Over the process American background, Jews have held many American leaders in excessive esteem, yet they keep a different emotional bond with Abraham Lincoln. From the time of his presidency to the current day, American Jews have repeatedly considered Lincoln as one in every of their very own, casting him as a Jewish sojourner and, in sure respects, a Jewish position version. This pioneering compendium— the 1st quantity of annotated records to target the historical past of Lincoln’s picture, effect, and attractiveness between American Jews— considers how Lincoln bought his unprecedented prestige and the way, during the last century and a part, this interesting dating has evolved.

Organized into twelve chronological and thematic chapters, those little-known fundamental resource documents—many by no means sooner than released and a few translated into English for the 1st time—consist of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, poems, and sermons, and supply perception right into a wide array of concerns in relation to Lincoln’s Jewish connection. issues comprise Lincoln’s early encounters with principal ecu Jewish immigrants dwelling within the previous Northwest; Lincoln’s Jewish political allies; his encounters with Jews and the Jewish group as President; Lincoln’s reaction to the Jewish chaplain controversy; basic U. S. Grant’s common Orders No. eleven expelling “Jews, as a category” from the army division of Tennessee; the query of amending the U.S. structure to legislate the country’s so-called Christian nationwide personality; and Jewish eulogies after Lincoln’s assassination. different chapters examine the trouble of moral sense that arose whilst President Andrew Johnson proclaimed a countrywide day of mourning for Lincoln at the competition of Shavuot (the dinner party of Weeks), an afternoon whilst Jewish legislations enjoins Jews to celebrate and never to mourn; Lincoln’s Jewish detractors contrasted to his boosters; how American Jews have deliberately “Judaized” Lincoln ever given that his loss of life; the top function that American Jews have performed in in crafting Lincoln’s picture and in keeping his reminiscence for the yank kingdom; American Jewish reflections at the query “What might Lincoln Do?”; and the way Lincoln, for America’s Jewish citizenry, grew to become the avatar of America’s optimum ethical aspirations.

With considerate bankruptcy introductions that offer readers with a context for the annotated files that stick to, this quantity presents a desirable chronicle of yankee Jewry’s unfolding old come upon with the lifestyles and symbolic photograph of Abraham Lincoln, laying off mild on how the cultural interchange among American beliefs and Jewish traditions impacts the dynamics of the yank Jewish experience.

Finalist, 2014 nationwide Jewish e-book Award

Finalist, 2015 Ohioana booklet Award