"From Every Community"?

“From Every Community”?
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 5, 2020

On Independence Day President Donald Trump announced the creation of the national Garden of American Heroes during his speech from the White House. This announcement was met with applause which grew as Trump read the list of the first 30 men and women to be bestowed with such an honor.

“I signed an executive order to create... the national Garden of American Heroes... a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who have ever lived. We will honor extraordinary citizens from every community, and from every place and from every part of our nation. Great men and great women, people that we can look up to forever. Families will be able to walk among the statues of titans, and we have already selected the first 30 legacies and 30 legends.”

John Adams Douglas MacArthur
Susan B. Anthony Dolley Madison
Clara Barton James Madison
Daniel Boone                                      Christa McAuliffe
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Audie Murphy
Henry Clay George S. Patton, Jr.
Davy Crockett                                     Ronald Reagan
Frederick Douglass Jackie Robinson
Amelia Earhart Betsy Ross
Benjamin Franklin Antonin Scalia
Billy Graham Harriet Beecher Stowe
Alexander Hamilton                             Harriet Tubman
Thomas Jefferson Booker T. Washington
Martin Luther King, Jr. George Washington
Abraham Lincoln Orville and Wilbur Wright

While all of the above 31 men and women are worthy (apparently the Wright Brothers are an entity and not individuals to the president), President Trump did say “...from EVERY community…” As such, here are 18 candidates from the Jewish community for the president to consider.

LOUIS BRANDEIS (11/13/1856 - 10/05/1941)
Appointed by President Woodrow Wilson, Brandeis was the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice (1916-39); the namesake of Brandeis University (1948); known as the “people’s lawyer,” for defending such issues as a maximum number of hours a person could work and a minimum wage; also an ardent Zionist from 1912 forward

ALBERT EINSTEIN (03/14/1879 - 04/18/1955)
Earned the Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect (1921); considered the most influential physicist of the 20th Century; developed the Theory of Relativity; introduced the science of Cosmology; gained US citizenship in 1940; encouraged President Franklin Roosevelt to pursue a nuclear bomb; declined offer to serve as President of Israel (1952) although he supported Zionism

FELIX FRANKFURTER (11/15/1882 - 02/22/1965)
Only naturalized American citizen (born in Vienna) to serve on the Supreme Court (1939-62); leading jurist supporting the doctrine of judicial self-restraint - adhering closely to precedent; helped found the American Civil Liberties Union (1920); awarded the Medal of Freedom (1963); considered himself a Zionist

MILTON FRIEDMAN (07/31/1912 - 11/16/2006)
Earned Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (1976) for his research on income and consumption as well as his developments in monetary theory; his theory of Monetarism focused on the importance of money supply affecting price levels; strong believer in free-market capitalism, free trade, smaller government; strong supporter of US entry into World War II; most influential economist in the second half of the 20th Century

RABBI ALEXANDER D. GOODE (05/10/1911 - 02/03/1943)
Chaplain/Lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II; one of four military chaplains to give their lives to save American troops during the sinking of the troop transport Dorchester; PhD. from Johns Hopkins (1940); served from July 21, 1942 until the sinking of the Dorchester by a German U-boat; posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross

HENRY BENJAMIN “HANK” GREENBERG (01/01/1911 - 09/04/1986)
Major League Baseball’s first Jewish superstar - nicknamed the “Hebrew Hammer;” American League MVP 1935, 1940; Hall of Fame inductee 1956; often dealt with anti-Semitism in Detroit playing for the Tigers and on the road, but earned respect the league over for his decision not to play on Yom Kippur in 1934 - the holiest day on the Jewish calendar; served two tours of duty in the Army during World War II - the first ending two days before the December 7, 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor - two days later he reenlisted, serving in the Army Air Corps through June 1945 - 47 months, the longest tenure of any player - returning to baseball and hitting a home run on July 1

EMMA LAZARUS (07/22/1849 - 11/19/1887)
Poet of the famed The New Colossus (1883) - adorned to the Statue of Liberty (1903) “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…;” mentored by Ralph Waldo Emerson; published more than 50 poems, a book of poetry, and a novel; critiqued contemporary literature; spoke out in favor of a Jewish homeland, and against European anti-Semitism

LEWIS CHARLES LEVIN (11/10/1808 - 03/14/1860)
First Jewish member elected to the House of Representatives - served three terms (1845-51) representing Pennsylvania’s First District; earned law degree from South Carolina College, now University of South Carolina (1828); founded the American Republic Party (1842); called for the election of only native born Americans to all public offices; editor of the Philadelphia Daily Sun

URIAH P. LEVY (04/22/1792 - 03/26/1862)
Veteran of the War of 1812; first Jewish Commodore of the United States Navy; third owner of Monticello following Thomas Jefferson’s death and funded the repairs so desperately needed; advocated ending corporal punishment in the Navy - ultimately abolished by Congress in 1850; namesake of the USS Levy (1943); Jewish chapels at Norfolk, VA Naval Station and United States Naval Academy in Annapolis named for Levy; a statue of Jefferson in the Capitol Rotunda was commissioned by Levy

J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (04/22/1904 - 02/18/1967)
Theoretical physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb;” director of the Los Alamos Laboratory researching and developing the first nuclear weapon - the Manhattan Project (1942-45); he and Einstein were concerned the Nazis would develop a nuclear weapon first; after seeing the results of the bomb’s use, Oppenheimer resigned from his position; chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission; won the Enrico Fermi Award (1963); opposed development of the hydrogen bomb - the work of Edward Teller - also Jewish; professor at UC-Berkeley and Cal-Tech

DANIEL PEARL (10/10/1963 - 02/01/2002)
Wall Street Journal journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief; kidnapped and beheaded in Karachi, Pakistan by al-Qaeda terrorists; kidnapped while conducting journalistic investigations into relationship between British terrorist Richard Reid and al-Qaeda; BA communications from Stanford; At Home in the World, a collection of Pearl’s writings was published posthumously in 2002; his last words included “my father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish. My family follows Judaism. We’ve made numerous family visits to Israel.”

AYN RAND - born ALISSA ZINOVIEVNA ROSENBAUM  (02/02/1905 - 03/06/1982)
Author of novels promoting the theories of individualism and laissez-faire capitalism - popular among conservative and libertarian readers - The Fountainhead (1943), Atlas Shrugged (1957); early influence - seeing her father’s pharmacy business confiscated by the communists following the Russian Revolution of 1917; her personal philosophy was objectivism - man as a heroic being, his own happiness the moral purpose of his life, productive achievement his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute

JUDITH RESNIK (04/05/1949 - 01/28/1986)
First Jewish woman in space (second overall - Sally Ride); electrical engineering at Carnegie- Mellon, MS in engineering at the University of Maryland; biomedical engineer in the neurophysics lab with the National Institutes of Health; PhD in electrical engineering at Maryland (1977); accepted into NASA program (1978) - one of only six women; among the seven who died aboard the space shuttle Challenger (1986)

HYMAN RICKOVER - born CHAIM GODALIA RICKOVER (01/27/1900 - 07/08/1986)
Admiral United States Navy served 1918-82; United States Naval Academy (1922); considered the father of and directed the development of Naval Nuclear Propulsion a.k.a. The Nuclear Navy, first nuclear powered submarine - The Nautilus (1951); MS in electrical engineering at Columbia University; chief of the Naval Reactor Branch, Reactor Development Division of the Atomic Energy Commission (1949); longest service in the Navy of any officer; first person to garner two Congressional Gold Medals; USS Hyman G. Rickover commissioned in 1984

JONAS SALK (10/28/1914 - 06/23/1995)
Creator of the first polio vaccine; one of the leading scientists of the 20th Century; MD from New York University (1939); testing began in 1952 and 1.8 million children received the vaccination during the test period - Salk administered the vaccine to himself and his family in 1953; approved for general use in 1955 and President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored Salk in the Rose Garden at the White House; launched Salk Center for Biological Studies (1963); studied AIDS and HIV later in his career

HAYM SALOMON - born CHAIM SALOMON  (04/07/1740 - 01/06/1785)
Played a major role in financing the American Revolution having immigrated from Poland; arrested twice and accused of being a spy by the British in 1776 and 1778 - the second time sentenced to death but managed to escape; helped overturn Pennsylvania law barring non-Christians from holding elected office; made numerous interest free loans and funded a portion of government debt, ultimately dying penniless

FRANCIS SALVADOR (1747 - 08/01/1776)
London-born Sephardic Jew; elected to the South Carolina General Assembly in 1773, less than a year after arriving in the colonies, even though it was illegal for Jews to vote, let alone serve in elected office; responsible for writing the South Carolina state constitution; chosen to serve in South Carolina’s provincial congress in 1774 and helped right the state’s bill of rights; endorsed independence from England and that Continental soldiers be paid; first Jewish soldier to die fighting in the Revolutionary War

OSCAR S. STRAUS (12/23/1850 - 05/03/1926)
First Jewish cabinet member - Secretary of Commerce and Labor (1906-09) appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt; three-time Emissary to Ottoman Turkey; advisor to President Woodrow Wilson - aiding in the plans for the League of Nations (the United States declined to join); a voice in America for European Jews and their protection from continued pogroms; Columbia Law School (1873)

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.