Thanksgiving has deep Jewish roots and is a reminder of an important lesson

Thanksgiving connects America’s founding story with the Jewish story of a people who fled oppression, crossed the waters and gave thanks upon reaching a promised land. The link between the Pilgrims and the Israelites is not just metaphorical; it is literal. The early Puritans saw themselves as a new Israel. They read the Hebrew Bible as a guide. In sermons and diaries, Puritans described England as Egypt, the Atlantic as the Red Sea and America as Canaan.

That fusion of Jewish biblical narrative and American destiny shaped the moral foundation of this country. Benjamin Franklin even proposed that the Great Seal depict “Moses lifting up his wand and dividing the Red Sea,” with Pharaoh’s army drowning behind him. America was a continuation of the Israelite story.

So when antisemites mock Jewish “chosenness” as arrogance or conspiracy, they attack the very biblical idea that helped shape America’s belief in moral purpose and exceptionalism.

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Nick Fuentes says “Zionist Jews” control politics. Candace Owens warns of “Zionist influence” in American institutions and media, repeating the old lie that Jews seek domination.

Chosenness never meant superiority. It meant moral responsibility, a covenant to live by a higher standard. The Pilgrims and the founders shared that belief. They saw America as a new Israel, chosen not for privilege, but for purpose. To twist that ideal into accusation is to misunderstand both Judaism and America.

When the Pilgrims landed, Governor William Bradford wrote in Of Plymouth Plantation that they “fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean,” echoing Deuteronomy. Thanksgiving was born from that faith — a collective act of gratitude for liberty received, not seized.

But, the story that inspired America’s founding is being distorted. Christian nationalists twist the idea of a “chosen nation” into a myth of racial destiny and exclusion. Their version of the Promised Land belongs only to those who look, pray, or vote like them. On the far left, activists recast both the American story and the story of modern Israel as one of colonial theft. Thanksgiving becomes an occasion to reject the American and Jewish quests for freedom.

Both distortions miss the truth. The Exodus teaches that freedom must be grounded in faith, gratitude and justice.

Jewish leaders have long recognized this. The Rebbe said Thanksgiving shares a spiritual kinship with Judaism. He even called it a Yom Tov, a day of joy. To be a Jew, Yehudi, means to give thanks. Gratitude, in Hebrew (hodaa), also means acknowledgment — the humility to see beyond oneself. That humility once united this country.

In the Torah, the Israelites did not thank God because they were comfortable; they thanked Him because they had survived. The Pilgrims did the same. Half their colony died that first winter. Their thanks were not for abundance, but for Providence.

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That shared Jewish and American spirit shows that gratitude is the antidote to hatred. When we give thanks, we affirm our dependence on something greater than tribe or ideology. When we forget to thank, we begin to invent enemies.

Thanksgiving is more than a cultural holiday. It is a cure for what divides us. Jews, Christians, believers, and skeptics should remember that America’s beginning was not about power but about thanks. Its founders saw themselves as Israel reborn, not Rome restored. Our unity was once rooted not in uniformity but in humility before something greater.

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I felt that truth recently when I visited the oldest synagogue in America, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. On the wall hangs George Washington’s 1790 letter to the congregation: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Washington was not just reassuring a small Jewish community. He was defining the American promise. Gratitude, not power, secures freedom. Thanksgiving reminds us that liberty endures only when we remember to give thanks for it.