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The gift Jews gave to America on its 100th birthday in 1876
On the eve of July 4, 1876, a New York broadside marked America’s centennial with something extraordinary: the first Hebrew poem to probe the essence of America. The poem, which appeared with an English translation, creates a fascinating encounter between a new nation brought forth upon a new land and an ancient nation without a land of its own.
It also reflects some of the most fundamental dilemmas troubling American Jewry “in those days, at this time.”
This now largely forgotten poem, “Minchat Yehudah” (Judah’s Offering), was written in Hebrew by Moses Aaron Schreiber and translated by Rabbi Dr. Frederick de Sola Mendes. Both served as clergy in a leading New York synagogue: Sha’arey Tefila, located at the time on West 44th St.
The poem is notable in Hebrew literature not only for its pioneering subject matter — the United States — but at least as remarkably for its tone. It radiates exuberance; its mood is festive and upbeat, and its joy and optimism are virtually unique in Diasporic Hebrew poetry. Nor is it common to find in that poetry the harmony and confidence of verses like:
Here they came
Christians and Jews
as friends and brothers
In her shadow they find peace,
In her bounty, joys increase.
And indeed, from the centennial and until quite recently, America and the Jews were a kind of match made in heaven, an encounter that generated an explosively successful historical rendezvous.
The poem’s title, “Judah’s Offering” is a quotation from Malachi 3:4, which refers to a new offering that is reminiscent of “the days of old.” Accordingly, in the poem it is made to refer to the singular gift that American Jews could give their adopted homeland on its anniversary: a new song in the language of the ancient Hebrew Bible. As the author writes in the eighth and final stanza:
Alas! but we,
Posterity
Of Judah’s host,
No land can boast!
Our tongue alone
Is all we own!
Accept from Hebrews
This ode in Hebrew,
Our heartfelt prayer,
“God bless thee, e’er!”
The Hebrew language, presented here as a “portable homeland,” was something that Jews could offer to the American national heritage. The Puritans had appropriated the Bible as an American asset, using it as a parable (an “ideal typology” in their terminology). They understood their migration to the new world as an exodus from the bondage of England — their Egypt — to America, their Promised Land. But if the founders had already made the biblical heritage their own, the language of the Bible was something else. It belonged exclusively to the Jews and could serve as the special “Offering” of biblical Judah’s offsprings.
Though only a minuscule number of American Jews at the time — before the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe — knew any Hebrew, the language, as scholar Alan Mintz has suggested, was understood as the root-source of Jewish national culture, one might say the cultural DNA of the Jewish people. Since the U.S. was a “composite nationality” (that’s Frederick Douglass) or “nation of nations” (that’s Walt Whitman), Hebrew as a symbol of the Jewish nation was a building block of America.
This symbolism is brought out strikingly in the graphic arrangement of the broadside. Its shape is reminiscent of the popular schematic display of the biblical tablets, with the Hebrew and English version placed on either of the joined tablets. From early on, the tablets served as a prominent symbol of American Judaism. Since the poem was about uniting the Jews with America and Hebrew with English, this merging was displayed visually, echoing the biblical heritage common to Christians and Jews.
But the harmony of the Hebrew and English as melded tablets is solely graphic and visual. A striking feature of the broadside is the gulf between the themes and messages of the Hebrew poem and its English rendering. The English translation, in many places, simply subverts the Hebrew original.
To understand why this was, it is first necessary to become better acquainted with the author and the translator. The author, Moses Aaron Schreiber (1841–1912), was a Kovno, Lithuania-born maskil (Hebrew Enlightener) who had studied to become a Hebrew teacher. Shaaray Tefila, the synagogue in which he served as “chazan” upon his arrival in the U.S, was founded in 1839 as a hub for the city’s Anglo-Jewish elite.
The English translation was crafted by Sha’aray Tefila’s acting minister, Rabbi Dr. Frederick de Sola Mendes (1850–1927), a scion of illustrious Sephardic rabbinic dynasties. Mendes was born in the new world’s Jamaica but was raised and educated in elite higher-learning institutions in England and Germany. As Sha’aray Tefila’s religious leader he would gradually transform it from a traditionalist stronghold into a Reform congregation. These progressive shifts were likely what prompted Schreiber to leave Sha’aray Tefila for more traditionalist pulpits in New York and Baltimore.
The author and the translator were thus separated by a vast gulf in background, upbringing and ideology — making it hardly surprising that the Hebrew centennial hymn for American independence and its English translation diverged quite sharply.
A striking example appears in the elaborate ode’s 8th and final stanza. In it, Schreiber lauds President Ulysses S. Grant. In Mendes’ translation, Grant is nowhere to be found.
Here, it seems, we are seeing the influence of ideology, sociology and politics. The New York Jewish elite to which Mendes belonged tended to favor the Democrats, who were more conservative than Lincoln’s anti-slavery and more “progressive” Republican Party.
Many leaders of the Jewish community maintained extensive commercial ties with the South. Their Southern coreligionists were almost universally Democrats. In New York City wards where most Jews resided, Lincoln received only about a third of the vote in the fateful election of 1860. Similarly in Philadelphia, the focus of the centennial celebrations, most of the leaders of its veteran synagogue Mikveh Israel were, according to its prominent hazan Sabato Morais, “Copperheads.”
This is a chapter of history that American Jews tend to gloss over, for reasons that have become acutely understandable in recent times. They prefer to dwell instead on the prominent role Jews played in the mid-20th-century Civil Rights movement, after the Holocaust.
But there was a Jewish minority in the Civil War era North — likely made up of ordinary working-class Jews and the few Eastern European immigrants who had arrived by then — that gravitated toward Lincoln and the Republicans, fighting for the abolition of slavery. After all, Eastern European Jews had experienced prejudice and brutal persecution firsthand. Schreiber, a native of Lithuania, was seemingly among them; at the very least, his glowing view of President Grant aligns with this faction.
Grant was the commander Lincoln chose to decisively end the Civil War, deploying a strategy that historians describe as “hard war” — if not quite total war — directed at the economic and civilian heart of the South. During his presidency, the South was subjected to military rule. To those with economic ties or lingering sympathies for the South, Grant was hardly a figure to be celebrated. Moreover, Grant’s administration was mired in corruption and faced severe public criticism, even if Grant himself was not considered personally corrupt.
Even through a specifically Jewish lens, Grant evoked ambivalent feelings. As a general on the Western front, he had issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from the territories under his military command. It was perhaps the most flagrant state-sanctioned antisemitic measure in American history, though it was swiftly revoked by the scrupulous Lincoln. In later stages of the war, and especially during his presidency, Grant’s conduct toward Jews was not only irreproachable but arguably more supportive than that of any of his predecessors.
It is easy, therefore, to see how Grant and his administration could become a point of contention between literary collaborators like Schreiber and Mendes, even though the English translation strongly condemns slavery and praises Lincoln.
The focus of Schreiber’s Hebrew version was on Philadelphia, its Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell hanging over it, on Leviticus with its call to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land,” inscribed on the bell, and on the Jubilee, when Liberty was to be proclaimed.
Mendes’ focus was different — not on Philadelphia, but on the neighboring Fairmount Park, home of the centennial exhibition representing 37 countries. Liberty’s arm and torch were on display there, and Moses Ezekiel’s statue representing freedom of religion was supposed to be displayed. When it comes to terminology, Mendes’ translation celebrated the more individual “freedom,” rather than the more public “liberty.”
Perhaps, however, this Centennial hymn was precisely the place for such profound discrepancies between Hebrew text and English translation. As noted, Minchat Yehuda — the offering brought by the Jews to America’s centennial — was the Hebrew language. In an English rendering, this offering inevitably dissipates and vanishes, as do liberty and Leviticus, Ulysses Grant and Patrick Henry, Liberty Hall and Liberty Bell, Philadelphia and the Jubilee.
The English language demanded a new and different offering — a forward-looking one, oriented to the new America of 1876 and to a new world’s fair. The Hebrew language pointed to 1776. It was an offering that reflected, in the words of Malachi, “the days of old, and former years,” before the Jews discovered modern America.
The post The gift Jews gave to America on its 100th birthday in 1876 appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council
(JTA) —
For the second time this year, Iran has named a wanted suspect in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires to a top security role.
A spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Monday that Mohsen Rezaei had resigned as an adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and would assume the role of secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rezaei is wanted by Argentina and is subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued at Argentina’s request over his alleged role in the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Vahidi, another suspect in the AMIA case and also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, was appointed IRGC commander.
In a landmark ruling in 2024, an Argentine court held Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing, setting the stage for international legal action.
In June 2025, Argentina’s federal judiciary ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese suspects accused in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing be tried in absentia. Rezaei and Vahidi are among them.
The eight other suspects accused by the late AMIA special prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, are: former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires Mohsen Rabbani and former Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari, as well as suspected Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.
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Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races
(JTA) — A pair of Democratic primaries in Minnesota on Tuesday are among a string of high-profile battles between progressive and moderate candidates, where Israel and the pro-Israel lobby serve as key wedge issues.
The state’s highest-profile race is the U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Angie Craig, who has been endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who says she would reject AIPAC’s money and accuses Israel of committing a genocide.
The most recent data gathered in late July through early August has Craig with a 2-percentage point lead, within the 5.3% margin of error. Another poll, conducted in late July by a group supporting Flanagan, shows her with a 14-point lead. The Democratic nominee, whether it be Flanagan or Craig, is expected to win the general election in November.
The race, and the candidates’ sparring over AIPAC, comes as the lobby and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters. Israel is also an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in neighboring Wisconsin taking place on Tuesday.
Flanagan has referred to Craig as “AIPAC’s candidate” in the Senate race, which prompted Craig to distance herself from the group’s spending during a TV debate in June.
“AIPAC has not contributed at all, the PAC, to my Senate campaign,” said Craig, whose wife, Cheryl Greene, is Jewish. “Not one penny.”
Flanagan countered that, while AIPAC itself has not donated to Craig’s campaign, it has held fundraisers for the four-term congresswoman. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Just last week in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the moderate Rep. Haley Stevens, whose AIPAC endorsement was the frequent target of opposition attacks.
Flanagan has drawn the support of American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that aims to counter AIPAC. The group spent about $54,000 on ads boosting her candidacy, according to FEC filings.
Flanagan’s platform includes blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel — a position that all but seven Senate Democrats voted for in April — and advancing a two-state solution that “allows for a secure Israel and Palestinian self-determination.”
Craig, who also backs a two-state outcome, voted against the recent amendment proposed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie that would have halted $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.
In a statement explaining her vote, Craig panned Netanyahu and the war in Iran, but wrote that the amendment would endanger Israelis and American troops and allies in the region. After the vote, Flanagan wrote, “A vote to send $3.3 billion of taxpayer money to fund additional weapons of war to Benjamin Netanyahu is unconscionable. Enough.”
Craig has the endorsement of a number of Democrats in Congress and the Senate, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. She is also endorsed by lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel, former Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, and Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, who rose to national prominence for his response to the deadly results of the deployment of immigrant enforcement officials in his city.
Flanagan has drawn endorsements from a swath of major progressive figures including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and outspoken pro-Palestinian Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Flanagan is also endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party affiliate, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
On Sunday Sanders posted on X,”There is a reason why the super PACs and billionaires are flooding Minnesota with $20 million to defeat Peggy Flanagan. Same thing as Michigan. They do not want somebody in the Senate who will stand up for the working class.”
Spending by political action committees affiliated with AIPAC has also come to the fore in the Democratic primary race for the House seat that Craig is vacating.
The most moderate of the three leading candidates is State Sen. Matt Klein, who has expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and is endorsed by DMFI. Last-minute spending by outside groups has sparked accusations that AIPAC is indirectly involved.
“AIPAC is coming after me,” said former Lakeville mayor Matt Little, one of Klein’s opponents, in a video.
Klein’s two opponents — Little and state Rep. Kaela Berg — both accuse Israel of committing a genocide, and have both speculated that AIPAC is behind some of the Klein spending.
Berg supports placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and halting weapons sales, and Little says the U.S. must end all military aid and weapons sales to the country. On the policy page of his campaign website, Little refers to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as “an act of wanton slaughter against innocent civilians” and says that people should condemn “the anti-Semitism that followed.”
Berg is listed as “primary approved” by the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group J Street, while Little has been boosted by American Priorities, which has spent about $64,000 in his favor. He is also endorsed by the DFL and Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The latest polling in the district — conducted at the end of May by a group that favors Klein — found Little leading Klein with a 7-percentage point lead, and Berg trailing by another 3 points. 39 percent of voters were undecided, and Little and Klein were about even after voters received more information about the three candidates.
Craig has declined to endorse any of the candidates to replace her.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham and a second Republican candidate will advance to a special primary runoff in two weeks, when voters will decide which GOP candidate might take the vacant seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham.
Just over an hour after polls closed, at about 8:15 pm, the Associated Press declared that Darline Graham would advance to a runoff election, noting that “one additional candidate will also advance.” At that point Graham had secured 32.6% of the vote, with 39% of ballots counted.
Graham was up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest competition including U.S. House Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who were closely vying for the second spot in the runoff at the time of the AP’s call. In South Carolina, the top contender would have needed to win a majority of votes in order to avoid the two-candidate runoff, scheduled for August 25.
In the November general election, the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in this solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s race marked the second time in two months that GOP voters came to the polls to select a Senate candidate, and now they will need to do so a third time. Longstanding Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Israel in the U.S. Senate and supporter of military action against Iran. won the original primary in June but died suddenly from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Graham, who was 71 years old, served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He was a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary, analysts expressed no doubt that the winner would be pro-Israel. They stressed, however, that matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on Israel, a place he often visited, would be a formidable task.
“Whoever wins this is going to be an ally of Israel,” Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in the lead-up to the race. “The question is whether they will be the champion for Israel that Lindsey Graham was.”
A few days after Graham’s death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to complete the late senator’s term. Despite having minimal policy experience, such as a past role on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Trump’s support and soon declared her candidacy in the full race.
While 10 candidates were running in the Tuesday primary, only about two others were considered serious competition for Graham, Norman and Fry: businessman Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals and who briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.
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