Kavod on the Road via Zoom: An Ambivalent Friendship: America’s Early Presidents and the Jews

Jews were present in small numbers in America long before the country became the United States. In 1790, the first US president, George Washington, famously and warmly welcomed Jewish citizens as equals and declared that his government would give “bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” But subsequent American leaders like Jefferson, Adams, and Grant exhibited mixed feeling about fellow Jewish citizens. During the Civil War, General Grant enacted an anti-Semitic order against Jewish businessmen, that was quickly rescinded by President Lincoln, who responded to lobbying by some of his Jewish friends. In this presentation, Dr. Jeanne Abrams will examine both the positive and negative relationships between American leaders and the early Jewish community in colonial times and the early republic.