Dr. Jonathan Sarna

By Cindy Mindell ~

Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun, Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University and the director of the Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership. Widely regarded as one of the most prominent historians of American Judaism, he is chief historian at the National Museum of American Jewish History. A prolific author, Sarna’s works include the award-winning “American Judaism: A History” (Yale University Press, 2004), published to mark the 350th anniversary of the founding of the American Jewish community,Sarna will be honored at the Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven’s 36th Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 3. While a student at Yale University in 1976, he helped found the Society, and edited the organization’s first edition of its “Jews in New Haven” series. He will speak on the role of Jewish historical societies.
Sarna will also address the history of Jews in the Civil War, the subject of two recent books. The latest, “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” explores General Order No. 11, considered by many scholars of American Jewish history to be the worst antisemtic act in American history.
Sarna received his MA in history from Yale in 1976, as well as his Masters of Philosophy in 1976, and his Ph.D. in 1979. Sarna spoke with the Ledger about his work chronicling the American Jewish community during the Civil War period.

Q: Your latest book, “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” was published in March. How has it been received? Has it sparked another book idea?
A: The reception was very good. I was thrilled that a long and significant review by Janet Maslin appeared in the New York Times, which hasn’t frequently reviewed books on America Jewish history. I was also thrilled by a Washington Post review because it was by such a significant scholar. He liked the book and that was nice to hear.
Aside from one review that was a little disappointing and not so persuasive, I found the reviews to be really positive. I have had a lot of mail from people who said that they had never been able to put together their sense of the positive Gen. Grant with the Gen. Grant who expelled the Jews and my book helped do that.
In terms of other projects, I do expect to do another Civil War project but it’s not signed and sealed yet. It really is a result of the book on Grant.
Q: How do you see the book’s place in the larger conversation about the history of the American Jewish community?
A: I was the person who wrote the article a couple of years ago in which I lamented that the Jewish community had paid so little attention on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, contrasting that with 1961, when there were commemorations, programs, sermons – a lot of hoopla.
Since that time, there’s been a lot more attention paid by the Jewish community: a very good film, my book; there is a series of exhibits now in the works. I think that we will look back on the 150th anniversary and say that more attention was paid, and I would like to honestly take some credit for that.
I co-edited, along with Dr. Adam Mendelsohn, “Jews and the Civil War: A Reader,” which brought together all the articles written on the period and talked about what we know and what we don’t know. Anyone interested in Jews and the Civil War found our book a comprehensive survey of the literature; it’s not a mass-audience book like “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” but I have been pleased on the reviews and I know that people have taught courses based on the book and that people planning their own scholarly work are using it as a benchmark.
I see my own work, and this book in part, as having helped to stimulate interest in the Jewish aspects of a central episode in American history, one that took place before the ancestors of most modern-day American Jews came to this country. Many American Jews of central European descent go back to that time, and all American Jews are heirs of the Civil War: even those who came much later are influenced by the Civil War, which is the story of race in America and has touched every Jew. In recent times, there has been significant movement to the South and more Jews live in the South than before.
There’s abundant reason for Jews to study the Civil War, even those who say, “It happened long before my family’s time in America,” because you can’t understand America without understanding the Civil War. Jews have a long history in this country and I’m always amazed by the Jews who don’t know that, who say that the American Jewish community is a 20th-century phenomenon. Jews have been here since 1654; there were 150,000 Jews here on the eve of the Civil War.

Q: Gen. Grant’s General Order No. 11 expelling the Jews from his military district cites smuggling as the justification. Were Jewish smugglers engaging in the crime in order to help the Jewish community in the South, or were they doing so for the same reasons as non-Jewish smugglers?
A: Smuggling during the war was not an issue of survival. We know that lots of people smuggled, not only Jews; there was so much money to be made. Smuggling was widespread and, as so often happens in antisemitic actions, a widespread phenomenon was blamed on a visible group.
Were certain groups, as a percentage, more likely to engage in smuggling than others? It’s possible: many Jews were merchants and peddlers and had skills to move goods great distances and buy and sell. Because so many Jews had come to America over the previous 20 years, you had many Jews with relatives in both sections of the country, which was not so true of all Americans. So it was very easy for them to say, “I’m going to see my relatives in the other part.” They were mobile, and that certainly was a factor for Jewish smugglers. They explained that they knew both sections of the country, whereas a Boston Brahmin may not have had the same relationship with people in the South.
A lot of people came to America to make money, and in smuggling, you could easily make 400 percent on your money. So I am not surprised that people did it and I am not surprised that Jews broke Prohibition. In any case, I do think we now know for certain that there were all sorts of people smuggling during the Civil War, in the military and in government.

Q: I’ve always wanted to ask an American Jewish historian whether Abraham Lincoln was Jewish. On every recent anniversary of the Civil War, the claim seems to reappear that the family name was brought over from Lincoln, England, where a significant Jewish community once thrived. Can we count him among our own?
A: There is no evidence of Lincoln’s mother being Jewish; though, after the assassination, people quoted Lincoln as having said that he was Jewish. I don’t expect to discover any new evidence to support the claim, which mostly demonstrates how close Jews felt to Lincoln. Nobody ever made up such a story about Andrew Johnson or James Buchanan.
There is a story on the Internet about how Lyndon Johnson was Jewish. It’s true that he saved Jews in the Holocaust, and maybe helped save Israel in the Six Day War, and he was close to the American Jewish community and that makes a difference. So Jews imagine, “He must be one of us.”
What interests me about those stories, and the really important lesson, was not that the folks were in fact Jewish, but that they were close enough to Jews that we can begin to imagine that they were one of us. It’s amazing that Jews had that kind of relationship with Lincoln, something they had had with no previous president.

Q: Did Gen. Grant manage to redeem his reputation among the Jewish community after the war?
A: Grant is the first president to come to a dedication of a synagogue – Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C, in 1876 – and no previous president we know of had done so.
He sat for three hours – that’s real penance – and gave a handsome donation of $10, which was equal to $200 in his day, and the synagogue officials were awed by the donation.
While nobody claimed that Grant was Jewish, what amazed me was the way he was mourned in synagogues. All we remember is his expulsion of the Jews, not the remarkable story of repentance, of tshuvah. From 1868 to 1885 when he dies, he goes out of his way on every possible occasion to demonstrate that he judged people on the basis of their own merit, and gave opportunity to Jews. He did not want to be remembered on the thoughtless order he executed during the war.
He was mourned on Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat after Tisha b’Av. There were all sorts of sermons and special memorial services. Grant died within a day or two of Moses Montefiore, considered the greatest Jew at the time, and the two were mourned together.

Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven Annual Meeting honoring Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna: Sunday, June 3, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., JCC of Greater New Haven, 360 Amity Road, Woodbridge | Info/RSVP: Marian Ottaviano, (203) 392-6125 / jhsgnh@yahoo.com