[yshavurah] [Fwd: Fw:]
- From: Lawrence Turyn <lturyn2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: yshavurah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 21:43:59 -0400
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Fw: Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004
17:30:03 -0400 From: Richard J Turyn <rturyn@xxxxxxxx>[1] To:
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arthur wouk <awouk@xxxxxxx>[2] Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 19:57:48 -0600
(MDT) Message-ID: <200408060157.i761vm5q007701@xxxxxxxxxxxx>[3] From:
Mental-Floss-@xxxxxxxxx[4] (Bob K.) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish.moderated
Subject: Presidents and Jews Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 13:51:29 +0000 (UTC)
ETAuAhUAq5H2tnX2/nFwYHBZyVMyJJaU3hkCFQCfCgy9vwyInpxxzcuapxTLr3k8rQ==
Presidents and Jews NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU READ THE LAST ONE LISTED -- U.S.
Presidents: GEORGE WASHINGTON was the first President to write to a
Synagogue. In 1790 he addressed separate letters to the Trouro Synagogue in
Newport, Rhode Island, and to Mikve Israel Congregation in Savannah,
Georgia,and a joint letter to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, Virginia,
Mikve Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston,
South Carolina and to Shearith Israel, New York. His letters are an eloquent
expression and hope for religious harmony and endure as indelible statements
of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy. Don't forget Hyaim
Solomon who helped finance the Revolutionary War. THOMAS JEFFERSON was the
first President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben
Getting of Baltimore as U.S. Marshall for Maryland. JAMES MADISON was the
first President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M.
Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816. MARTIN VAN BUREN was the first President to
order an American Consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he
instructed the U.S. Consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to
protect the Jews of Damascus, Syria who were under attack because of a false
blood ritual accusation. JOHN TYLER was the first President to nominate a
U.S. Consul to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism, who
established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.
FRANKLIN PIERCE was the first and probably the only President whose name
appears on the charter of a Synagogue. Pierce signed the Act of Congress in
1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the
incorporation of the city's first Synagogue, the Washington Hebrew
Congregation. ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the first President to make it possible
forRabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862
Actof Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but
Christian clergymen from the chaplaincy. Lincoln was also the first, and
happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of
Anti-Semitism by the U.S. Government. It was Lincoln who cancelled General
Ulysses S. Grant's "Order No. 11" expelling all Jews from Tennessee from the
District controlled by his armies during the Civil War. Grant always denied
personal responsibility for this act attributing it to his subordinate.
ULYSSES S. GRANT was the first President to attend a Synagogue service while
in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated in
1876, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
was the first President to designate a Jewish Ambassador for the stated
purpose of fighting Anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peyote
Consul-General to Rumania. Hays also was the first President to assure a
civil service employee her right to work for the Federal Government and yet
observe the Sabbath. He ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had
beendenied a position in the Department of the Interior because of her
refusal to work on Saturday. THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the first President to
appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.Theodore Roosevelt was also the first
President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he
received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the
Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the National
Jewish Welfare Board. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the first President to attend
aSeder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, Rhode Island,
heparticipated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president
of the National Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.
WOODROW WILSON was the first President to nominate a Jew, Louis Dembitz
Brandeis, to the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm against great
pressure to withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted that he knew no one
better qualified by judicial temperament as well as legal and social
understanding. Confirmation was finally voted by the Senate on June 1, 1916.
Wilson was also the first President to publicly endorse a national Jewish
philanthropic campaign. In a letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917,
Wilson called for wide support of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which
wasraising funds for European War relief. WARREN HARDING was the first
President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour
Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in
Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution
wassigned on September 22, 1921. CALVIN COOLIDGE was the first President to
participate in the dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not
a house of worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of
theWashington, D.C. Jewish Community Center. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the
first President to be given a Torah as a gift. He received a miniature Torah
from Young Israel and another that had been rescued from a burning Synagogue
in Czechoslovakia. Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde
Park. The Roosevelt administration's failure to expand the existing refugee
quota system ensured that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some
of the Holocaust's six million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt's
death, the arguments continue over Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust.
HARRY S. TRUMAN, on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel's
proclamation of independence, was the first Head of a Government to announce
to the press that "the United Stated recognizes the provisional Government
asthe de facto authority of the new State of Israel." Truman was also the
first U.S. President to receive a President of Israel at the White House,
Chaim Weisman, in 1948 and an Ambassador from Israel - Eliahu Elath in1948.
With Israel staggering under the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952,
President Truman obtained from Congress close to $140 million in loans and
grants. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER was the first President to participate in a
coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a
network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American
Jewishcommunity. On this occasion he said that it was one of the enduring
satisfactions of his life that he was privileged to lead the forces of the
free world which finally crushed the brutal regime in Germany, freeing the
remnant of Jews for a new life and hope in Israel. JOHN F. KENNEDY named two
Jews to his cabinet - Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only
President for whom a national Jewish Award was named. The annual peace award
of the Synagogue Council of America was renamed the John F. Kennedy Peace
Award after his assassination in 1963. JIMMY CARTER, in a number of
impassioned speeches, stated his concern for human rights and stressed the
right of Russian Jews to emigrate. He is credited with being the person
responsible for the Camp David Accords. GEORGE H. W. BUSH in 1985, as Vice
President, had played a personal role in "Operation Joshua," the airlift
which brought 10,000 Jews out of Ethiopia directly to resettlement in
Israel.Then, again in 1991, when Bush was President, American help played a
critical role in "Operation Solomon," the escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian
Jews. Most dramatically, Bush got the U.N. to revoke its 1975 "Zionism is
Racism" resolution. Consider the last two officeholders: BILL CLINTON
appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the previous presidents put
together. GEORGE W. BUSH is the first President since Herbert Hoover who has
no Jews in his cabinet at all.
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