Rora Roussi (5:58)

Thank you. So I'm going to pick up on something that you were talking about. You mentioned that people know about his order for incorporating Jewish or chaplains of other faiths. I won't always say Jewish chaplains of other faiths within the. I'm not sure everybody knows about that, by the way, but we'll get into that a little bit more in a minute. I want you to tell us. You said that's not necessarily the V event that you would say for. For Lincoln and the Jews. What would be.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (6:29)

Well, I mean, what struck us was how many Jews Lincoln knew. And some of them, like Abraham Jonas, were important in his career long before he became president. Jonas thought about him as presidential material. And as we show, it's one of the new finds in this book. Jonas really articulated a strategy for the brand new Republican Party, which was to create a kind of coalition of different out groups. And Jews are specifically mentioned in his letter as people who might be recruited to this new party. It's also clear that Lincoln developed ties especially with a group of Central European German speaking Jews who we call 48ers, even though some of them didn't come in 48, but they had been deeply affected by the democratic revolutions in Europe in 1848. Those revolutions were put down. Many of those people came to America, escaped to America, and they were precisely the kinds of people whom Lincoln was drawn to. But as we show, in addition to that, he knew all sorts of people. A lawyer, a fellow lawyer in Illinois, Abraham Jonas. And like many people in what was then the west, today the Midwest, he got his clothing from Jews. Jews had pioneered machine made clothing and of course it would then really take off in the Civil War. But even before then, we see that in Illinois, where he lived in Springfield, he went to Jewish stores and knew them. So he knew Jews. And for that reason, I think in part he didn't have to rely on stereotypes, imaginary Jews, mythical ones. Even before he became active in present in politics, he knew real Jews. And that's of course new in the United States in Lincoln's lifetime. The Jewish community grows from a few thousand, maybe not more than 3 or 4,000, mostly centered in east coast port cities. And they. The Jewish community grows till on the eve of the Civil War, There are probably 150,000 Jews in the United States. And they moved clear across the country, all the way to California because of the gold rush. And suddenly Americans who would never met Jews became acquainted with them. There was always interesting moments in the history of a country and people react in different ways. I mean, to use a controversial parallel, most Americans had never met a Muslim in 1960, but 60 years later, they're all over the country. And America has had to come to terms with a new religion. And that's just what happened as the number of Jews increases and they spread. And indeed there are people who welcome those Jews like Lincoln and befriend them. And they're people who are deeply frightened by the implications of these newcomers.

Rora Roussi (11:18)

So I'm wondering, you mentioned at the beginning of the book that he was raised in, deeply entrenched in the Jewish Bible as a Christian, but with the Jewish Bible roots. So did you see that as an influence as he grew, that he kind of tied the Jewish people into this historical people?

Professor Jonathan Sarna (11:40)

Well, there's no doubt that like almost Everybody at that time, he linked the Jews he met to the Jews he had long read about in the Bible. And part of the project of people who lived at that time was the mythical Jew and the Jew next door. And how do I reconcile those two? In Lincoln's case, I would add a few things. First of all, he came from a family that really had a kind of unique, rather extreme form of Protestantism that deeply believed that God had shaped you as you are is the thing. It's all been decided already and everything is as the Almighty ruled. And that's why Lincoln, unlike others who thought they had to work hard to be saved. In his tradition, you didn't know whether you had been saved, but, but the decision had been made. But the implication was, okay, God made you a Jew, okay, that's God's decision. And it was a, we don't realize in many ways it was live and let live. Lincoln's parents were part of groups that laughed at missionaries. How can you change what God has, has set forth? So that's one aspect, but it's absolutely right that Lincoln really came from a family that favored what he would have called the Old Testament, what we might call the Hebrew Bible. There's a kind of shift in the first half of the 19th century where with opposition to slavery, there were ministers who shift away from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament on the supposed grounds that one was pro slavery and one wasn't and we should side with the New Testament. They said that is not pro slavery, leaving aside passages that can refute that. But Lincoln still knew his Bible. He's part of that group that grew up in really frontier country and only had one book at home. So they knew it inside out. And what is so striking about Lincoln's letters is if you know the Bible, you see that these passages which he had clearly memorized, he'd also internalized and they just flow from his pen and over and over. Sometimes it's very worthwhile going back to the original place where it's written and you learn a kind of subtext that Lincoln was aware of, but much more than today. Bible language was part of his vocabulary. And unquestionably he met Jews and viewed them in, within that context.

Rora Roussi (15:43)

So like you said, he had a deep understanding and knowledge of the Bible. In fact, one of the things that jumped out at me is he quoted Joel when he was talking to monk to the self declared prophet Monk. I don't know how many people can walk around quoting Joel. I know people can go walk around with Isaiah And Joe, Jeremiah and Yeah, yeah, it's.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (16:08)

I also. He would pull fairly obscure quote. And the amazing thing that for people who don't know, I mean, this guy Monk was, some people would say religious enthusiast, others would say a nut. But you know, he considered himself the Messiah. Lincoln was always drawn to religious figures, I think because he always wondered two things. He wondered whether he himself was saved and what his fate would be. But he also had many questions about slavery. How could God have permitted it? Is America being punished? I mean, his second inaugural, which is probably the most amazing inaugural address ever delivered by a president, is a kind of rumination theologically on how could all of this have happened, how do we understand the Civil War. But when he meets Monk and impossible to imagine that he knew in advance and prepared. Busy man, a guy. All right, I'll meet him a little while. And Monk comes and wants to persuade Lincoln that now that he's emancipated the slaves, he should also work to free Jews all over the world. That's in itself interesting reminder that in the 19th century people linked the fate of African Americans, that he would then say Negroes in America to the fate of Jews in other countries. But in any case, Lincoln just comes out with this perfect line that's really a kind of put down. But Monk doesn't realize it's a put down and sends him away. This is all I have to worry about. But it is interesting because it's a moment to merge Jewish historians point of view. When we see Lincoln Confronting what 19th century folks called the Jewish question, the issue of Jews around the world, it clearly was something he knew about. And it's of course interesting there as well that he doesn't see it as an issue in the United States. So there are a lot of interesting things about that really completely unknown story not mentioned in any Lincoln biography because it was a very brief encounter. But Monk is a type and the story is interesting. And of course Monk had lived at some points in the Holy Land, so it links there as well. And we do have paintings by Monk, which again, interesting. So yeah. But to come back to what you asked, one was blown away by Lincoln's knowledge of the Bible and his ability to instrumentalize the Bible, to use its quotations in all sorts of. Of unexpected ways.

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Rora Roussi (21:30)

So one of them I'm smiling. Now. I know our audience can't see us, but I'm smiling because next week is Purim. That's when we're recording this. That might not be when it comes out, but one of the things that a letter that you have here from Lincoln to Joshua Speed says that if, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows. Referring to those who supported slavery.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (21:54)

Yeah, he and I have a few other people who use Heyman imagery. In the 19th century, that story was found in several of the textbooks. That American Jew that Americans General. Americans were taught in schools. They often had readers and the readers would have stories. And not surprisingly, it's true in education today as well. You don't take, I don't know, something from the building of that temple or obscure that won't be too interesting. You, you take stories and the story of Mordecai and Esther and Haman. That's a good story for children because wicked people get punished in the end. And both sides, by the way, used Haman when Ulysses S. Grant runs for president. And it's not just Jews who initially were diffident about Grant. Jews were diffident because he had issued the most anti Jewish order in American history, expelling official order, official expelling Jews from his war zone in 1862. But Southerners hated Grant because he was the general who defeated the Confederacy. And there too you will find around the south people who said, no, he shouldn't run for president. He should be hung like Haman. And that's what really alerted me to the fact that hung as high as Haman or hung like Haman was a story that and an expression that was common then, even though, let's say, in the United States today. It's amazing how many people really have never gotten to the Book of Esther and wouldn't pick up on that at all. And in general, one can see how much biblical literacy there was in the 19th century in the United States, Literacy in the Bible, literacy in Shakespeare. But by our time that has disappeared. And really you cannot make any assumptions about what stories from the Bible everybody knows because they don't.

Rora Roussi (24:57)

Right. That's across the board. But I'm going to go back to the concept of that. People knew the stories, but they also knew even more modern stories. I was really intrigued that there was a play about the Mortera affair from Italy where he actually went twice to see it. And it's this story across the ocean. That's. I don't. I guess people knew about it, but I didn't realize because it came back into. And that's vogue, I'm not going to call it that, but it came back into the history. Today people have been speaking about it.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (25:32)

There was a certain amount of attention paid in newspapers to the Mortara affair largely because America was a largely Protestant country. There was a good deal of anti Catholicism.

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Professor Jonathan Sarna (25:52)

here was a story that the Pope had ripped the Jewish child from its family because a nursemaid had secretly converted that child. You know, that was a story that could, could appeal to any mother certainly who thinks about having a child ripped away after a nanny does something. It's horrible. But in America, the reason that story took off, I think, is because in slavery a lot of children were separated from their parents. And certainly the playwright who produced that play was well aware of the parallel and was hoping that this play, seemingly about another place across the ocean, would nevertheless resonate with people who allowed the horror that mothers and children were separated when one or the other was sold down the river.

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Professor Jonathan Sarna (27:35)

I think that's why it did appeal to the Lincolns. Apparently Mrs. Lincoln was especially affected by the play, but the play got significant attention. I suppose a later generation would say it was something of a tear jerker, but it served as a reminder, since we're on that subject, one of the other interesting things. President Buchanan refused to condemn Italy and if you go to his papers, he says, well, if we start intervening in affairs like that, they'll start intervening in slavery. So you do get a sense that it was known at the time. The Hebrew is one sin begets another, Aveira gorat aveyla. One sin begats the other. And America couldn't comment on essentially the kidnapping of Mortara because of the obvious parallel to slavery. So it is fascinating, but it's also a reminder and one of the reasons that Ben and I wanted to do this book. And I previously did the book on Lincoln and my next book with Ben on Mark Twain. It's not like there's American history in this silo and Jews in another silo. Their lives interact. Jews are part of America then and now. And only someone who is deeply familiar with the history of the United States, as well as with Jewish history, can put all of those things together. So I felt that this book, which draws a little bit on European Jewish history, yes, the Muertara Affair, is a good example. And talks about straight American history. What could be more than Abraham Lincoln, the most favorite subject in American history, and nevertheless shows that, yeah, you learn a dimension of Lincoln. Not everything about Lincoln, but an important dimension of Lincoln. When you look at Lincoln and the Jews, and you also learn about themes that are broadly true in America, what the impact of Jewish immigration was into the United states in the 19th century. By looking at a kind of case study. Here's how Abraham Lincoln, who certainly didn't know Jews intimately growing up in Kentucky, this is how he responds to the coming of Jews. And we haven't talked about it, but he also appoints bunches of Jews in the Civil War. And in one case, really amazing, there's a letter in which he said, I see that we have not yet appointed a Hebrew, maybe the first case of affirmative action in American history. And he appoints this Hebrew, this Jew, as assistant quartermaster, which was a job. What's interesting, if you then probe more deeply, is that that person wasn't just an ordinary Hebrew. He. He was an orthodox Jew, in other words, what we would today call a visible Jew. And that didn't faze Lincoln. And. He did appoint him and even wrote the reason down, feeling that it was something owed. But he had earlier appointed many other Jews, including his friend Abraham Jonas, who is one of his first appointees. He appoints him to be a postmaster. That doesn't sound so exciting to people today, but it actually brought in a lot of money, and it was patronage, because you then could appoint other people to help deliver the mail. So it was actually a very much coveted job. And when poor Jonas had been one of Lincoln's very good friends and who had not only been an architect of one of the architects of his presidential campaign, but had actually hosted before then, one of the Lincoln Douglas debates. Jonas was a host. We have a picture of that in the book. But when Jonas died around 1864, Lincoln appointed his wife to be what they called postmistress of the Not a term we use today in his place. So you could See that the fact that someone was Jewish did not faze Lincoln. And unlike some of those who worked for him, who clearly were deeply prejudiced and Lincoln had significant Jewish friends. We haven't talked about Issachar Zachary, one of the strangest figures in the war. Whoever a podiatrist, but the 19th century word was chiropodist. But Lincoln got to know him quite well. And one of the things we discovered is Lincoln used him as a spy, but have a sense of he might be able to influence southern Jews. He sends him to New Orleans. And no one can see in the story of Zachary that other people had a kind of visceral reaction. Look at that Jew. I'm not going to be involved with him at all. But that was certainly not what Lincoln does. And Lincoln does use him. And he becomes a part of that group of Jews with whom Lincoln interacted at different times.

Rora Roussi (35:27)

Yeah. And at least from the book, I don't get the feel that it's a group of Jews. They were part of his. Not posse, but his government too. They were part of.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (35:39)

That's right. It's not an organized group. We created the group and we have this amazing chart in the beginning of the book of the small number. And then you kind of move outward. The importance of that chart is it would have been absolutely impossible to create a parallel chart of any previous president. Sure, we had presidents. Even George Washington interacted with Jews. But when you look at the large number of Jews with whom Lincoln interacted, one sees, first of all, the Jewish community has changed and now has become large and diverse and all across the country. But it also tells us something about Lincoln, who we know interacted with all sorts of people and of course, even with African Americans. Mr. Douglass, he calls Frederick Douglass and considers and treats him like a friend of Douglass, could be critical of Lincoln, but greatly respected him. And there too one sees Lincoln who treated people as individuals and didn't treat them or judge them according to their group.

Rora Roussi (37:14)

Right. And I think with all the individual stories in this book, that's really the message I came out with, is it's all part of the greater picture. So thank you. You mentioned before that it was first started out as a coffee table book. And you mentioned one of the impetuses impeti for publishing it this way in a paperback. But also there are more manuscripts here. There are discoveries. Give us a little peek. What's one thing that you said? Oh, just for this, we have to publish it.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (37:48)

We have all sorts of innovative ideas, innovative documents. The, the. Some of them have to do with the most interesting maybe was for me something called the Jewish Union Republican association, which was a broadside that urged Jews to vote for Lincoln and his re election in 1864. That's amazing because all the books will tell you, oh, Jews don't organize politically as Jews until the 20th century. Wilson is often considered the first. And this is a lot before the 1912 election. This is 1864. And you can really see immigrant Jews are saying, look, we're in America, it's a free country. We can vote and we can organize politically. And they are supporters of the Union and of the Republican party as Jews. They are not ashamed to have that right up there in their title. So that really is a document that changes our sense of Jewish politics. And there are other places where new documents suggest aspects of the relationship that we hadn't known about. And Lincoln uses the phrase broken eggs cannot be mended. People wanted him to take back the Emancipation Proclamation. And as far as he was concerned, that couldn't be done. Actually in another place that's also in the book, he refers to the same book of Esther, quoting the King who said, you know, we've issued this order, it cannot be recalled. And Lincoln uses that phrase, but then uses an earthier phrase about eggs, but perhaps realizing that not everyone would pick up on that illusion, but everybody knows that a broken egg can't be fixed. And in both cases he made clear that the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was conscious of it, that was a change for the ages. There was no going back. And that had a big impact, of course, on American thinking. Obviously there was Jim Crow long after Lincoln's assassination, but it's not identical by any means to slavery. Slavery ended and Lincoln knew that that wouldn't be changed. So it was interesting to find. Yet I think third use of the phrase that thou broken eggs, which we added in here.

Rora Roussi (41:51)

Yeah, so you brought it up. And I want to at least mention the assassination. There is a Jewish connection there too. A positive one. Well, somewhat positive, I guess, because the doctor who tried to help him was

Professor Jonathan Sarna (42:06)

Jewish and we even have his picture in the painting and we had it identified and and so on. Lieberman couldn't get more Jewish name than Lieberman. We now know that he simply lived nearby the theater and that's why a doctor best known for his work on eyes was called to the scene. But he knew, and supposedly he was the one who made the call, that this was a fatal wound and he remained with Lincoln for the duration. But again, that's a reminder. Suddenly there were Jewish doctors of great significance in America. Something true in 1864, but certainly would not have been a true two generations

Rora Roussi (43:09)

earlier, which is incredible, the life that he lived as short as it was and what he changed in the world. So thank you first for putting out this book, because I learned a lot from it. But on the New Books Network, we always like to ask, what are you working on next? So you mentioned a little. Can you give us a little bit of a preview?

Professor Jonathan Sarna (43:29)

Sure. I hope within a year the new book on Mark Twain and the Jews, which I also did with Ben Chappelle, will appear, and that too will astound people, because we know a lot about Mark Twain. But whoever thought of Mark Twain and the Jews? And again, yes, there were episodes that people do know. He visited the holy land in 1867. He writes a little essay concerning the Jews, but it's much more really than that and the influence of Jews upon him, especially in his early life in Nevada, where he went to dig for silver, and then even more in San Francisco, which was a heavily Jewish city. One of the secrets of American Jewish history. San Francisco, for a time was about 9% Jewish, a much higher percentage than was true in New York in the 1860s and 70s. And those interacts with lots of Jews. And we make the case that he's forever influenced by some of them. And then at the very end of his life, he lives in New York, which at the time when New York's Jewish population is going to double in a decade in the beginning of the 20th century, and is very much involved with the Jewish community, something that is completely unknown. And there's a kind of ongoing story, but I'll leave that till the book comes out. But I think although there are any number of books on Mark Twain, just like there were any number of books on Abraham Lincoln, definitely when you look at the Jewish angle, it often gives you a different lens of seeing folks. And that's exactly what is the case with Mark Twain, as it was with Lincoln, maybe even more with Mark Twain. And I'm very much looking forward to the response to this new way of looking for Twain and at Twain and what we really uncovered. So that'll be the next book, and

Rora Roussi (46:28)

I definitely look forward to that. Thanks, Beth. I'm looking forward to that. I'm already going through in my head what it could be. So thank you very much. We have been speaking with Professor Jonathan Sarno about his book Lincoln and the Jews, published by New York University Press in 2025 or republished to continue exploring the diversity of the Jewish people. Follow Jewish Unity through Diversity Institute on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and podcast iUni Voices of Our Jewish Grandmothers. Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Sarna.

Professor Jonathan Sarna (46:58)

It's been a pleasure. Joe. Yeah.