Prayer for Democracy

Prayer for Democracy, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon

Delivered at the Interfaith Prayer Service for Democracy at St. Philip’s in the Hills Church, Monday, November 20, 2023

When I think of democracy and Jews, I’m reminded of the old story of the rabbi who was ill and in the hospital and the president of the board of trustees visited him there and told him, “Rabbi, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that the board has voted to wish you a speedy and complete recovery.  The vote was 9 to 8.”  Democracy in action.

If you had told me seven or eight years ago that we would need a prayer service tonight for democracy, I wouldn’t have believed you.  I don’t know how many of you would have believed it then either.

You know, as a boy I was fascinated by democracy.  The empowerment of people, the egalitarianism of knowing that every American adult had the opportunity to participate in choosing our own representatives.  It was nearly intoxicating.  What an amazing thing, that each of us could vote, could exercise our franchise, that every one of us counted, that together we chose who was going to lead us.  Choice. Free will.

Judaism is a religion of choice and free will.  We believe that no one is born good and no one is born evil, but that we personally choose our own course in life.  Nothing is predetermined about the kind of people we become.  If ever a religion and people existed to live in a democracy, it’s us Jews.  And don’t get me started on just how much we love the idea of freedom of speech… 

But I’d like to tell you a particular story about our democracy the reflects on that from a uniquely Jewish perspective.

It took place over 150 years ago.  On December 17, 1862, US Major General Ulysses S. Grant issued a most peculiar order.  Called General Order Number 11, it expelled all Jews from Grant’s military district, composed of parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi.  It read that “Jews as a class” had 24 hours to leave the district. Some had lived there for decades but they were all to be kicked out.

We aren’t sure why Grant made such an order.  It seems out of character.  Ulysses Grant did not demonstrate Anti-Semitic tendencies in other ways.  In fact, when the incredibly successful general later became President of the United States he appointed more Jews to high positions than any previous Chief Executive ever had, he protested anti-Jewish atrocities in Europe, and he and his entire cabinet attended the dedication of a synagogue in Washington, DC, the first president ever to attend a Jewish religious service. 

In any case this Order Number 11 was shocking and damaging. His ever-loyal chief of staff, John Rawlins, tried unsuccessfully to talk Grant out of it, but to no avail.

And so, the Jews who lived or did business near the army’s headquarters were expelled immediately.  One Jewish officer in Grant’s army resigned over the order.  30 Jewish families of Paducah, Kentucky, including pillars of that community, were roughly handled and forced out of their homes by Union soldiers and turned into refugees.  It was a bad scene, similar to the kind of thing that had happened to Jews all over Europe, indeed in many parts of the world, for many centuries. 

Only this time, some of the expelled Jews sent telegrams to Washington, DC.  When word reached the capital and made its way to Grant’s superior, President Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln directed that Grant’s Order Number 11 be immediately revoked.  The General in Chief of the Union Army, Henry Halleck, sent Grant a telegram that read, “A paper purporting to be General Orders, No. 11, issued by you December 17, has been presented here. By its terms, it expels all Jews from your department. If such an order has been issued, it will be immediately revoked.”

Grant revoked the order, less than three weeks after it was issued.

What is remarkable about this story is not that it happened.  What is remarkable is that it is the only time in American history our national government or any of its representatives officially issued an Antisemitic order or law or regulation aimed solely at Jews.  And it was revoked and repudiated as instantly as it could have possibly been.  Grant even came perilously close to being censured in the House of Representatives.

That is, American democracy worked.  Because we live in a nation in which our leaders are elected by the people, and must be responsible to both those people and to the Constitution of our nation and the laws in effect.  And those laws affirm that all American citizens, regardless of religion or race or personal convictions are able to vote, are protected equally under those laws, and have the right to pray and live as they choose.

And the revocation of that order, and that it has never been repeated, makes the United States one of two countries on the entire globe never to have issued an Antisemitic statute or directive. 

Now that distinction about America is extremely important.  Because only in our American democracy, which separates church from state and which gives every citizen the right to vote, can this be guaranteed.  Only in a nation in which the fact that enough people truly care about ideas like respect, tolerance, diversity, and integrity can enough public sentiment be motivated—and feared by its politicians—to prevent such laws from being enacted.  There is a reason this kind of thing only ever happened once, and that it was almost instantly reversed.

There is something incredibly precious about American democracy, and we Jews, in particular, appreciate that.  We have long experience of autocracy, having lived under, and been brutalized by, so many autocracies in so many parts of the world over so many centuries.  We know that only under democracies can civil rights and true liberty be experienced, expected, and protected.

And so, tonight, we pray: Eloheinu vEilohei Avoteinu, our God and God of our ancestors, may we summon the strength to preserve this sacred trust we have been given, this American democracy.  May the rule of law and the honesty of open elections be respected, preserved, and maintained.  And may we come to live without hatred and bigotry in our democracy, with free elections and honest leaders who will fight to protect the rights of all Americans.  May this be Your will, God—and mostly, may it be ours.