The only non-Christian speaker at a mass prayer rally on the National Mall on Sunday was an Orthodox rabbi who got the crowd applauding against antisemitism.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik leads New York City’s Congregation Shearith Israel and is a senior fellow at Tikvah, the conservative Jewish think tank. He also sits on the Religious Liberty Commission that President Donald Trump convened last year.
Speaking to the crowd who had assembled for a rally on the National Mall called “Rededicate 250" that aims to put faith at the center of celebrations to mark this year’s semiquincentennial of the United States, Soloveichik described the Jewish history of one of the country’s most iconic songs.
“God Bless America" was written by Irving Berlin, who, as a child, witnessed his home village in Russia being burned in a pogrom and wanted to thank the country that gave him refuge, Soloveichik explained. He said that decades after writing the lyrics, Berlin resurrected them as the Nazis expanded their ambitions in the late 1930s, premiering the song on the radio the day after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.
“At the very moment when darkness deepened abroad, America raised its voice, united in the song that Irving Berlin wrote," Soloveichik said. A few moments later, he noted, “The prayer that is ‘God Bless America’ was carried by American soldiers who defeated evil, liberating Europe and the world. And it is a reminder as hatred of Jews makes itself manifest again that antisemitism is utterly un-American."
The line drew substantial applause, according to multiple videos of the event.
The rally, along with Trump’s call for Jews to observe “Shabbat 250" the day before, drew mixed reactions from American Jews. Some, particularly in the Orthodox world, said they appreciated any effort to increase Shabbat and religious observance. Others said the events represented an inappropriate merger of church and state, as well as an appropriation of Jewish values in the service of Christian nationalism.
Soloveichik did not directly address any of the debates during his four-minute address. But he did say that the staying power of Berlin’s song points to a unique feature of the American character.
“The power and popularity of ‘God Bless America’ reveals to us," he said, “that America’s passion for prayer and its love of liberty are always intertwined."
In addition to “God Bless America," Berlin is famous for authoring one of the most enduring Christmas songs in the American canon, “White Christmas." Less well known is an anti-lynching anthem that he wrote around the same time as he popularized “God Bless America." Berlin also dedicated songs to Ellin Mackay, the Catholic socialite he wed in 1926 in an intermarriage that sparked both familial tensions and national scrutiny.