e e e e e good evening sorry to interrupt your conversations I'm David fio the archist of the United States and it's a real treat to welcome you to the William G mwan theater this evening tonight we're honored to have Jonathan sarna and Stephen Roberts join us as they discuss sarna's latest work Lincoln and the Jews the history a book signing will follow tonight's program before we begin let me tell you about two programs coming up here in the mwan theater and will also be broadcast on our YouTube channel if you can't be here in person on Tuesday May 12th at 7 pm pulit a prize winning historian Joseph Ellis will discuss his new book the quartet orchestrating the second American Revolution it's a story of the four men most responsible for creating the US Constitution and Bill of Rights Washington J Hamilton and of course Madison and on Thursday May 21st at 7 uh we will go behind the scenes of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire hbr recreated the realism and texture of the prohibition era Atlantic City for Boardwalk Empire video clips and stories from those in front of and behind the camera will help tell the backstory of this popular series if you want to know more about these in all of our programs and exhibitions please refer to our monthly calendar of events there are copies in the lobby as well as signup sheets where you can receive it online or in the regular mail another way to get more involved in the National Archives is to become a member of the foundation for the National Archives the foundation supports all of our work in EX in education and Outreach programs there applications for membership in the lobby also and a little known secret that I keep telling people about no one has ever been turned down for membership in the foundation tonight's discussion centers on an exhibit of the same name which opened at the New York Historical Society this past March marking the 150th anniversary at the end of the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination this exhibit focuses on the significant relationships and efforts between Lincoln and his Jewish friends and Associates during his political career herb gelded wrote in the Jewish World Review that Lincoln was the first American President to become officially involved in questions of Jewish equality when he urged Congress to change the comp the chaplaincy laws to permit rabbis to become military chaplain when General ulyses srant issued general order number 11 barring Jews as a class from all territories under his control because he suspected they were smuggling cotton President Lincoln resented it immediately the book highlights many Lincoln letters photographs and artifacts including a few documents from the National Archives such as the June 13th 1864 nomination by Lincoln to the US Senate of Louisa Jonas to be postmasters of quinsey Illinois Louisa Jonas was the Widow of Abraham Jonas who was a good friend and political Ally of Lincoln and the and the treasury warrant dated April 5th 1861 for Lincoln's monthly salary as president he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury and insisted that on the fifth day of each month please do send a warrant for the amount of my salary as president of the United States and as he had been inaugurated on March 4th he did not want to be paid for four days of the month he had not yet assumed office a great example of his honest a reputation our partner for tonight's program is the Jewish Historical Society of greater Washington and I know that there are many members here so thank you for being here the director of the society and it's Lilian and Albert small Jewish museum for the past 21 years is Laura Cohen applebomb the museum is the steward for the historic 1876 Addis Israel synagogue a few blocks from here under L's leadership the museum has played a growing role in preserving and presenting the important role of the Jewish community that the Jewish Community has played in Metropolitan Washington please welcome the director Laura Cohen appone thanks for being there you might see that I'm hobbling a little bit and I was going to say a little bit of the backstory I don't want to bore you too much because we have our main attraction but there was a strange Confluence of events on the day April 16th that I heard my foot I was on my way here to the National Archives and I was coming for Harold holzer's noontime talk I often come over for noontime talks it was about the assassination of the president and the day before had been of course as the archist mentioned the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's death so I was crossing Sixth Street and I heard a marching band so I turned and looked and I saw twirlers and it Dawns on me it's emancipation day here in the district this is the day that commemorates the freeing of the slaves in the District of Columbia April 16th 1862 so this was eight months as you know before the Emancipation Proclamation so because I'm I headed to the lecture on the assassination already through my mind I'm thinking of Dr Charles Lieberman who was a Jewish immigrant and president of the medical society called to Lincoln's bedside on that fateful night when he was shot and I'm wondering what was the good doctor thinking at that bedside because I know that three years earlier uh when the slaves were emancipated his three slaves were among those that were emancipated and he was paid for those slaves because in DC there was a compensated emancipation so Dr liberman is Illustrated among those in Lincoln's Circle and you'll be able to see that on the first pages of this wonderful new book that brings us here tonight Lincoln and the Jews he was one of about 2,000 Jewish residents in the city who interacted with the president and you might be able to recognize others like the lawyer Simon Wolf the stationer adolo Solomons I know many of the items in the collection here at the archive bear his Watermark because he was the stationer to the White House and to Congress and Lincoln's colorful shopus isachar Zachary and they're also in the in the in our city and in the new volume and so you'll learn a little bit about them on the pages in here tonight I'm sure too so the irony of liman being a slaveholder being called three years later to Lincoln's bedside maybe makes me walk a little too excitedly and I fracture my foot on the way over so last month the New York Historical Society opened a wonderful new exhibition displaying most of the material in the book and I wanted to tell you about that because it closes on June 7th and then Dr sarna told me it will go to um Springfield Illinois and then to La uh so you'll see much of the material from the exhibit in the book on behalf of our board of directors at the Jewish Historical Society I want to thank the archist and the staff especially Susan Clifton for partnering with us again this year for Jewish American Heritage Month tonight is somewhat of an encore presentation as both our particip spoke together back in 2012 as you heard before when Dr s's book when Grant expelled the Jews uh first was publish and that's a whole other story as you know and you might know those of you who know us well that the historic synagogue that we preserve was um uh kind of notable because President Grant attended its dedication on June 9th 1876 maybe as a gesture to the Jewish uh Community for his expulsion order during Civil War I'm honored to introduce tonight's speakers Dr Jonathan sarna is a leading expert of American Jewish history and he's the Jonathan h and b r Brun professor of American Jewish history at brandise University Dr sarna also serves as the chief historian of the national museum of Jewish history in Philadelphia and he's president of the association of Jewish studies that's an organization that promotes teaching of Jewish studies at colleges and universities he he's written and edited more than 20 books including American Judaism which received the Jewish book council's Jewish book of the Year award Dr sarna is a friend and a mentor he served on our neh panels and he advises us on the content of our work Dr sna will be in conversation with Steven V Roberts Steve is well known in DC circles he's a best-selling author longtime journalist political commentator and the JB and Maurice C shap shyro Shapiro I think it's shyro those are important names in DC Jewish history professor of media and public affairs at the George Washington University he's co-authored several books with his wife Ki Roberts including R hagata uniting traditions for Interfaith families and among his other books are from the ends of the Earth 13 families and their new lives they made in America it's now my pleasure to invite Dr sarna and Steve Roberts to the stage [Applause] well thank you so much we're H Dr sa and I are delighted to be with you all again I think this is um the third year in a row I've done this event for the Jewish Historical Society greater Washington the second time we've had the privilege of of of talking with you um uh about u a wonderful uh new book this is uh uh by the way it will be available for signing um uh this the uh heft of this book reminds me of a story when I was a young um writer here in Washington and um I was in the Washington Bureau of the New York Times and um hendrik Smith uh the bureau chief had written this massive tone about Washington and he was talking to Russell Baker the very witty columnist of the New York Times and and and Hendrick Smith said to Russell Baker Russ I just read your new book I couldn't put it down down and and Russell said I saw your book Rick I couldn't pick it up and um so but this is worth picking up so uh U but uh make sure you uh do it with both hands um uh this is as I say Susan and Laura mentioned a book that documents a little known history just when you thought you couldn't learn anything more about Abraham Lincoln it turns out you can uh and U I wanted to start the conversation Dr sna by by a context putting in context one of the most interesting things you say right in the beginning is that Abraham Lincoln's life spanned uh a very important period in American Jewish history because when he was born in 1809 there were I think you said 3,000 Jews in America by the time of his death there were 150,000 so um set us the context who were those Jews in America where were they from where were they living so uh there is a significant migration of Jews from Central Europe the countries that are today uh uh Germany and Poland uh uh and so on that that that come to the United States in the 19th century some of them the ones most likely to support Abraham Lincoln uh were 48ers they had supported liberal Revolutions in Central Europe in 1848 uh then they had fled yes not a particularly healthy thing to be doing no uh and they paid for it by uh having to leave and come to America and uh they continue uh they bring to America those values uh which had led them to support Revolution tion and those were the people most likely to oppose slavery to support the Republican Party um but there also are lots of other people who come from Central Europe uh who simply come for reasons of opportunity uh and um uh every uh uh Community really begins to have a sense that there are now non-christians living their meaning that in 1809 most of the Jews live in port cities from Savannah say to Newport uh Savannah Charleston Philadelphia New York Newport and so on Baltimore Baltimore um by um by by uh 1850 Jews have sprad all the way across the country literally to California with the gold rush and and um they have filled in in lots of places and uh of course Abraham Lincoln has met them long before he comes to Washington because you did you had clothing stores in surprised who running clothing exactly astonishing I know just I told you you to learn a lot of new things t i right and um uh but you didn't know that uh it's the ancestor of uh the folks who began Sears robot robot yeah but you know one of the things you mentioned though once he once um uh Lincoln gets to Illinois in Springfield there are Jewish Merchants like uh the the hammer logs but um uh in Kentucky in his youth you posit that he probably never did meet a Jew during his childhood yeah exactly uh no evidence of Jews in those areas and they were so poor it's unlikely a Jewish Peddler would have bothered to uh go uh in uh in that area so the Jews Abraham Lincoln knows in those days are the Jews in the Bible um but in the second half of his life uh he interacts with numbers of Jews and he has Jewish friends which I think is significant uh you have Jewish friends it gives you a sense that uh these are folks like anybody else right on a more personal basis and you you started to talk about Julius Hammer slow is that how you pronounce his name um uh who ran a clothing store in Springfield um uh and uh even his obituary uh he was described as a warm friend as you quote in the book um but um uh there is that interesting I sorry I interrup Ed you you were telling the story about how there actually is a connection between this clothing store in Springfield and the Sears and robok um Empire which uh I mean and that these hammer slaws and they're related to Myers and the and the story is sold uh to the Rosen wals and of course it's Rosen Wald the Next Generation uh that creates seirs robok um so you do see these fascinating connection uh but um what and you think that it's probably likely that AB Lincoln actually bought clothing from the store and there do it does seem likely that Lincoln uh bought clothing from hammera and of course um hamers law does extremely well in the Civil War when he gets uh his clothing manufactur by then and he gets contracts uh for lot clo uniforms for lots of troops which was extremely lucrative and um I think that that Lincoln there's good evidence that he knew Henry Rice uh and and so on but what's really important is his friendship with Abraham Jonas hammerl after all is 23 years younger than Lincoln and rice is uh again much younger but Jonas is is is somebody whom he really calls U my friend they spent a lot of time together they're both lawyers uh they're both politicians uh Jonas I think has been unduly neglected it and Jonas himself was a member of the Illinois legislature politicians probably one of the first Jews to serve in a state legislature anywhere I would and and for a lot of people he was probably the first Jew that they really knew he was very significant in quiny Illinois where he lived uh most of the people who write about Jonas note the fact that he is Jewish uh meaning that Lincoln certainly knew this uh but Jonas was a masterful political tactician a great speaker and the two men um uh spend time together and you also write in the book that really Jonas um was instrumental in uh urging and helping Lincoln to run for president yes tell that story so um Jonas really is uh involved in in Lincoln's politics really u in the 1850s and of uh hosts one of the Lincoln Douglas debates uh which which is held in quinsey and um uh afterwards um uh when Harris gley comes to quinsey and they are talking Harris gy had newspaper man and so on and significant politician they are talking about who they might run in 1860 and they go through various names and the claim is Jonas uh uh is the one who argues what about Abraham Lincoln and Jonas then constructs a strategy for the Republican party uh which actually becomes uh the party's strategy we've got to attract Outsiders and fascinatingly he includes among those Outsiders not just German liberals but Israelites um whom he feels the Republican Party can capture uh whether they did or not the Republican party has been trying to capture Israelites for 150 years but um they uh whether they did or not is less interesting yeah we didn't have exit polls less interesting than the fact that he um uh that uh he he he writes this and talks about it uh and there's little doubt that Jonas plays a role and then at the convention which is really a astonishing uh the convention is held in Chicago in what they called The Wigwam in Chicago in 1860 and actually lots of people um uh in those days would try and pack the hall and William Seward who thinks that he has this nomination in the bag has arranged to duplicate a lot of tickets so that his supporters will come in in they will make a tremendous demonstration and this is held in Chicago another knew that never happened before right uh so there's going to be a big demonstration for Seward that will convince everybody Seward is Unstoppable but of course word gets out and Jonas uh who of course is supporting Lincoln he says to can play that game so uh he also makes lots of copies of the tickets and he also packs the hall and to everybody's surprise when Lincoln's name is put into nomination there's as big uh a racket as when Su it is and if you read you can go online and read the protocols the 1860 Republican convention and you see the adjectives that attempt to describe these demonstrations and it's clear uh that it's Lincoln and Seward and that means to people in the convention oh Seward is not a sure thing and Lincoln's strategy is if seart is not a a sure thing and then these other guys baits and others they didn't get big demonstrations so everyone will abandon their first love and everybody's second love was Lincoln so on the third ballot Lincoln gets now nominated was a very successful strategy and that's how Lincoln gets the nomination and Jonas his friend plays a role you know it's it you you made a very interesting point when you when you talk about who were the Jews who came um I think a lot of us uh can trace our ancestry those of us who who are Jewish to um political dissonant or people who were persecuted for their political views my grandfather you know was a Bund both of my grandfathers were bundists in Eastern Europe one was a Zionist who went to Palestine and I bet many of the people here have similar stories that we Trace our ancestries to politically active people which is one of the reasons why they were forced to leave so that it's not a big surprise that there were at least some Jews even that early oh who saw Politics as an important Endeavor no no question me another person who supports Lincoln and is a name that we know is uh Lewis demitz and people think I've left out the last name no Lewis demitz was the uncle of Lewis demitz brandise he's another person he happens to come from the area around Prague similarly has had to leave uh in the 40s uh also as a republican actually is at the convention and um uh he's very active uh po politically and will uh Be Remembered in Louisville and he's also a polymath he knows 12 languages and uh this Louie demitz uh so impressed his nephew Lewis David brandise that uh Louis David brandise changed his middle name uh for that Uncle and we know him as uh Lou demit brand I have to mention brandise once in every appearance it's in my country but youve actually mentioned it about six times already so you way ahead I win well yeah yeah but um uh but it's fascinating really and demitz again is one of these figures who is not sufficiently remembered uh but he's so impressed with Lincoln that after Lincoln's assassinated he names one of his children for Abraham Lincoln um and uh you know is is really another example of one of these folks liberal in uh Central Europe uh involved in activities that get him thrown out essentially comes to America of course that's not just a Jewish story all sorts of people came to America because they got into trouble uh in their Homeland and America was the place where you came if you got into trouble uh you know another character that plays a big role in your book um and uh the archist mentioned him isachar zakari Zachary Zachary who was a foot doctor you describe him as a chopinist I guess a podiatrist would be the with the modern word but um uh talk about the the role he plays because he becomes kind of the secret Emissary for Lincoln and and and and and helps uh free several Jews who were imprisoned in the south I mean this was a shadowy and fascinating character fascinating and um uh isachar Zachary um uh has also uh come to America from England other man did much to hide uh his background and uh it's been hard to piece together but uh he's very significant in um the spread of corop which is a kind of new medical area uh the the word Kopi is only invented in the late 18th century it's only changed to Podiatry in the 20th century uh because people got confused between kop and chiropractors and so they thought they'd get more respect uh if they were called podiatrist but uh in any case um this Zach now how Zachary trained uh is quite unclear uh he claimed all sorts of background that cannot be true but um what another shocker yeah never happened before uh self-invention was big in the 19 particularly when you came to America I mean that was what part of the whole point you could reinvent yourself right but um what's fascinating about Zachary is he is a fabulous um uh kidist um he does it in a painless way uh and and we have they survive hundreds of testimonials uh from people who say he treat us and uh including General Grant well and including eventually Abraham Lincoln no less than William Cullen Bryant the the poet and so on recommends Zachary to Lincoln and Bryant was a great Walker and wrote uh uh at some length on the values of walking and Zachary's made a big reputation in New York and the idea seems to have been that there should be a corop core for the soldiers after all uh you know their feet need tending they have to remember in the 19th century uh most people had very ill-fitting shoes the notion of a right shoe and a left shoe had not really been developed so try it uh can reverse your shoes you'll need a corop this too and um uh and so foot problem in fact the cabalist union encourages you to do that um uh foot problems were uh ubiquitous really in the 19th century and as many people know Lincoln for all sorts of reasons had particularly painful feet so Zachary comes to Washington and he treats various senators and he treats various generals and he treats um Abra abam Lincoln's feet and um Lincoln uh takes time to write him a um a testimonial and actually we have three different testimonials that Lincoln writes um uh it's just astonishing and all of them very honest in a Lincoln Way um uh uh you know uh how it will be we shall see Lincoln rights which is not the way professors write you know about their graduate students when they recommend them for jobs uh but uh um the the fascinating now it doesn't happen the Surgeon General did not believe in kop and even though Lincoln clearly wants to see a corop Corp the Surgeon General had the last word and uh it doesn't happen uh but uh instead uh Lincoln said SS Zachary off to New Orleans New Orleans has just been liberated by the troops Lincoln knows that there are significant numbers of Jews in New Orleans uh starting with Judah Benjamin exactly that Judah Benjamin um uh Judah there's a great line about Judah Benjamin um uh one of the Senators Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State of the Confederacy right Benjamin is uh eventually Rises the secretary of state of the Confederacy of course he's left New Orleans for Richmond by this time but his roots are in uh New Orleans and there are Jews play a disproportionately significant role in the governance of Louisiana um and it's a big Jewish Community anyway um oh I didn't mention this great line about Judah Benjamin he was called on the floor of the Senate an Israelite light with Egyptian principles it's really a wonderful line that got a lot of notice at the time but in any case um uh uh Lincoln sends a Zachary and he writes uh that he thinks uh that uh he said tells General banks that Lincoln that Zachary will be useful uh both because of his peculiar specialty meaning his skills in treating uh uh foot problems and also because of his ties to his countrymen and that's really fascinating over and over again Lincoln uses that word countrymen to describe Jews even though they didn't have a country he used them as an ethnos in any case uh um we now know that Zachary uh um in New Orleans he does a certain amount of spy Ing and sends uh letters back uh he has the idea that if he sends out spies dressed as Jewish Peddlers they'll be able to go in different places so he does that and um uh he also tries hard to help various Jews who have gotten into trouble either they've been caught smuggling or uh because as you pointed out there are a lot of Jews who had settled in small towns throughout the South as Peddlers um outside of Charleston and New Orleans the big port cities there was a vast network of of of Jews in often in quite small towns ran small stores they would provide uh the goods um and uh in some ways of course before the Civil War you'd have right here in Baltimore uh you had a major distributor of goods he would give these pedlers consign what we would call Consignment and they would go off and sell and uh in a way it'll it it PR most people it was a stepping stone on the way up it would allow you to to accumulate Capital eventually you would open a store and a few of those people would become Sears robu but um and in New Orleans virtually every large department store was Jewish owned I mean the Newman family and the god shs and yeah uh uh very much riches departments all of those um the truth is that in the 19th century especially in the South the term the Jews store was not a derogatory term at all indeed communities were excited when such a store open uh because that meant that you'd be able uh to get all sorts of goods and if put you on the map and so on uh in any case um afan Zachary did all sorts of things it is perfectly clear that he was one of a lot of people who thought he could bring peace between the North and the South and general Banks had also various presidential Ambitions that of course would have been helped had he and Zachary managed to pull this off um he had a secret meeting uh with Judah Benjamin um and again note that Jewish connection um and um of course it doesn't come to anything but there are a lot of people who Zachary seems to have helped and we know that because I found um an article in one of the Jewish papers that there is a a dinner huge for Zachary in New York York and it is um really a thank you from all of the people whom he helped and they give him clearly a significant present uh he got people out of jail he kept some people from going to jail he played an important including some people who probably should have stayed in ja no question that there were people blockade Runners and who claim that I mean and there's no question that Lincoln freed all sorts of people uh who claim that they had been unjustly arrested and the like uh when in fact it may have been a little different you know these great characters that you've done such a wonderful job of describing there's a larger concept here uh you talk of uh in the book about Lincoln's sense of inclusion with Jews and that he saw them as insiders not Outsiders step back and talk about about sort of where that philosophy you mentioned the personal relationships with someone like Jonah is obviously very important you mentioned his biblical um the fact that the first Jews he ever meant were Biblical characters who he deeply admired obviously but but but talk about Lincoln's larger sense of how he thought about these individual Jews but Jews as a people as well yeah I my sense is that [Music] Lincoln um looked at Jews and saw a connection in his mind to the persecuted slaves and blacks or to his mind if we really believe in uh Freedom you know all men are created equal then that had real meaning and um that's why he refused es to buy into no nothing movement because he feels it cuts against the anti- cath Catholicism Cuts against his views on blacks and in the 19th century in this period much more than we realize um the persecution of blacks in America and the persecution of Jews in Europe are linked in the public mind these are to persecuted peoples and um I I was surprised really at how much evidence I found so for example here in Washington um you had twice uh plays that Lincoln goes to that are on Jewish themes one uh with the title Gia is actually written by an africanamerican um playwright suure and um uh he's writing about the morara affair in Italy a Jewish child is is converted by his nursemaid uh against the child's will and is then removed from the child's home and brought up actually by the Pope in the church um uh it was a big issue in the middle of the 19th century and it becomes a play and what's fascinating is that many people go to that play but interpret it through the lens of see what happens to persecuted peoples and then there's another play called Leia uh which is about the persecution of Jews in Europe and again if you read the reviews they understand this play about persecution of Jews to be an object lesson concerning the persecution of blacks and when Lincoln is a assassinated there were many people who draw that connection including Moses Monte Fury the greatest Jew of uh that time uh from England who says you know Lincoln freed the slaves I still wish that Jews would be freed throughout Eastern Europe uh so that link is very much there and I think in Lincoln's own mind um aiding persecuted people and treating them as equals was something he deeply believed in so for him having these Jewish friends is not different than befriending Frederick Douglas and so on uh it was part of who he was and what he believed and and but it's also very striking and of course we were here two years ago three years ago talking about a previous book of yours where General Grant um uh one among many of Lincoln's generals and advisers who did not share his sense of inclusion and did not s share his sense of respect Grant issues the famous order you wrote the book about General lorder 11 which mands the exclusion of Jews from the territory that grants armies occupy uh and there are you document in this book a number of examples of anti-Semitic comments made by generals and others uh so U uh in taking this inclusive view Lincoln was um uh swimming against a tide in among some of his closest advisers and suppored yeah no question it's easy to find kind of casual anti-Semitism among generals among politicians I mean even if you compare Lincoln to his predecessor James Buchanan or his successor Andrew Johnson both men if you read their private papers make anti what we call straight anti-semitic comments about individuals who were Jewish you don't find that uh in Lincoln and uh there are in the Lincoln papers astonishing letters of people writing to him and blaming all of the problems on the Jews and urging him to distance Jews from America that will solve all the problems and really he doesn't pay any attention and you do not find even in the private Lincoln and there are 20,000 letters and you can search them electronically you won't find those kinds of comments so he really was different uh from those around him in fact you you have one of the and by the way we should give credit uh to Benjamin Chappelle who uh whose collection uh private collection of these letters and documents is for forms the basis for um uh the the the documentary part of this of this volume and he's one of the papers that you have in quote in the book is after Lincoln counterterm general order 11 and gr order to exclude the Jews um he gets a letter from one of his supporters saying uh please tell me it's not true that uh Grant's order was justified and and and and he Praises it says please reassure me that your revocation is not true well of course it was true course it was true and uh you know equal best order ever issued and uh and and so on uh and there is little doubt that just as lots of people were smuggling it was easy to find Jews who smuggled uh but there were plenty of people who only noticed the Jews who smuggled uh and Lincoln didn't fall uh into that trap and he specific specifically says uh response to Grant it's still timely advice that he doesn't like to see a whole class attacked on account of a few Sinners um it was to him his mind we look at people as uh individuals um uh but I also do think that he had come to have a high regard for some Jews and that's important and and also one of the things that I learned from the book book was uh uh the Detachment that you describe as the Jewish company uh that there in fact was a unit um that fought at Gettysburg under the command of a Jewish General um Edward Solomon uh that had over a hundred casualties at Gettysburg tell the story of that unit because I I never knew about it before and I bet a lot of people don't either yeah it was fascinating um that in Chicago um uh they uh the Jewish Community actually collects a fair bit of money in order to recruit uh Jews and um uh this Jew company has comes to be known and uh you know again that's not should not be viewed as in a disparaging way um under uh Edward Solomon Edward Solomon becomes very significant and uh is particularly important um in the Battle of Gettysburg because they they hold on uh uh to a particularly significant piece of land uh quite a few of them actually and don't make it back uh which was generally true but Jews were very proud uh I think of um their involvement in the Civil War there's no question that Lincoln knows um of their involvement because when they write to Grant after this order they point out hey we got a lot of soldiers here who are Jewish including some in your own fighting force uh which was also true uh uh was a man named Spiegel whose relatives founded the Spiegel catalog by the way uh poor M poor Spiegel didn't make it through the war but his relatives did and they're still alive today and in Chicago Chicago yeah Catal I was in Chicago um and um there are other um uh who who are involved Lincoln knew that the Jewish Community uh is very proud of it they're probably seven or 8 thousand uh Jews who fight for uh the union um and that again bespeaks the fact that you now have a significant Jewish Community 150,000 Jews is going to produce a and that helped lead Dr fio mentioned this lead to one of the most interesting Innovations during the war which was the introduction of rabbis as chaplain given the fact that you had a significant Jewish population among the fighting forces yeah now that's a very important story it's very kind of Washington story uh when you first have chaplain you know you got to make sure that uh um uh we only get the right people as chaplain so they write into the law that a chaplain has to be a minister of Christian denomination um and of course that means the Jews are legally second class citizens uh uh here now there were a lot of laws written at that time it does not seem to have attracted much attention initially but then the Jewish Community um not only notices it but uh one of these Jewish companies it doesn't happen to be the same one out of Chicago actually elect a Jewish chaplain his name was Michael Allen he was not he sub he wasn't um an ordained Rabbi although uh he had been a caner and he was a Jewish lay leader um the company brought him in because they thought he'd be the best man as chaplain but of course once people realize a he's not a minister and B uh he's not a Christian uh he has to resign now they do what we would call a test case the same um company says okay uh we're going to elect in those days you elected chapain the Civil War we're going to elect Arnold fishell he is a rabbi in other words he was the assistant Rabbi at sherith Israel today known as the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York they elect him and uh it goes up all the way to the Secretary of War who uh has to embarrassingly write that you know we would certainly have viewed this favorably the man is much more competent than many of the people who served as chaplain in the Civil War but he's not a minister of some Christian denomination and so they can't legally appoint him at this point the Jewish Community um uh really decided to fight for its rights um it's the first major Civil Rights battle the Jews fight um they don't get far with Congress but this man Arnold fishell who has been turned down he comes and meets Abraham Lincoln and we we have a whole description of it because uh uh he kept all of the documents and uh he had paved the way and he goes to the White House and although there were a lot of people who wanted to see Lincoln Lincoln apparently knew who he was and Lincoln tended also to privilege ministers and so on he ushers him in he studies the papers and he agrees that something has to be done and Lincoln then um I was writing this at the time of paralysis in in government here in Washington I said wow how different that Lincoln decides you listen Lincoln says something has to be done but it's not easy to change a law after how many Congressmen are going to vote to change a law that celebrates Christianity so they don't change the word instead they decide that they're going to reinterpret the word uh we're got the official language is constru so we are going to to construe the word Christian minister a minister of some Christian denomination to mean minister of some religious denomination and they write this language and then they make sure thanks to Lincoln to bury it deep in a bill that gives um raises to very popular generals who's going to vote against that so uh the bill passes and then very very quickly um uh a a chaplain is recommended Lincoln writes the president he a sister president wants this done and they approve him and uh Jacob Frankl is made the first Jewish chaplain that changes history um because it means that the chaplaincy is not restricted just to the majority Faith but people of all faiths can be can be chaplain as they can be to this day and it and it's it's a wonderful story because it uh reflects a larger Point that's a theme of your book that Lincoln um changed in the course of his public life that from using the Trope that that law embodied that we are a Christian Nation and that Lincoln in the course of his public life very consciously changed his own language the U in in in his second inaugural um uh he doesn't talk about a Christian Nation and that and that your view is that this was uh a reflection of his this growing sense of the diversity of America yeah uh and uh and including the role of of non-christians right and and America is changing of course it's very timely because of course it's changing in air day as well but America is changing from an America that is overwhelmingly Christian uh and in Lincoln's day you know there are 150 ,000 who don't fit at least who are not Christian at all and uh we see it in the Gettysburg Address Jews and Christians have fallen in Gettysburg so Lincoln invents this term this nation under God and uh it's it's Welles say Christian God right it doesn't say right this Christian and it's well one can go online and read um Edward Everett's endless address at Gettysburg um uh and it's all about you know these Christian Martyrs forgetting Jews had fallen at Gettysburg Lincoln uh who of course was short and remembered um uses different language and since lincol was criticized early in his presidency by Jews for some of his Christian references it seems to me that he does consciously change his language and just as he become sensitive so we later see that America uh becomes sensitive to um the uh the presence of non-christians and what that means and you also point out that of course we've just gone through the 150th anniversary here and a lot of focus on the um on the death of Lincoln um and Laura mentioned that one of the attending um Physicians was a a Jewish doctor here in Washington Charles liberman but you also remind people that yes he was shot on Good Friday but it was also Passover Passover uh and that um uh and that since he died on a Saturday morning many of the first eulogies delivered by clergy in America uh were delivered by rabbis because they were in the Pulpit on Saturday morning uh we had many stories of rabbis as the word spread who of course had to just get up and eulogize Lincoln and the papers were full of descriptions and at this synagogue this happened at this synagogue they said ksh never before said but for someone of the Jewish faith but suddenly that seems appropriate to say the traditional Jewish Memorial prayer for Abraham Lincoln and it was noted at the time that uh that many of the first eulogies were uh given by Jews and it's extraordinarily important to Jews that they be part of this memorialization process in New York um a rabbi Isaac's uh the editor of the Jewish messenger the rabbi of Shilla at that time one of the senior rabbis uh in the city eulogizes Lincoln along with others Jews participate in many cities in um uh in the memorial uh process uh and of course we've just uh had the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's so-called last journey as he moves from Washington to Springfield and if you look in many of those cities say Cleveland and Springfield you do see Jews involved and that was clearly very important to them uh because it demonstrated that uh they were part of this country it's not somebody else's country they too uh feel uh uh uh that that they they want to eulogize and be part of the memorialization of this president and and I get a sense from Reading uh the book that uh in the same way that blacks long felt a special connection to Lincoln that that Jews have too you mentioned um uh at one point I think it was a book that was published that described Lincoln as Rabbi Abraham um uh there is a street in Jerusalem right named for Abraham Lincoln um and that there are many instances of Jewish writers and Jewish artists using Lincoln as a theme and that um he continues to reverberate in the Jewish Consciousness um not just as a historical figure but also as as an inspiration for artistic work yes I'm Jude uh there is uh we we just showed it for the first time in 10 years there is a contemporary painting uh uh by the Jewish artist CaRu um uh and it's really fascinating painting Lincoln um it it it it uses the diogenes theme diogenes who is searching for an honest man drops his Lantern he's found it and that's Lincoln but it also and this is what is so fascinating about the painting it introduces two themes that are going to be very important this is an 1865 painting one theme is the peering of Washington and Lincoln he has a little statue of Washington looking approvingly on Lincoln and of course they're going to be link some of us remember when you'd have both Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday in February uh similarly paired and um then um he also includes those famous words from Lincoln second in augural um uh in the painting which is part of the elevation of the second um uh inaug elevation of the second inaugural um which when Lincoln uh delivered it not everybody thought uh was so remarkable but within uh a few months it's going to become a sacred text you know it's interesting because just a personal note I had a very dear friend have a very dear friend with college classmate of mine named Joseph Russen and his dad Robert Russen well-known sculptor um uh did many statues of Lincoln a Jewish man from New York including one that sits at the highest point of the Lincoln Highway going west uh and my friend Joe's younger brother is named Lincoln I mean here's just one example of a Jewish artist um uh deeply devoted to Lincoln as a subject and as a spiritual and artistic inspiration right and of course down to the modern day of the Spielberg movie Lincoln that this tradition of artist Lincoln Fen people who remember fen's basement another example someone named for Lincoln and Lincoln Fen was full of liberal ideas in part because he carried that name and thought that Legacy was one that he should bear um uh so uh uh it becomes enormously important Solomon Sher uh remembered as a founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary and of the conservative movement in Judaism has a a wonderful essay on the meaning of Lincoln to him and how he first heard of Lincoln in Europe and how it influenced him uh the idea that there was a country led by such a person he of course had been born in Romania which was led by someone quite different than Lincoln and um still is yeah yeah it hasn't changed and um uh what it meant and uh the link Motif um uh it becomes Central to American Jews my good friend um Gary Zola has actually done a book about Lincoln in Jewish memory um and uh uh he's the one who discovered this remarkable sermon uh which by the way was by demitz um uh who who gave it uh that they called him Rabbi Abraham I'm seeing Frank Gilbert here in the first row we're talking about his relatives uh uh brandise and demits and so on uh but um uh and uh uh you know the the idea I know I there were people who tried to claim and I still get email messages from people who insist if his name was Abraham he must have been Jewish all along this of course uh is rubbish but um it does suggest how Jews thought about Lincoln by the way you can start to go to the uh microphones one of two more questions for Professor sa and then we'll get to your question so we've got the microphones as usual here at The Archives uh but um in fact um no one lesser than Rabbi Isaac mayor wise perhaps the most famous American Rabbi of the time explicitly says he must have been Jewish in his ancestry which as you say there's no basis in fact whatsoever except the spiritual one yeah but what's fascinating is that Jews have claimed for themselves those presidents who of whom they were particularly fond so when Franklin Delan Rosevelt was very well loved by Jews the argu and very well advised by Jews too yeah but the argument was he had all these Jewish advisors that his real name was rosenvelt and that uh you know he must have been Jewish uh more recently uh the claim um is lynon Johnson must have been jewi and so on that tells you more about Jews I would have been more likely to believe it about Roosevelt it tells you more about Jews and who their favorites are than about any of those presidents but it's fascinating and then there's this final note uh uh that Mrs Lincoln yeah uh is famous uh we heard a lot about this uh in the anniversary of the death that virtually the last thing that Abraham Lincoln ever said to her on the day before he died was this yearning to see Jerusalem before he died and so in in his own mind U there was to the very end this strong connection with that Legacy and I I take there is a debate over whether um that quote was made up by Mar by Mary um afterwards if she BEC so very religious in the wake of the assassination or whether it's real but it is worth remembering that because of the Advent of steam it's now much easier to go to the Holy Land Seward has gone to the Holy Land in the 1850s uh ulyses as Grant is going to go to the Holy Land um and of course Mark Twain is gonna go and Herman Melville so it makes a lot of sense that a Lincoln would have thought that he would go to the Holy Land and given Lincoln deep religious questions those people who were searching often would go there in the hope that in the Holy Land in Jerusalem they would find the ansers so it's certainly plausible uh that that that he might indeed have dreamed of going to Jerusalem uh after he stepped down because one of the things you point out that we know he was a man of deep Faith very learned in the Bible and as the one of the first things you said was his first introduction to Jews cames from his deep understanding of the Old Testament I mean full of religious questions and his second in aural speaks how could this happen how could everyone read the same Bible and come to such different different conclusions uh but a man who was certainly a religious Seeker we might say and uh those kinds of people wanted to go for answers to Jerusalem so I don't consider it impossible but it's it's um one of those questions within uh the the world of of Lincoln Scholars do we believe her or don't we believe her and again it tells you more about the scholar uh we'll never know the answer okay please ma'am you get the first question I'll get back over here I just finished a film on Julius Rosenwald the last actually of be in Boston next Wednesday night but let me just fill in a couple things uh his father Samuel Rosenwald came here uh came to America in the 1850s and married a hamerslag right and um they named their son Julius Rosenwald because of Julius hammerlock and my understanding is and it's in the film that hammerlock's clothed Lincoln were friendly with him accompanied the body when it came back sold memorials and L and then um the Rosenwald family uh settled when they came to Springfield across the street from Lincoln's home kitty corner which is now used by the park service and then when uh Rosenwald was a young man he and the memorial was being established um in uh Springfield uh he sold medallions for it and then years later when he helped establish over 5,000 schools for African-Americans on the wall was Lincoln oftentimes Booker T Washington and Julius Rosen Wald and just to make a full circle Spielberg was one of my funders good thank you thank you yeah um yes I'm a college student and I have had for many years the deep interest in Jewish history when I was in high school I read American Judaism a history and reading your book was essential in inspiring me to develop the interest in Jewish history that I have today and that interest in Jewish history I have no doubt will always be very important for me I wanted to say thank you very much Dr sarna for the role that your writing H played in my becoming the person that I am today thank you very much well thank you for that comment great they appreciate thank you yes sir hello Mark hi Steve uh I come from the land of Lincoln uh I grew up in Chicago and uh one of the first political names I ever knew and there is a Washington connection uh mayor Daly chose the federal judges which you know require Senate confirmation and I think it was the first point of political sophistication that I realized that he chose or picked somebody named Abraham Lincoln marovitz and my thought was how could that guy not get confirmed uh with that name uh so uh that's my comment and uh you know our license plate says taxation without representation uh the license plate of Illinois is Land of Lincoln people remember a license plate that sort of a merger of political activity and the woman who was responsible for that thinking up that license plate since we're in Washington DC is a Jewish woman named Sarah Shapiro so I just wanted that to be uh part of the historic record um I by the way if if this voice is familiar to you this is Mark Plotkin a very well-known commentator on uh uh on local TV and radio thank you Steve my my question is the Chicago there are 300,000 Jews in Chicago today how many Jews were in Chicago um in 1860 and was there anybody who was prominent who was a uh donor uh political activist uh uh in the city of Chicago who maybe the name still resides there the um so you had a couple of thousand Jews I think uh in Chicago in 1860 what's really interesting is that whereas in New York um the majority of Jews did not vote for Abraham Lincoln uh they had business ties in the South they were worried about the implications um you may have had German liberal Jews voting for Lincoln majority of Jews uh vote for the Democratic party uh and the same is true in Baltimore uh again you have a small number uh who support the Republicans people like Rabbi David Einhorn have to run for their life but the big Orthodox congregation uh is overwhelmingly supporting uh the Democrats but in Chicago a very careful study was done and it does appear that the majority of Chicago Jews uh did support uh the Republican party uh and I have that uh here um there is a very significant Jew named gream there's several gream Brothers uh who uh Lincoln knows the greams actually were also close to Douglas uh but they are very significant uh in early Chicago politics and as I say uh Chicago is also the place where Jews raise money to have this Jewish company uh in um the Civil War but you're certainly not going to get hundreds of thousands of Jews until the coming of East European Jews um and that's going to happen much later but this is really the nucleus of the Chicago a Jewish Community as Chicago begins to grow and then you're going to see some Jews move from Cincinnati which had thought that it was going to become the biggest city and greatest City in and and of course Chicago becomes what Cincinnati dreamed of uh uh becoming and although Cincinnati does have a better baseball team yeah well uh what happened is of course Cincinnati and invested heavily in um in in canals yeah in canals and in water uh and it s itself as the Gateway to the West when the railroad came to the city fathers in Cincinnati they thought the railroad was the stupidest invention they ever heard of why should somebody pay when the water is free they had a river yeah they refused to invest anything or encourage these railroads and of course Chicago which was Tiny and unimportant was happy to invest and Chicago then becomes what Cincinnati thought it would be and this is symbolized some years later than the Civil War when Isaac mayor wise's own son moves from Cincinnati to Chicago and as he leaves he's supposed to have said if I forget the o Cincinnati let my right hand with but then he moved to Chicago I'm there thanks Mark go ahead uh Dr C do you um do you see any similar any do you see any uh similarities um or even noticeable differences between how uh Roosevelt was eulogized by American rabbis versus how uh Lincoln was eulogized by American rabbis uh it's a very good question um there are similarities I haven't studied them it would be a good paper to assign to students but um that's what graduate students are for Dr yeah the reason it's a very smart question is there is a big book by a man named Herz who was actually the brother of Chief Rabbi Joseph Herz of England who collected all of these sermons about Lincoln and there's also a big book very little read today of all of the Jewish eulogies for Franklin Delona Rosevelt and in that sense one could um really sit and uh compare them Jews uh were deeply indebted to Rosevelt in part for what you said he brought so many of them into the government at a time when everybody else was discriminating against Jews and of course uh Jews also thought that his actions had ended the depression which um was so devastating in so many immigrant uh Jewish families um none of those themes are going going to emerge in the eulogies of uh Lincoln uh but in both cases people thought that they were presidents at a time when America was fighting a truly righteous cause the cause of the Union the cause of fighting against Nazism and in that sense it's easy to see parallels in uh the words used and as I said earlier uh a few people go overboard and judaize both men um but uh only glimmers and hints of that as I recall it in uh in the Roosevelt book or the Lincoln book thank thanks a lot please go ahead sir Oreo fan um I I want to thank you very much um as an armchair Civil War historian and of the the Jewish people this is sort of like a great place to be for me so I do have a couple of questions um number one there was a rabbi I believe from St Louis that I've read over the years that was very influential he was the one that uh lobbied for the chaplain I believe and I thought he was the first Jewish chaplain uh the fell started washing the rabbi started Washington now the first the first Jewish chaplain is certainly Frankle and the man who lobed was Arnold fishell who was from uh who was from New York um and and and then there were some other Jewish chaplain one of them I point out was named SAA um but he spelled it differently than me er um h i don't I'm just trying to think I'm not sure who you might be thinking of but lots of good people came from St Louis yeah I I the question was was whether Lincoln was friends with him as well because I read a lot about the fact that he came from St Louis to lobby and one one of the roles you know Dr sarna was was talking earlier about um the Jewish Merchants uh who uh then in effect franchise the Jew stores around the South many of them were headquarters in St Louis the ones who uh had the franchises in Tennessee and Kentucky and those in those areas and if any of you are interested there's a wonderful book called the juice store written by the daughter of one of these Merchants uh who worked for the St Louis Jews I I recommend it highly It's a Wonderful book that gives you a real sense of the culture that Dr sarna was talking about in these small Southern towns please go ahead um regarding that the the um the merchants uh in the Civil War order 11 I had also read over the years that some people believed that Grant did it for military reasons only that he felt that the rebels were following these I'll call them salesmen Peddlers um and that they were able to discover where the union troops were so I found that very interesting so I the question I have is do you think President Grant could be you know quote unquote anti-semite at that time so you have to read my other book when General Grant expelled the Jews I'm I grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to mention it um where I go into a great L of course um um my argument Al although there is no doubt that there was smuggling all sorts of people were smuggling uh that some some people only notice Jews but um the question is why at that time there had been talk of Jewish smuggling for a long time Grant's own father um uh Cooks up a scheme with the max in Cincinnati a significant firm of Jewish Clothiers uh and um uh they are going to go to Ulisses and get a pass to move cotton East and and Grant's father was going to get 25% of the profits and the Maxs were going to get the rest of it and of course Ulisses as Grant believes that uh the best way to end this war is not to move any cotton at all and then the the the the South will be starved and uh W won't uh be able to continue fighting so when he sees wow his own father is engaged in a smuggling scheme and uh uh with Jews uh so uh he has a tantrum and he then uh expels uh the Jews in a sense he expels the Jews rather than his father um uh and that's um the that has the advantage of explaining also the occasion the moment when it happens but it is important to point out that is that this becomes an issue in 1868 in the election Grant apologizes when does that happen in Jewish history I don't remember Ferdinand and Isabella yeah apologizing uh uh any uh you know certainly no Zar ever sorry about that pagram it was a big mistake I don't think so um so cacs never apologized to my grandfather I'll tell you that um so that's and as president Grant bends over backwards to embrace Jews he has a Jewish advisor he appoints a lot of Jews um when Jews are persecuted Grant speaks out by the time Grant dies uh the the Jewish Community uh has embraced him and so that's really a story Grant of a a man who repents and doesn't want to be remembered for General Lord number 11 so much so that he leaves it out of his Memoir I mean he writes this huge wonderful Memoir and it's not accident that it's not in his Memoir um uh his son tells us that Frederick I asked my who helped him I asked my father shouldn't we say something about general order number 11 he said my father said the less said about that the better um but fascinatingly if you read the memoir less read of his wife Julia she goes out of her way you know sometimes what husbands like to forget their wives like to remember she goes out of her way to mention general order number 11 which she characterizes as a that obnoxious order and I take that as another sign that Grant was embarrassed by the stain on his record and spent really the rest of his life uh especially after 1868 those last decades um trying to to change the record and proving he was not that kind of um of person so but you know that that's sort of the story of grant you get a rebuttal if you like and of course Laura I should I should remind everybody that Laura mentioned uh the incident of of Grant appearing at the dedication of the synagogue here in Washington as I mean that's real peny sat in the heat of Washington for 3 hours at the dedication of that synagogue um uh he's the first American president ever to go to a synagogue dedication he also gave a donation and a significant donation uh to um uh to the building so all of that is part of a Grant's project to improve his image yeah sir good thanks for your question yes sir so you mentioned that uh Jews influenced some of Lincoln's political use of of religious terms under God and whatnot you also mentioned that Lincoln was himself a deep thinker Seeker on religious matters is there any evidence that any of his Jewish friends or conversations uh with Jews influence any of his sort of more personal religious thinking i' I'd love to find such evidence but I'm not aware uh of any um most of the Jews whom he knows are liberal Jews who are not everyone knows they're Jewish but they're not deeply religious I do tell the one's interesting uh story here about an orthodox Jew um there is an amazing letter that uh Ben Chappelle um uh who who is a fabulous collector in terms of acquiring this material understanding it and seeing its significance and he owns a letter uh in which um the discussion is that a man named Levy who turned atemi Levy who was the son-in-law of Rabbi Morris Rafal the the Orthodox Rabbi of Benet jesin in New York he applies for a job uh um uh in in um a quartermaster job in the Army and Lincoln writes we have not yet appointed a Hebrew this the first case of affirmative action probably in American Jewish history uh and it shows that Lincoln believes that we ought to appoint a Hebrew now actually had appointed Hebrews but he didn't know it but H Levy is an orthodox Jew who know as being a serious Jew son-in-law of a rabbi and so on and Lincoln in typical word play says that he will be a faithful man meaning faithful to the union but also a man of Faith uh and that's the only example I know of where we see him interacting with an orthodox Jew he of course has then meets I mean various rabbis talk about particular meetings Z and Rafal had individual meetings with um uh with Lincoln but it's hard to know that they influenced him except that he treated them as uh you know men of the cloth whom he respected and sometimes he uh um would kind of tweak them a little bit uh so um on one occasion um a rabbi came and it was one of these fast days uh for that Lincoln called that fast in the Civil War and um Lincoln met this Rabbi who wanted help on something and uh Lincoln said well um why aren't you back in your congregation praying a and he said well I asked my assistant to uh lead the service so I could come and meet you so Lincoln did what he wanted and said now you can go back and do your own praying uh and um so that was typical linken uh in some ways thank you great story yes sir I just want to make two comments uh I um I'm involved with CI Civil War medicine so I don't think we should get out of here without at least mentioning that Bernard baroo's father was a confederate army surgeon Simon baroo most people do not know that and uh in fact he used to take Bernie to the battlefields when he was when he was a kid um but the other story the other comment is that um I think it was Robert Rosen I heard speaking who has written this book The Jewish Confederates but he was giving a talk at the plum streets uh temple in Cincinnati and he's relating the story that you did about the Mac brothers and he's going on and on about what bad guys these were and so forth and so on and then at the end in the Q&A somebody raises their hand and she says well I'm a descendant of one of those Brothers yeah I I I have a memory that that happened here no it's when we when you were here before and you were talking about the Mac Brothers someone in this audience said that they were Rel of descendants and I opened my book on uh Ulisses as Grant with a a similar uh story uh of how uh how I got interested in Grant and so on by the way there were lots of uh doctors on both it didn't take so much to be a doctor in the Civil War often meant a few months of training we shouldn't exaggerate what it meant on either side but right Simon baroo had had better training but there were other Jewish um doctors on both sides and you know some of them a which also happened in later Wars after serving as medics in the Civil War then they went to Europe and got real training um uh and uh is that because they were not allowed into American Medical Schools not in in the 19th century there was not discrimination yet but American there really wasn't medical school in the way they'd be in the 20th century America was not the place that trained great doctors I mean Liber men trained in Germany that's where the great Physicians came from in the 19 in in midd century was a medical school by then hopk it's not not in the 1860s I don't John Hopkins is not uh around yet as I recall it we'll have to look it up we'll look it up all right someone else I think did I I I think we're they I know the system here when they take the microphones stand there that's a hint all right so anyway thank you very much Dr s very much don't don't forget Dr s will be out there he'll be signing books but we are not responsible for any Orthopedic injuries so pick up this book with two hands but please do it's a wonderful book thanks a lot thank that's great
