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CHUKKAT - JULY 4th 5785
We Jews Need to Thank Gd for America
It’s easy to be cynical about America with its polarization and partisanship, racism here and there and increasing antisemitism. The inflation of the past few years has made just getting by more challenging. Then there’s the crime, corruption, and lies that are so rampant. Yes, it’s easy to be cynical about America today.
And yet, in spite of all this, there are so many special things about America. Here’s a sampling from my research:
Only in America ... can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
Only in America ... are there handicapped parking places in front of a skating rink.
Only in America ... do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
Only in America ... do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
Only in America ... do we leave cars worth tens of thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
Only in America ... do we buy hot dogs in packages of 10 and buns in packages of 8.
Here’s my favorite: Only in America ... do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.
To these I have added:
Only in America could Jewish billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg and Sergey Brin have been so successful.
Only in America could an African American raised by a poor single mother like Barak Obama become president.
Only in America could Jews go from a population of 25,000 in the 19th century to 6 million Jews in the 20th century—becoming the largest Jewish community in the world, and in the process save Jewish life from vanishing from the persecutions, pogroms and the Holocaust of Europe.
With all its imperfections, America—whose birthday we celebrate this weekend—is a land we Jews ought to celebrate with joy and gratitude. Jews found a home here as early as 1654! We weren’t always welcomed with open arms, but we were welcomed and eventually given full rights. There were struggles, but we, nevertheless, prospered and grew. Even today America stands solidly against antisemitism and in support of Israel as we recently saw with its bombing of Iran’s nuclear reactors.
I believe, as talk-show host Michael Medved used to say: “This is the greatest country on Gd’s green earth.” Despite some embarrassing realities, America remains the hope and promise of the world. It is one of the only countries where, when a ruling party is voted out of office, the transition proceeds smoothly—even when the opposing sides are so strongly conflicted.
America is the only country where most people are begging to get in and no one leaves. That’s why it’s been suggested that native born Americans have a much harder time appreciating how special America is than those who came from elsewhere.
I remember the pageantry of America’s Bicentennial in 1976. I went to Philadelphia to celebrate. It was magical. I saved an article by Pullitzer Prize winning columnist from the Washington Post, Art Buchwald, that he wrote for the occasion. Every once and a while on a July 4th weekend I share it. Buchwald called it “A Letter to Pop”:
Dear Pop:
It’s been 4 years since you passed away at the age of 79. On this Bicentennial holiday, with all the hoopla and overkill, I am not taking the 200th anniversary of this country lightly, mainly because I know that you wouldn’t.
First, I would like to thank you for leaving your home in Galicia, which you once explained to me was part of Poland—which was part of Austria-Hungary in 19l0, when you were only 17 years old. I know that it was not an easy trip for you to make. You had to cross Europe all by yourself, and then you had to find a ship in Rotterdam that would take you to New York City.
I’ve tried to imagine what it was like for a 17-year old boy to arrive at Ellis Island without being able to speak a word of English. There were thousands like you, and fortunately there were people who came before you to help you get through the maze of paperwork and the bewildering ways of New York.
You wound up on the Lower East Side with many of your fellow immigrants. They offered you a chance to go to night school, but you said you would learn English by yourself by reading every single New York newspaper every day and you did. You kept on reading them for 62 years and you seemed to know more about this country and more about the world than any of your children, who had been educated in American schools, ever did,
I know you started out working in a raincoat factory 14 or 15 hours a day, and when World War I came, you worked even longer. They wouldn’t let you serve in the Army because (as an immigrant from Hapsburg territory) you were considered an “enemy alien.”
Then you went into the curtain and drapery business, The Aetna Curtain Co. The business consisted of you, a man named Sammy who helped you hang the drapes, and a seamstress. “Gimbels we’re not,” you used to tell me, much to my chagrin. But you did save enough money to bring your two sisters and your brother to America. And you did manage to earn enough to get us out of the Lower East Side.
“Making it in America in those days,” you once told me, “was moving to the Bronx.” You even got as far as Mt. Vernon, when business was good, before the depression. Then during the depression, it was back to the Bronx.
The thing I shall always remember is how you felt about America. You kept telling me there was no better place to live than America, and that I could never appreciate this unless I was a Jew who came from Europe.
You were like so many foreign-born Americans Jewish, Russian, Italian, Irish, German, Scandinavian, and Greek who considered this country the only land on earth where your children would have a chance to become what they wanted to be. You told me, “Everyone has dreams for their children, but here it’s possible to make them come true.”
Well, Pop, I just wanted you to know, as far as your children are concerned, you made the right decision when you left Poland and came to America. There are 4 of us, who are all doing pretty well, like most of the first-generation American borns whose mothers and fathers arrived here in more or less the same way that you did.
I don’t know if all those great men in 1776 had you in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and formed this country or not, but even if they didn’t, they made it possible for you, and millions like you, to come to a free land.
So let the tall ships sail and let the fireworks explode. We are probably overdoing it, but if you were here I’m sure you would say, “It’s probably a good thing that people remember what a great place this country is, even if it’s going to cost the city a lot of money.”
You were right, Pop, and where would I be today if you had not been smart enough to come here? Thanks, Pop, on behalf of the whole family.
Signed:
Your loving son,
Art
I love this letter, and I hope you do too. I hope that even those of you who were born here love this letter as much as those of us who were born elsewhere. For, with all America’s faults, this letter reminds us of how much people sacrificed in order to get here, and how deeply they believed in the promise of America. And they remind us that we should do all that we can to preserve the promise which is America—for our sakes, our children sakes and for the world.
I’ll be sending out this sermon tonight as usual. Please share Art Buchwald’s letter with your family and friends because today, we need to remember—more than ever—what America at its core really is and what it should mean to all of us who are fortunate enough to live here. And finally let us all say, happy birthday and Gd bless America. Amen!
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