Not many Jewish People can hint their roots on this nation again 5 generations, however I can. With that comes not simply delight in legacy, but in addition a novel sense of accountability at all times to recollect what this nation meant to the Jewish individuals who journeyed right here.
My great-great-grandmother fled Hungary on the flip of the nineteenth century, escaping the antisemitism that haunted Jewish life in Europe. She arrived in a rustic that was removed from good. Jews had been met with suspicion.
My great-great-grandmother got here anyway as a result of she believed in what America represented. Democracy. Justice. Alternative. And freedom, not simply from tyranny, however towards dignity. So slowly and painstakingly, she constructed a life right here. She labored laborious to turn out to be a citizen, a instructor, and lift a household.
That story is nothing wanting the American Dream. It’s a dream constructed on a promise, one which started not simply with immigration, however with the very beginning of this nation.
The promise of America to the Jewish folks was not an accident of contemporary tolerance. It was codified on the nation’s beginning.
In 1790, President George Washington sent a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., whose phrases stand as one of the vital radical ensures ever provided by a authorities to a non secular minority: “For fortunately the Authorities of the US, which provides to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no help … ”
Washington didn’t merely tolerate Jews; he invited them to take part within the venture of the republic. He promised them that they’d sit safely underneath their very own vine and fig tree, unafraid.
For Jews, who had been exiled, dispossessed and hunted throughout continents, this was a brand new sacred covenant.
But, to be Jewish can be to hold the dichotomous reminiscence of what it means to be solid out and what it means generally to be let in. The Jewish story is considered one of each exclusion and integration in societies and communities worldwide. We survived regimes that seen us as threats and thrived in locations that noticed us as residents.
America is a special world for Jews, although, as a result of we now have been a part of this nice democratic experiment. We helped construct this nice nation, even in its earliest days. In doing so, we staked a declare in its blessings.
Whereas most Jewish People arrived within the late 1800s and early 1900s, some had already participated within the founding of America. Francis Salvador, a Sephardic Jew from South Carolina, was the primary Jew elected to public workplace within the colonies and the primary to die within the Revolutionary Struggle. His sacrifice was not an anomaly. Haym Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish immigrant, grew to become one of many Revolutionary Struggle’s chief financiers. He raised the cash that saved Washington’s troops fed and armed.
In Georgia, Mordecai Sheftall rose to turn out to be the highest-ranking Jewish officer of the Continental Military. In Philadelphia and New York, Jewish retailers like Isaac Moses and Moses Michael Hays financed provides and arranged assist for the Continental Military, whereas small Jewish congregations alongside the jap seaboard pledged their scarce sources to the struggle for liberty.
That dedication to this new life in America grew, and Jewish People served this nation in struggle and in peace, in Congress, in laboratories, in lecture halls and in courtrooms. We participated in main actions, together with the labor motion, the civil rights motion, the American press and the technological revolution. We didn’t simply reside on this nation; we participated, proudly.
Sadly, we now see rising antisemitism in American streets — a few of it violent, a few of it subtle, a lot of it unchallenged. Jewish cultural figures are disinvited or denounced, and leaders who maintain energy are rooting for Jewish demise.
We see Jewish college students harassed on elite campuses — a merciless irony provided that these campuses had been based to safeguard inquiry and freedom. It may be straightforward to develop cynical of America in a second like this. To neglect what this nation is. Or worse — to cease believing in what it nonetheless will be.
However make no mistake: to take action is a betrayal of what America means to the Jewish folks — the promise of a greater tomorrow.
In 1944, the world regarded away as Jews had been marched to their deaths. Distinction that with June 2025, when in a historic transfer, America took decisive action on an existential risk from Iran and stood up for the Jewish folks and the lone Jewish state. America acted with the readability that Jewish life is price defending, that the Jewish persons are not alone. America selected ethical management in a world generally missing it.
This July 4, allow us to put aside partisan scorekeeping. Allow us to look past which politician, which celebration, which invoice did what, and why, and the way. Allow us to return to the larger reality: This nation gave Jews room to breathe and an area to construct. It gave us refuge. It provides our youngsters a future. It permits us to be absolutely Jewish and wholly American, not in rigidity, however in wondrous tandem.
To be a Jewish American shouldn’t be a contradiction however a present. Always remember to contribute and lead on this land of chance. Be vigilant in her darkest occasions, and grateful for her brightest mild. One nation, underneath god, indivisible.
We’re American. We’re Jewish. And we’re proud to be each.
Jacki Karsh is a six-time Emmy-nominated multimedia journalist and a board member of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.