Two hundred and fifty years. This July 4th carries an additional dimension of momentousness: a landmark birthday, officially called America’s semiquincentennial celebration.
It’s been exactly a quarter of a millennium since the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Certainly, there are other, older civilizations in the world. But for us Americans, reaching and witnessing this moment in time feels grand. Celebrating the American spirit and its contribution of liberty for all and the freedom it has afforded and modeled is amazing.
Over the years of the July 4th’s of my life, wherever I was taking in the magic of the spectacular fireworks lighting up the sky in round after round of glorious synchronized pyrotechnic choreography of red white and blue sparkles — standing on a crowded Upper East Side Manhattan street watching them launched from East River barges over the breathtaking Brooklyn Bridge looming like a huge harp of the night, or ditto for the George Washington Bridge at the other end of New York City, or in Denver seeing the fireworks soar over the majestic splendor of the Rocky Mountains — those quiet yet powerful moments filled me with a sense of proud patriotism.
It always brought me back to my family’s story and our roots in the country.
For my paternal grandmother, Grammy — an extremely proud third-generation American, July 4 (and Thanksgiving) were wondrous moments grounded in deep gratitude for America.
Had I had grandchildren, they would be 7th generation Americans today.
Old Glory hung outside my grandmother’s home in pride of place.
My maternal grandparents, Bubbie and Zaidy, whose families were murdered in Auschwitz, escaped that fate by the skin of their teeth by immigrating to America in the late 1930s. Their gratitude for America knew no bounds.
My paternal great-grandmother Minnie Harris worked on Wall Street, and apparently was the first woman to graduate from the University of Chicago.
Like millions of other Jewish families, my family too, invested their sweat, tears and love into this beloved land of golden opportunity, contributing, adapting, building and enriching it with their talents.
Zaidy served in the US Army. Like all US soldiers who served, his casket was wrapped in an American flag. My Grandpa Max pioneered in American media and brought network television to Colorado.
Way before the popularity of talk show hosts of the 80’s and today’s podcasters, there was my grandfather’s 1960s talk television show — perhaps the first in the US — and his one-on-one interview show, interviewing both celebrities and regular folk, “the Great, the Near Great, and the Obscure,” he called it. It rivaled I Love Lucy. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were among those whom he interviewed. In one episode, my grandfather stood up to George Wallace, challenging his racist views for his audience to see — and, he did let his audience see, rather than cancelling him.
Be it in the sciences, the arts, academia, culinary culture, economics, literature, education, entertainment, trade, finance, industry, civil rights or the Jewish entrepreneurial spirit, Jews have generated disproportionately high impacts on American society.
Percentage-wise, we’re a smidgen. Our achievements are striking, though. Our contributions to our beloved America, monumental.
In Denver, for example, National Jewish Health is world renowned in its field. Patients travel to Denver for treatment from all over the world.
For thousands of years of exile, a critical mass of Jews learned to acclimate to shifting environments, often under persecution, adapting to new and changing conditions, with ingenuity, even as there was always an unbroken presence of Jews in the land of Israel.
Like others in the melting pot that is America, the Jewish people played a role in shaping its greatness.
This year’s celebration also marks the 50th anniversary of Entebbe, when Jewish hostages were demarcated, separated from their non-Jewish hostage counterparts, whom the terrorists released. The Jewish hostages were saved by Israel’s daring and brave IDF rescue mission, stealthily flying through the night.
Yet. This year’s America 250 is sadly charged with tension. Should we leave the US for other shores? is a conversation piece at Shabbat meals. What about Israel? Thank G-d for Israel.
This year’s special America 250 celebration is taking place amidst a deeply concerning, tense and fraught environment. Heartbreakingly, for many American Jews, this year’s landmark celebration begs the question: Is this the beginning of the end of an era of tolerance and welcome toward the Jewish community in America?
Israel, being the only Jewish state and America’s primary ally in the Middle East — mind you, a sliver of a country you can hardly see on a map (“tiny but mighty”) — is important to many American Jews. Yet, Israel’s American lobby were recently called by the mayor of New York “monsters.”
Yes, you read that right.
Monsters.
When it was Israel who was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023 by actual, real, murderous monsters.
When Israel was forced to retaliate for its own safety and security.
When Israel is demonized for defending itself and framed by others whose safety is not threatened.
When accountability for the actual monsters is evaded.
All this, because Israel has not responded like a passive victim, more in line with what seems many would prefer.
AIPAC supports Israel in contending with real, not make-believe, monsters.
Yet the narrative is dangerously flipped
How absurd.
Also absurd: the anti-Semitic trope that certain podcasters have been nonchalantly pushing, calling Jews’ support for Israel dual loyalty, calling them “Israel First-ers” or “Israel First” for caring deeply about Israel.
Last I checked, it was not Jews who blew up buildings in America, or committed other terror attacks on these shores.
Last I checked, the Jewish community was toiling as usual trying to make America better, one day at a time. As it has for these past 250 years.
Since day one of Israel, May 14, 1948, most of the American Jewish community loved and supported Israel profoundly. It’s not a contradiction, not mutually exclusive.
You can love all of your different children. There is room for more than one love in our American Jewish community’s collective heart.
There’s a theory of history that Christopher Columbus was a Converso Jew. That he was a born Jew, coerced into converting to Catholicism, or else being burned alive at the stake. This galvanized Christopher Columbus to leave his native Spain and set sail for the New World, to find and create a better, kinder place, where there might be freedom for all.
So the theory goes.
What is absolute fact, however, is that a Jew, Haym Salomon, was linchpin in the American revolution. Haym Solomon played a crucial role in financing the American revolution, stepping up to the plate when George Washington’s struggling troops were desperate. In particular, Salomon financed the decisive 1781 Yorktown battle.
Soloman secured loans from France and Holland. He put his own funds into the Patriot’s cause, to the point that when he died in 1785, he died in debt.
Generations upon generations of Americans have been part of building this great country. I have my little part. So does my family. So did Haym Salomon and those Jews who followed in his footsteps. As the song goes, this land is my land, this land is your land.
Yet, voices are rising against Jews, some of whom now wonder how much longer it will still feel like home. Even the historical fact of Hyam is co-opted by haters and a anti-Semitic trope: Jews and money lending
In medieval Christian Europe, Jews were prohibited from owning land, making it impossible for them to farm or participate in the traditional feudal economy.
Jews were also banned from joining craft guilds, shutting them out of most skilled trades and manufacturing.
Also, there was a usury ban imposed by the Catholic Church, forbidding Christians from charging interest on loans. Since Jews were not bound by that, and given the lack of other options, Jews often stepped into the role of moneylenders. It was the anti-Semitic exclusion of Jews from other professions that forced them into the financial sector. Hence the stereotype of the Jew and finance.
Seeing the stars and stripes still unlocks patriotism, but there is worry that this flag, which has meant so much, is becoming frayed. Ironically, when Jews are called monsters, this only serves to highlight the need for Israel to exist, as a safe haven for the Jewish people — if they are turned against. If, as at Entebbe, they are demarcated as Jews, separated from their fellow non-Jews. Abused and abandoned. Heroically rescued by the IDF of Israel.
It’s more than a metaphor. Sadly, it can again become reality.
As I pen this column while the New York Jewish community is reeling from their city’s election results and just before the Denver election results are in, on the cusp of this July 4, we pray for America to continue to bestow its blessings.
We express thanks for the home America has been.
As we will again look toward the warm night for sky glorious fireworks, celebrating the blessing that is America — we are a bit worried, but still hopeful.
And tremendously grateful.
Happy Birthday, America! You don’t look a day older than 250.
© IJN 2026