Speech: On American Judaism

There is no room for Ghetto Judaism in America. Look at any of the creeds and churches in our free land! They are all more tolerant, more liberal, more humane and sympathetic in their mutual relations than those in Europe. Our free institutions, our common school education, our enlightening press and pulpit, with their appeal to common sense, enlarge the mental and social horizon and render progress the guiding maxim. Least of all could Judaism retain its medieval garb, its alien form, its seclusiveness, in a country that rolled off the shame and the taunt of the centuries from the shoulders of the wandering Jew, to place him, the former Pariah of the nations, alongside of the highest and the best, according to his worth and merit as man, and among a people that adopted the very principles of justice and human dignity proclaimed by Israel’s lawgivers and prophets, and made them the foundation stones of their commonwealth. No, American Judaism must step forth, the equal of any church in broadness of view and largeness of scope, as a living truth, as an inspiring message to the new humanity that is now in the making, not as a mere memory of the past and a piece of Orientalism in the midst of vigorous, forward-pressing Occidental civilization.

American Judaism! What a power of inspiration lies in these two words! They spell the triumph of the world’s two greatest principles and ideals, the consummation of mankind’s choicest possessions, the one offered by the oldest, the other by the youngest of the great nations of history, the highest moral and spiritual and the highest political and social aim of humanity; the God of righteousness and holiness to unite and uplift all men and nations, and the Magna Carta of liberty and human equality to endow each individual with God-like sovereignty. Behold America, the land of the future! When the sun sets on the western horizon of Europe, its effulgent rays gild the hills that herald the dawn to the new world. The land of promise for all the persecuted! God hid it, as it were, in His treasure-house to reserve it for the most glorious chapter of human history, when out of the mingling of races and sects, nay, out of the boldest, the most courageous and most independent elements of society, a new, a stronger, healthier and happier type of men and women should emerge, able to cope successfully with the hardships and problems of life, and bring the world nearer to the realization of its highest and holiest dreams and ideals, social, political and religious. And behold Judaism leaving the ark, because the flood of unrighteousness, of cruelty and inhumanity has ceased, and looking out upon a new earth and a new heaven, wherein justice, liberty and peace reign in fulfillment of its seer’s visions. Was not the cry “Land! Land!” that resounded on Columbus’ ship, the opening up of a new future for the martyr-race at the very time, when its woe and misery had reached their culmination in the land ft had enriched by its own toil? Then the voice of God was heard speaking to the fugitive Spanish Jew, as He afterward spoke to the German, the Galician and the Russian Jew: “Go forth and be a blessing to the multitudes of people, and a light to the many nations and classes that settle in the new hemisphere.”