The first time I ever heard about Jews being expelled from anywhere was when my high school Spanish teach told us that Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the same year Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain on his voyage of discovery. Now I know that many countries and cities have expelled their Jewish populations over the centuries. The list includes England, France, German cities and states, Russia and its former imperial territories, and the United States of America.
Yes, America. It happened in 1862. Here’s how Bob O’Dell and Ray Montgomery tell the story in The LIST: Persecution of Jews By Christians Throughout History:
General Order No. 11 was the title of an order issued by Major-General Ulysses S. Grant (future U.S. President) on December 17, 1862, during the American Civil War. It ordered the expulsion of all Jews in his military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. The order was issued as part of a Union campaign against a black market in Southern cotton, which Grant thought was being run “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders.” Following protests from Jewish community leaders and an outcry by members of Congress and the press, President Abraham Lincoln revoked the General Order on January 4, 1863. (O’Dell & Montgomery, The LIST, 361.)
It is good that President Lincoln quickly rescinded General Grant’s antisemitic order, but it is alarming that the order was issued in the first place. There was no credible evidence that Jewish residents in the territory under Grant’s command were engaged in black market activities. Most were law-abiding citizens, and many had remained loyal to the United States even after the Civil War broke out. However, they were Jews, and therefore aliens to the majority Christian population. The old prejudices and blood libels that provoked expulsions of Jews in the Christian nations of Europe were alive and well among the descendants of those Christians nations who had migrated to America.
Those same attitudes persist to this day among Christians of all denominations, including Torah-honoring Hebraic believers. They originated in the early Christian reading of the scriptures which recorded God’s words of judgment on Israel and the Jewish people for unfaithfulness to His Covenant. What we missed, however, is that the Covenant depends not on frail human beings, but on the faithful God Who says He will remember it for His name’s sake. That’s why, after pronouncing judgement on Israel, God said this:
But fear not, O Jacob my servant, nor be dismayed, O Israel,
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
Fear not, O Jacob my servant,
declares the Lord,
for I am with you.
I will make a full end of all the nations
to which I have driven you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
Jeremiah 46:27-28 ESV
If there is no place for Jews in our hearts because we think they are cursed of God, then maybe we should reconsider what we have learned and ask God what He thinks.
Albert J. McCarn
BYNA Executive Director
