Abraham Lincoln, Rabbi?

On April 19, 1865, Lewis Naphtali Dembitz—prominent lawyer, Jewish communal leader, and longtime activist in the Republican Party—ascended the pulpit of Beth Israel Synagogue on Green Street in Louisville, Kentucky, to participate in the congregation’s obsequies for Abraham Lincoln. He began his lament with these remarkable words: “You often called him, jocosely, Rabbi Abraham, as if he were one of our nation—of the seed of Israel; but, in truth, you might have called him ‘Abraham, the child of our father Abraham.’ For, indeed, of all the Israelites throughout the United States, there was none who more thoroughly fulfilled the ideal of what a true descendant of Abraham ought to be than Abraham Lincoln.”

Over the course of American history, Jews have held many American leaders in high esteem, but American Jewry’s emotional bond with Abraham Lincoln can be described only as sui generis. From the time of his presidency to the present day, American Jews have persistently believed that Lincoln was one of their own.