Lincoln and the Jews

A History

By: Jonathan D. Sarna, Benjamin Shapell

Narrated by: David Colacci

One hundred and fifty years after Abraham Lincoln's death, the full story of his extraordinary relationship with Jews is told here for the first time. Lincoln and the Jews: A History provides listeners both with a captivating narrative of his interactions with Jews and the opportunity to immerse themselves in rare manuscripts. Lincoln's lifetime coincided with the emergence of Jews on the national scene in the United States. When he was born, in 1809, scarcely 3,000 Jews lived in the entire country. By the time of his assassination in 1865, large-scale immigration had brought that number up to more than 150,000.

Many Americans were alarmed by this development and treated Jews as second-class citizens and religious outsiders. Lincoln exhibited precisely the opposite tendency. He befriended Jews from a young age, promoted Jewish equality, appointed numerous Jews to public office, had Jewish advisers and supporters starting already from the early 1850s, as well as later during his two presidential campaigns. Through his actions and his rhetoric - replacing "Christian nation," for example, with "this nation under God" - he embraced Jews as insiders. The volume uncovers a new and previously unknown feature of Abraham Lincoln's life, one that broadened him, and, as a result, broadened America.

©2015 The Shapell Manuscript Foundation (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Sarna and manuscript collector Shapell offer a vivid, fresh perspective on Lincoln's life and times." ( Kirkus)

Great facts but a rather boring listen.

it was very interesting. If you like historical facts then this is for you. However it is a slow listen.

Very well written!

The narrator did a very good job reading the book and the content was interesting.

Excellent information, repeats annoying

The story is mostly chronological, the only detract ion is that some stories are repeated several times. I listened to it as an Audible book so this maybe due to multiple documents on the same incident/ relationship. This a continual issue with audio books, that they ignore photographs, illustrations and other supporting material. The lack of inclusion of this material elsewhere is telling.

A fascinating story

This book talks about Abe Lincoln’s life through the lens of his connection with Jews. There are dozens of Lincoln biographies without any mentions of Jews. Usually the only mention of Jews is the fact the Ulysses S Grant banned Jews from his command until Lincoln overrode his decision. This is a fascinating book.

Quite illuminating

Well researched and based on actual documents. The narration was excellent but as some noted, the reviews of the actual documents was tedious at times. These documents are likely shown in the print version.
Overall, I found the material quite illuminating not only about Lincoln’s life but also about Jewish life in America going back centuries.