For the past week leading up to today, February 6, the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan, we have been treated both in the press and on television and radio, including my beloved NPR, to a series of Ronald Reagan retrospectives. But none of them have looked at Ronald Reagan's life through a Jewish prism, so I thought I would oblige. In this task I am deeply indebted to authors David G. Dalin and Alfred J. Kolatch's book, The Presidents of the United States and the Jews (NY:Jonathan David Publishers, Inc., 2000). Although I remember all the incidents I will recall below, Dalin and Kolatch's research sharpened my memories and have afforded me an accuracy that my memories alone would not.
So I suppose we have Jewish publishing tycoon and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to thank for turning Reagan from a New Deal Democrat to a Conservative Republican when the former recommended the latter for the job of host of General Electric Theatre, in 1954. The Annenberg-Reagan friendship went all the way back to 1938, and as Harry Truman might have said of his friendship to Eddie Jacobson, who paved the way for Truman's seeing Chaim Weizmann and later recognizing the nascent State of Israel -- one friendship can make ALL the difference in the world!
As early as 1967, then-California Governor Ronald Reagan began speaking on behalf of Israel at public rallies, beginning with the Six Day War. In 1971, Reagan was instrumental in getting the California State Legislature to sign into law a bill authorizing banks and savings institutions to buy and invest in Israel Bonds. This was the first such law in the United States and would serve as the model for other states to pass similar laws.
During Reagan's development as the eventual Republican frontrunner in presidential politics, he created a circle of Jewish neoconservatives to help guide his foreign policy, includng Elliot Abrams, Eugene Rostrow, Max Kampelman, Michael Ledeen, Richard Pipes, and Richard Perle. Together they reinforced Reagan's commitment to the safety and secuirty of Israel as a major strategic asset to the U.S., whose special relationship needed to be preserved. Reagan argued that "a strong, secure Israel is clearly in America's self-interest." This has been a bedrock of US-Israel relations ever since, no matter what political party controlled the Congress or the White House.
Unlike his political opponent, President Jimmy Carter, in the 1980 election Reagan declared "Jerusalem is now, and should continue to be, undivided. An undivided city of Jerusalem means sovereignty of Israel over the city." Perhaps Reagan's stance against the re-division of Jerusalem took on greater resonance with his challenge to then Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev over Berlin's division, when Reagan said those famous words: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Reagan also publically disagreed with the Carter Administration's efforts to characterize Israel's West Bank settlements as illegal. (How timely). Reagan's stance garnered him 40 percent of the Jewish vote. This made Jimmy Carter the first Democratic presidential candidate since the 1920s to receive less than 50 percent of the Jewish vote.
While in office, President Reagan steadily increased aid to Israel, reaching an unprecedented $3 million a year, beginning in 1986. In 1988 then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared to reporters: "This is the most friendly administration we have ever worked with." Shamir had every reason to be grateful. When Israel took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June of 1981, the Reagan administration did not condemn the bombing. (Think how many American servicemen and women fighting in the recent Iraq War owe their lives to this brave and risky move). When Israel invaded Lebanon and invaded Beirut in 1982 on behalf of the Christian South Lebanese Army, again the U.S. did not "overreact." And Ronald Reagan put a lioness in the United Nations to take on the international body's attempts to delegitimize the Jewish State, in the person of Representative Jeane Kirkpatrick, a noted friend of the Jewish community. She stated: "Resolutions in the United Nations which undermine Israel's positions and isolate her people should be vetoed because they undermine progress toward peace" (again, how timely).
Perhaps of even greater import for the Jewish community was then-presidential candidate Reagan's frequent speaking out on the issue of Soviet Jewry, attacking the Soviet Union for its imprisonment of Jewish disidents, refuseniks, and its curtailment of Jewish emigration. On September 3, 1980, Reagan declared: "The long agony of Jews in the Soviety Union is never far from our minds and hearts. All these suffering people ask is that their families get the chance to work where they choose, in freedom and peace. They will not be forgotten in a Reagan Administration." After Reagan's election, Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky's plight became a major human rights cause for then-Secretary of State George Shultz and for Reagan, who successfully pressed for the dissident's release in his much-publicized summit meeting with then-Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, on November 19, 1985. When Sharansky was released from prison and arrived in Israel on February 11, 1986, one of the first calls he received was from President Reagan, welcoming him to a land of freedom. Again and again, Reagan would press Gorbachev over the issue of Soviet Jewish immigration as a key issue for the United States, "because Jews want to freely practice their religion," their freedom to emigrate was imperative. Reagan's description of the Soviet Unin as an "evil empire," was based in large part, of its inhumane treatment of its Jewish population. How significant it was that President Reagan instructed Secretary of State Shultz to attend a Passover seder organized by the Jewish refuseniks of Moscow. The eventual emigration of large numbers of Soviet Jews to Israel can be credited to President Reagan's relentless efforts.
It wasn't all peaches and cream between Reagan and the Jews. Every arm of the organized Jewish community tried to thwart the Reagan Administration's decision to sell AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) and other advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia. The weaponry was intended to help Saudi Arabia monitor Iranian air operations, but they could have easily been used against Israel as well. The Reagan Administration won the AWACS battle much to the consternation of the Jewish community.
More symbolically devastating was Ronald Reagan's April 1985 decision to visit a small military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, in the name of reconciliation, which included the resting places of 47 officers of the Nazi SS (which carried out many Holcaust murders). Nobel Prize Winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel took on the President publically. During Wiesel's receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement, he told Reagan: "That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS." Reagan held to his decision to visit the military cemetery but he added a much longer hour-long visit to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp to his itinerary. At the camp he told Holocaust survivors: "Many of you are worred that reconciliation means forgetting. But, I promise you, we will never forget."
I could go on and tell you that Ronald Reagan was the first sitting president to take Shabbat lunch in the home of a rabbi, or I could regail you with all the Jewish appointments Reagan made, from Elliot Abrams to Milton Friedman to Ronald Lauder (of special importance to the members of Congregation Beth Shalom because of his wife's Wilmington connections to our synagogue and their past generosity). But suffice it to say, in all the recent hype of Tea Party claims to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, it would seem, on the whole, that President Ronald Reagan seemed most at home in the issues which most concerned the Jewish community of his day. So on the 100th anniversary of the birth Ronald Reagan, we can say, with a certain amount of clarity, zichrona l'vracha, may his memory be for a blessing.
Who knew? Thanks for the education!
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