American Maccabee by author Andrew Porwancher parallels America’s twenty- sixth President to heroic warriors whom Jews celebrate on Chanukah. Granted Roosevelt did not vanquish the Seleucids, nor banish Hellenistic culture from Judea and Samaria. Nevertheless, Porwancher makes a convincing case to show that “Teddy” not only “fantasized about martial glory” but engaged in political battles for the civil rights of Jews, especially those who continued to uphold Orthodoxy rather than assimilating into the melting pot of their adopted country.

 

A 5th cousin to FDR, Teddy was a blue-blooded statesman. Born with a sliver spoon in his mouth, he had nothing in common with East European immigrants barely escaping pogroms, now crammed into the tenements and sweat shops of New York’s Lower East Side. When he was appointed Police Commissioner in 1895, Roosevelt saw an opportunity for reform. He chose his police force purely on the bases of merit. Rejecting the ancient tropes of Jewish weakness, Roosevelt saw, “Jews can be brawny not just brainy.” His politics of meritocracy bought him affection and trust from both the “downtown Jews” in the Lower East Side and Uptown Jews such as Oscar Straus or banker Jacob Schiff, both Roosevelt’s close advisers.

 

Roosevelt decried “identity politics” treating Jews and other ethnic minorities as Americans. Identity neutral, Roosevelt tried to make cabinet appointments on talent alone. Loyal to Roosevelt, several Jews joined his regiment, The Rough Riders, battling with the vigor of ancient Maccabees for Cuba’s independence from Spanish imperialists. Roosevelt proudly led them on horseback to victory.

 

Roosevelt assumed presidency in 1901 after the assassination of then President William McKinley. He championed a humanitarian agenda courageously ‘meddling’ in the domestic affairs of foreign counties on behalf of Jewish rights. Roosevelt’s famous words, “Speak softly and carry a big stick “ did not always materialize as he had forecasted. Though Roosevelt persistently tried diplomatic channels to register America’s disappointment with the treatment of Jews in Russia and Romania, he was tepid in his efforts to halt the horrific pogroms in Kishinev (1903) Odessa, Bialystok (1905). However, author Porwancher points out America in the 1900s was far from pure in its own treatment of African-American people with lynchings, at times greater in number than the casualties in some of the shtetels in the Pale of Settlement.

 

At times and possibly with pressure from the State Department, Roosevelt supported policies somewhat unsympathetic to Jewish immigrants. For example he endorsed the ‘literacy test” for aspiring immigrants. The “test” prohibited many illiterate Eastern European Jews (and other immigrants) from entering American shores. Yet, ironically, he appointed Oscar Straus, the first foreign-born Jew in American history to his cabinet in charge of immigration! Not quite as invincible as the Maccabees, nevertheless a stoic risk taker, Roosevelt could more accurately be defined as an “American cowboy” cultivating a spirit of adventure and American individualism.