What a country

Maybe - just maybe - one of our ancestors had enough faith and hope to imagine the kind of life that American Jews lead in the United States today. But it's unlikely. Nothing in their own experience indicated cause for such optimism.

Surely the Jews who left Recife, Brazil, in 1654 and landed in New Amsterdam hoped for something better. But it's unlikely that they could have foreseen a country where Jews not only could practice their religion openly but also could engage in frank dialogue with members of other faiths.

The Jews who left Europe for the United States in the 1930s and '40s hoped for something better. But few of them could have imagined the kind of acceptance and respect their children and grandchildren would come to find in their adopted country.

It's not enough to look at New York City and Los Angeles and note their thriving Jewish communities. That's a given. Look closer to home. Our own Jewish community grows stronger, larger and more diverse day by day. Our options for worship in the Valley of the Sun run the gamut, from ultra-Orthodox to ultra liberal. The city of Phoenix has a Jewish mayor, and we're about to get a sister city in Israel. And - the true sign of a flourishing Jewish community - we have great bagels. We even have bialys!

Is there still anti-Semitism in the United States? Yes. And we should be vigilant about it. But there's a fine line between vigilance and paranoia. Mostly, we should compare life for Jews in this country to that of Jews pretty much anywhere else in the world today and take pride. The anti-Semitism experienced by Jews immigrating to this country just 50 years ago seem like the stuff of bad novels. Quotas for universities? Job offers rescinded? Political appointments denied? Hardly.

We've come such a long way that whenever we hear something like, "I jewed him down," we're taken aback. As indeed we should be. But in today's America, a quick explanation of the offending verb will generally result not in defiance on the part of the user, but in chagrin. The offensive expressions we encounter in day-to-day American life are more and more the result of ignorance, not malice.

What will the future bring? It's hard to tell. Like Jews everywhere, we know that anti-Semitism still exists, and that, like other prejudices, it can be rekindled - on purpose or by accident. But chances are good that we can help shape what comes for Jews in this country by emphasizing all the mutual benefits of the American Jewish experience, and by building on our many achievements.

Mazel tov on 350 years - and here's to many more.

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