I read a history of the Jews. My maternal grandfather was Jewish. It started with Abraham and progressed to the late 60's when the book was published. An interesting thought came to me after I had finished reading the book. That thought was that it appeared America was the only place throughout history where Jewish people came that a pogram was not instituted that resulted in their mass murder or wholsale deportation. Have isolated instances of anti semitism occured? Of course, but never genocide in America.
I then began to wonder why. It occured to me that because America was a free Constitutional Republic made up of, for the most part, immigrants living under the rule of law and that Jewish people felt more comfortable in assimilating into the local climate because of the resulting American culture. Sure, they had synogogues and even lived in neighborhoods together in some large cities and some even dress "funny". But many, if not most Jews spread out over the entire country and blended in, just like everybody else did. According to what I had read, almost everyplace else in the world where the Jews settled in the Diaspora, the Jews kept themselves apart and did not assimilate, but did become very succesfull which was previously mentioned in this thread. When tough times came they were envied and ultimately killed or kicked out because of their separateness and lack of assimilation. Not so in America. Again, why?
I think because America was a polyglot culture, a melting pot, where everyone could be a contributing member, the Jews could not become a wholesale scapegoat. That is the important point about American culture.
It is a culture that is inclusive not divisive. But you have to embrace it to be included. When you do, even though you can keep your history, your historical identity is no less real, but it becomes muted and secondary because you become an American.
That is the point that the Liberals, the Multi-culturists, the celebrators of diversity don't get. If we give up our American culture, we will certainly give up our Constitutional Republic eventually and we will follow the rest of the historicaly recorded world; we will become enclaves of suspicious and envious "diverse" groups of people who will also, eventually, be at war with each other. It will not happen suddenly. But there is today an erosion of the American culture because of political correctness and the elevation of "diversity" to a level that the word implies. We will become divided. Then the shtf just like it always does.
Think about it! Look around and see what is happening in our country and think about it again!
Sorry for being so windy, but I believe America is something special enough for me to want to be an American. Not an African-American, Mexican-American, Oriental-American, Native American, Euro-American, or any other hyphenated hybrid that is everything that it should not be. E Pluribus Unum. From of the many....one. We should celebrate that, for there has never been anything else quite as grand any where at anytime. Not perfect, but certainly grand. Amen.
grampster