On the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln’s relationship with the Jews is getting new scrutiny.
A new book, “Lincoln and the Jews: A History,” by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shappel, opens a window into the remarkably friendly and supportive relationship Lincoln built with the tiny American Jewish community of his time.
The book — look for the forthcoming review in J. this week — and an accompanying New York Historical Society exhibit reveal the depth and details of this little-known story.
Speaking to the Jewish Daily Forward, Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, chief historical adviser to the Historical Society’s exhibition, offered some “fast facts about Honest Abe and the Children of Abraham,” including:
- “Until Lincoln helped change the law, American military chaplains had to represent ‘some Christian denomination.’”
- “Before the martyred Lincoln was eulogized at Easter Sunday services on April 17, 1865, he was memorialized at synagogues the day before — the final Sabbath of Passover week — and lauded as an American Moses.”
- Lincoln even had his own nice Jewish doctor: “Issachar Zacharie, an English-born chiropodist who cured his corns and bunions.”
Lincoln once referred to Abraham Jonas, a Jew, as “one of my most valued friends.” As Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles points out on Time.com, “In all of the writings of Abraham Lincoln, we find that phrase used only once”
Jonas, originally from England, “was a lawyer and political ally of President Lincoln,” according to The New York Jewish Week. The phrase appears in a handwritten letter allowing Jonas’ son, Charles Jonas, a Confederate soldier who was then a prisoner of war, to return home to see his dying father.
The letter is one of the highlights of the New York Historical Society exhibit, open in New York through June 7, along with other pieces of personal writing, images and documents, many on display for the first time.
And the timing of it all is quite remarkable.
As The Jewish Week puts it: “Not only has it been 150 years since the end of the Civil War, but the first night of Passover this year, April 3, aligns with significant anniversaries. On that date in 1865, the Union Army captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., leading to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant six days later. Five days after that, on April 15, which was the fifth night of Passover and also Good Friday in 1865, President Lincoln was shot.”
Video:
“Jewish experience during the Civil War,” C-SPAN, May 27, 2010