There was a post here, not so long ago, about a Jewish reenactor who wanted to create an appropriate, historically correct, tallis - prayer shawl. I found that extremely interesting, knowing the problem Union Army (U.S. Army) Jewish soldiers had in getting a rabbi as a chaplain.
That was me (project still ongoing, BTW- I think the best thing is to buy a traditional, woolen tallis without an
atara, or the neckpiece, and handsew one on as appropriate). I'm biased, obviously, but I find the role that Jews played in the war really interesting and often overlooked in reenactor circles, where I sometimes feel like the assumption is that outside of the Irish Brigade, everyone was either a Baptist, a Presbyterian or, for our German friends, maybe a Lutheran. I'm particularly fascinated by the Jews that fought for the Confederacy, if only because of the seeming contradiction of sitting at a Seder thanking God for bringing us out of slavery in Egypt one day, then going off to fight for the right to hold slaves the next. I think that dichotomy is a really powerful illustration of just how little the Civil War was about slavery for many people, but social and cultural identity, instead. It's also interesting to consider how entrenched these Confederate Jews must have been in their communities to be so ready to pick up arms on behalf of the Confederacy when you look at the comparatively small number of Jews (certainly observant ones) down south today, not to mention some of the nastier incidents with the KKK around the turn of the century (the Leo Frank case in particular comes to mind).
To get back to the original topic of this thread, I think it's an interesting one. I don't think that the lack of page views is indicative of religious bigotry at all, but one or two of the responses have troubled me a bit. Personally, I think it's really laudable for anyone to look for ways of identifying with the men and women who lived during the Civil War, not least because that's how a lot of us really make history real for ourselves. I'm happy to read about anyone who lived during the war, of course, but there's an added interest when it comes to Jewish participants, because I can relate to them on an additional level that's harder for me to reach when I'm reading about, say, a Baptist. I know what they're talking about when they talk about going into Charleston to find matzo for Passover, and I can relate to the difficulties of trying to keep some semblance of kosher in an environment totally unsuited to it because I've been there and lived that. It adds a different perspective that's important, I think, just like the stories of those Chinese-Americans who fought in the war, or women who served as soldiers or, in this case, Muslims who fought. And you know, if we're really all about honoring those who fought, as we so often say we are, then we should be happy that these stories are being told.
And without getting political, isn't it just as important for a Muslim-American kid to be able to identify, as an American, with his or her own history as it is for any other American? I think it would be great to be able to say to a Muslim kid visiting a living history, for instance, "Hey, you know, there were some people just like you who fought in this war," and be able to give a concrete example. That's how you draw people in and engage them in history. That's how you keep history relevant and encourage a new generation of reenactors. That doesn't mean that you pretend there were thousands and thousands of Muslims serving when there obviously weren't, but that's different than saying, "You know, there
were people like you who had a stake in this."
I recently got back from two years serving at a consulate in China. One of my colleagues was a reenactor, and he did a number of Civil War-related presentations for our Public Affairs Section. Now, you can get up and give facts and figures and an overview of the war, which he did, and that's great, but he did another presentation that focused on one of those Chinese soldiers who served at Gettysburg and happened to be from the area of China in which our Consulate was based. It was extremely well-received, and it was a fantastic way to make the conflict relevant to a group of people for whom it would have had relatively little meaning otherwise. That's a big deal, especially in a place like China, where it's very homogenous, and people tend to be focused much more on their own culture and history than in what's going on in the rest of the world.