George Washington and Hanukka

The Battle of Valley Forge

Jews are particularly gifted in negotiating between the realms of historical fact and mythic narratives. We need only look at the vast chasm that separates the story of the Hannuka as told by the Macabees and that of rabbis of the Talmudic era to see our ability to hold both truths together. The former is a tale of power politics, armies and alliances, the latter one of divine intervention and miracles. Both play powerful roles in informing our understanding of the holiday.

Interestingly, there is modern Hannuka tale, about George Washington, that plays with not only the national and divine themes, but also with the boundary of history and midrash.

While I no longer remember where exactly I found it originally, the version of the tale was similar to that found in Isador Margolis and Sidney L. Markowitz’s collection Jewish Holidays and Festivals: A Young Person’s Guide to the Stories, Practices and Prayers of Jewish Festivals, originally published in 1962.

As told in this volume, there was one Jewish soldier among Washington’s troops at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777. One cold evening, General Washington out for a walk among the troops came across the young man lighting a menorah. Noting the man’s tears Washington engaged in a fatherly conversation, learning that the man had come to the new world in the hopes of living a life devoid of the anti-semitism and humiliation he had experienced in Poland. Lighting the menorah, he recalled not only his father who had given this treasure, but also the ancient battle for freedom and drew a parallel with Washington’s own fight. Washington commented that if the Jew, the descendant of the prophetic people, predicted that Revolutionary Army would win, so it would. Years later on Hannuka, the same Jew now living in New York placed the same menorah in his window at the start of the holiday. As it happened, President Washington passed by and noticing the candles knocked on the door. Recalling the night they had spent in Valley Forge, the Jew gave the President the menorah as a gift.

There is a lack of evidence to suggest that these events are founded in historical reality. So, if we were to stick to a vision of Judaism that relies on history alone, this story would be of questionable value.

To consider this story as midrash raises other questions. After all, it does not follow the traditional methods for uncovering textual meaning. It also takes as its starting text a modern historical event that post-dates not only the biblical but also the era of the traditional rabbinic commentaries.

Additionally, this story melds together the nationalism of the historical Hannuka story with the divine intervention of the rabbinic Hannuka narrative further complicating our ability to easily identify this story with established categories of narrative traditionally associated with the holiday.

Yet, despite this, or perhaps because of this, the story has much to offer us when we acknowledge it for what it is and is not. It is an excellent example of modern midrash; an attempt to read Jews into the silences of American history. It speaks of the desire of Jews to see their own story as inseparable from that of the broader American narrative. But it also speaks to the flexibility of the American narrative that allows for such weaving of particularisms into communal fabric. Our understanding of America is built as much on myth as it is history and individual groups in the United States find, or do not find, their place not only in the events of the past but in the telling and remembering of those events.

Moreover, this story speaks to some of the truths about George Washington and provides some challenges to the alignments of nationalism with history and myth with Godly intervention as portrayed in the rabbinic/Maccabean tellings of Hannuka story. George Washington is well known for supporting religious groups of all types –his letter to the Jews of Newport being a shining example of such support. This support stemmed not from secularism, but from a deep belief in an omnipotent God. That deity belonged to no particular faith group but to the cause of goodness. Indeed, as Steve Waldman recounts in the Founding Faith, Washington often attributed success in battle to God’s direct intervention. And while there is no specific evidence of the recitation of prayers over Hannuka candles at Valley Forge, it seems likely that had they been said, Washington would have endorsed them.

Recently the tale has reentered the popular Jewish consciousness in the form of a children’s book by Stephen Krensky and illustrated by Greg Harlin. And it deserves a second look. The Valley Forge tale is a uniquely American Jewish blend, combining midrashic myth creation with historic events. It not only presents us with an opportunity to explore some of the major themes of the Hannuka story from a new perspective but also opens up the possibility for conversations about midrash and meaning making more broadly.

A Rich and Critical Resource for all Matters Jewish

Golda Meir, Bella Abzug and So Much More: The Jewish Women’s Encyclopedia

Golda

Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia is a welcome addition to the landscape of great Jewish resources. Hosted by the Jewish Women’s Archive and launched recently on March 1^st in honor of Women’s History Month, this encyclopedia represents a rich and critical resource for those interested in all matters Jewish. Publishers Alice and Moshe Shalvi together with editors Paula Hyman and Dalia Ofer, have gathered critical information about Jewish women in an extensive collection of topical and biographical essays.

Abzug at Feminist Seder

At their best encyclopedias take the world of scholarship and distill forth the key ideas providing lay and scholarly readers alike with the ability to easily access information and to move easily from topic to topic. In the era of the internet, on some level, this seems superfluous, after all if you want to explore a topic one need only enter a few words into a search engine and “entries” immediately appear. Indeed, fewer and fewer people these days are willing to wade into the library, find the right encyclopedia, look up the topic under consideration and follow cross references across articles or volumes. Yet in “googling” we often fall prey to the most popular rather than the most authoritative information and miss out on the organizational and editorial benefit of the traditional encyclopedia. The Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia works well to focus and direct our looking, creating a rich and enriching resource for Jewish learning.

By placing this work, which has been available previously as a CD-ROM, on the web, the Jewish Women’s Archive has made a critical contribution to our study of Jewish history. The search features make it easy to find material specific in any number of ways; one can look for Mary Antin or scroll through the list of writers to find her among other great and lesser known women of the pen. Browse features ensure that the serendipitous pleasures of the print format are preserved. A global search allows for one to look for the appearance of a term or name in any entry. Borrowing from the best practice of collaborative knowledge, readers are encouraged to add comments, insights or more information.

Jewish Girls at Summer Camp

In addition to providing a good place to check facts, such as those about midrashic representations of Batsheva, it is also the perfect source for inspiration for sermons or charges to the board. It is a great resource for our own learning; with references to rabbinic texts cited and bibliographies. The quality of the writing is high but accessible. B’nai mitzvah students would feel quite comfortable in these pages.

For the sake of full disclosure, I contributed to one of the entries. But my interest in this resource is far from personal. One of the great joys of this encyclopedia is the journey that it provides far beyond our own areas of knowledge and understanding. Looking around on the day it first appeared on the web, I learned about Lane Bryant Malsin the Jewish pioneer of maternity wear and niche marketing, gaining new insights and appreciation for this hard working innovative immigrant; I deepened my understanding of wife beating in Jewish tradition thanks to the scholarship of Naomi Graetz and I got some sense of the breadth and depth of those who might be called Jewish writers. The online Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia has the potential to take us all far beyond the obvious with ease.

Pioneer Women