By: Tevi Troy

During the presidential administration of Theodore Roosevelt, the American Jewish population nearly doubled, to almost two million. But long before he entered the White House, Roosevelt was familiar with Jewish issues. After all, Roosevelt began his meteoric political rise in New York, America’s most Jewish city. These combined experiences have led historian Andrew Porwancher to write American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews, a useful book that explores how instrumental Jewish issues were throughout Roosevelt’s presidency.

Jews were relevant to Roosevelt’s political career in three major ways. First, there was the issue of Jewish inclusion. Roosevelt welcomed Jews to the New York City Police Department when he was its commissioner. One of the Jewish officers he elevated, Otto Raphael, was a hero whom Roosevelt invited to join the force after he helped save people from a burning building. Raphael developed such a close relationship with Roosevelt that he even served as a guardian over TR’s body when the former president died in January 1919.

Roosevelt used the “Maccabee” type—his word—Jewish officers he hired to his political advantage. When Hermann Ahlwardt, an anti-Semitic German rabble-rouser, came to New York, Roosevelt made sure to give him a protective phalanx of the most Jewish-looking officers he could find. Roosevelt continued to advance Jews during his stint with the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, fighting alongside a Jewish soldier named Sam Greenwald, and helping him earn a promotion.

As president, Roosevelt had an unofficial Jewish kitchen cabinet. Members included Jacob Schiff, Oscar Straus, congressman and Harvard mate Lucius “Litt” Littauer, and Simon Wolf. Later, Roosevelt nominated Straus to be the secretary of commerce and labor—the first Jewish cabinet secretary in U.S. history. Porwancher points out in a footnote that two previous presidents—Ulysses S. Grant and Grover Cleveland—had tried to nominate Jewish cabinet secretaries, but both of them declined the honor. Unfortunately, Porwancher does not tell us who those nominees were, something readers might want to know.

Jews were also important in regard to America’s relations with Russia. Then, as now, Russia was a problematic actor on the international stage. There were multiple pogroms during the Roosevelt years, and Roosevelt was torn between condemning them—which infuriated the Russians, and also opened up accusations of American hypocrisy because of lynching in the United States—and remaining silent, which rightly infuriated American Jews.

Roosevelt tried to maintain a middle line on this issue, sometimes angering the Jews and sometimes angering the Russians, but Russian malfeasance against Jews was so common and so frequent that this was a constant tension within the Roosevelt presidency. Porwancher demonstrates Roosevelt’s frustration with the Russians with the following quote, which could probably have also been said by every subsequent American president and additional ones in the future: “What I cannot understand about the Russian is the way he will lie when he knows perfectly well that you know he is lying.”

Jews were also central to issues of immigration and assimilation. This was a time of massive influx of immigrants into the country, many but by no means all of whom were Jewish. Roosevelt believed in assimilating new arrivals into American society, but he also understood the fraught politics of the issue, with many Americans in favor of putting limits on immigration. As Porwancher writes, “Certainly, Jews weren’t the only immigrant group whose inflow generated controversy. But American anti-Semitism made Jewish migration especially charged.”

The Jewish community, concerned about the mistreatment of Jews not just in Russia but elsewhere in Europe, wanted to encourage more immigration. Roosevelt’s support of a literacy test for all immigrants frustrated American Jews, who were concerned that Jews who failed the test could be doomed if they had to return to Europe.

Another point of tension was the Roosevelt-favored concept of the “melting pot.” The phrase comes from a play of that name by the British-Jewish playwright Israel Zangwill. In the play, a Jew and a gentile fall in love and wish to marry, but their union is complicated by the fact that one came from a family murdered in the deadly 1903 Kishinev pogrom, while the other came from a family that helped perpetrate the atrocities.

Roosevelt met with Zangwill and attended a showing of the play in Washington, showing his support, but the melting pot concept is complicated for American Jews. It is effectively an endorsement of intermarriage, which is unacceptable to Orthodox Jews and is a significant long-term threat to Jewish sustainability. The complex politics of immigration made for what Porwancher called “two Theodore Roosevelts: one who earned the devotion of his Jewish constituents and another who elicited their distress.”

Roosevelt was not only attentive to Jewish issues but also finely attuned to how the Jewish community viewed him. A Jewish Harvard student named Joseph Lebowich wrote a piece in Menorah Magazine praising him, leading Roosevelt to tell Oscar Straus, “I like that article by Mr. Lebowich. Do you know him? If so, I wish you would tell him how much I appreciate it—and add that I wish he had been among the Harvard men in my regiment.”

On another occasion, when an American humorist—once again Porwancher does not tell us who—spelled Roosevelt’s name as a Jewish-sounding “Tiddy Rosenfelt,” Roosevelt replied, “I wish I had a little Jew in me.” This comment is reminiscent of the old joke, “a philo-Semite is just an anti-Semite who likes Jews.”

Porwancher is wise to write about this subject. Roosevelt’s relationship with the Jews is grist for lots of historical exploration. Indeed, Porwancher notes that he is planning another book on the subject, addressing Roosevelt’s relationship with the Jews after his presidency. That will be welcome, as Roosevelt’s experiences remind one of the current occupant in the White House, who gives Jewish supporters and opponents alike ammunition for both praise and complaint. As with all things related to the Jewish community, Trump’s relationship with them, like Roosevelt’s, can be summed up in the quintessentially Jewish phrase: “It’s complicated.”

          (FreeBeacon.com)

American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews

by Andrew Porwancher

Princeton University Press, 368 pp., $35

Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute, a Senior Scholar at Yeshiva University’s Straus Center, and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.

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By: Fern Sidman

In what supporters are hailing as a transformative milestone for school choice in America, President Donald J. Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025 — a legislative package whose centerpiece includes the creation of a groundbreaking federal tax credit aimed at bolstering private and religious school education. This latest move, according to multiple reports, marks the most significant federal endorsement of school choice mechanisms in recent American history and is poised to reshape the education funding landscape nationwide.

The law’s school choice provision introduces a federal tax credit program designed to incentivize private donations to scholarship-granting organizations, which, in turn, provide tuition assistance and educational support to families seeking alternatives to the public school system. The precise mechanics of the program, as detailed in the bill, reflect a sweeping and ambitious federal commitment to expanding educational options for middle- and working-class families.

At the heart of the measure is a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit — up to $1,700 annually — available to individual taxpayers who contribute to state-approved, federally recognized nonprofit organizations. These entities are tasked with distributing scholarships to eligible students in accordance with guidelines established by the law.

There is, notably, no federal cap on the aggregate amount of donations that can be funneled into these scholarship programs, effectively opening the door for large-scale philanthropic engagement in K-12 education. According to provisions within the bill, these scholarships are not restricted solely to tuition. They can be applied to a broad spectrum of educational expenses, including fees, tutoring, special educational therapies, transportation, technology needs, and even homeschooling costs.

The bill stipulates that families earning up to 300% of the median income in their respective regions will qualify for scholarship assistance. This income threshold, while generous, is deliberately structured to capture a broad swath of middle-income households — families that often earn too much to qualify for traditional need-based aid but too little to comfortably afford private or religious school tuition.

For advocates of school choice, including many within the Orthodox Jewish community, this income eligibility parameter is seen as a critical factor. According to a report that appeared in The Forward, the Orthodox Union labeled the passage of this legislation a “monumental win,” citing the profound impact it could have in making religious education, particularly yeshiva schooling, more financially accessible to observant Jewish families across the country.

While the program is federally authorized, participation at the state level remains entirely voluntary — a federalist compromise designed to navigate constitutional concerns and respect states’ rights over education policy. As ABC News has reported, if a state chooses not to opt into the program, families residing there will be ineligible for the scholarships, regardless of their financial circumstances or educational needs.

This opt-in structure has set the stage for what may become a patchwork of participation across the United States, with some states embracing the initiative enthusiastically, while others — particularly those with strong teachers’ unions or progressive leadership — may reject it outright. The political and educational implications of this divide will likely fuel debates in state legislatures over the coming months.

The program is scheduled to commence on January 1, 2027, giving states, scholarship-granting organizations, and taxpayers ample time to prepare for its implementation. Yet, as education policy analysts have noted, this runway may also provide a window for legal challenges or legislative pushback, especially in states wary of diverting potential resources away from public schools.

For many faith-based communities — particularly Orthodox Jewish organizations, Catholic dioceses, and evangelical Christian schools — the tax credit signals a new era of opportunity. The ability to bolster scholarship funds through incentivized private giving may unlock access to educational environments that align with families’ religious convictions and values, potentially reducing the financial strain that tuition often imposes.

As The Forward highlighted in its coverage, the Orthodox Union sees this legislation as a vehicle not just for school choice, but for strengthening religious education across the Jewish diaspora in America. By enabling more families to afford yeshiva education, the law could invigorate communities where Torah-based schooling is central to cultural and spiritual life.

Despite the celebratory tone among school choice proponents, the bill has drawn pointed criticism from public education advocates and some policy analysts. Critics argue that the tax credit system could inadvertently favor wealthier donors seeking tax breaks, while reducing the federal tax base and, by extension, potentially impacting funding for public education programs.

Moreover, skeptics warn that the influx of private funds into alternative education pathways may exacerbate educational inequality, particularly in underserved communities where public schools already struggle with resource shortages.

There is also concern about the accountability mechanisms for scholarship-granting organizations and the quality of education provided by some private or religious schools. As detractors have noted, private schools often operate under less stringent regulatory oversight than public institutions, raising questions about standards and educational outcomes.

Regardless of where one stands on the merits of the bill, there is little dispute that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” represents a seismic shift in federal education policy. By leveraging the tax code to foster private investment in education, the law underscores the Trump administration’s broader commitment to parental choice and market-driven solutions in the public sphere.

Whether this initiative will succeed in expanding access to high-quality education for all students — or merely serve to deepen existing divides in American schooling — remains a question only time can answer. Yet, as the program’s 2027 launch date approaches, one certainty prevails: the debate over school choice, equity, and the future of education in the United States has entered a new and highly consequential chapter.

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