On Sunday, October 9, 1892, page 36 of The New York Herald featured the following banners.[i]

AMERICAN HEBREWS HEARTILY JOIN

IN PRAISE OF COLUMBUS

Patriotic Music, Bunting and Decorations

Throngs of Joyful Worshippers And

Appropriate Discourses in All the Synagogues

ALL ISRAEL REJOICES

Thankfulness for America Reconciles Jews

      The Herald article continued,

In these dates, 1492 and 1892, how much significance is there for the Hebrew race! The quadrennial celebration of the New World ties with the woe of the Jews of the Old World. Superstition is almost vindicated when one considers that the day that Columbus set sail in quest of the New World was identical with the day that the Jews were expelled from Spain. Those [the Jews] of this country are Americans. Though the proof was not needed, the outpouring in the synagogues yesterday [Shabbos] bore sounding evidence that they are not only Americans, but patriotic Americans. Four hundred years ago millionaires hobbled out of Spain – beggars. Today Hebrew millionaires negotiate loans (from their own pockets) with Spain.

      In his remarks about the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, Dr. Kohut said:

America was discovered because Columbus possessed a living faith in his ideal, in himself, and in his God. [This is] of utmost significance for us Israelites. In fact, between Columbus’ innate reverential piety and staunch adherence to faith and the firm, unflinching, unbeguiled confidence in our own conviction throughout these stormy centuries, most suggestive parallels could be drawn.

 

Friends! What a thrilling thought darts through our minds at the strange coincidence which commends itself to our notice! What a whirl of conflicting emotions seizes our hearts at the startling truth, but recently unfolded, that the 12th of October, 1492, when the noted discoverer first spied the welcome dawn of feeble light, when Columbus first set foot upon the land, which was a momentous event for us all, the advent of the Jewish New Year[iii]marked Israel’s claim, pleaded Israel’s plea for deliverance from tyranny.

 

It was on this Jewish New Year that the loyal standard bearer of faith, with his now jubilant followers, all attired in raiments of royal splendor, sang with lifted eye and bended knee a devout Te Deum [a traditional Christian hymn of joy and thanksgiving] upon America’s blessed shores. Our hearts swell with conscious pride, our souls revel in the luxury of this sublime conception, and we, too, reverently lift the eye and humbly bend the knee on this day of jubilee, hallowed by recollections of that divine prophecy.

Rabbi Jacob Joseph

      In part Rav Joseph said:

His [Columbus’s] plans and his propositions aroused the ill pleasure of the Church, the distrust of the science of his age, and the ridicule of the masses. But all those turbulent elements were calmed in the course of time, taught to accommodate themselves to the truth and to be raised and enlightened by it. We can now appreciate the wisdom of the discovery of America in its bearings upon the social, moral and religious development of the human family, and bless the Author of Wisdom for His wondrous deeds and providential guidance of our destinies.

 

At last the blessed constitution and government of the United States was enacted, and the wisdom divine in revealing the New World to man became apparent. Here the persecuted of all nations found the justice that was due them as human beings at the hands of their fellowmen; here the sufferers of the sons of Israel found a haven of rest, liberty to breath the free air of God, the right and the protection of the law in the development of their abilities and usefulness, and, above all, the freedom to follow the dictates of conscious, and to worship the God of their fathers without molestation.

      Dr. Yitzchok Levine, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. “Glimpses Into American Jewish History” appears the first week of each month. Dr. Levine can be contacted at [email protected].