A Promise To Keep / Chronicles anti-Semitism in the United States since colonial times and the Jewish struggle for personal and religious freedom that is the promise and foundation of America
With a ringing cry for American democratic ideals, Belth launches this commemorative volume for the Anti-Defamation League's 65th anniversary. The history of American anti-Semitism is traced in textbook fashion from colonial days up to Skokie and the Arab boycott. Belth's view of American history is a simple one. Progressive forces (separation of church and state, equality, asylum for the wretched) must always do battle with regressive holdovers (nativism, bigotry, immigration restriction), but Old-World racism has no claim on the American soul--or the American ""mind,"" ""vision,"" or ""instincts,"" to which Belth often collectively refers. We are reintroduced to long-forgotten outrages--the 1915 trial and lynching of Leo Frank, eugenics in the Ivy League, Henry Ford's publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion--as well as to others that demonstrate the tendency of dormant stereotypes to spring to life when the political or economic winds change. In the battle of xenophobia and democracy, however, the good and bad guys are drawn too sharply to merit serious historical consideration. For instance, Belth never mentions the initial negativity of the Jewish community itself toward Eastern European immigrants, and he tacitly dears Roosevelt of responsibility for the unconscionable American neglect of Jewish refugees from the Nazis during World War II. Chief among the good guys is the Anti-Defamation League, whose story is really being told. Some highly interesting documentation, but no analytical weight.
