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Stuart Schoffman: Under the Banner of Heaven

On flag day in 1954 -- June 14, in the US civic calendar -- President Dwight D Eisenhower signed into law an alteration of the Pledge of Allegiance, adding the words "under God" to the patriotic mantra that every American knows in his sleep. Initiated by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, the change was designed to underscore, in those Cold War days, a fundamental difference between the United States and the godless Russian communists.

I was but a tyke of 6, but believe me when I tell you that I remember that historic moment. One fine day we were informed by our teacher that henceforth, when we placed our right hand on our heart and affirmed our loyalty to our flag and country, we would now put God in the picture. I doubt anyone blinked, back then in Flatbush. We were yeshivah kids, after all, whose parents -- many of them immigrants, including Holocaust survivors -- were surely grateful to the Almighty for the safe haven of "Judeo-Christian" America.

Today, of course, the Pledge is big news. Michael Newdow, a devout atheist who earns his bread as an emergency-room physician but also holds a law degree, wowed legal commentators with his March 24 performance before the U.S. Supreme Court, acting as his own counsel in a bid to drop "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2002, a federal appellate court in California accepted the doctor�s argument that his little daughter (now 9 years old) was being pressured by her teacher to recite words that violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The Supremes doubtless consider Newdow a crackpot (albeit a brilliant one), and would dearly love to deny him a victory -- indeed, polls show that nearly 9 in 10 Americans want to keep the Pledge as is -- but his contention that "one nation under God" is, from a legal standpoint, tantamount to "one nation under Jesus" just might end up holding water.

My spin on this intriguing case is colored by a number of personal associations. First, Newdow lives in Sacramento, my wife�s hometown, so for me this has the human-interest appeal of a local story. More to the point, he is Jewish. Sandra Banning, the mother of his child, and a born-again Christian, told a Fox News interviewer in 2002 that "Glen [the daughter] and he celebrate Hanukkah and Passover together," which would make perfect sense to godless secular Israelis but left the lady from Fox baffled. Whether Newdow�s ethnicity matters is not clear. American Jewish officialdom is mainly unperturbed by "under God," which can easily be rationalized as what the late Justice William Brennan referred to as "ceremonial deism." Newdow was roundly vilified in America after his victory two years ago, but not as a Jew. Launching into Google I come up with precious little, only such droppings as a reference to the "kike krusader pledge of allegiance Jew Newdow," safely tucked among the letters to "Vanguard News Network," an anti-Semitic website.

All the same, I do wonder how this case, if perchance Newdow should win -- a ruling is expected by June -- will play out amid the rising drumbeat of the American culture war. Consider the code-words that in some unfriendly circles have been used to mean, or hint at, Jews. First there was "neo-con," a term deployed on the left but also the hard right to mean "Jewish" or "Zionist" or "Likudnik," specifically as regards the alleged cabal of advisers who pushed the Bush administration into the Iraq war. More recently, we have "elite media" and "secularists," used by such populist right-wing pundits as Bill O�Reilly of Fox News to connote, among others, Jews who attack the new undisputed champion of Christianity, Mel Gibson. New York Times columnist Frank Rich, a leading critic of Gibson and pet target of O�Reilly�s, lately wrote with arresting candor that "the fracas over �The Passion� has made me feel less secure as a Jew in America than ever before."

Thus it remains to be seen, as battle lines draw thicker between now and the November election, whether (and by whom) Newdow will be painted as an "anti-Christian" Jew. In the meantime, I was pleasantly diverted by the discovery that the author of the Pledge of Allegiance -- it originally appeared in The Youth's Companion, a mass-circulation weekly, in 1892, and was officially recognized by Congress 50 years later -- was one Francis Bellamy, a socialist and Baptist minister who was a cousin of Edward Bellamy, author of the best-selling utopian socialist novel "Looking Backward." Here too is a local connection: Bellamy�s book was a strong influence upon Theodor Herzl�s liberal utopian vision of a Jewish state, his 1902 novel "Altneuland."

Neither Francis Bellamy nor Herzl was a fan of theocracy. Both would probably be appalled by the ways in which America and Israel, at this critical moment, have been waving the banner of God. The Knesset is no longer under the thumb of the ultra-Orthodox parties, but some of Sharon�s coalition partners on the right, notably government ministers Effie Eitam and Benny Elon, are religious ideologues who have too much in common with the Christian conservatives who hold sway in Washington. America has always had a sense of election and divine mission -- from its 17th-century origins in Puritan New England, it has seen itself as the "new Israel" -- but to act in the global arena as if God had chosen the "good" United States, and its current president, to save the world from "evil," is a theological construct fraught with peril.

Now add to the "under God" mix Dr. Abd al-Aziz Rantisi�s tirade, following America�s veto blocking a Security Council condemnation of Israel�s assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin: "We knew that Bush is the enemy of God, the enemy of Islam and Muslims," Rantisi ranted at a rally at the Islamic University in Gaza City. "America declared war against God. Sharon declared war against God, and God declared war against America, Bush and Sharon." Maybe Rantisi�s fellow physician, Michael Newdow, isn�t such a crackpot after all.