We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History

Introduction: Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry

1 Introduction: Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry On Wednesday, April 19, 1865, Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, a prominent lawyer, Jewish communal leader, and longtime activist in the Republican Party, ascended the pulpit of Beth Israel Synagogue on Green Street in Louisville, Kentucky, to participate in the congregation’s obsequies for Abraham Lincoln. He began his lament with these remarkable words: “You often called him, jocosely, Rabbi Abraham, as if he were one of our nation—of the seed of Israel; but, in truth, you might have called him ‘Abraham, the child of our father Abraham.’ For, indeed, of all the Israelites throughout the United States, there was none who more thoroughly filled the ideal of what a true descendant of Abraham ought to be than Abraham Lincoln.”1 Lincoln’s familiar nickname, “Father Abraham,” was popularized in the Union army. The country’s soldiers enjoyed seeing the president when he visited the camps. He called them “my boys,” and they called him “Father Abraham.” In doing so, they playfully associated the biblical patriarch Abraham, the father of monotheistic faith, with their American “father,” Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s president.2 American Jewish soldiers undoubtedly also referred to Lincoln as “Father Abraham.” Yet it is an indisputable fact that some Jews—as Dembitz’s eulogy demonstrates—whimsically referred to the president as Rabbi Abraham, “as if he were one of our nation.” Over the course of American history, Jews have held many American leaders in high esteem, but American Jewry’s emotional bond with Abraham Lincoln can be described only as sui generis. From the time of his presidency to the present day, American Jews have persistently believed that Lincoln was one of their own. They continuously conceived of Lincoln as a Jewish sojourner and, in certain respects, a Jewish role model. But how did Lincoln acquire this exceptional status, and how, over the past century and a half, did this interesting relationship evolve? One facet of this special bond may be traced back to the fact that Lincoln and his Jewish contemporaries interacted on a personal level. Lincoln knew some American Jews, and some American Jews knew Lincoln. The sixteenth president was arguably the first man to arrive in the White House having long fraternized with a considerable number of Jews prior to assuming the presidency. During the 1850s, Lincoln patronized Jewish businesses, worked shoulder to shoulder with Jews who were actively involved in local politics, and made friends with a noteworthy number of Jews while he traveled across Illinois’s Eighth Judicial Circuit. In addition, a considerable number introduction 2 of Jews considered Lincoln to be a personal friend or, at the very least, a personal acquaintance . Jews had had political associations with Lincoln for years, and some took part in helping Lincoln to secure his party’s nomination in 1860. After he was chosen to head the Republican ticket, numerous American Jews participated enthusiastically in his election campaign. In short, among Lincoln’s many friends, there was a band of Jewish Lincoln loyalists. Interestingly, had Abraham Lincoln been running for president in 1840 instead of 1860, this relationship might never have been possible. This is because, demographically speaking, American Jewry had become a perceptible communal presence at the very time that Lincoln’s political career was unfolding. Between the mid-1830s and the 1860s, thousands of Jews from German-speaking lands, as well as Jews from the Baltic region, immigrated to the United States. A considerable number of these immigrants settled in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Many of them had been activists in the liberal revolutionary movements of their native lands. The failure of these revolutions and the subsequent reactionary political response drove them to emigrate in search of a better life. Economic opportunity, American democracy, and the Constitution’s promise of freedom pulled them from across the Atlantic to the New World. It did not take long for many of these seasoned activists to dive headfirst into the pool of local politics. These Jewish newcomers discovered they were welcome to participate in the­ hurly-burly world of politics on the American frontier. Many took a keen interest in the intensifying debate over slavery in America. Those who had fought for civic enfranchisement in the Old World identified with the struggle to abolish slavery in the New. Typically, the Jews who were opposed to the institution of slavery did not associate themselves with abolitionist societies; the Christian evangelical rhetoric and the exclusiveness that dominated these associations...