Happy 4th of July! While it’s true that there are no official Jewish holidays in the month of July, there is an extremely important Jewish celebration and that is the commemoration of our nation’s Declaration of Independence which we, in the Jewish community, tend to celebrate with enthusiasm and abandon.
This is because, as Jews, we have been blessed to call America home for 365 years. True, not all of our families have been here the whole time but, as a people, there have been Jews on this continent since nearly its earliest colonial days. Some of our family trees trace back to this original group. Some of our trees trace back to refugee admittance after internment in Nazi camps. This year, I’d especially like to direct our attention to the nature of Jewish immigration to this country because our history is important to frame and understand our present.
The first group of Jews who came to America were the almost two dozen Jewish refugee women and children who arrived after having to flee Brazil. After having been rejected at most ports of entry up the eastern seaboard, they were finally allowed to disembark by an unhappy Governor Stuyvesant who complained to the governing Dutch West Indies Company that the Jews were “a deceitful race, hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ.”
It was for financial reasons alone that the Dutch West Indies Company overruled Governor Stuyvesant and allowed the Jews to stay because they did not want to alienate and anger their Jewish financial investors. And thus was the first Jewish community in America – refugees without a penny to their name who were only allowed to stay so as not to negatively impact international trade and upon whom was placed the condition of staying that they be entirely responsible for supporting their own poor so as not to be a burden on the broader community.
And so, with this small group of refugees, America demonstrated both her greatest potential and her greatest challenge – to welcome refugees from all corners of the world understanding that those who struggle and strive to flee and survive are profoundly motivated people, driven by a desire to secure safety, liberty, freedom, and opportunity for themselves and their descendants. This is juxtaposed against the tendency to fear those who we do not know, to assume terrible things about them, and to confront poverty with a fear of becoming impoverished ourselves.
These same struggles, opportunities, and challenges are still with us today. So on this month of celebrating American independence, American integrity, and American pride, I ask us to consider how we will meet these questions today. I ask us to consider what we ourselves will do with our freedom, security, power, and autonomy now that we are solidly on the inside. I ask us to consider what it means for each of us to be Americans and how we can best express our gratitude for the incredible safety, security, freedom and opportunity that this great country has shown us.
Happy Birthday America! May our country continue to be a place of safety and security, freedom and liberty. May we have the courage to live up to our greatest potential. May God bless America and may American be a nation worthy of God’s blessings.
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Rabbi Marcus is spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El in San Diego. This message is reprinted from an e-blast sent to members of her congregation.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World