and bright grey-blue eyes … he did indeed resemble an ascetic Old Testament prophet.” Of course the appellation fit, Rosen writes, due to Brandeis’ “deep ethical sense, rooted in his burning determination to protect individual liberty and economic opportunity,” a dedication to both loyalty to his people and “a universal aspiration for the moral improvement of all free men and women,” in the spirit of the ancient Israelite seer’s lifelong commitment to righteousness and justice.
Brandeis came to the cause of Jewish national aspiration in his 50s, after his unaffiliated upbringing in Louisville, Kentucky. But his efforts, inspired by his uncle, an Orthodox Jew and proud American who was one of three Jewish delegates who voted to nominate Abraham Lincoln at the Republican convention of 1860, proved invaluable. As the president of the World Zionist Organization, Nahum Goldmann, recounted, “If it had not been for [Brandeis’] influence on [President] Wilson, who in turn influenced the British government, the Balfour Declaration would probably never have been issued.” Jacob de Haas, Herzl’s American secretary, noted that “the most consistent contribution to American Jewish history in the twentieth century has been that of Louis Dembitz Brandeis.”
Brandeis’ work on behalf of Zionism, he firmly stated, was not to the detriment of his American patriotism. In fact, it constituted part and parcel of it. “Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with Patriotism …” he thundered in an April 25, 1915 speech. “A man is a better citizen of the United States for being also a loyal citizen of his state, and of his city; for being loyal to his family, and to his profession or trade; for being loyal to his college or his lodge. … Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine … will likewise be a better man and a better American for doing so.”
Today’s American Jews who pair dedication to Jewish peoplehood with proud faith in the American project are echoing the call of Brandeis, who himself embodied Isaiah’s call for societal flourishing.
In his biography, Rosen cites a moving letter Judge Brandeis composed for his daughter Susan on her 26th birthday, in 1919. “You have been happily born into an age ripe for change; and your own horror of injustice properly beckons you to actively take part in effecting it … Be not impatient of time spent in educating yourself for the task, nor of the slowness of that education of others which must precede real progress. Patience is as necessary as persistence and the undeviating aim. This sounds fearfully solemn and must not be permitted to mar the day which should be full of joy and sunshine; but I can never think of your future without this vision of a noble, useful and significant life.”
As the contemporary American Jewish community exhibits both patience and persistence in navigating today’s challenges, we realize our moment, too, is ripe for change. Let us, therefore, take comfort from Old Isaiah Brandeis’ words. Our dedication to doing our part to ensure a safe and secure Israel and a thriving United States remains undeviating, as we continue to draw inspiration from both the ancient prophet and the late Jewish American patriot.
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”
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