I did not write the last third of this, George Washington did.
At Page A13 today — March 8, 2017, –the New York Times reports 15 new telephoned threats against Jewish organizations and facilities in the nation the day before, bringing the total to 140 bomb threats against 110 such institutions in the U.S. and Canada since Jan. 1.
Why?
Because anti-Muslim tirades, anti-anyone tirades desecrate the presidency the same way Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated: desecrate the office that George Washington consecrated to freedom of conscience and belief.
For well more than a year religious bigotry has been front and center in American public life because Donald Trump has put it there, kept it there and, as president, has taken naked action to single out one religion for hate – not the Jewish religion, but the Muslim religion. But guess who always gets the fallout?
The president’s mobs, manipulated by his deus ex machina, Steven Bannon, can protest the accusation as loud and long as they want. This outbreak of antiSemitism has its source in Donald Trump’s naked campaign against Islam.
Hate of any kind begets hate of every other kind, then spreads like a bacillus in the body politic.
Often I observe that if all of us Jews, and we are diverse people, spent every waking minute of every day working to do the things we are accused of by those who hate us — well we just couldn’t get it done. We don’t have the numbers, never did and never will have them.
What’s true is this. On Sept. 1, 1939 there were 16.6 million Jews in the world. On May 8, 1945 there were fewer that 11 million. You should know, but if you don’t, those were the starting and ending dates of WWII in Europe.
Today the entire world Jewish population has recovered to 14 million people in a total world population of 7.1 billion, of whom about 11 million -are in the U.S. or Israel. That is two one hundredths of one percent (0.002) of all the people in the world.
So whatever your problem is, if you are part of the hate mob, we ain’t it. Neither is your Muslim neighbor, or the African American you just passed in the street or the Hispanic guy looking for a job, or any American Indian or any Indian from India, or anyone else different from you.
There is only ever one kind of ending when the leader of a nation makes bigotry national policy. It’s never a good one. Ask a German how that works out.
Then, is there an answer to this bigotry aimed for now at Muslims, reverberating against Jews and we know not who else to come?
Is there an answer from our nation’s history to the president’s ongoing, purposeful onslaught aimed at Muslims, at Hispanic people? At anyone and everyone except his enraptured mob?
Yes, there is.
It comes from the first man who ever held hold the office of president of the United States.
It is the letter dated Aug. 21, 1790 written in his own hand by George Washington during the first year of his presidency, indeed during just the second year of the office of the presidency: A letter by the first and foremost among our founding fathers addressed to “The Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I.”.
President Trump should read it. Every American should.
Here is President Washington’s letter written following the occasion of his visit to the Tuoro Synagogue there, the oldest in the nation
President Washington wrote:
“Gentlemen:
While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
“The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
“If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.
“The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and unities of citizenship.
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were 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 in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
“It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
“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.
“May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
G. Washington”
Peeling the Onion 