[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 122 (Monday, September 9, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10048-S10049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        STRENGTH FROM DIVERSITY

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues a most insightful address on religious tolerance and freedom 
delivered by Radm James R. Stark, president of the Naval War College, 
at Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI on August 25.
  Admiral Stark has had a distinguished career, serving our Nation with 
great dedication and a strong commitment to the enduring principles 
upon which our country was founded. His address exemplified the 
principles of George Washington now memorialized today on the 30-cent 
stamp issued in August 1982 to commemorate the Touro Synagogue: ``To 
bigotry no sanctions. To persecution no assistance.'' These same words 
were in George Washington's letter to Moses Seixas and the Touro 
Synagogue community.
  Let me share Admiral Stark's concluding remarks:

       Today, we have the opportunity to rejoice in the success of 
     the Touro congregation to be treated like any other citizens, 
     and to celebrate in the wisdom of George Washington and the 
     other founding fathers, who realized that our diversity did 
     not have to breed hate and suspicion and discrimination, that 
     our ``unlikeness'' did not prevent us from being good 
     citizens in a society of mutual trust, and respect, and 
     consideration. Rather than being a weakness, America's 
     diversity has become our strength.

  I ask unanimous consent that Admiral Stark's remarks be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    Remarks of RADM. J.R. Stark, USN

       Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm so pleased to see 
     you all here. I want to start out by saying how honored I am 
     to be addressing you today.
       When Governor Sundlun asked me to speak a few weeks ago, I 
     leaped at the opportunity--first, because I've been 
     interested in Touro Synagogue since I was first stationed in 
     Newport back in the '60's. And second, because we're here to 
     commemorate an event which is of such importance, that it 
     resonates still today across the length and breadth of 
     America.
       That event was an exchange of letters between the warden of 
     Touro Synagogue and President George Washington over 200 
     years ago. Some may say, what's the big deal? What's so 
     important about an exchange of letters? They're not even 
     legal documents. They're just a couple of pieces of paper, 
     written by people long dead--people who hadn't a clue about 
     life in the last 20th century, people who never imagined the 
     airplane, or the internet, or MTV. Even their language seems 
     stilted and old-fashioned--and the issue of religious freedom 
     really doesn't appear to be especially relevant today, does 
     it? So what?
       But we know better, don't we. Those letters had an impact 
     that went far beyond the little community of 18th century 
     Newport. But, you know, this celebration is about more than 
     just letters. It's about 200 years of history, and a very 
     special, almost unique series of events that redirected that 
     history which took place here in the days when the United 
     States of America were still young and searching for what 
     this new concept called democracy really meant.
       Several years ago, I was in command of a Navy cruiser on 
     its way from California to the Persian Gulf. It was a long 
     trip--it took us six weeks to sail halfway around the world. 
     And as we neared the end of our voyage, we stopped for fuel 
     in the ancient port of Cochin, on the southwest coast of 
     India. In the course of my visit, I was able to do some 
     sightseeing. I came across a Catholic church, nearly 500 
     years old, where the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was 
     buried in 1524, soon after ``discovering'' India. But I also 
     visited another building nearly twice as old. It was the 
     Jewish synagogue, which had been founded in first century 
     A.D. by Jews fleeing Jerusalem after the destruction of the 
     Second Temple--Herod's temple--by the Romans. To me, it was a 
     tangible illustration of how long and how far the Jewish 
     people have been forced to wander in their search for a 
     decent life.
       Interestingly, history tells us that--except for their 
     periodic revolts in Judea--Jews fared well under the Roman 
     empire. They were merchants and craftsmen who were welcomed 
     wherever they settled. And by the end of the Roman era, 
     strong Jewish communities had sprung up all around the 
     Mediterranean. Even after the fall of Rome, Jewish 
     settlements continued to spread--first into Western Europe, 
     and then, after the 12th century, into the East.
       But as time went by, the attitudes of their hosts changed. 
     The hard work, the education, the cohesion, and especially 
     the success of those Jewish communities created jealousy and 
     resentment. Jews who had been welcomed because they brought 
     needed skills and built the local economy gradually changed 
     from being neighbors to being outsiders, tolerated when 
     necessary and persecuted when it because convenient.
       More and more restrictions were placed on Jews. As commerce 
     and skilled trades expanded during the Middle Ages, the guild 
     system was used to exclude Jews from a growing number of 
     vocations. They were prohibited from owning land. They were 
     restricted from universities. They were required to live in 
     certain urban districts--the ghettoes.
       Rather then being the mainstay of regional and 
     international commerce, as they had been for centuries, in 
     many areas the only jobs open to Jews were as itinerant 
     craftsmen or as moneylenders to all levels of society.
       But success in finance and the emerging business of banking 
     and credit carried its own dangers. When local businessmen 
     made poor decisions--or kings had to borrow money to finance 
     everything from wars to jewelry--they became more and more 
     indebted to the very people they had forced into being their 
     bankers.
       And when it came time to repay those debts, it was a lot 
     easier to spread rumors of witchcraft and secret rites, 
     launch a wave of pogroms, expropriate Jewish businesses, 
     cancel the debts, and then expel the Jews.
       And that's exactly what happened over and over during the 
     Middle Ages. In 1290, Edward the First of England solved his 
     debt problems by expelling the Jews. They were to remain 
     barred from England for the next 350 years, until the time of 
     Oliver Cromwell. A hundred years later, in 1394, they were 
     expelled again, this time from France. A similar fate befell 
     the Jews of Spain in 1492, and those of Portugal in 1497. 
     Some were forcibly

[[Page S10049]]

     converted. Others were killed for refusing to abandon their 
     faith. Many of the original Jewish community here in 
     Newport--the people who founded Touro Synagogue--were the 
     descendants of those same Sephardic Jews who had been driven 
     from the Iberian Peninsula 150 years earlier.
       These cycles of persecution waxed and waned for the next 
     500 years. Sometimes they were violent. Sometimes it was just 
     snide remarks and not being admitted into some exclusive 
     club.
       As we all know, the culmination of all this was the 
     Holocaust. How could it happen? Wasn't it something we should 
     have foreseen?
       Jews had lived in Germany for over a thousand years. They 
     had built its industry. They were part of its educational 
     system. They were skilled workers, bankers, businessmen, 
     artists, scientists. They had fought in Germany's war right 
     alongside the rest of their countrymen. There part of the 
     community. They were Germans, and they thought of themselves 
     as Germans. No wonder so many responded to the first acts of 
     the Nazis with disbelief and a total inability to comprehend 
     what lay in store.
       And in the end, why did so many others, Germans and non-
     Germans alike, turn their heads from what was happening to 
     their neighbors, or worse yet, take part in the persecutions?
       Earlier this month, I read a very moving piece in the New 
     York Times entitled ``The Pogrom at Eishyshok.'' Some of you 
     may have seen it. It was the chilling first person account of 
     a man who, as 7 year old child in the fall of 1945, had 
     witnessed the murder of his mother and infant brother in a 
     little town--a ``stetl''--in what is now Lithuania. Their 
     attackers weren't Nazis bent on carrying out the final 
     solution--Hitler had already been defeated. These were their 
     neighbors, people they knew and had grown up with. At the end 
     of his story, the author observed that ``as our world shrinks 
     and its diverse nations become more entangled with one 
     another, it is of the utmost importance to understand that 
     the `dislike of the unlike' is what leads to the gas chambers 
     and the killing fields.''
       ``The dislike of the unlike.''--the tendency of people to 
     divide the world into ``us'' and ``them'', and then treat 
     with suspicion or even hatred those who look different, or 
     talk different, or have funny names, or strange customs.
       Those words--``the dislike of the unlike''--perfectly 
     capture the essence of what has plagued all mankind--not just 
     Jews--since time immemorial.
       What we see is that, again and again, people can get along 
     for decades on the surface. But when society is placed under 
     stress, when it's confronted by war, or famine, or plague, or 
     economic collapse, people turn on those who aren't quite like 
     them. They look for something or somebody to blame--and then 
     they take out their fear and frustrations on them. For 
     Europe's Jews, that cycle was all too familiar.
       And if it could happen there, could it ever happen here? 
     Clearly, there are a handful of people in every society, in 
     every country, who are capable of monstrous evil, even murder 
     on a massive, organized scale. There is no question in my 
     mind that such people exist in America today. But the 
     difference is, I don't see that ever happening here. We are 
     different. And because of that difference, I don't believe 
     American society could ever allow that handful of evil men to 
     work their will. We wouldn't put up with it. And the reason I 
     think that we are so special--that we are protected from that 
     kind of evil--has a lot to do with why we are here today.
       Let's be very clear. Religious freedom wasn't always the 
     norm in colonial America. The same colonists who had fled 
     religious persecution in England were only too happy to 
     impose their beliefs on others when they were in control. 
     Fortunately, the tolerance established by Roger Williams here 
     in Rhode Island made it a mecca for people of all faiths who 
     sought the right to worship in peace. Huguenots and Baptists, 
     Jews and Quakers all lived together here, worshipping God in 
     their own ways.
       One hundred-fifty years ago, the great French commentator, 
     Alexis de Tocqueville, observed a peculiar fact--that two 
     principles which in Europe had historically been mutually 
     exclusive--the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty--
     had somehow been combined and made mutually supportive here 
     in America. Part of the reason for that happy fact lies right 
     here.
       When warden Moses Seixas of Touro Synagogue wrote to 
     President George Washington to wish him well and to give 
     thanks for a government ``erected by the majesty of the 
     people'' which gave everyone--regardless of their origins--
     the liberty to worship in peace and enjoy equally the 
     protections of citizenship, he started a series of events 
     which had consequences far beyond what he could have ever 
     imagined.
       And when President Washington, in his reply, wrote of how 
     proud we should be for having given mankind a country where 
     ``all possess alike liberty of consicence and immunities of 
     citizenship'' he captured the very ideals that make America 
     special.
       And, in what I think is one of the most remarkable insights 
     of the letter, President Washington notes that we're not 
     talking about toleration the way it was throughout history, 
     where one privileged group granted others some limited rights 
     as a form of indulgence, ``allowing'' them to be treated 
     fairly. No! What George Washington says is that there is no 
     single group which holds sway over the rest of us. All of us 
     have inherent natural rights, and the only thing required of 
     us is that we conduct ourselves as good citizens and support 
     the government. The government didn't just ``allow'' the Jews 
     to practice their religion and conduct their business like 
     everyone else; the President said it was their right all 
     along--so it couldn't be taken back arbitrarily if someone in 
     power changed his mind. That's what's so important here.
       When they sought Washington's assurance of their right to 
     practice their religion, to be free from government 
     persecution, to be treated like all citizens of this country, 
     the Jews of Newport were not just achieving something for 
     themselves. They established a percedent which applied to 
     every other religion. And a year later, that precedent was 
     codified in the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment to the 
     Constitution.
       And look at what we've gained. Look at what that freedom 
     from oppression has enabled America's Jewish citizens to 
     contribute to this country during the last two centuries. 
     Art, education, music, science, literature, religion, 
     business--the list goes on and on. The political and 
     community involvement of America's Jewish citizens--across 
     the entire spectrum of issues and views--is absolutely 
     remarkable. The philanthropy of America's Jewish community 
     has aided those less fortunate out of all proportion to their 
     numbers. The Jewish community has strengthened and enriched 
     the intellectual and economic and political fabric of 
     American life to an extraordinary degree.
       Today, we have the opportunity to rejoice in the success of 
     the Touro congregation to be treated like any other citizens, 
     and to celebrate in the wisdom of George Washington and the 
     other founding fathers, who realized that our diversity did 
     not have to breed hate and suspicion and discrimination, that 
     our ``unlikeness'' did not prevent us from being good 
     citizens in a society of mutual trust, and respect, and 
     consideration. Rather than being a weakness, America's 
     diversity has become our strength.
       Yes, we do have much to be thankful for today. For the 
     congregation of Touro Synagogue truly helped make America 
     what it is--a special place where all can live in peace 
     together.
       Thank you, and shalom.

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The senior Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. SIMON. I thank the Presiding Officer.

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