THE FOURTH, NEIL DIAMOND AND ME July 4, 2025

Who cried three times during a Broadway touring musical about the pop songwriter-singer Neil Diamond? 

Recently, Carolyn and I saw “A Beautiful Noise” about Diamond’s career and emotional challenges. And yes, the one who cried was me. Let me explain, particularly since today is the Fourth of July.

One of the show’s first songs was “America,” released in 1980 as part of the soundtrack album of the film Diamond appeared in, a remake of “The Jazz Singer.” “America” celebrates immigrants to this nation. Diamond’s grandparents, like mine, were Jews who came here from Poland and Russia around 1900. Diamond grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up “next door” in Queens.

When I heard a key lyric, “They’re coming to America,” I teared up. When the song appeared in the middle of the show, then again at the end—more tears. I’m sniffling as I write.

For all its faults, America has given life to and sustained so many millions of Americans, particularly “ethnic” Americans, who came here of their own free will. The Perlsteins—my grandparents and father, who was two-and-a-half (along with two of my aunts) left Warsaw and all they knew to sail into New York Harbor in February, 1906. My mother’s parents arrived separately at different times and met in New York.

Without their acts of courage, I might never have been born. The Perlsteins and Orlinsky-Cohens, the Finkles and Horowitzes, might all have perished in the Holocaust before my birth.

So, July Fourth—Independence Day—means a lot to me, as it does to so many others whose roots lie outside this country (as did the first colonists’) but whose hearts are attached to it. The Fourth is about more than the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Army under George Washington defeating King George III. It’s about a Constitution that, while imperfect, created a platform for establishing a democracy, also imperfect but promising the new nation’s citizens full rights as free people.

Want to talk about the evils of slavery and Jim Crow? Other racism? Absolutely. That part of our history should be remembered. Only by acknowledging our past can we forge a consistently better future. In that regard, I know and do not dismiss all the stories of antisemitism my family and other Jews faced—and still face—here. 

But I will not deny that the United States gave my family refuge and the opportunity to build good lives. You’re reading the words of the great-grandson of a chicken-plucker and the grandson of a man who sold newspapers on the street before opening a traditional Jewish appetizing store in the Bronx.

By all means, light up the grill. Pop the top off a brew—or a bottle of wine. Enjoy a fireworks show. And wave the flag. But please, think of the Fourth as more than a three-day holiday filled with summer merriment. Remember its human dimension.

Neil Diamond had good reason to write those four moving words, “They’re coming to America.” As someone born here, I pledge allegiance to the flag and the best it stands for—and to honor my immigrant ancestors by writing about the challenges still facing our nation.

May the ongoing battle to achieve true democracy and decency never come to shot and shell. 

Happy Fourth!

Please pass on this post.

Order my novel, TAKING STOCK (Kirkus Reviews starred selection) — or 2084 —in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com or iuniverse.com. Or from your favorite bookstore.