Christian Hebraism, Abolitionism, and the Biblical Message of the Liberty Bell

July 25 2022

Inscribed on Philadelphia’s liberty bell is a segment from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Meir Soloveichik explains that the selection of this verse, like so much that was distinctive about colonial and revolutionary America, was a product of a culture steeped not only the Bible , but in the Hebrew language and other Jewish texts:

The story begins in 1701, when William Penn enshrined in Pennsylvania a Charter of Liberties guaranteeing freedom of conscience. For Penn, a Quaker, true friendship with God and man could not be coerced: “There can be no friendship where there is no freedom.” Penn’s agent in the region was James Logan, later mayor of Pennsylvania. The historian Edwin Wolf describes how Logan “bought himself Hebrew Bibles and Hebrew prayerbooks, and read them and made notes in them. When he was more fluent, he added a Shulḥan Arukh and the great six-volume edition of the Mishnah with the Maimonides and Bertinoro commentaries. In fact, Logan gathered together in Philadelphia in the first half of the 18th century one of the largest collections of Hebraica which existed in frontier America.”

Logan, Wolf explains, then taught Hebrew to his daughter Sally, whom he described as a child “reading the 34th psalm in Hebrew.” . . . Sally, in turn, married Isaac Norris, speaker of the State Assembly. Norris was a Hebraist in his own right. . . . It was from this Hebraic household that the bell emerged. In 1751, Isaac Norris commissioned it . . . to mark the 50th anniversary of the Charter of Liberties. He chose to emblazon the bell with words from Leviticus, describing how every 50 years, indentured servants are freed. . . . Known until the 1830s as the “State House Bell,” anti-slavery advocates chose the bell because of its verse, renaming it the “Liberty Bell” as a symbol of the abolitionist cause.

The Bell’s biblical story is worth rediscovering today. We are experiencing what Commentary has called “the great unraveling,” in which many on the left assail the greatness of America, describing its story as a series of unmitigated sins. Meanwhile, even on some segments of the right today, we hear dismissal of the universality of the American idea, and of a foreign policy that seeks to support liberty around the world. The bell embodies a people who, ever imperfect, ever exceptional, were inspired by the Bible to advance the cause of liberty on its own soil and throughout the world.

Read more at Commentary

More about: American exceptionalism, American Religion, Christian Hebraists, Slavery

The Mass Expulsion of Palestinians Is No Solution. Neither Are Any of the Usual Plans for Gaza

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?

Read more at What the Hell Is Going On?

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Palestinians