We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, A Documentary History

Author:  Gary Philip Zola; Review by Carol Poll for Jewish Book Council


"Rabbi Abraham" was a term of endearment used by Jewish supporters of President Lincoln, writes Gary Philip Zola in his fascinating book, We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry: A Documentary History. It was a nickname much like the term "Father Abraham" popularized in the Union Army. "The sixteenth president was arguably the first man to arrive in the White House having fraternized with a considerable number of Jews prior to assuming the presidency," reports Zola.

Lincoln's relationships with Jews date back to his political activities before his presidency. The Jewish community of Lincoln's era was predominantly composed of German-speaking Jews who arrived in the United States in the mid-1830s and the 1860s. Many of the immigrants had been "activists" in the liberal revolutionary movements of their homelands. The failure of the revolutions in their home countries and the reactionary responses drove them to seek economic opportunity and the democracy promised in the American Constitution. Many settled in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin and quickly seized the chance to be participants in the "hurly-burly world of politics on the frontier" and in the debate over slavery in America. This was also the world of the legislator and future president Abraham Lincoln.

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