Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism

9. Lincoln, Grant, and the Jewish Vote

83 9 Lincoln,Grant,and the JewishVote Before the war, American Jews were reluctant to participate forcefully in U.S. political life. Orthodox leaders such as Isaac Leeser saw political activity and even officeholding as an anathema. Jews ran the risk of neglecting their religious duties“when any office is bestowed upon us,” he said. During the election campaign of 1860, Leeser warned American Jews not “to wade into the pool of partisan warfare.” While some Jewish publications might note the election of Jewish candidates, the Occident“never paid much attention to the appointments of Israelites to office,” Leeser said.1 Just as the Civil War erupted, Leeser told his congregation,“We are not very solicitous that our people should be appointed to office, nor would we complain if a Jewish candidate should be beaten in a popular election.”2 Officeholding, he said, did not necessarily confer dignity to the Jewish citizen .“We can do without voting, we can live without holding office, but we are nothing without religion. We die without our faith,” Leeser told his Orthodox followers. In his view, American Jews’ only responsibility in the political realm was to vote, and they should do so“quietly and unostentatiously.”3 That kind of limited political participation, he said, required no national political organization , no self-­ imposed quota of Jewish officeholders, and, most important, no central authority to tell Jews how to cast their ballots. Leeser was not alone, especially among the traditionalists, in saying that“Israelites have no party politics.” Orthodox leaders were concerned that once in America, Jews would be drawn into a more secular life. Freedom and material abundance would lure Jews away from the synagogue and into the political clubhouse .A Jewish Democratic club in NewYork,Leeser said,was guilty of holding meetings on the Sabbath“in violation of all decent propriety.”Such actions could 84 Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism only reflect poorly on all Jews—­ “What must these [Christian] neighbors think of us?,” he asked.4 New York rabbi Morris Raphall was instructed by his traditionalist congregation in 1860 on the “impropriety of any intermeddling with politics,” which they viewed as inconsistent with the Jewish clerical character.5 Traditionalists also expressed concern that once in the fray of political battles, Jews might be tempted to form their own party, an obvious target for anti-­ Semites. In 1860, Leeser asked why New York needed a“German Hebrew Democrats” club:“Do they wish to create a well-­ founded odium against themselves ?”6 Political organizations that would“advocate a united Jewish response” at the ballot box, said Leeser,“are fraught with danger.” Always viewing Jews as outsiders in Protestant America, Leeser feared that if a coordinated Jewish vote were crucial in an election,“we would . . . expose ourselves, justly, to the hatred of the party defeated by our influence.”7 When the New York Herald raised the prospect of a Jewish political party emerging out of the Board of Delegates, the board’s traditionalist leaders responded firmly that promoting the welfare of the American diaspora was a far cry from running candidates for office on a Jewish ticket.8 When Jews appealed to the government to reject the discriminatory trade pact with Switzerland, Leeser judged the situation to represent unique circumstances that “demand that the quiet with which we habitually regard passing events should be thrown aside.” Otherwise, Leeser said, “we do not deem foreign politics, and, for that matter, domestic ones also as deserving the special attention of the Israelites in America.”9 With the end of the Civil War, congregational leaders recognized that the reluctance to speak out in the political arena was a distinct weakness. Civil War–­era anti-­Semitism accelerated the drive to assimilate, which meant joining other Americans in the partisan battles of the day. According to Isaac Mayer Wise, Jewish editors’ motto could no longer be,“No politics.” Even Leeser told the readers of one Philadelphia newspaper that Congress’s failure to censure General Ulysses S. Grant after his expulsion order“should make the blood boil in the veins. . . . It would be unnatural if Israelites should rest quiet under such an infliction.”10 The Election of 1864 In 1864, American Jews vigorously supported Abraham Lincoln’s reelection, grateful for the president’s decisions to appoint Jewish chaplains as well as overturn General Orders 11. Some Jewish Democrats who had earlier complained Lincoln, Grant, and the Jewish...