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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.


The post Historian sheds new light on a famous story about Abraham Lincoln and a New York cantor appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.

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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel

March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

i24 NewsThe Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.

The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.

The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.

Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.

The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.

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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say

An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.

Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.

COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.

“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.

A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

STRICT SECURITY CHECKS

Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.

Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.

An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.

“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.

“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.

Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.

Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.

NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN

Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.

But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.

On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.

The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.

Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.

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