There can be no divided allegiance here

“There can be no divided allegiance here” is the opening declaration of a passage Lionel Bengelsdorf frequently quoted in support of his call for Americanization. Joined to the image of a single flag, it turns national belonging into an absolute test: a person cannot claim to be American while also claiming another allegiance. In the novel, the phrase distills Bengelsdorf’s public argument that American ideals should take priority for Jews and that Americanization would help preserve democracy.

Wording and Context

Bengelsdorf quoted the words from a former president’s final message to the nation. The full passage states: “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag.” Its sequence moves from a rule against divided allegiance to a categorical judgment about who qualifies as American, then closes with the flag as a visible emblem of national unity.

The declaration does not stand alone in Bengelsdorf’s speeches. He described the development of American ideals as the first priority for Jews and promoted the Americanization of Americans as a means of defending democracy against Bolshevism, radicalism, and anarchism. The quotation gives that program a sharp formulation: national identity is presented not as something that can coexist with another identity, but as an exclusive claim.

Bengelsdorf’s Public Use

By 1940, Bengelsdorf had the longest record of service at his own temple of any rabbi in America. Newspapers called him the religious leader of New Jersey Jewry and regularly noted both his gift for oratory and his command of ten languages. His public standing was built through repeated appearances, from annual invocations at Memorial Day and Fourth of July parades to speeches in Newark churches and public schools and addresses to civic, cultural, historical, and fraternal groups around the state and country.

The quotation belonged to that broad civic platform. Bengelsdorf spoke on Americanization before audiences extending well beyond his congregation, and his speeches were reported from cities across the country. His repetition of the passage linked his religious authority to a patriotic argument: the preservation of democracy, as he framed it, required Americans to reject divided allegiance.

Meaning and Tension

The phrase’s force comes from its refusal of qualification. Its first sentence sounds like a general civic principle; the sentences that follow define the principle as a test of personal identity, with no room for an additional affiliation. Bengelsdorf used that uncompromising language while urging Jews to make American ideals their priority, so the quotation exposes the pressure built into his vision of acceptance: belonging is affirmed through assimilation and the renunciation of divided loyalties.

That tension is especially pointed in a speaker who was himself a rabbi addressing Jewish life in public. The words offered a language of unity and democratic defense, but their absolute terms also narrowed the meaning of American identity. In Bengelsdorf’s hands, the flag becomes more than a patriotic image: it stands for a national belonging that permits only one allegiance.