Thanksgiving connects the story of America’s founding fathers with the Jewish story of a people who fled oppression, crossed waters and expressed gratitude in reaching a promised land. The link between the pilgrims and the Israelites is not merely metaphorical; it’s literal. The early Puritans saw themselves as a new Israel. They read the Hebrew Bible for guidance. In sermons and diaries, Puritans described England as Egypt, the Atlantic Ocean as the Red Sea, and America as Canaan.
That fusion of the Jewish Biblical story and American destiny formed the moral foundation of this country. Benjamin Franklin even proposed that the Great Seal should depict “Moses raising his wand and parting the Red Sea” as Pharaoh’s army drowns behind him. America was a continuation of the Israelite story.
So when anti-Semites deride Jewish “chosenness” as arrogance or conspiracy, they are attacking the very biblical idea that helped shape America’s belief in moral purpose and exceptionalism.
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Nick Fuentes says ‘Zionist Jews’ control politics. Candace Owens warns of “Zionist influence” in American institutions and media, repeating the old lie that Jews seek domination.
Chosenness never meant superiority. It meant moral responsibility, a covenant to live by a higher standard. The Pilgrims and the founders shared that belief. They saw America as a new Israel, chosen not for privilege, but for purpose. To turn that ideal into accusation is to misunderstand both Judaism and America.
When the pilgrims landed, Governor William Bradford wrote in “Of Plymouth Plantation” that they “fell on their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them across the vast and wild ocean,” echoing Deuteronomy. Gratitude came from that faith – a collective act of gratitude for the freedom received, not for the freedom it took.
But the story that inspired America’s founding is being distorted. Christian nationalists twist the idea of a “chosen nation” into a myth of racial destiny and exclusion. Their version of the promised land belongs only to those who look, pray or vote just like them. On the far left, activists are rewriting both the American story and the story of modern Israel as a story of colonial theft. Thanksgiving becomes an opportunity to reject the American and Jewish quest for freedom.
Both distortions miss the truth. The Exodus teaches that freedom must be based on faith, gratitude, and righteousness.
Jewish leaders have long recognized this. The Rebbe said Thanksgiving shares a spiritual kinship with Judaism. He even called it a Yom Tov, a day of joy. To be a Jew, Yehudi, means to give thanks. Gratitude in Hebrew (hodaa) also means recognition – the humility to look beyond yourself. That humility once united this country.
In the Torah, the Israelites did not thank God because they felt comfortable; they thanked Him because they had survived. The pilgrims did the same. Half their colony died that first winter. Their gratitude was not for abundance, but for Providence.
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That shared Jewish and American spirit shows that gratitude is the antidote to hate. When we give thanks, we affirm our dependence on something greater than tribe or ideology. When we forget to give thanks, we begin to invent enemies.
Thanksgiving is more than a cultural holiday. It is a cure for what divides us. Jews, Christians, believers and skeptics alike should remember that America’s beginnings were not about power, but about gratitude. The founders saw themselves as Israel reborn, not as Rome restored. Our unity was once rooted not in uniformity, but in humility in the face of something greater.
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I felt that truth recently when I visited America’s oldest synagogue, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. On the wall hangs George Washington’s letter to the congregation from 1790: ‘May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this country continue to deserve and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone will sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there will be no one to make him afraid.”
Washington didn’t just reassure a small Jewish community. He defined the American promise. Gratitude, not power, guarantees freedom. Thanksgiving reminds us that freedom only lasts if we remember to give thanks for it.
