Making Americans

Jewish World Review ^ | 11/23/2011 | Jeff Jacoby

[Former Fetus]

With our music teacher, Mrs. Feigenbaum, at the piano playing the melody -- the Toreador's Song from the opera Carmen -- and the lyrics handed out to us on mimeographed pages, my 4th-grade classmates and I practiced one of the songs we were learning for our school's Thanksgiving assembly:

Thanksgiving Day comes once each year Our president proclaims it far and near. Thankful for the bounty of our land, The harvest that makes this nation grand, Bestowed us from above, God bless this land, This precious land we love.

I was a student at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, a Jewish day school where half of the curriculum was devoted to religious studies and the school year conformed to the Jewish calendar. Most of the kids in my class came from Orthodox Jewish homes, and many of us were the children of Eastern European immigrants who spoke Yiddish more fluently than they spoke English.

[Former Fetus]

As an immigrant myself, I can certainly understand Mr. Jacoby's words. I tried a different approach, I would stay away from anything and everything having to do with my former country, language and culture. I was going to be an American, not a hyphenated American! But then I got married, had children, and they wanted to know about their roots. I found myself teaching them the language, telling stories I had forgotten a long time ago. Some mornings I catch myself humming a tune that I hadn't remembered in years. But that's at home! I am a 100% red-blooded American, and if anybody asks me where do I come from, I usually answer with the name of the city where we happen to be living! What a pity that so many immigrants today are trying to remake this country to the image of the country they fled! How crazy!

[loveliberty2]

The lines of that used-to-be favorite at community gatherings, "America," come to mind:

"My Country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of LIBERTY . . . ."

As with those who came to these shores in the 1600's, the 1700's, the 1800's, and through the 1900's and even today, the idea of liberty was predominant in their minds.

Bartholdi's lamp in the hands of Lady Liberty remains a beacon to those whose government leaders assume coercive and oppressive powers over their Creator-endowed rights.

At this Thanksgiving Season, perhaps we should remember that ours is a "We, the People's" Constitution, and that, in 1787, a people shed the chains of government which binds the people in favor of chains which bind those in government.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for posting Jacoby's column.

[Former Fetus]

"My Country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of LIBERTY . . . ."

My all time favorite was
My country,' tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,

It worried me for a long time, but now I can proudly sing "my fathers".