Q: Your background & how you became interested in Lincoln and the Jews?

A:

• Author of American Judaism

• Wrote section about Grant’s General Order #11

• Tuned it into a book

• Approached by Shapell to create Lincoln & the Jews

• Outstanding collection of letters, primary sources

Q: Did a young Lincoln encounter Jews?

A: 

• Lincoln knew Jews from the Bible

• Gets to actually know them in Illinois

• Merchants in clothing industry

• Friendly with Jewish attorneys

Q: How did Lincoln view Judaism?

A:

• Lincoln – deeply religious

• Civil War enhanced his spirituality

• Judaism as part of American diversity

• Introduced – one nation under G-d

Q: Did Lincoln go after the “Jewish vote”?

A:

• Jews, a growing group in America

• Lincoln’s birth – 3,000 Jews; Civil War – 150,000!

• Lincoln paid attention to such trends

• 1864 election – Republican party courted the Jewish vote

Q: How did Lincoln view Catholics?

A:

• 1850s – huge anti-Catholic movement

• Know Nothing Party – Lincoln not a part of it

• Lincoln – being anti Catholic is not the American way

• Lincoln, impressive in private as in public

• No anti-Semitism in any of his writings

Q: Did Lincoln face  an organized Jewish community?

A:

• Board of Delegates of American Israelites

• Engaged in fighting to protect Jewish interests

• Issue of chaplaincy for 8,000 Union soldiers

• Fischel test case, solved by Lincoln

Q: What kind of Jewish community did Lincoln confront?

A:

• Still influential Jews like Simon Wolf

• But Board of Delegates understand need to organize

• Jewish newspapers play a unifying role for American Jewry

• Provide a voice for Jewish interests

• Help create a unified national community

• Isaac Mayer Wise: “write letters to congress”

Q: What was Grant’s General Orders #11 “Jewish” expulsion?

A:

• Generals, end smuggling between North & South; war will end

• Some Jews were smugglers; Generals – all Jews are smugglers

• Grant’s father and the Mack Brothers from Cincinnati

• Grant orders expulsion of Jews, AS A CLASS, from Tennessee area

• Lincoln immediately rescinds the order

• Strong, organized, Jewish response

Q: How did President Grant refer to the expulsion of Jews?

A:

• Grant never defended himself

• Wife Julia Grant wrote that the expulsion order was “obnoxious”

• Grant does not mention the expulsion in his memoirs

• Son Frederick, his father told him that the less said, the better. 

Q: President Grant & the Jews

A:

• From 1886 to death – bent over backwards

• Grant helps Jews in many ways

• Helped Romanian Jewry

• Brought Jews into the government

• Simon Wolf serves as a key advisor

• Jewish community does a 180 degree turn

• Jews mourn Grant’s death