define itself as a unique and legiti-
mate Jewish entity.
While Reform and Orthodox Jews
fought on both sides of the war, she
said, the language of secession and
liberation, so popular at the time,
helped fuel the fires of the newly
formed movement. It may have given
Reform leaders the courage they
needed to strike out on their own.
Even putting aside these questions
of Reform versus Orthodox, the cata-
clysmic conflict of North versus
South played a vital role in helping
American Jews to define themselves.
Much of America's Jewish population
was still new to these shores at the
time, and the war gave these eager
immigrants a chance to stand up and
be counted as full and true
Americans.
Tony Horwitz says his great-
grandfather must surely have under-
stood this. "Isaac Moses Perski was a
teen-aged draft dodger from the
czar's army who fled Volozhin in
Byleorussia in 1882 and came to
A CRUCIAL MOMENT
America at age 17, without family or
The Civil War has long captivated
money or English," said Horwitz,
the imaginations of Jewish
author of Confederates in the Attic:
Americans, and for good reason, says
Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil
Leah Berkowitz of Southfield, a sys-
War, a tour of the contemporary
tems analyst at Ford Motor Co. and
South as viewed through the lens of
the mother of nine, whose husband
Civil War remembrance, published
Dov is retired.
by Pantheon in March.
Berkowitz became interested in
"The Civil War relevance of all
the Civil War about 10 years
this is that one of his first
ago, when she first heard of
purchases in America was
Ulysses S. Grant's infa-
an enormous book of
mous "General Orders
sketches from the war.
No. 11" — an anti-
He lived to be 102
Semitic edict
and showed me the
expelling the Jews "as
book when I was a
a class" from north-
child, which first
ern Mississippi,
got me interested
western Tennessee
in the subject,"
and part of
said Horwitz, a
Kentucky.
native of the
The results of her
Maryland suburbs
years of research
around
have included an
Washington, D.C.,
exhaustive Web site
and graduate of
devoted to Jewish
Columbia University
involvement in the
Graduate School of
Civil War, and a novel
Journalism.
(not yet published) enti-
"No one in my family
tled Shield of Abraham,
ever
thought to ask him
about a Russian Jew who
Some of Leah
why,
as a teen-aged
escapes the czar's draft,
Berkowitz's
refugee, he'd bought the
then chooses to serve his
collection of
new homeland as a volun-
Civil War-era books. book, but I speculate that
immersing himself in the
teer soldier in the Civil
war
made
him
feel more American,
War.
and that he may have seen the con-
Berkowitz says the Civil War came
flict as a Talmud that might unlock
at a crucial moment in American
the secrets of his adopted land,"
Jewish history: a time when the
Horwitz said.
Reform movement was about to

In real life, Levy serves as religious
leader for the 12 Jews stationed at
his Naval base. He says the Jewish
experience in the Civil War — the
heroism and loneliness of a few hun-
dred Jews lost and isolated amidst
vast seas of Blue and Grey — in
many ways mirrors his life as a mem-
ber of the Jewish minority in the
modern American, military.
"My people will come to me with
problems, and I find there are times
when I am groping in the dark, not
knowing what to do, and it's my
faith alone that gets me through.
Then I think back to 1863, and I
think about that Jew who looks to
the sky as he feels death's grip on
him. He realizes there may not be
anyone who knows him as a Jew, and
I think about how strong his faith
has to be in order for him to die as a
Jew, all alone," Levy said. "That
same faith helps me live as a Jew
today.

"

Out Of Religious Duty

C

aptain Philip Trounstine of
the 5th Ohio Cavalry was
outraged when Ulysses S.
Grant issued his infamous
"General Orders No. 11" expelling
the Jews from northern Mississippi,
western Tennessee and part of
Kentucky — so outraged, in fact,
that he quit the war entirely.
The text of his resignation letter
to Major C.S. Hayes, provided. at
Leah Berkowitz's Civil War Web site
(http://www.geocities.com/
-walnut_street/jewish.htm), reads in
part:
"You are perhaps well aware of
my having been, irhether fortunate-
ly or unfortunately, born of Jewish
parents and [Y]ou will therefore
bear with me, Major, when I say
that the sense of Religious duty I

.

owe to the religion of my
Forefathers [was] deeply hurt and
wounded in consequence of the late
order of General Grant issued
December 17th 1862, in which all
persons of collateral religious faith
with my own, were ordered to leave
this Department.
"I do not wish to argue the ques-
tion of Order No. 11 being either
right or wrong, nor would I, if even
I dared to. But I owe filial affection
to my parents, Devotion to my
Religion, and a deep regard for the
opinion of my friends [and] can no
longer bear the Taunts and malice of
those to whom my religious opin-
ions are known...
"I herewith respectfully tender
you my immediate and uncondi-
tional resignation." ❑

7/3
199,

67