The history of American Jews disproves the woke thesis on the racist origins of the US
When, in recent years, statues of historical figures began to be demolished in the United States, the most used excuse was that they were figures linked to colonialism and slavery; however, this led to the targeting of even Christopher Columbus, who among other things is seen as a symbol of the emancipation of the Italian-American community. All of this is part of a broader rewriting scheme of American history, seen only as a succession of white discrimination against minorities. A trend that has received considerable support, such as that of the New York Times which, through the 1619 Project , would like to trace the origin of the country not to 1492, the year of the discovery of the continent, but to 1619, when the first slaves from Virginia arrived in Virginia. Africa.
Yet, there is a minority whose path demonstrates how American history is not only made up of injustices but, on the contrary, of conquests for those who aspired to obtain freedom and rights: the Jewish one. In fact, although the Americans themselves are little aware of it, since the discovery of the New World the first Jews who emigrated there from Europe did so above all to escape the Spanish Inquisition, which even after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 continued to hunt them down. .
As the American historian Edward Kritzler recounted in his 2008 book "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" , many Marranos, or Jews who had pretended to convert to Christianity to avoid reprisals, joined the sailors of Columbus, and after he became governor of the West Indies, they found a safe haven in the Caribbean islands. Others emigrated to South America in the wake of conquistadors like Cortez who, despite being portrayed today as ruthless invaders, according to Kritzler were more tolerant of Jews than many of their compatriots. Over the centuries, some descendants of these Marranos became privateers and attacked Spanish ships on behalf of Holland and England.
But it was during the American War of Independence that many Jews fought bravely to see their rights recognized: as Giuliana Iurlano explained in 2018, former professor of history of international relations at the University of Salento, the small community present in the British colonies in North America he entered well, dedicating himself to trade, viticulture, the construction and rental of merchant ships. Like the other settlers, the Jews participated with great dedication in local politics, also because anti-Semitism was much less widespread there than in any other territory under English rule. In New York, in particular, since 1729 they had the right to obtain public office without being obliged to take an oath on the Christian Bible.
At the time of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, between 2,000 and 2,500 Jews lived in the colonies. All of them had experienced the events of the country with great apprehension: most of them were on the side of the patriots, also because they were entrepreneurs who could hardly bear the taxes and other economic restrictions imposed by the English crown, while a minority, made up of wealthy families who in part they supplied supplies to the army, was with the loyalists; still others wanted to remain neutral in the face of the precipitate of events. There were entire families who swore allegiance to one of the two parties, and others who instead found themselves divided within them. Those who chose to side with the patriots left English-controlled cities, such as New York and Savannah, to move to Philadelphia.
Many of them signed up as volunteers in the Continental Army; so did Francis Salvador, a landowner born in London and who in 1774 became the first Jew elected to public office in the colonies. When the British army attacked South Carolina, on the night between July 31 and August 1, 1776, he was fatally shot, and a Cherokee Indian allied with the British cut his scalp. Salvador was probably the first Jew to fall in the American Revolution, and a stele in Charleston City's Hall Park is dedicated to him, which reads: “Born an aristocrat, he became a Democrat. English, he crossed his destiny with America; faithful to his ancient faith, he gave his life for new hopes of freedom and human understanding. "
At least a hundred Jews enlisted in the armies of both factions; a number that may seem small, but it must be considered that the adult males of military service age in the community were about 500 in all and, therefore, it was 20 percent of the total who took part in the conflict. They held various roles, from simple foot soldier to senior officer.
An important aspect of the story is that, when they were previously drafted into the British army, none of them could aspire to become an officer, unless they converted to Protestantism (the same was true for Irish Catholics). On the contrary, at least three of them obtained prestigious positions in the continental army: Mordecai Sheftall, enlisted as quartermaster in the Georgia militia, became colonel, while David S. Franks and Solomon Bush, staff officers, became lieutenant colonel.
There were also those who fought for the independence of the colonies without taking part directly in the clashes, but through economic support and espionage activities: the most important was Haym Salomon ( to the left of George Washington in the statues in the photo ), an entrepreneur born in Poland and descendant of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492. After emigrating first to New York and then to Philadelphia, he sided with the patriots, so much so that between 1781 and 1784 he financed George Washington's campaigns with $ 650,000 since then (which is equivalent to over 16 million today). The short film "Sons of Liberty" , produced in 1939 by Warner Bros which was founded by the children of Polish Jewish immigrants, and the historical novel "Haym Salomon, Son of Liberty" , written in 1941 by Howard Fast.
The American Revolution meant political equality and the right to freedom of religion for the Jewish minority. When George Washington became the first president of the United States in 1789, the Jews, in a letter from the president of their Newport congregation, Moses Seixas, expressed their deep gratitude, along with their promise to support the new government. In response, Washington reaffirmed the freedom of conscience and the privileges of being an American citizen. He added that from that moment on, there would be no more talk of tolerance, as "the United States government […] only requires that those who live under its protection behave like good citizens, concretely supporting him at every opportunity."
In conclusion, anyone who speaks of the United States as an intrinsically racist and oppressed country should read the story of American Jews, who found much more freedom in those lands than their co-religionists in Europe did at the time and in Islamic countries.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/la-storia-degli-ebrei-americani-smentisce-la-tesi-woke-sulle-origini-razziste-degli-usa/ on Sat, 19 Mar 2022 03:44:00 +0000.