July 28, 2025 • 35 mins
Discover the untold story of Theodore Roosevelt's complex relationship with Jewish Americans in this fascinating exploration of presidential leadership, identity politics, and American pluralism. At a time when America's Jewish population nearly doubled through immigration from Eastern Europe, Roosevelt navigated competing pressures with characteristic energy and contradictions.
The Lower East Side of Manhattan emerges as a vibrant backdrop to this narrative – a neighborhood of both crushing hardship and boundless opportunity for Jewish immigrants. Here, Roosevelt built an unlikely political alliance that helped secure his electoral success while challenging the traditional party alignments of his era. What drove this connection between the aristocratic Republican president and these newly arrived immigrants? Was it genuine sympathy or shrewd political calculation? As with most historical questions, the answer isn't simply one or the other.
Roosevelt's advocacy for persecuted Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe broke with diplomatic traditions of non-interference in other nations' internal affairs. Yet this same champion could occasionally indulge in the stereotypical thinking common among elites of his time. This paradox reflects Roosevelt's own complex character – the boxing enthusiast who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Harvard scholar who became a Dakota cowboy. These contradictions make Roosevelt not exceptional but quintessentially American, embodying the very tensions that have defined our national character.
Perhaps most relevant for today's conversations about identity and belonging, Roosevelt promoted a vision where Jewish Americans need not choose between their religious heritage and civic identity. By encouraging Jews to embrace their traditions while fully participating in American life, Roosevelt helped shape a pluralistic vision that continues to resonate in our diverse society. His story offers valuable lessons for navigating our era's challenges around inclusion, representation, and what it means to be American.
Whether you're a history enthusiast, educator, or simply curious about this pivotal era in American life, this conversation delivers rich insights into how the past continues to inform our present. Listen now to understand how Roosevelt's relationship with Jewish Americans reveals timeless truths about leadership, diplomacy, and the ongoing American experiment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are just our returning summer guest.
I feel like Dr Perwancher,because last summer we did one
on Alexander Hamilton and nowwe're doing one on Teddy
Roosevelt, who you and I havehad this conversation before.
Teddy Roosevelt is myhistorical crush.
I have his quote the oh my gosh, the man in the arena quote
(00:21):
hanging in my bedroom because Ijust love Teddy Roosevelt, I
love the stories about him, andtoday we're going to talk about
a story I've literally neverheard about, and this is why I
love having you on the podcast.
So before we get started, canyou kind of reintroduce yourself
to our listeners and give us alittle snippet about the book?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Sure, well, first off , thank you for having me back.
We'll have to make this asummer tradition in perpetuity.
So I am a professor ofconstitutional history here at
Skettle Maccabee.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews.
And Roosevelt had a deep andreally interesting and
(01:13):
complicated relationship withthe Jewish community, and it's a
story that, for all the inkspilled on Roosevelt, hasn't
been told before.
So this is the first book onthe subject and this is the
first podcast interview thesubject and this is the first
podcast interview I'm doingabout this book, and so I'm very
excited to do it with you, liz.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So, looking at this, I mean I will say to readers I
read this, it took me two days.
I'm a very versiferous reader,but it was about 250 pages and
it wasn't.
We were kind of talking aboutthis before when we're doing our
little pre-show, but Iappreciate your writing because
it's not.
(01:53):
Sometimes we read books thatare just very, very academic and
I appreciate those books assomebody who is currently
studying and writing adissertation, those books as
somebody who is currentlystudying and writing a
dissertation.
But I think for educators, thisis something that is an easy
read.
It's an interesting read.
There's a lot of really goodstories in there.
So I hope that the questions weasked today really get people to
(02:18):
want to read this because, Imean, I just loved exploring
this side of Roosevelt.
So a lot of educators today arereally exploring how to teach
complex historical figures.
That is something that I thinkteachers have been grappling
with for a while.
How do you think Roosevelt'skind of contradictory attitude
(02:38):
toward Jewish Americans ranginganywhere from advocacy to
stereotyping should be presentedin the classroom?
Like, how should we talk aboutthis?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I'm a huge fan of primary sources.
Let's get students touching theraw material of history.
You know, one of my greatestpleasures as a historian is
getting to go into the archivesand I tell my students you know,
if I went through, you know,broken to your house and read
through your diary and wentthrough all your emails and
(03:09):
private correspondence, like Iwould get arrested and I should
be.
But when you do that to a longdeceased president, you get a
and you get to publish what youfind to the world.
You're actually celebrated fordoing it.
It's.
It's pretty extraordinary thatI actually get to get away with
this for a living.
Feels like I should be gettingin trouble, and so I love to be
(03:32):
able to share those kinds ofprivate revelations that you
find in diaries and in lettersand in newspaper accounts and
the like.
So one of my goals in givingstudents exposure to that raw
source material from thehistorical record is, as you
indicated, to get them to engagewith complexity.
Roosevelt is such a rich figureto study because he is so
(03:55):
complex, because he embodies thevery complexities of the nation
that elected him.
Here is the boxing ring brawlerwho's also a wordsmithing
scholar.
Here is the bloodthirstycolonel who also wins the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Here is the Dakota Badlandscowboy, who is also a Harvard
(04:18):
gentleman.
He is all of these things andhis relationship with Jews is
very much part of that set ofcontradictions.
He has a deep and genuineconnection with the Jewish
community.
He is an outspoken advocate forJews overseas at a time when
(04:38):
Jews were being subjected tomass violence in Eastern Europe.
And yet at the same time we cansee Roosevelt sometimes
indulging in some of theanti-Semitic stereotyping that
were common in elite circles atthat time.
And part of our job as studentsof the past is to try to reckon
(04:59):
with that history in its fullcomplexity.
And I think if we try toproject too much coherence on
someone as self-contradictory asRoosevelt, we risk papering
over the real story, which arethe internal contradictions that
he has that in so many wayspersonify America as a nation of
(05:23):
contradictions.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I love that because I think that sometimes, when we
study historical figures, wetend to put them in two boxes
right, they're right or they'rewrong, they're good or they're
bad, but at the end of the day,they're people, and humans are
complex.
This isn't something that canbe put neatly in a box.
So what kind of lessons canstudents learn from his kind of
(05:49):
blend of?
Is it philo-Semitism or philo?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I never know how to say that.
Philo-semitism yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, philo-semitism refers to an appreciation for,
an affection for, the people infaith of Judaism, and
anti-Semitism, of course, justthe opposite.
And one of the things that Ithink makes Roosevelt an
interesting figure to study isthat America itself has had a
(06:20):
complicated relationship withthe Jewish people.
There are real deep strains ofphilo-Semitism in American
history, going back all the wayto the founding of the country,
as you and I talked about lastsummer when we talked about
Alexander Hamilton, who was achampion for American Jewry, as
was George Washington, whofamously writes in his 1790
(06:44):
Newport letter to the Jews ofRhode Island that in the United
States we give to bigotry nosanction, to persecution no
assistance.
And yet we also see realstrains of anti-Semitism in the
founding era and people whowanted to exclude Jews from the
ballot box, from the legalprofession, from elected office.
(07:09):
And throughout American historywe can see anti-Semitism
sometimes wax, sometimes wane.
Roosevelt's era coincided withmass Jewish migration to America
.
If you look at the quartermillennium stretching from the
(07:29):
days of Dutch colonial rule inManhattan up until the eve of
Roosevelt's presidency 250 yearsAmerica amassed a Jewish
population of one million people.
It took only the seven and ahalf years of his presidency to
nearly double that figure.
And it was amid that massmigration of Jews fleeing
violence in Eastern Europe andfinding safe refuge here in
(07:54):
America that that prompts, amongsome people in the United
States, an anti-Semitic reaction, a resistance to these
newcomers.
There were also many Americanswho embraced these Jewish
refugees with open arms.
There was a potent strain ofChristianity that Roosevelt
subscribed to, known as socialgospel Protestantism, that
(08:17):
called on Christians tooperationalize their faith
through deeds, and part of thatmeant stretching their hands out
to these Jewish victims ofpersecution who were seeking
refuge in the new world.
And so Roosevelt's owncheckered relationship with the
Jewish people, marked as it wasby largely philo-Semitism but
(08:40):
marred by moments ofanti-Semitism, really
personifies a moment in Americanhistory and a kind of narrative
that has that runs from thefounding era to the modern era,
where anti-Semitism crests andthen it reaches a valley and
(09:02):
then it crests again.
And today, in 2025, we areunfortunately seeing historic
rates of antisemitism for themodern era, and that's one of
the reasons why I write in thebook's opening introduction that
Roosevelt's story with theJewish people has lessons that I
(09:23):
describe as timelessly urgent.
They're urgent because theymatter so much now, and they're
timeless because we see themrecur over the quarter
millennium of American history.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So your book details Roosevelt's involvement in both
foreign and domestic Jewishaffairs.
What does his story kind ofreveal about the role of empathy
and political calculation inpolicymaking, and how can
educators use this to teachleadership and civic
responsibility?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It's a really good question, because empathy and
political calculation were bothat play in Roosevelt's what I
call his Jewish diplomacy.
So the key question confrontingRoosevelt was what to do about
what were known as the pogroms,these violent assaults that were
taking place against Jews byordinary Russians, often with
(10:16):
the consent or even the supportof local and national Russian
authorities.
And American Jews were deeplyworried about their Jewish
brothers and sisters,metaphorically and literally,
who were back in the Tsar'sdominion, suffering under this
kind of violent autocracy.
And there was tremendouspressure on Roosevelt from
(10:39):
certain quarters, certainly fromJewish quarters in the United
States, to intercede.
And there was also resistance,particularly from many members
of his State Department, becausethere was a custom at that time
in international relations thatone nation should not comment
on affairs of another nationthat's wholly internal to that
(10:59):
other country, even onhumanitarian grounds.
And so Roosevelt is pulledbetween these conflicting forces
.
But more often than notRoosevelt does speak out, in a
way that other heads of state donot, in defense of these
persecuted Jews living underczarist rule, and he does that
(11:23):
partly out of a genuine sympathyfor Jews.
And we know that it's genuinebecause sometimes he is engaging
in quiet diplomacy withdiplomatic efforts for Jews,
precisely because he wanted topublicize them right before a
given election cycle.
It was often the case, in evennumbered years, that he made his
(11:57):
Jewish foreign policy thehandmaiden of his electioneering
, of his electioneering.
And so Roosevelt had rawpolitical self-interest and he
had genuine sympathy, and itwould be folly for us to fixate
on one to the exclusion of theother, because both of these
factors were at play.
(12:18):
And so my recommendation, as wetry to teach this material to
students, is to understand thathistorical figures, much like
political leaders today, areunder pressure from multiple
external forces, and they arealso informed by their own
(12:39):
internal moral compass moralcompass and it is our job as
students of the past to try, asbest we can, to come to grips
with the totality of thosecircumstances.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love that.
I'm just like I love talkingabout these kinds of things
because I wish that more peopleunderstood that being a student
of the past and learning reallyhelps contextualize things that
are happening currently andgives you a little bit more
insight and empathy with theempathy, the understanding you
(13:19):
know, with the empathy, theunderstanding.
So the English nerd in me isreading through this narrative
right, because it is not dryacademia and the Lower East Side
kind of almost appears to be acharacter in this, reflecting
both hardship and hope.
So how might this setting, likeyou know, place-based history,
how could this help educatorsbring immigration stories to
life for students who arelearning about American identity
(13:41):
and pluralism?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I'm so glad that you asked me about this because it
was really important to me tobring the Lower East Side to
life.
That neighborhood, that enclavein Lower Manhattan was the
epicenter of American Jewishlife during Roosevelt's era and
it is a central scene to so manyof the happenings that I
(14:08):
describe in this book.
Roosevelt gets his start in NewYork politics as the young,
36-year-old police commissionerwhere he barnstorms the Lower
East Side block by block, givingspeeches to Jewish immigrants,
where he espouses hisegalitarian vision for American
society.
And he is actually whollyanomalous among Republicans
(14:30):
because it was traditionallyDemocratic turf in that he wins
the Lower East Side as apresidential candidate, a total
outlier among Republicans at thetime.
It is really an index of thedepth of his popularity on the
Lower East Side, which wasoverwhelmingly populated by
Eastern European Jewish refugeesof violence in places like
(14:52):
Russia and Romania.
Now, it was so important to meto try to bring that setting to
life that I spend, you know, Ithink, maybe something like the
first 15 pages of chapter onejust walking the reader street
by street through the Lower EastSide.
What were the sights, what werethe sounds?
What would it be like to go toa restaurant at the time.
(15:13):
If you wanted to discreetlygamble, what was that like?
What were the plays being puton in the Yiddish theaters?
How did they adaptShakespearean classics?
What would 13 cents get you ata lunch counter?
This was what an editor of minelikes to call the heat and dust
of history.
To bring to life that livedexperience and what it was like
(15:38):
to be on the subway.
And what you find in the LowerEast Side is that it is a place
that is both rife with hazardand rich with hope.
On the one hand, you havepeople who are really densely
packed in to just a couplesquare miles of teeming humanity
(16:00):
.
They are living in tenementbuildings, these five to eight
story tall brick buildings,where the apartments are often
doubling as sweatshops, and youcould find a dozen people in a
single room slaving over sewingmachines.
These were rough conditions.
There was limited hygiene, manyof the rooms didn't have
(16:21):
running water or natural light.
And yet on the Lower East Side,there were educational
opportunities.
There was public schooling 19out of 20 students in a public
school in the Lower East Sidewas Jewish.
If you go back to many parts ofthe old world, especially in
Eastern Europe, there werequotas on how many Jews could go
(16:43):
to a school.
Not so in America.
In the old world there werequotas on how many Jews could be
in a given profession, but onthe Lower East Side, if you were
able to get yourself educatedand there were opportunities for
that, you could or yourchildren could, climb their way
into the ranks of the middle oreven upper classes.
(17:05):
Jewish children on the LowerEast Side enjoyed a remarkable
degree of upward mobility.
That would have beenunimaginable in the old country.
And on the Lower East Side, aJew who became a naturalized
citizen could count a vote, theycould cast a ballot that would
tally just the same as thewealthiest Gentiles, and it was
(17:30):
the epicenter of the Jewish bidto grasp for the American dream.
And so, as with so much else inthis book, we want to grapple
with that full complexity, theway that immigrants in New York
at that time struggled, but alsothe opportunities that they had
(17:52):
.
There's a reason that they cameto America, opportunities that
they had.
There's a reason that they cameto America.
There's a reason that they gaveup everything that they had to
try their shot here in the newworld.
And one of the things that'sstriking about the Lower East
Side is that you know at thattime, if you go a few blocks in
one direction, you're inChinatown.
You go a few blocks in anotherdirection, you're in Little
Italy.
You go a few blocks in yetanother direction, you're in an
(18:13):
Irish neighborhood, andimmigrants were struggling in
all of those neighborhoods.
In many ways this isn't auniquely Jewish story, the story
of ethnic slum life in New York.
All of these immigrant groupsare coming to the New World
looking for opportunity, findingnovel challenges but also
(18:33):
striving for novel opportunities.
Challenges but also strivingfor novel opportunities.
And one lesson we can take fromthat is that this immigrant
experience in many ways is notexceptional and that in many
ways the Jewish story of thisera is also the Italian story of
this era.
It's also the Irish story ofthis era, it's also the Chinese
(18:55):
story of this era and I think,as a historian, if I'm doing my
job well, I'm helping people seethese particular pieces of
American history not asdisaggregated from the rest of
it but as part of a larger whole.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I really appreciate having the ability to kind of
again set myself into a bookbefore diving into other things,
and I appreciate too thatyou're talking about really the
New York immigrant experienceand putting us in that place,
because I think that for readersand for lovers of history,
places are just as important aspeople.
(19:34):
You discuss how Roosevelt'sactions often reflected
political demands of courtingthe Jewish vote.
In what ways does this historychallenge or reinforce the idea
of identity-based voting blocks,and how can civic educators
help students think criticallyabout this today, because this
(19:57):
is not the first or the lasttime a president has done this?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah well, by now your listeners will be
unsurprised to know that myanswer is going to be a long
version of it was complicatedbecause, on the one hand,
roosevelt prided himself ontreating Jews as Americans.
He said I'm not here to appealto them as Jews.
I am treating them, I'm givingthem a square deal, I'm treating
(20:24):
them in an equality witheverybody else.
At the same time, he often didcourt Jews as Jews, in the sense
that he would say, appoint aJew to a particularly prominent
position right before anelection and then admit in
private correspondence that hehad done that for electoral
purposes.
He might go out of his way toline up Jewish surrogates to
(20:49):
barnstorm Jewish neighborhoods.
He would sometimes push todeclassify certain diplomatic
correspondence about his effortsto help Jews overseas right
before an election.
And Roosevelt is courting Jewsas Jews because Jews often
wanted to be courted as Jews.
They care deeply about the fateof their co-religionists
(21:13):
overseas, fate of theirco-religionists overseas, and so
it is only natural that theywere curious about what
politicians, roosevelt included,planned to do to help their
persecuted brothers and sistersback in the old country.
(21:38):
And so he's torn.
He wants American life to bethis identity neutral civic
sphere where everyone is oninequality precisely because
your identity doesn't matter.
And yet at the same time thereis a reality that Jewish voters
cared about Jewish issues and hewas responsive to that.
(22:02):
You need not choose between anAmerican civic identity and your
individual religious orcultural heritage and that's why
(22:23):
in America people can beproudly Irish American or
African American or ChineseAmerican or Jewish American.
And one of the reasons why Ititled this book American
Maccabee is because Roosevelt,when he talked about wanting to
find brawny Jews for his policeforce in New York when he ran
(22:45):
the NYPD there, he said hewanted the Maccabee type.
There was a stereotype thatJews were frail, they were
pallid, they were undernourishedfrom their oppression in the
old world.
And Roosevelt in effect wassaying to Jews you don't have to
(23:05):
disavow your Jewish identity tolive up to my ideal of courage
and virility.
You can lean into your ownJewish tradition of the
Maccabees and use that as a wayof being proud Americans, use
that as a way of being membersof his force who were defenders
(23:28):
of the people and of thepeople's law.
And so pluralism, I think, is away that Roosevelt tries to
reconcile his bid to engage Jewson their own terms, but do it
in a way that made Jews part ofa broader family of American
(23:48):
citizenship.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So for our listeners that maybe don't know, like when
you're talking about what aMaccabee is, can you give us a
little bit more information onthat?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh for sure.
Yeah, Forgive me here, so youknow, I'll, I'll.
I'll mention this maybe throughRoosevelt's own lens, and I
didn't get into this in the book, so this will be new to you,
Liz.
But when Roosevelt was a boy,he goes to the Holy land.
In his adolescence, His familywas very wealthy.
When these people went onvacation, it wasn't for a week,
(24:19):
they'd go for 15 months all overthe world.
And they go to the Holy Landwhen he's a kid.
He actually keeps a daily diaryand he goes to part of what is
now in the modern state ofIsrael.
That was a particularlyimportant site millennia earlier
when the Maccabees, this groupof Jewish warriors, rebelled
against Greek persecution andthey actually set fire to a
(24:42):
harbor that Roosevelt had comeinto from Alexandria on his
journey, and so he almostcertainly learned something of
this Maccabean lore.
And so these Maccabean rebels,these proud Jewish warriors from
ancient history, were preciselythe model that he encouraged
Jewish children to look to asparagons, and he actually writes
(25:06):
a letter during Hanukkah.
In one particular Decemberduring his presidency, he writes
a letter to a group of Jewishchildren on the Lower East Side
and he says to them that byembracing the tradition of the
Maccabees that will actuallyhelp them come into closer
(25:26):
relationship with their fellowGentile Americans.
It is precisely by honoringyour own heritage that you will
find your belonging in theUnited States.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I love that.
So I've talked a lot about yourwriting.
Again, as somebody who is athere like I just can eat up
history books.
I love them.
You teach a class.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat Because I'm going to link
it in our show notes because Ihad said when I am finished with
my dissertation it's a classthat I would want to take, just
(26:01):
because it sounds awesome.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, you're welcome to audit anytime I teach a class
.
I've taught it once so far atASU and I hope to teach it again
sometime in the next couple ofyears, and it is on the craft of
writing narrative history.
I'm a firm believer thatstorytelling from the beginning
of human history has been themost powerful tool we have for
(26:27):
communicating from mind to mind.
We, you know, geneticists, someevolutionary psychologists as
well believe that we areactually hardwired in our brains
neural networks, to understandthe world through storytelling,
and so I love to think hard withmy students about what are the
(26:51):
elements that make goodstorytelling.
What can we do?
How do we pay relentlessattention to detail as writers
of history so that for thereader it feels like a seamless,
immersive narrative experience?
And I'm working on a sideproject, on a book that was
really inspired by that class.
Oftentimes the best ideas forbooks for professors come from
(27:13):
the classroom, and so I'mworking on a book about the
craft of writing narrativehistory and taking examples from
the readings that I assigned inthat class, and I'm going to
walk readers through how thereal masters of the craft today
approach questions like scenesetting, as we were talking
about character development.
(27:34):
How do you take an argument andencode it into a narrative arc?
How do you subtly weave themesinto a story?
And so these are the kinds ofquestions that are often thought
of as the preserve of novelists, of filmmakers, and I believe
(27:56):
that they should absolutely becentral to what historians are
doing.
And that's not to say thatthere isn't room in the
profession it's a big timeprofession to do other kinds of
history.
Some topics are better suited tospecialists, but it strikes me
in this moment where we're alldazzled by new technological
wonders, that this ancient artof storytelling remains
(28:18):
profoundly powerful.
And I think that historians,especially in the academy,
should look for opportunities tobring the rigor of their
training and their background inarchival research and wed that
to the kind of greatstorytelling that we see from a
novelist or a filmmaker or evena journalist and bring that to
(28:42):
the public.
Because I think it would be aloss if professional historians
in academia seeded the kind ofhistorical storytelling that you
see on the shelves in BarnesNoble just to others who aren't
in the academy.
And I think when you're at apublic university, as we are at
Arizona State University, it isa special privilege and a
(29:03):
special opportunity to get tospend the time when I'm not in
the classroom writing history.
That is for the broader public,and so I'm excited I've taught
a class on it.
I'm excited to write a bookabout the process and I'm
excited to continue to findstories that matter to me and
share them with readers and,through podcasts, with listeners
(29:26):
like you folks at homelistening today.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So is that going to be our next summer's one,
because summer seems to be ourtime.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Whatever you'd like.
I'm also working on a sequel tomy Roosevelt book focused on
his post-presidency.
So Roosevelt develops thisrelationship with this circle of
young female Jewish immigrantwriters who are producing
memoirs and novels about theJewish female immigrant
(29:57):
experience.
He also launches a veryinteresting race for the
presidency with his third party,the Bull Moose Party, in 1912,
where he's very involved withJewish women in that effort.
It's when he first endorsessuffrage, and it is also in the
sequel that will take up thequestion of Zionism.
Roosevelt during World War Ibecomes an outspoken proponent
(30:22):
of the idea of a Jewish homeland.
Indeed, he supports the idea ofa Jewish homeland for many
nations that did not have statesat that time, and so there was
so much to cover that we coulddo something.
On Roosevelt, we'll haveseveral summers already gamed
out, so I'm happy to talk aboutany of these topics any summer,
(30:43):
in whichever order you like.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
We might have to start doing like seasonal ones,
like one in the summer, one inthe fall, because that again,
just the way you're telling thestory.
I'm like, wait, seriously, likeI want to know more about this
and this is.
I think this is why I lovehistorical fiction so much is
because I get involved withthese characters and then it
leads me to wanting to read moreof the historical books and
(31:10):
learning more about them,because I think that that was
kind of my gateway into historythese characters.
Teddy Roosevelt is a person,but I see him more as a
character and it's so deeplycomplex and there's so many
stories and so many sides that Ihaven't even began to explore
because there's just so much.
(31:32):
And that's what I miss about, Ithink, the diary keeping.
You talked about him keeping adiary on these vacations.
This is something differentthan we do now, but I love those
pieces and these looks intothese people.
So I hope this doesn't offendany of my other guests, but you
are one of my favorite people totalk to because I genuinely
(31:55):
feel like I could just talk toyou forever.
Thank you so much A for lettingme read the book early, because
I very much enjoyed it, butalso for just loving this stuff.
So much A for letting me readthe book early because I very
much enjoyed it, but also forjust loving this stuff so much
and creating a very accessibleentry point into history for
people who maybe aren'thistorians and don't really know
where to start.
(32:15):
So thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Thank you.
Thank you.
It is always such a pleasure totalk history with you, Liz.
You and I and a couple othercolleagues are carrying the
banner for history at Skettle.
We're surrounded by politicaltheorists and we appreciate them
.
Conversation with someone whoshares my passion for history,
(32:42):
and so I really appreciate theopportunity to bring this story
of Teddy Roosevelt and the Jewsto your listeners.
So thank you so much.
You are just our returning summer guest.
I feel like Dr Perwancher,because last summer we did one
on Alexander Hamilton and nowwe're doing one on Teddy
Roosevelt, who you and I havehad this conversation before.
Teddy Roosevelt is myhistorical crush.
I have his quote the oh my gosh, the man in the arena quote
(00:21):
hanging in my bedroom because Ijust love Teddy Roosevelt, I
love the stories about him, andtoday we're going to talk about
a story I've literally neverheard about, and this is why I
love having you on the podcast.
So before we get started, canyou kind of reintroduce yourself
to our listeners and give us alittle snippet about the book?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Sure, well, first off , thank you for having me back.
We'll have to make this asummer tradition in perpetuity.
So I am a professor ofconstitutional history here at
Skettle Maccabee.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews.
And Roosevelt had a deep andreally interesting and
(01:13):
complicated relationship withthe Jewish community, and it's a
story that, for all the inkspilled on Roosevelt, hasn't
been told before.
So this is the first book onthe subject and this is the
first podcast interview thesubject and this is the first
podcast interview I'm doingabout this book, and so I'm very
excited to do it with you, liz.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So, looking at this, I mean I will say to readers I
read this, it took me two days.
I'm a very versiferous reader,but it was about 250 pages and
it wasn't.
We were kind of talking aboutthis before when we're doing our
little pre-show, but Iappreciate your writing because
it's not.
(01:53):
Sometimes we read books thatare just very, very academic and
I appreciate those books assomebody who is currently
studying and writing adissertation, those books as
somebody who is currentlystudying and writing a
dissertation.
But I think for educators, thisis something that is an easy
read.
It's an interesting read.
There's a lot of really goodstories in there.
So I hope that the questions weasked today really get people to
(02:18):
want to read this because, Imean, I just loved exploring
this side of Roosevelt.
So a lot of educators today arereally exploring how to teach
complex historical figures.
That is something that I thinkteachers have been grappling
with for a while.
How do you think Roosevelt'skind of contradictory attitude
(02:38):
toward Jewish Americans ranginganywhere from advocacy to
stereotyping should be presentedin the classroom?
Like, how should we talk aboutthis?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I'm a huge fan of primary sources.
Let's get students touching theraw material of history.
You know, one of my greatestpleasures as a historian is
getting to go into the archivesand I tell my students you know,
if I went through, you know,broken to your house and read
through your diary and wentthrough all your emails and
(03:09):
private correspondence, like Iwould get arrested and I should
be.
But when you do that to a longdeceased president, you get a
and you get to publish what youfind to the world.
You're actually celebrated fordoing it.
It's.
It's pretty extraordinary thatI actually get to get away with
this for a living.
Feels like I should be gettingin trouble, and so I love to be
(03:32):
able to share those kinds ofprivate revelations that you
find in diaries and in lettersand in newspaper accounts and
the like.
So one of my goals in givingstudents exposure to that raw
source material from thehistorical record is, as you
indicated, to get them to engagewith complexity.
Roosevelt is such a rich figureto study because he is so
(03:55):
complex, because he embodies thevery complexities of the nation
that elected him.
Here is the boxing ring brawlerwho's also a wordsmithing
scholar.
Here is the bloodthirstycolonel who also wins the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Here is the Dakota Badlandscowboy, who is also a Harvard
(04:18):
gentleman.
He is all of these things andhis relationship with Jews is
very much part of that set ofcontradictions.
He has a deep and genuineconnection with the Jewish
community.
He is an outspoken advocate forJews overseas at a time when
(04:38):
Jews were being subjected tomass violence in Eastern Europe.
And yet at the same time we cansee Roosevelt sometimes
indulging in some of theanti-Semitic stereotyping that
were common in elite circles atthat time.
And part of our job as studentsof the past is to try to reckon
(04:59):
with that history in its fullcomplexity.
And I think if we try toproject too much coherence on
someone as self-contradictory asRoosevelt, we risk papering
over the real story, which arethe internal contradictions that
he has that in so many wayspersonify America as a nation of
(05:23):
contradictions.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I love that because I think that sometimes, when we
study historical figures, wetend to put them in two boxes
right, they're right or they'rewrong, they're good or they're
bad, but at the end of the day,they're people, and humans are
complex.
This isn't something that canbe put neatly in a box.
So what kind of lessons canstudents learn from his kind of
(05:49):
blend of?
Is it philo-Semitism or philo?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I never know how to say that.
Philo-semitism yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, philo-semitism refers to an appreciation for,
an affection for, the people infaith of Judaism, and
anti-Semitism, of course, justthe opposite.
And one of the things that Ithink makes Roosevelt an
interesting figure to study isthat America itself has had a
(06:20):
complicated relationship withthe Jewish people.
There are real deep strains ofphilo-Semitism in American
history, going back all the wayto the founding of the country,
as you and I talked about lastsummer when we talked about
Alexander Hamilton, who was achampion for American Jewry, as
was George Washington, whofamously writes in his 1790
(06:44):
Newport letter to the Jews ofRhode Island that in the United
States we give to bigotry nosanction, to persecution no
assistance.
And yet we also see realstrains of anti-Semitism in the
founding era and people whowanted to exclude Jews from the
ballot box, from the legalprofession, from elected office.
(07:09):
And throughout American historywe can see anti-Semitism
sometimes wax, sometimes wane.
Roosevelt's era coincided withmass Jewish migration to America
.
If you look at the quartermillennium stretching from the
(07:29):
days of Dutch colonial rule inManhattan up until the eve of
Roosevelt's presidency 250 yearsAmerica amassed a Jewish
population of one million people.
It took only the seven and ahalf years of his presidency to
nearly double that figure.
And it was amid that massmigration of Jews fleeing
violence in Eastern Europe andfinding safe refuge here in
(07:54):
America that that prompts, amongsome people in the United
States, an anti-Semitic reaction, a resistance to these
newcomers.
There were also many Americanswho embraced these Jewish
refugees with open arms.
There was a potent strain ofChristianity that Roosevelt
subscribed to, known as socialgospel Protestantism, that
(08:17):
called on Christians tooperationalize their faith
through deeds, and part of thatmeant stretching their hands out
to these Jewish victims ofpersecution who were seeking
refuge in the new world.
And so Roosevelt's owncheckered relationship with the
Jewish people, marked as it wasby largely philo-Semitism but
(08:40):
marred by moments ofanti-Semitism, really
personifies a moment in Americanhistory and a kind of narrative
that has that runs from thefounding era to the modern era,
where anti-Semitism crests andthen it reaches a valley and
(09:02):
then it crests again.
And today, in 2025, we areunfortunately seeing historic
rates of antisemitism for themodern era, and that's one of
the reasons why I write in thebook's opening introduction that
Roosevelt's story with theJewish people has lessons that I
(09:23):
describe as timelessly urgent.
They're urgent because theymatter so much now, and they're
timeless because we see themrecur over the quarter
millennium of American history.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So your book details Roosevelt's involvement in both
foreign and domestic Jewishaffairs.
What does his story kind ofreveal about the role of empathy
and political calculation inpolicymaking, and how can
educators use this to teachleadership and civic
responsibility?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It's a really good question, because empathy and
political calculation were bothat play in Roosevelt's what I
call his Jewish diplomacy.
So the key question confrontingRoosevelt was what to do about
what were known as the pogroms,these violent assaults that were
taking place against Jews byordinary Russians, often with
(10:16):
the consent or even the supportof local and national Russian
authorities.
And American Jews were deeplyworried about their Jewish
brothers and sisters,metaphorically and literally,
who were back in the Tsar'sdominion, suffering under this
kind of violent autocracy.
And there was tremendouspressure on Roosevelt from
(10:39):
certain quarters, certainly fromJewish quarters in the United
States, to intercede.
And there was also resistance,particularly from many members
of his State Department, becausethere was a custom at that time
in international relations thatone nation should not comment
on affairs of another nationthat's wholly internal to that
(10:59):
other country, even onhumanitarian grounds.
And so Roosevelt is pulledbetween these conflicting forces
.
But more often than notRoosevelt does speak out, in a
way that other heads of state donot, in defense of these
persecuted Jews living underczarist rule, and he does that
(11:23):
partly out of a genuine sympathyfor Jews.
And we know that it's genuinebecause sometimes he is engaging
in quiet diplomacy withdiplomatic efforts for Jews,
precisely because he wanted topublicize them right before a
given election cycle.
It was often the case, in evennumbered years, that he made his
(11:57):
Jewish foreign policy thehandmaiden of his electioneering
, of his electioneering.
And so Roosevelt had rawpolitical self-interest and he
had genuine sympathy, and itwould be folly for us to fixate
on one to the exclusion of theother, because both of these
factors were at play.
(12:18):
And so my recommendation, as wetry to teach this material to
students, is to understand thathistorical figures, much like
political leaders today, areunder pressure from multiple
external forces, and they arealso informed by their own
(12:39):
internal moral compass moralcompass and it is our job as
students of the past to try, asbest we can, to come to grips
with the totality of thosecircumstances.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love that.
I'm just like I love talkingabout these kinds of things
because I wish that more peopleunderstood that being a student
of the past and learning reallyhelps contextualize things that
are happening currently andgives you a little bit more
insight and empathy with theempathy, the understanding you
(13:19):
know, with the empathy, theunderstanding.
So the English nerd in me isreading through this narrative
right, because it is not dryacademia and the Lower East Side
kind of almost appears to be acharacter in this, reflecting
both hardship and hope.
So how might this setting, likeyou know, place-based history,
how could this help educatorsbring immigration stories to
life for students who arelearning about American identity
(13:41):
and pluralism?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I'm so glad that you asked me about this because it
was really important to me tobring the Lower East Side to
life.
That neighborhood, that enclavein Lower Manhattan was the
epicenter of American Jewishlife during Roosevelt's era and
it is a central scene to so manyof the happenings that I
(14:08):
describe in this book.
Roosevelt gets his start in NewYork politics as the young,
36-year-old police commissionerwhere he barnstorms the Lower
East Side block by block, givingspeeches to Jewish immigrants,
where he espouses hisegalitarian vision for American
society.
And he is actually whollyanomalous among Republicans
(14:30):
because it was traditionallyDemocratic turf in that he wins
the Lower East Side as apresidential candidate, a total
outlier among Republicans at thetime.
It is really an index of thedepth of his popularity on the
Lower East Side, which wasoverwhelmingly populated by
Eastern European Jewish refugeesof violence in places like
(14:52):
Russia and Romania.
Now, it was so important to meto try to bring that setting to
life that I spend, you know, Ithink, maybe something like the
first 15 pages of chapter onejust walking the reader street
by street through the Lower EastSide.
What were the sights, what werethe sounds?
What would it be like to go toa restaurant at the time.
(15:13):
If you wanted to discreetlygamble, what was that like?
What were the plays being puton in the Yiddish theaters?
How did they adaptShakespearean classics?
What would 13 cents get you ata lunch counter?
This was what an editor of minelikes to call the heat and dust
of history.
To bring to life that livedexperience and what it was like
(15:38):
to be on the subway.
And what you find in the LowerEast Side is that it is a place
that is both rife with hazardand rich with hope.
On the one hand, you havepeople who are really densely
packed in to just a couplesquare miles of teeming humanity
(16:00):
.
They are living in tenementbuildings, these five to eight
story tall brick buildings,where the apartments are often
doubling as sweatshops, and youcould find a dozen people in a
single room slaving over sewingmachines.
These were rough conditions.
There was limited hygiene, manyof the rooms didn't have
(16:21):
running water or natural light.
And yet on the Lower East Side,there were educational
opportunities.
There was public schooling 19out of 20 students in a public
school in the Lower East Sidewas Jewish.
If you go back to many parts ofthe old world, especially in
Eastern Europe, there werequotas on how many Jews could go
(16:43):
to a school.
Not so in America.
In the old world there werequotas on how many Jews could be
in a given profession, but onthe Lower East Side, if you were
able to get yourself educatedand there were opportunities for
that, you could or yourchildren could, climb their way
into the ranks of the middle oreven upper classes.
(17:05):
Jewish children on the LowerEast Side enjoyed a remarkable
degree of upward mobility.
That would have beenunimaginable in the old country.
And on the Lower East Side, aJew who became a naturalized
citizen could count a vote, theycould cast a ballot that would
tally just the same as thewealthiest Gentiles, and it was
(17:30):
the epicenter of the Jewish bidto grasp for the American dream.
And so, as with so much else inthis book, we want to grapple
with that full complexity, theway that immigrants in New York
at that time struggled, but alsothe opportunities that they had
(17:52):
.
There's a reason that they cameto America, opportunities that
they had.
There's a reason that they cameto America.
There's a reason that they gaveup everything that they had to
try their shot here in the newworld.
And one of the things that'sstriking about the Lower East
Side is that you know at thattime, if you go a few blocks in
one direction, you're inChinatown.
You go a few blocks in anotherdirection, you're in Little
Italy.
You go a few blocks in yetanother direction, you're in an
(18:13):
Irish neighborhood, andimmigrants were struggling in
all of those neighborhoods.
In many ways this isn't auniquely Jewish story, the story
of ethnic slum life in New York.
All of these immigrant groupsare coming to the New World
looking for opportunity, findingnovel challenges but also
(18:33):
striving for novel opportunities.
Challenges but also strivingfor novel opportunities.
And one lesson we can take fromthat is that this immigrant
experience in many ways is notexceptional and that in many
ways the Jewish story of thisera is also the Italian story of
this era.
It's also the Irish story ofthis era, it's also the Chinese
(18:55):
story of this era and I think,as a historian, if I'm doing my
job well, I'm helping people seethese particular pieces of
American history not asdisaggregated from the rest of
it but as part of a larger whole.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I really appreciate having the ability to kind of
again set myself into a bookbefore diving into other things,
and I appreciate too thatyou're talking about really the
New York immigrant experienceand putting us in that place,
because I think that for readersand for lovers of history,
places are just as important aspeople.
(19:34):
You discuss how Roosevelt'sactions often reflected
political demands of courtingthe Jewish vote.
In what ways does this historychallenge or reinforce the idea
of identity-based voting blocks,and how can civic educators
help students think criticallyabout this today, because this
(19:57):
is not the first or the lasttime a president has done this?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah well, by now your listeners will be
unsurprised to know that myanswer is going to be a long
version of it was complicatedbecause, on the one hand,
roosevelt prided himself ontreating Jews as Americans.
He said I'm not here to appealto them as Jews.
I am treating them, I'm givingthem a square deal, I'm treating
(20:24):
them in an equality witheverybody else.
At the same time, he often didcourt Jews as Jews, in the sense
that he would say, appoint aJew to a particularly prominent
position right before anelection and then admit in
private correspondence that hehad done that for electoral
purposes.
He might go out of his way toline up Jewish surrogates to
(20:49):
barnstorm Jewish neighborhoods.
He would sometimes push todeclassify certain diplomatic
correspondence about his effortsto help Jews overseas right
before an election.
And Roosevelt is courting Jewsas Jews because Jews often
wanted to be courted as Jews.
They care deeply about the fateof their co-religionists
(21:13):
overseas, fate of theirco-religionists overseas, and so
it is only natural that theywere curious about what
politicians, roosevelt included,planned to do to help their
persecuted brothers and sistersback in the old country.
(21:38):
And so he's torn.
He wants American life to bethis identity neutral civic
sphere where everyone is oninequality precisely because
your identity doesn't matter.
And yet at the same time thereis a reality that Jewish voters
cared about Jewish issues and hewas responsive to that.
(22:02):
You need not choose between anAmerican civic identity and your
individual religious orcultural heritage and that's why
(22:23):
in America people can beproudly Irish American or
African American or ChineseAmerican or Jewish American.
And one of the reasons why Ititled this book American
Maccabee is because Roosevelt,when he talked about wanting to
find brawny Jews for his policeforce in New York when he ran
(22:45):
the NYPD there, he said hewanted the Maccabee type.
There was a stereotype thatJews were frail, they were
pallid, they were undernourishedfrom their oppression in the
old world.
And Roosevelt in effect wassaying to Jews you don't have to
(23:05):
disavow your Jewish identity tolive up to my ideal of courage
and virility.
You can lean into your ownJewish tradition of the
Maccabees and use that as a wayof being proud Americans, use
that as a way of being membersof his force who were defenders
(23:28):
of the people and of thepeople's law.
And so pluralism, I think, is away that Roosevelt tries to
reconcile his bid to engage Jewson their own terms, but do it
in a way that made Jews part ofa broader family of American
(23:48):
citizenship.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So for our listeners that maybe don't know, like when
you're talking about what aMaccabee is, can you give us a
little bit more information onthat?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh for sure.
Yeah, Forgive me here, so youknow, I'll, I'll.
I'll mention this maybe throughRoosevelt's own lens, and I
didn't get into this in the book, so this will be new to you,
Liz.
But when Roosevelt was a boy,he goes to the Holy land.
In his adolescence, His familywas very wealthy.
When these people went onvacation, it wasn't for a week,
(24:19):
they'd go for 15 months all overthe world.
And they go to the Holy Landwhen he's a kid.
He actually keeps a daily diaryand he goes to part of what is
now in the modern state ofIsrael.
That was a particularlyimportant site millennia earlier
when the Maccabees, this groupof Jewish warriors, rebelled
against Greek persecution andthey actually set fire to a
(24:42):
harbor that Roosevelt had comeinto from Alexandria on his
journey, and so he almostcertainly learned something of
this Maccabean lore.
And so these Maccabean rebels,these proud Jewish warriors from
ancient history, were preciselythe model that he encouraged
Jewish children to look to asparagons, and he actually writes
(25:06):
a letter during Hanukkah.
In one particular Decemberduring his presidency, he writes
a letter to a group of Jewishchildren on the Lower East Side
and he says to them that byembracing the tradition of the
Maccabees that will actuallyhelp them come into closer
(25:26):
relationship with their fellowGentile Americans.
It is precisely by honoringyour own heritage that you will
find your belonging in theUnited States.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I love that.
So I've talked a lot about yourwriting.
Again, as somebody who is athere like I just can eat up
history books.
I love them.
You teach a class.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat Because I'm going to link
it in our show notes because Ihad said when I am finished with
my dissertation it's a classthat I would want to take, just
(26:01):
because it sounds awesome.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, you're welcome to audit anytime I teach a class
.
I've taught it once so far atASU and I hope to teach it again
sometime in the next couple ofyears, and it is on the craft of
writing narrative history.
I'm a firm believer thatstorytelling from the beginning
of human history has been themost powerful tool we have for
(26:27):
communicating from mind to mind.
We, you know, geneticists, someevolutionary psychologists as
well believe that we areactually hardwired in our brains
neural networks, to understandthe world through storytelling,
and so I love to think hard withmy students about what are the
(26:51):
elements that make goodstorytelling.
What can we do?
How do we pay relentlessattention to detail as writers
of history so that for thereader it feels like a seamless,
immersive narrative experience?
And I'm working on a sideproject, on a book that was
really inspired by that class.
Oftentimes the best ideas forbooks for professors come from
(27:13):
the classroom, and so I'mworking on a book about the
craft of writing narrativehistory and taking examples from
the readings that I assigned inthat class, and I'm going to
walk readers through how thereal masters of the craft today
approach questions like scenesetting, as we were talking
about character development.
(27:34):
How do you take an argument andencode it into a narrative arc?
How do you subtly weave themesinto a story?
And so these are the kinds ofquestions that are often thought
of as the preserve of novelists, of filmmakers, and I believe
(27:56):
that they should absolutely becentral to what historians are
doing.
And that's not to say thatthere isn't room in the
profession it's a big timeprofession to do other kinds of
history.
Some topics are better suited tospecialists, but it strikes me
in this moment where we're alldazzled by new technological
wonders, that this ancient artof storytelling remains
(28:18):
profoundly powerful.
And I think that historians,especially in the academy,
should look for opportunities tobring the rigor of their
training and their background inarchival research and wed that
to the kind of greatstorytelling that we see from a
novelist or a filmmaker or evena journalist and bring that to
(28:42):
the public.
Because I think it would be aloss if professional historians
in academia seeded the kind ofhistorical storytelling that you
see on the shelves in BarnesNoble just to others who aren't
in the academy.
And I think when you're at apublic university, as we are at
Arizona State University, it isa special privilege and a
(29:03):
special opportunity to get tospend the time when I'm not in
the classroom writing history.
That is for the broader public,and so I'm excited I've taught
a class on it.
I'm excited to write a bookabout the process and I'm
excited to continue to findstories that matter to me and
share them with readers and,through podcasts, with listeners
(29:26):
like you folks at homelistening today.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
So is that going to be our next summer's one,
because summer seems to be ourtime.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Whatever you'd like.
I'm also working on a sequel tomy Roosevelt book focused on
his post-presidency.
So Roosevelt develops thisrelationship with this circle of
young female Jewish immigrantwriters who are producing
memoirs and novels about theJewish female immigrant
(29:57):
experience.
He also launches a veryinteresting race for the
presidency with his third party,the Bull Moose Party, in 1912,
where he's very involved withJewish women in that effort.
It's when he first endorsessuffrage, and it is also in the
sequel that will take up thequestion of Zionism.
Roosevelt during World War Ibecomes an outspoken proponent
(30:22):
of the idea of a Jewish homeland.
Indeed, he supports the idea ofa Jewish homeland for many
nations that did not have statesat that time, and so there was
so much to cover that we coulddo something.
On Roosevelt, we'll haveseveral summers already gamed
out, so I'm happy to talk aboutany of these topics any summer,
(30:43):
in whichever order you like.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
We might have to start doing like seasonal ones,
like one in the summer, one inthe fall, because that again,
just the way you're telling thestory.
I'm like, wait, seriously, likeI want to know more about this
and this is.
I think this is why I lovehistorical fiction so much is
because I get involved withthese characters and then it
leads me to wanting to read moreof the historical books and
(31:10):
learning more about them,because I think that that was
kind of my gateway into historythese characters.
Teddy Roosevelt is a person,but I see him more as a
character and it's so deeplycomplex and there's so many
stories and so many sides that Ihaven't even began to explore
because there's just so much.
(31:32):
And that's what I miss about, Ithink, the diary keeping.
You talked about him keeping adiary on these vacations.
This is something differentthan we do now, but I love those
pieces and these looks intothese people.
So I hope this doesn't offendany of my other guests, but you
are one of my favorite people totalk to because I genuinely
(31:55):
feel like I could just talk toyou forever.
Thank you so much A for lettingme read the book early, because
I very much enjoyed it, butalso for just loving this stuff.
So much A for letting me readthe book early because I very
much enjoyed it, but also forjust loving this stuff so much
and creating a very accessibleentry point into history for
people who maybe aren'thistorians and don't really know
where to start.
(32:15):
So thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Thank you.
Thank you.
It is always such a pleasure totalk history with you, Liz.
You and I and a couple othercolleagues are carrying the
banner for history at Skettle.
We're surrounded by politicaltheorists and we appreciate them
.
Conversation with someone whoshares my passion for history,
(32:42):
and so I really appreciate theopportunity to bring this story
of Teddy Roosevelt and the Jewsto your listeners.
So thank you so much.
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