American Patriotism Strengthens US-Israel Bond
America's founders drew on Jewish exodus narratives when designing the national seal, establishing a framework that uniquely allowed Jews to contribute to the nation from its inception without sacrificing their identity.
In the summer of 1776, as the Continental Congress tasked America’s founders with designing a seal for the newly declared nation, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both turned to the same source for inspiration: the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from slavery.
Franklin envisioned Moses standing at the Red Sea with his hand raised as the waters consumed Pharaoh’s army. Jefferson proposed depicting the children of Israel journeying through the wilderness beneath a pillar of fire, according to Jacki Karsh writing in Washington Examiner.
When asked to distill America into a single image, two of the nation’s most influential founders instinctively reached for Jewish narratives. They conceived of America as a promised land, a new Israel established in the New World. Their understanding of their own liberty was filtered through the lens of the Jewish people’s flight from tyranny to construct a self-governing nation.
Throughout two millennia of exile, Jews lived under innumerable governments. Some nations welcomed them, others merely tolerated their presence, and still others ultimately persecuted or expelled them. America represented something fundamentally different.
Unlike most countries where Jews arrived after national identity had already crystallized, in America they participated in building the national project from its inception. For the first time in centuries, Jews faced no forced choice between maintaining their Jewish identity and embracing their national citizenship, because the nation’s moral framework had already accommodated both. This dynamic made the American Jewish experience distinct from virtually every other chapter in Jewish history.
Over the following two and a half centuries, American Jews contributed institutions, inventions, music, medicine, business expertise, jurisprudence, scientific advances, and public service to the nation that had embraced them.
Francis Salvador, descended from Portuguese Inquisition refugees, secured a seat in South Carolina’s Revolutionary Assembly and became the first Jew to sacrifice his life for American independence. Uriah P. Levy battled open antisemitism to help abolish Navy flogging, then invested his personal fortune in rescuing a deteriorating Monticello. Oscar Straus became the first Jewish member of a presidential Cabinet, while Louis Brandeis became the first to serve on the Supreme Court.
Selman Waksman discovered streptomycin, the first effective tuberculosis treatment. Gertrude Elion developed medicines that revolutionized leukemia treatment and enabled organ transplantation. Hedy Lamarr co-invented the frequency-hopping technology underlying modern wireless communications. Albert Einstein found refuge in Princeton, New Jersey, and J. Robert Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project. Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner brothers constructed Hollywood.
America built itself not on bloodline, tribal affiliation, or monarchy, but on an idea. For Jews who had suffered under nations defined by ancestry and exclusion, that idea delivered something history had rarely provided: belonging without requiring the surrender of identity.
Even as they embraced America, Jews never relinquished the hope of returning to their ancient homeland and governing themselves once more as a free people. After the Holocaust left European Jewry’s surviving remnant with few alternatives, that hope became urgent. In 1948, it materialized as the state of Israel.
Israel’s establishment complemented rather than replaced the American Jewish experience. America had demonstrated that Jews could thrive in a democracy. Israel restored what they had lacked for nearly two thousand years: sovereignty. Together, they offered something without historical precedent: full participation in a liberal democracy combined with a homeland.
That shared conviction helps explain why American volunteers quietly defied their own government’s embargo to fly combat missions after five Arab armies invaded the day-old Jewish state. Their contributions proved critical in Israel’s earliest days and initiated one of the most consequential alliances of the modern era.
The American-Israeli alliance that developed in the post-World War II period operates on both strategic and moral dimensions: America benefits by doing good. In 2024, U.S. goods and services traded with Israel reached an estimated $55 billion. Recent years have witnessed unprecedented trade volume and scope, including Google’s 2025 acquisition of Israeli cloud security company Wiz for $32 billion and Intel’s approximately $15.3 billion acquisition of Israeli autonomous-driving firm Mobileye.
The United States and Israel coordinate on defense more closely than perhaps any democratic allies since World War II. Israel gains critical support in missile defense and military technology. America gains battle-tested innovation, exceptional intelligence cooperation, and hard-earned expertise in confronting hostile regimes and terrorist organizations. These constitute the tangible dividends of the alliance and help explain its durability, though they do not fully account for its origins.
With information from Washington Examiner
