Search Results
Back to JTS Torah Online's Main page
Abram the Hebrew
Oct 19, 2018 By Jonathan Sarna | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
“I believe we have not yet appointed a Hebrew,” President Abraham Lincoln wrote on November 4, 1862, to his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, amidst the Civil War. Partly to rectify that imbalance, he agreed to appoint Cheme (Cherie) Moise Levy, the son-in-law of Rabbi Morris J. Raphall of New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, to be an assistant quarter-master with the rank of captain. This may have been the first example of “affirmative action” in all of American Jewish history.
Read More
SUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS
Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.