The World According to Bush: Jews, Politics and Presidents
Feb 27 '04 (Updated Mar 06 '04)
The Bottom Line Vote! and vote your conscience. Who is a "no place for hate" candidate? Who will protect your rights no matter what sex, race or religion you are?
I just passed my 4th anniversary writing for this site! As we approach another election, I thought it time to write an essay in honor of surviving 4 years.
The first part has been adapted from something I read in my religious organization's newsletter. The author wasn't referenced there, though she should have been. I did a Google search, found it and adapted it a bit. I think you will find it interesting.
The rest of the words are my own. You may not agree with me. I just ask that you be open-minded about the issues and if you can't be (I do understand.) then skip the rest. On second thought if you are Anti-Semitic you might want to skip this whole essay.
George Washington was the first President to write to a synagogue. In 1790 he wrote to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI and to Mikveh Israel Congregation in Savannah, GA. He wrote to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, VA, Mikveh Israel Philadelphia, Beth Elohim, Charleston, S. C., and Shearith Israel, New York. His letters were an expression and hope for religious harmony.
Thomeas Jefferson was the fist President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Etting of Baltimore as U.S. Marshall for Maryland.
James Madison was the first President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816.
Martin Van Buren was the first President to order an American consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the U.S. consul in Alexandria, Egypt to protect the Jews of Damascus who were under attack because of a false blood ritual accusation.
John Tyler was the first President to nominate a U.S. consult to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism who established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.
Franklin Pierce was the first and maybe the only President whose name appears on the charter of a synagogue. Pierce signed the Act of Congress in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the incorporation of the city's first synagogue, the Washington Hebrew Congregation.
Abraham Lincoln was the first President to make it possible for Rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but Christian clergymen from being chaplains. Lincoln was also the first and only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of anti-Semitism by the U.S. government.
Ulysses S. Grant was the first President to attend a synagogue service while in office. In 1874 Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated. Grant and all members of his Cabinet were there.
Rutherford Hays was the first President to designate a Jewish ambassador for the purpose of fighting anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peixotto Consul-General to Rumania. Hays also was the first President to assure a civil service employee her right to work for the Federal government and yet observe the Sabbath. (not working on Friday nights and Saturday)
Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt donated some of his prize money to the National Jewish Welfare Board.
William Howard Taft was the first President to attend a Seder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, RI, he participated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board.
Woodrow Wilson was the first President to nominate a Jew to the United States Supreme Court. Wilson was also the first President to publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for European War relief.
Warren Harding was the first President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed September 22, 1922.
Calvin Coolidge was the first President to participate in the dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community center.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to be given Torahs as gifts. Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park.
Harry S. Truman on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel's proclamation of independence, was the first head of a government to announce to the press that "the United Stated recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new state of Israel." Truman was also the first U.S. President to receive a president of Israel, Chaim Weizman at the White House in 1948.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President to participate in a coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American Jewish community.
John F. Kennedy named two Jews to his cabinet - Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish Award was named. The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.
Jimmy Carter in a number of speeches stated his concern for human rights and stressed the right of Russian Jews to emigrate. He is credited with being the person responsible for the Camp David Accords.
George Bush, Sr. in 1985 as Vice President had played a personal role in "Operation Joshua," the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Bush got the United Nations to revoke its 1975 "Zionism is Racism" resolution.
Bill Clinton appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the previous Presidents put together!
George W. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover who has no Jews in his cabinet at all.
(Adapted from a piece by Tina Levitan. She is the author of First Facts in American Jewish History from 1492 to the Present, published by Jason Aronson Publishers.)
When you go to the voting booth in November, remember there is no place for hate anywhere in the world for any people of any color, religion, sexual preference or ethnicity.
On a final note:
I am a Reform Jew. My religion is complex with variations of thoughts among us. I am pro-abortion rights. You don't have to be. You don't have to ever have an abortion. I am confident that under a Bush regime safe abortions will become illegal. He will (and already has tried to - read the fine print) make all abortions illegal by sneaking that into his late term abortion bill.
If abortions become illegal, women will still have them. They will die in back alleys. They are your daughters, sisters and mothers. They are leaving behind motherless children who are already born.
I would not ask you to ever have an abortion or to ever think having one is all right. In turn I do not expect you to ask me not to have one. All I ask is that we keep abortions safe and the only way to do that is to keep them legal. Women will have abortions whether they are legal or not. Let's make sure the women in our country live so they can rear the children they have or go on to rear children they want.
My Final, Final Thoughts:
We have a President who says that amending the Constitution to ban gay and lesbian marriages is a serious undertaking. Yet he is the same man who wants to amend it to ban late-term abortions (according to Planned Parenthood, an organization whose information I trust), ban flag burning(http://www.johncornyn.com/news/flag.html
) and other issues on his agenda. You may believe these issues should be banned or not. That isn't the point. The point is that this is a man who talks out of both sides of his mouth and has been less than truthful with the American public. What's next? A ban on marriage between people of different colors or religions? Anything is possible under this Administration.
Is the world according to Bush the one in which you want to live?
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.