A magazine just came in our mail called “Church and State.” I asked my husband if he had bought a subscription. He said no, but he’d donated to it.
Anyway, the magazine has been sitting on the coffee table in plain view for a few days. I haven’t opened its pages, but there must be some powerful subliminal energy going on, because just now, unprompted, without any provocation, I started singing a song we sang in elementary school every Thanksgiving. A song I hadn’t sung probably since 1952, when I was 11.
Too bad I can’t sing it for you, but here are the words of the first stanza:
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He hastens and chastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing, cease now from distressing
Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own.
It goes on, with many references to the Lord and to the divine and to God. I remember singing it loud and clear, so proud to be an American.
I asked my husband if the separation of church and state was in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, or what its origin was. He said it’s in the First Amendment. He’s usually right about these things. But just to be sure, I stopped singing and I Googled.
Here’s what I learned from Wikipedia, although not exactly in Wikipedia’s words: The separation of church and state is a legal and philosophical doctrine in the U.S. that maintains, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “a wall of separation between church and state,” meaning between religious organizations and the government, to ensure religious freedom. Derived from the First Amendment, it forbids the government from creating an official religion or favoring any specific faith.
That must have been as reassuring for the Founding Fathers, who were largely the descendants of people fleeing religious persecution in England, as it was for my ancestors escaping Nazi Germany. What a relief to be in a country where you were free to worship (or not worship) as you pleased.
When Project 2025 was endorsed by the Republican Party, my husband went nuts. He had to push me into reading information about it so that I’d go nuts, too.
Project 2025 is an extremist religious movement that believes America was founded as, and must remain, a Christian country, and that our laws and policies must ensure that white Christians hold on to power and privilege. Christian nationalists want to impose their religious beliefs on all of us, end LGBTQ rights, ban all abortions, and control people’s bodies, and use the education system to indoctrinate our children.
When Trump ended his speech with “Glory be to God,” and then when he made his announcement about bombing Iran to smithereens and ended that post by saying “Praise Allah,” I wondered, How is he allowed to say those things? And should I be worried?
It never occurred to me when I was 11 that it was a Christian god we were singing about, and that the separation of church and state was even a thing. I was a kid. And challenging any authority would have been out of the question anyway.
Just now, my impulse was to call my sister and say, Do you remember singing that Thanksgiving song (and I would have sung it to her over the phone), and she would have said, Yeah I remember, and I would have said, Did the parents know that we were singing a song about Jesus? And she would have said, Babe, they probably had no clue, plus they were trying to assimilate, blend into the woodwork, to hide, to become as Americanized as white bread. The last thing they wanted was to call attention to our being Jewish.
It was not spoken, but as children, we got the message that we were not to make waves in a Christian world. So forget about complaining about Christmas carols and no Hanukkah songs.
I needed to have that whole conversation about that Thanksgiving song with my sister, but alas, she is no longer with us.
So, who to commiserate with? Whom can I share my anxiety with about where we are right now? You all. You are my substitute sisters (and brothers).
I think we are going backward. Personally I’ve felt safe (being Jewish) for decades, but now, with our own Speaker of the House having well-documented ties to figures and networks that adhere to the “Seven Mountains” mandate (look up “Seven Mountains” if you’re curious) (and please be curious), and Elon’s Nazi salute, and Trump ending a speech with “Glory be to God,” yes, I’m worried.
Are we in a time when we’re favoring a specific faith?
Remember this quote from the German Pastor Martin Niemöller?:
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Please, people, let us speak for each and every one of us now!