An email is circulating that may
lead people to believe that President Bush and the Republicans may somehow be
biased against Jews because President Clinton had many Jews in his cabinet and
President Bush has none. The email can be looked at 2 ways: Jews may conclude a
sense of anti-Semitism and anti-Semites may look at it has a sign of pride. In
either case, people on both sides are wrong in their conclusions because the
email does not tell the full story. Boycott Watch is once again setting the
record straight.
Boycott Watch investigated the claim
regarding President Bush, and has came the following conclusions:
The email has very detailed information about
presidents, so it was probably assembled by either an historian, or perhaps is
a compilation of the work of several people. It also looks like something that
not many individuals would probably research and assemble by themselves. The
email appears to be well planned, written, researched and edited for content.
The email is therefore very possibly the result of a concerted effort of a
political campaign, and set out via email as a political tactic. In essence,
Boycott Watch believes it is too good to be just something an individual put
out, yet there is no signature or organization name ties to it, thus raising
more questions as to its origin.
- Boycott Watch has often stated that if an email is
circulating calling for action and it is not signed by anyone, the reader
should look at it just like a check that has not been signed - it has no value.
If the author did not have the courage to put his or her name on document, what
reason do you, the consumer, have to follow it? If the author won't sign it,
why should you?
- Considering that the majority of Jews are liberal
Democrats, President Bush would not be out of line statistically if there are
no Jews in his cabinet. There is also no specific need or requirement to have
any quota of any ethnicity or religious affiliation in any cabinet, so not
having members of any specific group is not an indicator of bias, one way or
another.
- There are only 21 cabinet positions in existence
and far more religions in the world that 21. The president, therefore, could
not possibly have one representative of every religion in his cabinet.
- There are several Jews in high ranking positions,
including Lewis Libby, the Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, and until
recently, Ari Fleischer was President Bush's press secretary.
- High ranking officials, even if they are not
cabinet members, have a say in policy in every administration. President Bush
is reported to ask for the advise of people who are outside of his cabinet more
than other presidents have.
- The following people are not in the cabinet, but
are very high ranking members of the administration and happen to be Jewish.
Dr. Paul Wolfowitz - Deputy
Secretary of Defense
Douglas Jay Feith - Under Secretary
for Policy - Department of Defense
Dov S. Zakheim - Under
Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) - Pentagon
Ari
Fleischer - Until recently, he was President Bush's press secretary.
Lewis Libby - Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney
All of the above have acted as spokesmen at times,
and all have had direct influence regarding policy matters, be it in their own
words or in the preparation of materials for the press or President Bush.
Boycott Watch believes, therefore, especially considering the roles of Ari
Fleisher and Lewis Libby, that the email is a partisan political document that
was drafted with the specific aim of having mass Internet distribution, which
it is certainly getting.
Using the Internet as a
method of disseminating information is a relatively new tactic to political
campaigns. MoveOn.org has been using the Internet as its main media. Boycott
Watch is not suggesting that MoveOn.org may have had anything to do with the
email, but we do suspect that is tied to a political entity. |
| |
| |
| Start Of Original email: |
| |
This is very educational
Make sure to read the last President on this list:
Maria
United States Presidents:
---
GEORGE WASHINGTON was the first President to write to a Synagogue. In
1790 he addressed separate letters to the Trouro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode
Island, and to Mikve Israel Congregation in Savannah, Georgia, and a joint
letter to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, Virginia, Mikve
Israel,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston, South
Carolina and to Shearith Israel, New York. His letters are an eloquent
expression and hope for religious harmony and endure as indelible statements of
the most fundamental tenets of American democracy.
Don't forget Hyaim
Solomon who helped finance the Revolutionary WarTHOMAS JEFFERSON was the first
President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Getting
of Baltimore as US Marshall for Maryland.
JAMES MADISON was the first
President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to
Tunis from 1813 to 1816.
MARTIN VAN BUREN was the first President to
order an American Consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he
instructed the U.S. Consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to
protect the Jews of Damascus, Syria who were under attack because of a false
blood ritual accusation.
JOHN TYLER was the first President to nominate
a U.S. Consul to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism, who
established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.
FRANKLIN PIERCE was the first and probably the only President whose
name appears on the charter of a Synagogue. Pierce signed the Act of Congress
in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the
incorporation of the city's first Synagogue, the Washington Hebrew
Congregation.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the first President to make it
possible for Rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the
1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but
Christian clergymen from the chaplaincy. Lincoln was also the first, and
happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of
Anti-Semitism by the U.S. Government. It was Lincoln who cancelled General
Ulysses S. Grant's "Order No. 11" expelling all Jews from Tennessee from the
District controlled by his armies during the Civil War. Grant always denied
personal responsibility for this act attributing it to his subordinate.
ULYSSES S. GRANT was the first President to attend a Synagogue service
while in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated
in 1876, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present.
RUTHERFORD
B. HAYES was the first President to designate a Jewish Ambassador for the
stated purpose of fighting Anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peyote
Consul-General to Rumania. Hays also was the first President to assure a civil
service employee her right to work for the Federal Government and yet observe
the Sabbath. He ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had been denied a
position in the Department of the Interior because of her refusal to work on
Saturday.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the first President to appoint a Jew
to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of
Commerce and Labor.Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to
contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel
Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War,
Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the National Jewish Welfare Board.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the first President to attend a Seder while in
office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, Rhode Island, he participated in
the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National
Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.
WOODROW
WILSON was the first President to nominate a Jew, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, to
the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm against great pressure to
withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted that he knew no one better qualified
by judicial temperament as well as legal and social understanding. Confirmation
was finally voted by the Senate on June 1, 1916. Wilson was also the first
President to publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a
letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support of
the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for European War
relief.
WARREN HARDING was the first President to sign a Joint
Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine
Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for
the Jewish people. The resolution was signed on September 22, 1921.
CALVIN COOLIDGE was the first President to participate in the
dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of worship.
On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of the Washington, D.C.
Jewish Community Center.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the first President
to be given a Torah as a gift. He received a miniature Torah from Young Israel
and another that had been rescued from a burning Synagogue in Czechoslovakia.
Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. The Roosevelt
administration's failure to expand the existing refugee quota system ensured
that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some of the Holocaust's six
million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt's death, the arguments
continue over Roosevelt's response to the Holocaust.
HARRY S. TRUMAN,
on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel's proclamation of
independence, was the first Head of a Government to announce to the press that
"the United Stated recognizes the provisional Government as the de facto
authority of the new State of Israel." Truman was also the first U.S. President
to receive a President of Israel at the White House, Chaim Weisman, in 1948 and
an Ambassador from Israel - Eliahu Elath in1948. With Israel staggering under
the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952, President Truman obtained from
Congress close to $140 million in loans and grants.
DWIGHT D.
EISENHOWER was the first President to participate in a coast-to-coast TV
program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a network show in 1954
celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American Jewish community. On this
occasion he said that it was one of the enduring satisfactions of his life that
he was privileged to lead the forces of the free world which finally crushed
the brutal regime in Germany, freeing the remnant of Jews for a new life and
hope in Israel.
JOHN F. KENNEDY named two Jews to his cabinet - Abraham
Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as
Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish
Award was named. The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was
re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.
JIMMY CARTER, in a number of impassioned speeches, stated his concern
for human rights and stressed the right of Russian Jews to emigrate. He is
credited with being the person responsible for the Camp David Accords.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH in 1985, as Vice President, had played a personal
role in "Operation Joshua," the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of
Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Then, again in 1991, when Bush was
President, American help played a critical role in "Operation Solomon," the
escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian Jews. Most dramatically, Bush got the U.N. to
revoke its 1975 "Zionism is Racism" resolution.
Consider the last two
officeholders:
BILL CLINTON appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all
of the previous presidents put together.
GEORGE W. BUSH is the first
President since Herbert Hoover who has no Jews in his cabinet at all |
| |
| End Of Original email: |
|
|
| Advertisement: |
 |
|
|
