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Historian sheds new light on a famous story about Abraham Lincoln and a New York cantor
(New York Jewish Week) — A new book untangles one of the best known incidents involving Jews in the American Civil War — and suggests the real version is both more complicated and more interesting than the legend.
In “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army,” historian Adam D. Mendelsohn recalls the story of Arnold Fischel, the Dutch-born hazan, or cantor, at New York’s Shearith Israel Congregation, and how he persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to support the idea of allowing Jews to serve as military chaplains.
That much is true, as Mendelsohn explained in an online talk Tuesday sponsored by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Under a congressional statute, only Christian ministers could be chaplains, so in December 1861 Fischel traveled to Washington to argue his case directly to the president. Lincoln agreed to see Fischel, and a few days later wrote the cantor saying he would “try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.”
On July 17, 1862, Lincoln signed the law permitting Jews to serve as chaplains.
And yet, in research for his new book — which relied in large part on a vast database of Civil War soldiers known as the Shapell Roster — other parts of the story don’t hold together, Mendelsohn explained. According to a frequently retold version of the story, Fischel had been nominated to replace a Jewish layman named Michael Allen who had been forced out as chaplain of the Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry, allegedly at the request of a visiting delegation from the YMCA. Horace Greeley’s crusading New-York Tribune and other papers picked up the story and made a hero of the Jewish officer who had mustered the cavalry, Colonel Max Friedman, supposedly for “leading the charge against the unjust law.”
In fact, writes Mendelsohn, Allen was not kicked out as chaplain but probably resigned because he wasn’t enjoying his army service far from home. As for the colonel, “There is no evidence of a coordinated campaign by Friedman and his fellow Jews to elect Arnold Fischel in place of Allen.” Instead, Fischel’s contract with Shearith Israel was about to expire, and he sought the cavalry job because was in “urgent need” of the army’s relatively generous pay for chaplains.
Friedman, meanwhile, vigorously denied press reports that his 700-man cavalry, which had fewer than 20 Jewish soldiers, needed a Jewish chaplain. Mendelsohn found evidence that Friedman shrank from the attention, in part because he was a bit of a scammer: Like many officers in his day, he charged the government for no-show recruits, sold commissions to officers and got a cut of the profits from government contractors, known as “sutlers.” Even Michael Allen — who sold liquor — might have been in on the grift.
“It is a much more tangled tale than originally thought, but the outcome is the same,” Mendelsohn, director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of History at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, said Tuesday. “In fact, the Jewish community does lobby Lincoln to change the law, and there is a considerable effort to do so.”
Mendelsohn said the story of Fischel and Lincoln underscores the need to dig more deeply into American Jewish history, and how the Shapell Roster helped him do just that. His book about the 1,700 Jewish soldiers who served in the Union Army is, he writes, “a story of ordinary men in extraordinary times, as fine and as flawed as their fellow soldiers, and Jewish too.”
As for Fischel, he served for a time as sort of a chaplain-at-large to the Army of the Potomac, but never got the lucrative appointment he sought. Lincoln appeared skeptical of his request that a Jewish clergyman was needed as a hospital chaplain in Washington, where Jews were but a tiny fraction of the dead and wounded. Denied that commission, a disappointed Fischel returned to Europe.
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Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’ in Oct. 7 Anniversary Post
Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman speaks during a press conference on Day 4 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US, Aug. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Vincent Alban
Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, who last week joined the state’s race for governor, on Tuesday marked the two-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel with a statement condemning Israel’s military response in Gaza as a so-called “genocide” and calling for an end to US military support for the Jewish state.
In her statement, Romman described the past two years as “atrocities beyond human comprehension,” accusing Israel and the United States of “perpetuating more death, destruction, and horror in Gaza.” She cited Hamas-produced casualty figures of “at least 67,000 Palestinians” killed in Gaza, despite experts casting doubt on the reliability of such statistics from the enclave, and called for the US to “stop sending bombs in violation of our laws.”
Romman’s remarks came as Israelis marked two years since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists carried out the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering 1,200 people, most of them civilians, while kidnapping 251 hostages and perpetrating widespread sexual violence.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities and political rule in neighboring Gaza.
Romman referenced the “families desperate to be reunited with those taken hostage” and the “more than 1,100 Israelis” killed during the Oct. 7 atrocities in her statement but did not mention Hamas at all, including the terrorist group’s role in starting the war and continued refusal for two years to disarm and release the hostages. She also reaffirmed calls for a “lasting peace agreement.”
The Georgia Democrat also appeared to compare Israeli hostages who were abducted from their homes to Palestinian terrorist operatives who have been detained and imprisoned by Israel, demanding “for the release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages.”
Romman, 32, the first Muslim woman elected to Georgia’s legislature, has been an outspoken anti-Israel activist and critic of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Her comments underscore a widening divide within the Democratic Party over Israel, as progressives push to restrict US aid to the Jewish state while most lawmakers continue to back Washington’s alliance with Jerusalem. Romman criticized then- US Vice President Kamala Harris after her campaign rejected her request to speak at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) last year.
Last Monday, Romman announced her 2026 bid to become Georgia’s next governor.
Fellow state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Democrat and the legislature’s only Jewish member, said Monday that Romman “has no path to victory but is once again sabotaging the Democratic Party with her Mamdani-like, socialist platform,” referring to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. The Associated Press reported that Panitch also argued that Romman’s advocacy at the DNC “helped Donald Trump win,” potentially previewing a key attack against Romman by other Democrats.
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MIT’s Jewish president rejects Trump’s offer of ‘priority’ funding in exchange for policy changes
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jewish president, Sally Kornbluth, became the first university leader to reject the Trump administration’s offer to adopt a policy deal in exchange for funding benefits.
The administration extended its proposal, titled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” to nine universities this month that it said were “good actors.” The deal would require the schools to cap international student enrollment, limit employees’ political speech, and make other changes in line with the administration’s policies — including “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
In exchange, the schools would gain “priority” federal funding – a potentially potent carrot at a time when the Trump administration is more often slashing schools’ funding in an effort to retaliate against them and force changes.
One school, the public University of Texas system, said it was honored to be considered without yet accepting. Kornbluth’s rejection makes MIT the first of the schools to reject the deal.
“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” she wrote in a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon Friday. “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”
The rejection could make Kornbluth a target of conservative ire nearly two years after she dodged criticism in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. After she and two other university leaders appeared before Congress in December 2023 to answer questions about their schools’ handling of campus antisemitism, the other two were widely maligned for their responses and soon resigned.
But Kornbluth, who had built strong ties with Jewish leaders at MIT and her previous university, Duke, retained the support of her community, despite concerns about responses to pro-Palestinian student protesters.
Now, Kornbluth could reignite right-wing anger — while shoring up support among those on her campus who might see her as resisting an inappropriate intrusion into the university’s governance.
In the letter, Kornbluth added that the “compact” included principles that would “restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution.”
While MIT has gone largely unscathed by the Trump administration’s campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit against the school alleging that it had “allowed an anti-Semitic climate to persist.”
The other seven colleges offered the deal were the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia. Other than the University of Texas, the other schools have not yet commented. It was not clear how the White House selected them.
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Ro Khanna distances himself after posting documentary clip featuring antisemitic influencer
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna came under fire Thursday after he shared a documentary clip featuring comments by antisemitic influencer Ian Carroll.
The documentary, titled “Investigating Israeli Influence on US Politics” and made by the popular YouTuber Tommy G, takes aim at AIPAC and what it says is Israel’s influence over American policy. Khanna appears in the documentary as an example of a Democratic lawmaker who rejects the pro-Israel lobby.
The documentary features a wide range of voices, including Republican lawmakers and an IDF reservist who offer a pro-Israel perspective; a doctor who volunteered in Gaza; and Medea Benjamin, the founder of the anti-war group Code Pink.
It has also drawn criticism for favorably citing Carroll, a conspiracy theorist who claims that a “modern Jewish mafia” controls America, that Israel was behind 9/11 and that Israel conspired to kill conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Speaking to podcaster Joe Rogan earlier this year, Carroll said Israel was founded by the “the Jewish mob” and that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “a Jewish organization of Jewish people working on behalf of Israel and other groups.”
“Ian Carroll is one of the internet’s top conspiracy analysts,” Tommy G says in the documentary. “His critics label him an antisemite spreading false information about Israel, but to others, he is a fearless journalist that speaks on what some perceive as an extremely strong Zionist pressure on our government.”
Khanna posted a clip of the documentary on Thursday to make the point that he has not accepted money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. In the clip, Carroll claims that “93 out of 100 U.S. senators were taking money from a group that represents a foreign government and foreign interests in order to operate our government on behalf of someone else,” referring to AIPAC and Israel.
In the clip, Khanna later says that has not accepted any PAC or lobbyist contributions since entering Congress, adding that AIPAC’s stance was that “whatever Netanyahu does is right” and warning that those who disagree risk having the group “come after you.”
“I don’t take a dime from any PAC or lobbyist, including AIPAC,” wrote Khanna in the post on X. “I am proud to be one of the handful of Democrats standing up against Big Money.” He linked to an account of an organization called Track AIPAC that monitors the lobby’s donations.
Khanna soon drew criticism for appearing in the same production as Carroll and amplifying him. And hours later, he replied to his own post to distance himself from the conspiracy theorist.
“This was a documentary made by Tommy G who interviewed me. I did not speak to or meet Ian Carrol. I stand by my words and should be judged by them,” wrote Khanna.
Criticism resounded in the replies to Khanna’s post, with many commenters accusing the lawmaker of elevating Carroll’s antisemitic rhetoric on his platform.
“Stand by your words all you want. No one made you post a video where a Nazi talks favorably about you,” wrote one user on X. “In saner times, this would have [been] a career ending move. You are such a clown to defend it.”
Khanna, whose parents were from India and who was first elected in 2016, has long been one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress, including over its operations in Gaza. He led an effort last month to push President Donald Trump to recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly.
“Who says we’re going to starve the people so much that they suffer that we’re going to force the surrender? It’s sick,” said Khanna later in the documentary interview. “And your tax dollars, my tax dollars are funding them because both Biden and Trump gave Netanyahu a blank check.”
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