Abolitionists And Confederates: On The Complex History Of American Jews During The Civil War

Strictly speaking, nan book of Exodus tells nan communicative of national liberation. Seen successful that light, nan Hebrews’ flight from slavery gave them nan state to enslave and conquer others, which, successful nan text, they promptly began to do. It was this constrictive reference of nan communicative that allowed immoderate American Jews to beryllium down to Passover seders cooked and served by their very ain slaves, without nan slights consciousness of contradiction aliases unpleasant pang of guilt.

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Yet nan story’s extremist accent connected lowly origins and nan brutalities of despotism has ever invited a broader interpretation, moreover nan take of its connection and liberators connection by different maligned and oppressed groups. As nan philosopher Michael Walzer has written, “Many men and women, believing successful God’s mighty hand, person nevertheless girded their lions, challenged nan pharaohs of their ain time, marched into nan wilderness—and understood what they were doing by reference Exodus.”

In this view, it is an uplifting communicative of human liberation and nan obligations it entails. Remembering that we were slaves successful Egypt, Rabbi David Einhorn said astir 2 hundreds of years ago, should beryllium a spur to conflict not only for ourselves, but “for nan full world.”

I person been reasoning astir American Jews, slavery, and nan Civil War ever since I was an undergraduate astatine McGill University successful Montreal. It struck maine past that what successful portion made Jews unique arsenic a people—our origins successful slavery—was besides what helped make nan United States unique arsenic a country. People who celebrated their deliverance “out of nan location of bondage” had recovered refuge successful another, only this clip they were not nan ones who were enslaved. I wrote a insubstantial connected nan fistful of Jewish abolitionists who, drafting connected their ain people’s history of enslavement and oppression, felt they could not support silent while others suffered nan same.

But nan taxable continued to gnaw astatine me, not slightest because I was amazed to find really seldom it came up astatine Passover seders I attended. Given that nan constituent of nan vacation is to commemorate nan Jews’ liberation respective 1000 years ago, did it not make consciousness to see really slavery besides shaped nan state successful which we lived? Should we not grapple pinch nan truth that Jews successful early America benefited from slavery successful nonstop and indirect ways, and that only a fewer unsung and forgotten men, and astatine slightest 1 woman, had felt compelled to conflict for its abolition?

Nudnik that I am, I would pester my chap seder guests, betwixt reciting nan Four Questions and joyfully incanting Chad Gadya, to bespeak further connected nan themes of Exodus and their relevance successful nan American past and present. One twelvemonth I passed astir copies of a missive from a Confederate solider detailing his preparations for watching Passover while astatine war. The adjacent twelvemonth I publication from a moth-eaten measurement of section history I recovered astatine a thrift store, which showed that nan very onshore connected which we sat, successful nan verdant foothills of nan Catskills, pouring each different vino and munching connected matzah, imagining ourselves arsenic having been personally delivered from Egypt, had erstwhile been worked by group who did not request to usage their imaginations to cognize nan terrors of bondage.

I besides began seeing signs that a caller introspection mightiness beryllium useful. The emergence of nan Black Lives Matter activity seemed to make nan task of confronting America’s history of group injustice each nan much pressing and ignoring nan Jewish perspective to nan communicative each nan much inexcusable. The taxable of Jews and title kept cropping up successful nan news and successful nan culture, often successful bizarre viral moments and occasionally successful gruesome outbursts of violence. In 2018, a racist shooter massacred eleven Jews successful a Pittsburgh synagogue because he opposed nan activity of groups for illustration HIAS, formerly nan Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Originally founded to thief precocious ninetieth-century immigrants find their footing, nan group now useful pinch refugees of each kinds, “not because they are Jewish, but because we are.” On that occasion, Jews were killed because they were not achromatic enough.

The pursuing year, nan problem was that they were not Jewish enough. A radicalized devotee of nan Black Hebrew Israelites, a century-old belief group that claims Black group are nan existent descendants of nan biblical Jews and that those who telephone themselves Jews coming are imposters, killed 3 group astatine a kosher supermarket successful Jersey City. In 2022, nan rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, endorsed that declare and told his much than 30 cardinal Twitter followers that he was going “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” In nan romanticist drama You People (2023), an excruciating dinner-table statement betwixt a Black Muslim mates and a achromatic Jewish mates whose children are making love culminated pinch David Duchovny’s characteristic calling Jews “the original slaves—OG slaves,” while Nia Long’s counters that American Jews’ occurrence was based connected their profits from nan enslaved trade. “No mainstream sound asks anymore, ‘Is nan Jew white?’” nan clever clever Leonard Rogoff observed successful 1997. Now that mobility is erstwhile again hotly debated.

Some Jews of color, meanwhile, person demanded long-overdue nickname from nan larger Jewish community, while others cull nan word itself arsenic marginalizing. Hamas’s onslaught connected Israel successful October 2023 and nan consequent bombardment of Gaza raised a caller information of discourse—often simplistic and unenlightening—about whether Jews ought to beryllium classed chiefly arsenic victims aliases arsenic oppressors.

These events encouraged maine to return to nan taxable of my paper, to excavation deeper and inquire much difficult questions. As I did so, I was amazed to find that nan book I wanted to read, search nan Jewish brushwood pinch Black slavery and nan statement complete its early from nan assemblage play done nan Civil War and beyond, did not yet exist. Bertram W. Korn, a rabbi and historiographer (and, arsenic a rear admiral successful nan Naval Reserve, nan first Jewish chaplain to attain emblem rank successful nan US military), came nan closest pinch his landmark 1951 activity American Jewry and nan Civil War. Yet Korn mostly focused connected nan warfare itself, particularly nan location front, and kept to a constrictive meaning of who counted arsenic Jew; Ernestine Rose goes unmentioned, August Bondi only successful passing. Decades of consequent investigation and argumentation, moreover, person analyzable immoderate of his findings.

While nan publication of nan Nation of Islam’s pseudo-scholarly Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews successful nan early 1990s spurred awesome refutations, that activity tended to attraction connected nan enslaved waste and acquisition itself, not nan conflict complete slavery and nan Civil War. Incredibly, immoderate books astir Jews successful nan play person moreover managed to debar including an introduction for slavery successful nan index—they talk astir nan warfare but not what nan warfare was about—while Robert N. Rosen’s The Jewish Confederates (2001), different an invaluable resource, is marred by its unapologetically pro-Southern bent. Books astir nan statement and consequent fraying of nan “Black-Jewish alliance” skip quickly complete everything earlier nan twentieth century.

Surveys of American Jewish history often mention nan conflict complete Morris J. Raphall’s sermon defending slavery but thin to obscure nan discourse and time off retired important details. Perhaps nan astir insightful caller exploration of nan taxable appeared successful a activity of fiction, Dara Horn’s All Other Nights (2009), which originates pinch a Confederate seder attended, rather improbably, by Judah Benjamin.

In 2017, connected nan personage genealogy programme Finding Your Roots, nan comedian Larry David learned that his great-grandfather, a German-Jewish migrant successful Mobile, Alabama, owned slaves and fought for nan Confederacy. Stunned, playing for laughs, David awkwardly blurted to nan show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., “I’m truthful sorry,” while Gates gave sound to his guest’s embarrassment and confusion: “What portion of nan Jewish acquisition is this?!”

As it turns out, a alternatively important one. Even for nan huddled masses who arrived decades aft nan Civil War, moreover for those of america who are their descendants, nan acquisition of surviving arsenic Jews successful America has been shaped by nan bequest of slavery and by nan ideas and laws devised to take sides and past switch it. They protect and frighten america still, successful this different blessed land.

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Excerpted from Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery by Richard Kreitner. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan. Copyright © 2025 by Richard Kreitner. All authorities reserved.