Leave My People Alone!
Jews just want to be left to themselves
According to the Bible, God told Moses the whole plan to release the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt while Moses still lived in exile in Midian. God said “Go back to Egypt.” On the way, the Lord explained: “Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” All of this is in Exodus the 4th chapter.
Now Moses wasn’t too keen on going back to Egypt in the first place, but God didn’t give him an option. The Israelites had fled Israel—literally, the sons of Israel, Jacob’s tribes—during a famine about 400 years earlier, welcomed by their brother Joseph, who they had sold into slavery, but Joseph had risen to the highest position in Egypt under Pharaoh. Pharaoh had granted the Israelites the choices land on the Nile river, in Goshen, and the people lived there peacefully for many years.
But over time, the wealth and flourishing of a “foreign” people—the Jews had lived many generations in Egypt by that time and were thoroughly culturally Egyptian except for their religion—angered the Egyptians. Then a new Pharaoh forgot Joseph’s deeds, and put the Israelites in bondage. This is what produced Moses, who was to redeem Israel from slavery.
I’ve thought to myself many times that if the Egyptians had only left the Jews alone, we’d all still be living on the Nile river, selling time-shares, building medical devices, and welcoming tourists to an amusement park themed on the pyramids. Instead of enslaving the Hebrews, Pharaoh could have paid them for their labor. Or taxed them, or just let them live peacefully.
Even after being slaves for 400 years, when God’s plan played out and Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, a good number of them wanted to go back to being slaves. “They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11-12.)
Jews have lived in America since the 1650s, within 30 years of the Pilgrims’ arrival in what is now Massachusetts Bay. The oldest synagogue in America is Tuoro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island; it still operates today. During the American Revolution, about 2,500 Jewish families lived in the colonies. Mordecai Sheftall of Savannah, Georgia was an early organizer and financier of the revolutionary militia. Colonel Solomon Bush was the Adjutant General of the Pennsylvania militia; Dr. Philip Moses Russell was George Washington’s surgeon. About 100 Jews fought in the Continental Army, though many hid their religion.
After the war, Jews had a single question for the fledgling nation: will you leave us alone? Or will you strip us of our property and expel us like the European powers had done for a thousand years?
George Washington answered in a letter to congregation in Newport. Here it is, in part:
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
Washington pledged that Jews in America would enjoy the one thing they asked for: to be left alone.
Jews in Europe wanted to be left alone. Millions of Jews were engaged in commerce, banking, scientific endeavors, education, and even government. Hitler and the Nazis did not leave them alone; six million were murdered. After the Holocaust, waves of anti-Zionism expelled nearly all the remaining Jews, most of whom went to either Israel or the United States.
Today, Israel, which has fought war after war for its existence since 1948, and the United States, remain the largest haven for all the Jews of the world, which number well under 20 million, even counting lapsed and converted Jews. There are more people in California, by far, than Jews in the entire world.
But many Americans have chosen to break Washington’s promise. They do not want to leave the Jews alone. They chant “Go back to Poland.” Jonah Goldberg called that statement, “an ocean of evil and hypocrisy.” Perhaps the students who chant such things—and the person recorded saying it appears to be an immigrant from their accent—literally don’t know what they’re calling for. Perhaps those who gather by the dozens in cities like the one I live in, waving the “Palestinian” flag, to chant “from the river to the sea” don’t realize that they are calling for a bloody war, an act of genocide, while they accuse Israel of doing exactly what they are calling for.
But perhaps they don’t want to leave the Jews alone. Perhaps they would be like Pharaoh dealing with Moses, with hardened hearts. Maybe they really believe the Jews are trying to take over the world. Maybe they believe the blood libels spread by evil people. I honestly don’t know.
But I do know that it’s wrong for any political party, or the U.S. government, or for the free press operating in America, to side with those who won’t leave the Jews alone. American Jews are not responsible for what happens in Israel—we don’t vote in Israeli elections, most of us don’t serve in the IDF. The only “dual loyalty” American Jews enjoy is the Biblical, historical connection to the land God promised Abraham in the book of Genesis, and the land the Hebrews who left Egypt returned to, on God’s promise of a “land flowing with milk and honey.”
All the Jews in America—and around the world—want is to be left alone. We do need a Moses today but not to shout “let my people go!”
Keep George Washington’s promise. Leave my people alone.
Interestingly, one of the likely reasons Jews are historically successful in business/science/etc... is a result of an event that, if we had stayed in Egypt, would not have happened - the destruction of the 2nd Temple.
It's destruction forced a reformation, removing the high priests as the sole authority on the Torah/Judaism itself and requiring that each Jew read the Torah for themselves. This required that each Jewish child be sent to school from the age of 6 or 7 so they could learn to read/write both the local language AND Hebrew. This was very onerous, and many converted out of Judaism to other religions - but those that did follow the edict were well placed to take advantage of opportunities in business when the Abbasid Caliphate arose. This led to Jews setting up new trade routes and populations in distant cities - the very diaspora where our forebears became Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jews.
If the Jews had been left alone, would universal literacy of the populace occurred so long ago - or would Judaism have remained a centralized religion? Would it have survived the Arab colonization of the Middle East and North Africa - and if it had, would it be a minor religious group like say the Zoroastrians?
The more knows about George Washington, the more impressive he is.