Response to "WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT THE JEWS"
An example of these claims appears on the following hate site(s):
http://abbc.com/islam/english/toread/clilist.htm
(Radio Islam)
CLAIM
George Washington
( in Maxims of George Washington by A.
A. Appleton & Co.)
"They (the Jews) work more effectively against
us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our
liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented
that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the
greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
George
Washington
RESPONSE (1)
Well, I got the *Maxims of George
Washington* (actually published by D. Appleton & Co., 1894) through
interlibrary loan yesterday, thanks to U.C. San Diego being willing to allow a
104 yr. old volume to travel. It makes interesting reading. I found that the
above quote is almost entirely accurate--EXCEPT that the original has no mention
of the Jews. Why am I not surprised?
When Washington made this statement
he was, according to *Maxims* speaking of speculators in the currency, not Jews.
I did a teensy bit of research & discovered that one of the great problems
of our Revolution was that speculators cornered supplies of shoes, clothes &
vital supplies & sold them at huge profits, while privateers would slip out
of port & trade in other nations making individuals rich to the detriment of
the national treasury. In a letter to John Augustine Washington (10/26/1778)
Washington wrote:
"I would to God that one of the most atrocious of each
State was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared
for Haman." (Haman~In the Old Testament, a Persian minister who was hanged for
plotting the destruction of the Jews.)
As to what Washington really felt
about the Jews, I have found no negative statements--although I _did_ find
addresses to Jewish congregations congratulating them on the freedom from
persecution that America offered them! As a matter of fact, Jews played a great
part in our Revolution. They took part in our rebellion from the very
first:
9 Jews signed the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765 (on display in
Philadelphia at Carpenter's Hall). One, Haym Salomon, was a rich man who
unstintingly gave money to help our leaders when in need (including Jefferson
& Madison and other members of congress) & refused to be paid back &
in addition gave many thousands of dollars to the Treaury & the army. Many
other Jews gave money to our early government, including one Manuel Mordecai
Noah who served as an officer on Washington's staff & who, upon enlistment,
gave his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds to the cause. Many fought as
soldiers.
Since Washington spoke out on his feelings about Indians and
slaves, especially in his diaries & letters, I can't help but think that if
he had any low opinions of Jews they would have surfaced long ago.
The
original poster tried to use the words of Washington to spread his foul lies
& prejudices. Hey Buryea, try _this_ quote from *The Maxims of
Washington*:
"I am sure, the mass of citizens in these United States mean
well; & I firmly believe they will always act well, whenever they can obtain
_a right understanding of matters_. But, in some parts of the Union, where the
sentiments of their delegates & leaders are adverse to government, and great
pains are taken to inculcate a belief, that their rights are assailed &
their liberties endangered, it is not easy to accomplish this; SPECIALLY, as is
the case invariably, when INVENTORS & ABETTORS OF PERNICIOUS MEASURES use
infinitely more industry, in DISSEMINATING POISON, than the well-disposed part
of the community, in furnishing the antidote. TO THIS ALL OUR DISCONTENTS MAY BE
TRACED; and from it all our embarrassments proceed."
(p.76,
Maxims).
Susan Umpleby (sumpleby@earthlink.net) in Usenet
message
<01bd69c6$3fbc7b80$b4ebd9cf@default
In the light of these comments, George Washington could
hardly be accused of being an anti-Semite. The full text of the letter
follows:
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode
Island
Gentlemen:
While I receive with much satisfaction, your
Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem, I rejoice in the
opportunity of answering you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance
of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to New port, from all classes
of Citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which
are past, is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are
succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make
the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail,
under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a
happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right
to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and
liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of
conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is
spoken of, as if it was by 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 wine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him
afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our
paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due
time and way everlastingly happy.
George Washington Letter to the Touro
Synagogue, 1790
David S. Maddison (maddison@connexus.net.au)
CLAIM
Benjamin
Franklin
This prophecy, by Benjamin Franklin, was made in a "CHIT CHAT
AROUND THE TABLE DURING INTERMISSION," at the Philadelphia Constitutional
Convention of 1787. This statement was recorded in the dairy of Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina.
"I fully agree with
General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious
influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.
In
whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its
moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and
have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian
religion upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions;
have built up a state within the state; and when opposed have tried to strangle
that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and
Portugal.
For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad
fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine.
But gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once
find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires
do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must
subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.
If you do not
exclude them from these United States, in their Constitution, in less than 200
years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate
and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans
have shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardized our
liberty.
If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our
descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they
will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if
you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your
graves.
Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will
nor how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise.
Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even thou they live
among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics,
are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by
this Constitutional Convention. "
Benjamin Franklin
RESPONSE
(1)
The quote alleged to be by Franklin is a forgery. It is discussed in
"They Never Said It" by Boller and George, p.27
[Reference: "They Never
Said It", Paul F. Boller Jr. and John George, New York, Oxford University Press,
1989, ISBN 0-19-605541-1 and ISBN 0-19-506469-0 -DSM]
"The Franklin
quote apparently first turned up on February 3, 1934 in William Dudley Pelley's
pro-Nazi sheet, _Liberation_, published in Asheville, North Carolina. According
to Pelley, it was taken from notes made by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, delegate
to the Constitutional Convention from South Carolina... But there is no Pinckney
diary, and historian Charles Beard, after a thorough investigation... concluded:
"This alleged `Prophecy' ascribed to Franklin is a crude forgery.. . There is in
our historical records no evidence whatever of any basis for the
falsehood."
"On one occasion, when the Hebrew Society of Philadelphia
sought to raise money for a synagogue, Franklin signed the petition appealing to
"citizens of every denomination" for contributions. Nevertheless, during the
1930s and 1940s, the Franklin forgery was cited time and again in the Nazi press
in Germany, broadcast over the Nazi radio... It was popular, too, in neo-Nazi
circles in the United States."
RESPONSE (2)
http://www.netizen.org/arc-hive/par_0038.txt
Another
good source for a discussion of the Ben Franklin hoax is Morris Kominsky's
excellent (but hard to find) book, "Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars and Damned
Liars" Branden Press 1970. [..]
Mr. Kominsky notes the hoax reported in a
1966 issue of THUNDERBOLT, a publication of the National States Rights Party. He
notes the rumor made the rounds in 1934 by William Dudley Pelley, professional
anti-Semite, leader of the Silver SHirts (SS--get it?). He attributed it to the
diary of Charles Pinckney of South Carolina who was a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention of 1787. When challenged, Pelley claimed to have taken
it from a copy of the diary which was the property of an unidentified descendent
of Pinckney. Historian Charles Beard made a search for this 'diary' and Henry
Butler Allen of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia issued a statement in
1938 that the diary did not exist and based on an analysis of the language in
the anti-semitic speech attributed to Franklin, the language used was not
Colonial English.
-Danny Keren.
CLAIM
Peter
Styvesant
(17th century Dutch governor in America.)
"The Jews who
have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with
their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very
repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most
affection for you; the Deaconry also fearing that owing to their present
indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the
benefit of this weak newly developing place and land in general, deemed it
useful to require them in a friendly way to depart; praying also most seriously
in this connection, for ourselves also for the general community of your
worships, that the deceitful race - such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the
name of Christ - not be allowed further to infect and trouble this new colony.
"
Peter Styvesant
(Letter to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India
Company, from New Amsterdam, September 22, 1654.)
RESPONSE
(1)
What is so surprising about this quote, if true? The religious
bigotry of the Old World, was exactly the sort of thing that the new nation of
America – the New World was founded (after Peter Stuyvesant) to rid itself
of.
Concerning the search for freedom by Jews in the New World it is well
described by the following poem:
From http://www.dorledor.org/epic/page55.html
AMERICA IS COLONIZED
JEWS AMONG SETTLERS
17th and 18th Centuries
C.E.
To sail Columbus had to understand
The charts by Abraham Zacuto's
hand;
Jews were on board when Columbus saw land.
In New Amsterdam the
first Jews to arrive,
Had to fight Stuyvesant to stay alive;
Professing
Jews, they struggled to survive.
Slowly the Jewish community grew
In
seventeen thirty a charter came through
For the first synagogue-long
overdue.
Jews among fighters who broke the English tie;
Those who
could, gave wealth; some were to die.
Independence from Britain they helped
pry.
To assist the States in their freedom war,
Haym Salomon, the
patriot, bore
The financial burden of many a corps.
The Old
Testament-a force to impel
The colonists their tyrants to expel.
Words
from Scripture on the Liberty Bell.
The framers of the U.S.
Constitution
In the Hebrew Bible found the solution
How to build a liberal
institution.
--
David S. Maddison
(maddison@connexus.net.au)
RESPONSE (2)
Concerning Peter
Stuyvesant, a Dutchman, he was a person that reflected the bigoted attitudes of
his time. He was a rabid anti-Semite that caused great suffering to the Jews. In
1654 the Portugese recaptured Holland's Brazilian colony and a group of 23
Jewish refugees sought asylum in New Amsterdam (to become New York) where
Stuyvesant was the governor. Stuyvesant wanted them expelled because he thought
of them as Christ-killers and thieves but was stopped doing so by the Dutch West
Indies Company because it had a number of Jewish shareholders and that company
was vital to the health of the colony.
However, even though the Jews
gained a temporary reprieve, the company though Stuyvesant's original wish
desirable in any case and it was required that the refugees "not become a burden
to the company or to the community".
Stuyvesant adopted a strategy of
making life for the Jews so miserable that they might leave of their own accord
anyway. He issued edicts prohibiting Jews from owning property, employing
Christians, travelling without property, praying in public or joining Citizen's
guards.
The arrogance of Stuyvesant is expressed in what he said to some
Long Island citizens that wanted a part in government: "We derive our authority
from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant
subjects". Presumably this exactly the type of leader the ignorant anti-Semites
that post this material would want.
David S. Maddison (maddison@connexus.net.au)
CLAIM
Thomas
Jefferson
(18th century American statesman)
"Dispersed as the Jews
are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in. "
Thomas
Jefferson (D. Boorstin, THE AMERICANS)
RESPONSE (1)
Firstly,
anti-Semites should learn to quote their "sources" correctly and also include
the relevant page number. The correct citation for the book is "The Americans –
The Colonial Experience", Daniel. J. Boorstin, Vintage Books, 1958. The "quote"
above has been changed from the original, which appears on page 64 of the
paperback edition. Speaking about the American Quakers and the problems they
experienced because, for example, they would not defend themselves against
Indian attacks, he speaks of them as "a religious sect…acting with one mind, and
that directed from the mother Society in England. Dispersed, as the Jews, they
still form, as those do, one nation, foreign to the land they live in."
I
don't see this as anti-Semitic or even anti-Quaker. Jefferson is simply
commenting on the character of both the Quakers and the Jews of not totally
assimilating with the surrounding society and maintaining their traditions.
Whatever is wrong with this in a free society? Wasn't the freedom to practice
one's religious beliefs one of the founding principles of the United
States?
The imputation behind the original misquote is also at variance
with Jefferson's support for both freedom of religious belief and practice and
also his belief in freedom from religion. He was determined that the
religious bigotry and intolerance in the Europe of his time would not be
exported to America. In 1777 he drafted "An Act for Establishing Religious
Freedom" and in 1779 when he became Governor of Virginia he introduced the Act
into the legislature. An opposing bill, proposing to make Christianity the
official religion of America was then introduced by Patrick Henry and had
primarily Anglican support.
Jews along with Baptists, freethinkers and
some Anglicans supported the Jefferson bill. James Madison made a speech to the
Virginia General Assembly which strongly swayed support to the Jefferson bill
and it became law on 16 Jan 1786. It read, in part:
"II. Be it enacted by
the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any
religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced,
restrained, molested or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise
suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be
free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of
religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their
civil capacities.'
David S. Maddison
(maddison@connexus.net.au)
RESPONSE (2)
Someone recently
asked about Jefferson and the Jews. Of all the Founders, Jefferson is the only
major figure in whose writings something anti-Semitic cannot be found. Jefferson
disagreed with the inward directedness of the Jewish people in the Old
Testament, and he believed that Jesus (a Jew) improved upon Judaic thought by
taking ethical concerns into the human conscience. To Dr. Jacob De La Motta,
Savannah, Georgia, Jefferson wrote that he rejoiced "in the restoration of the
Jews, particularly to their social rights." Jefferson hoped that the Jews "will
be seen taking their seats on the benches of science as preparatory to their
doing the same at the board of government."
To Mordecai M. Noah Jefferson
wrote, in 1818, "You sect by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of
the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every sect, disclaimed
by all when feeble, and practiced by all when in power."
From http://www.th-jefferson.org/html/archives_of_follow-up_notes.html
CLAIM
"Those
who labor in the earth are the Chosen People of God, if ever he had a chosen
people. "
Thomas Jefferson
(NOTES ON
VIRGINIA)
RESPONSE
First of all, the reference is incorrect.
The book is called "Notes on the State of Virginia", written in 1785. Also, the
quote is incomplete. The full sentence reads "Those who labour in the earth are
the chosen people of G-d, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has
made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.". This quote
appears in "Query XIX. Manufactures" and is on page 164 of the edition edited by
William Peden, published for the Institute of Early American History and
Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, University of North Carolina Press, 1955, ©
1954.
It is difficult to see how this can be construed to have
anti-Semitic intent. Jefferson is simply saying that people "who labor in the
earth" should be highly revered. Obviously, without such people, no agriculture
would exist.
Jefferson's view is entirely consistent with his belief in a
strong agricultural sector of the economy. There is no mention of "Jews" or
"Israelites" in the index of the book.
David S. Maddison
(maddison@connexus.net.au)
