In the wake of the stabbing in Marseille of a Jewish teacher, the leader of the Jewish community has cautioned against wearing kippot in public. Citing this episode, Elliott Abrams recalls George Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport in which the president expressed his hope that “the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while ‘every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid’ [Micah 4:4].”
These sentences struck me today because they were true then for Jews in America and are true today, but were not true then for Jews in Europe and are not true [for them] today. . . .
Across Europe, Jews are being told by their own community leaders and rabbis to avoid showing any sign of their religion in public: no prayer shawl, no head covering, no Star of David necklace. Nothing. [It’s] too dangerous. . . .
It is in that context that Washington’s words are so striking. Two-hundred-and-twenty-five years later, Jews in Europe do not have the safety that America’s first president promised Jews in the United States in 1790. Nor is there much reason to think that the predicament of European Jews will be solved; indeed logic suggests that it will worsen. . . . “And there shall be none to make him afraid” is a promise that still eludes Jews in Europe.
Read more on Pressure Points: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/01/13/every-one-shall-sit-in-safety-under-his-own-vine-and-fig-tree/