It is a truism that the West was formed by Athens and Jerusalem — meaning the rational thinking introduced by Greece and the moral and religious thought introduced by Israel.
Of the two, Jerusalem’s contribution was the more enduring. Relatively few Westerners read Aristotle and Plato. Virtually every citizen of the West — even the illiterate — until the last generation or two, was familiar with the Bible. Europe was Westernized by the Catholic Church in the name of the Bible, not Homer.
Were it not for the Jews and their Bible, there would be no Christianity — and therefore no Western civilization. The abolition of slavery was led by Bible-believing Christians. The Bible, not Aristotle, was their moral inspiration.
With regard to America, its founders, even the less religious ones, were rooted in biblical morality. Two of the least religious, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, designed a Great Seal of the United States that depicted the Jews leaving Egypt. The only inscription on the symbol of American Liberty, the Liberty Bell, is a verse from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The insignia of Yale University is in Hebrew, and it, too, is taken from the Torah. The Princeton University seal features an open Bible. Until about 1800, students at Yale, Harvard and other universities were required to study Hebrew.
Many American founders described America as a “Second Israel.” In the words of Eran Shalev, a Fulbright scholar who became a professor of history at Haifa University:
“So prevalent was the Old Testament in the early culture of the United States that for decades after the start of the nineteenth century it was, in the words of Perry Miller (a Harvard professor regarded as the cofounder of the field of American studies) as ‘omnipresent … as … the air that people breathed.’ ”
The American founders’ attitude toward the Jews is summed up in these words of John Adams, second president of the United States:
“I will insist the Hebrews have (contributed) more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. … The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily, than any other nation, ancient or modern.”
As Israel once made the West, now it is saving the West. This was eloquently stated a few weeks ago by Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker in a column titled, “Israel Defends Itself — and May Save Western Civilization”:
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Publish date : 2024-10-20 03:05:00
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