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Jewish Roots of American
Liberty
The Impact of Hebraic Ideas
on The American Story
By Wilfred McClay
& Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern
The newly-released book, Jewish Roots of American Liberty, by Bradley Prize-winning Hillsdale College historian Wilfred McClay and Yeshiva University's Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, illustrates how the free institutions that we value so much in today's America - including Christianity itself - are securely grounded in Jewish ideas, images and ethics. The timing of the release of this book couldn't be more consequential.
In recent months, the media has been consumed by certain individuals calling into question the Hebraic roots of both Christianity and America. This acute, ahistorical threat, as well as the rise in militant secularism over the past few decades, call for a clear and convincing presentation of how the Hebrew Bible, and Jewish ideas, have indelibly shaped the American story.
In Jewish Roots of American Liberty, you'll learn that:
· The Jewish faith and scriptures form the deep
foundation for American commitment to religious liberty. The inscription on the
Liberty Bell was taken from Leviticus 25:10 in the Hebrew Bible, saying
"Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof."
· At a time when anti-Semitism has skyrocketed
in the United States, it is important to remember the unique historic bond that
America has with the Jewish faith and the Jewish people, extending back to
their shared Biblical heritage.
· The central importance of the Exodus: The
story of the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the
Promised Land - as related in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles - is the
foundational story of Jewish identity.
· The warm embrace of Jews and Judaism shown by
President George Washington in his famous letter to the Hebrew Congregation of
Newport, RI, was something that set America apart from the rest of the world,
as a model of religious liberty.
· The influence of the Hebrew Bible permeated
the political ideas of the early generations of Americans and attests to their
belief that Biblical religion was indispensable to the American experiment in
republican self-government.
· Some of the most central personalities in the
Bible are woven irrevocably into the fabric of American culture. Try to imagine
American culture without David, Solomon, Samson, Esther, Elijah, Daniel, Moses,
Abraham, Jezebel, and dozens of others!
· Many of the greatest American writers, such as
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, were influenced by Jewish themes of
piety and human limitation; their sober counsel formed an important
counterpoint to the utopian aspirations of early American romanticism.
· The United States was the first nation to recognize the modern state of Israel, which it did just minutes after the new state's existence was announced.
The thirty-one essays and documents that comprise this book offer a sampling of the many crucial ways - Biblical, cultural, literary, and political - that the Hebraic tradition has contributed to the treasury of American self-understanding and sense of mission. Topics range from the titanic influence of the Hebrew Bible on the political culture of the American Founding, to the distinctly Hebraic vision of figures like John Milton and Abraham Lincoln, to the Biblical heroes whose examples run through the canon of the American imagination, and more.
Uncannily timely and clearly written, suitable for both classroom use and stand-alone reading, the highly accessible contents of Jewish Roots of American Liberty will inform and inspire those who want to illuminate the bond between the American and Jewish stories and convey the blessings of that bond to a rising generation at a crucial moment in our nation's history.
"McClay and Halpern have done yeomen's work in assembling a sparkling array of literary and historical offerings at an especially, unfortunately, salient moment for questions of the relationship between Jewishness and Americanness. 'The Jewish faith is predominantly the faith of liberty,' President Calvin Coolidge professed at the 1925 dedication of Washington, D.C.'s Jewish Community Center, 'and Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy.' The Jewish Roots of American Liberty reminds Americans of both Judeo and Christian origins of this crucial and timely truth." --Washington Examiner
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Wilfred M. McClay is professor of History at Hillsdale College, where he holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair of Classical History and Western Civilization. His book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America received the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians. Among his other books is the award-winning bestseller, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story.
Rabbi Stuart Halpern serves as the senior advisor to the provost and deputy director and chief strategy officer of the Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He has edited nineteen books, including Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States, Esther in America and The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada. His writings on the Hebrew Bible's impact on the United States have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Tablet, Jewish Review of Books, First Things, and The Jerusalem Post.
