By Lawrence Solomon, JNS
If baseball is as American as apple pie, then so, too, are Jews.
Former Fox News host and current political commentator Tucker Carlson recently said he “dislikes” Christian Zionists “more than anybody,” deeming their views un-Christian and inconsistent with Western civilization.
He singled out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee as adherents to this “dangerous heresy,” but he might have added President Abraham Lincoln, who saw the restoration of Jews to their national home in Palestine as “a noble dream and one shared by many Americans.” After the Civil War, Lincoln expected Americans to lead the world in helping Jews realize that dream.
Carlson’s comments were made during a two-hour interview with Nick Fuentes, who, along with others on the antisemitic right, views Jews as un-American, unpatriotic intruders. Yet Jews were among the earliest patriots. When George Washington needed $20,000 in emergency funds to sustain his army for the decisive Siege of Yorktown, he told his superintendent of finance to “send for Haym Salomon.” The funds that Salomon raised through his Jewish networks, supplemented by his personal wealth, ended the war.
Contrary to the ahistorical view of Carlson and Fuentes, America has always been joined at the hip with Jews. The Puritan settlers identified with Jews and advocated for their return to their homeland, as did early presidents of Harvard College and Yale College.
The Founding Fathers themselves identified the formation of the United States with that of Jews and Israel. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who formed a committee on July 4, 1776, to design the Great Seal of the United States, proposed an image of Moses leading the Israelites at the splitting of the sea. Jefferson suggested the image of Israel in the wilderness, following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Contemporary American culture would be unrecognizable without the contribution of Jews. If baseball is as American as apple pie, then so, too, are Jews.
The recently completed World Series was the brainchild of a Jew, Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the National League champions, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who, in 1903, challenged the American League’s Boston Americans. In 1905, the rivalry between the leagues was formalized as the World Series.
Jews have been major league players in establishing American culture elsewhere, too. Americans applauded Jewish productions from Hollywood and Broadway, and they sang their hearts out to legions of iconic songs by Jewish composers, including “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and many other Christmas tunes.
The humor of Jewish comedians has long resonated with Americans, as seen in the early popularity of the Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and Milton Berle, and more recent comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart. According to TIME magazine, in 1978, some 80% of stand-up comedians in the United States were Jewish.
The comic-book heroes that captured the American imagination—Superman, Batman and Captain America, among them—had Jewish creators.
Jews are also prominent in the political culture of conservatives. They include the neoconservatives that the antisemitic right especially disavows, people like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, but also icons that many American conservatives embrace, economists such as Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, and philosophers such as Leo Strauss, Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand.
The antisemitic right has yet to articulate a coherent explanation for its Jew-hatred. They assert that Jews control the media, yet on the issue that appears to animate them most—Israel’s conduct in Gaza—the media overwhelmingly sides against Israel. They assert that Jews have divided loyalties, yet the Trump administration is replete with Jews in powerful positions: Steve Witkoff, Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick, Lee Zeldin. Their loyalty to the president and the country has never been questioned.
To date, the antisemitic right’s only verifiable objection to Jews is that Jews aren’t devout Christians. To that, and only to that, the Jews are guilty.
