The Jews have been a side story of American history … hiding behind the more dramatic ethnic fights over slavery and the extermination of Native Americans, Jews benefited from a religious tolerance that was intended for Christian dissenters but permitted us to live as normal citizens … passing for white … in a country that had outlawed religion as a criterion for citizenship.
America’s Jews lived more or less normal lives here, owning slaves in the South and trading goods in the North. But under that patina of normality, prejudice existed. Even Jefferson demeaned the Jews as a people who did not appreciate the great message (he saw) in Jesus as a fount of the sense of common humanity behind democratic vs. monarchic government. Grant banned us form his army … because he saw the Jews as immoral camp followers ..ie prostitutes.
The history of how that changed, how Jews became a paradigm of American exceptionalism probably begins with Lincoln.
