WASHINGTON - On November 1, 1950, Tibor Rubin was taken captive in North Korea by the Chinese enemy. With an injured left hand and shrapnel lodged in his chest, he was forced to march the long distance to the Prisoner of War camp. There, for many long months, Rubin stood out among his comrades as a hero, stealing out of the camp each night to obtain food, just as he had done five years earlier, as a Hungarian child in a Nazi concentration camp.

"I am happy to announce," President George Bush said on Wednesday, "that next week I will bestow upon this great patriot our nation's highest award for bravery, the Medal of Honor." Bush briefly recounted the hero's story, without mentioning the long years when recognition of the Jew's bravery had been denied.

Bush spoke at a national dinner which was the culminating event of the Celebration of 350 years of Jewish Life in America. A crowd of almost 1,000, bedecked in tuxedos and ball gowns, mixed in the foyer of the National History Building. A "grand finale" of an eventful year, Rabbi Dr. Gary Zola, the chairman of the organizing committee, called it.

When Zola is not organizing celebrations he is Executive Director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, one of four institutions that joined to mark this historical anniversary together with the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), the U.S. National Archives, and the Library of Congress.

"In all of Jewish History there has been no Diaspora as successful as American Jewry," he says. And this is certainly cause for celebration. The president spoke in similar terms on Wednesday, mentioning the famous letter sent by George Washington to the Jewish Community in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790, where he wrote that "The United States gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution, no assistance." And Bush said, "in the centuries that followed, the stock of Abraham has thrived here like nowhere else." President Bush's attendance of the event, said Kenneth Bialkin, Chairman of the Board of the AJHS, "reminds us of the need to preserve and protect both our country and our Jewish tradition."

The celebrations began in September 2004, the date marking 350 years to the arrival of a group of Jews from Brazil aboard a boat destined for New Amsterdam. The year's events included a bill passed in Congress, a presidential announcement, a wandering historical exhibit, and a wealth of educational and community activities. "Jews' influence on the general culture in America was vast," says Zola, "even though we are a small percentage of the population." Is the golden age behind us? He doesn't know. But history, and its recitation, have an important role in Jewish survival. If we want to celebrate 400 years, we have to continue to remind and remember.

In coming to celebrate with the Jews, Bush is following in his predecessors' footsteps. Twice in the past century Jews have celebrated in this fashion: In 1905, the 250 year celebration was dignified by the attendance of President Teddy Roosevelt, and in 1954, the 300 year celebration was attended by Dwight Eisenhower. In the U.S., three presidents - incidentally all of whom were Republican - constitute a tradition.

In the meantime, it has been 50 years since Eisenhower, and a little more than 50 years since Rubin was taken prisoner, and 20 years since his friends began the campaign to grant him the Congressional Medal of Honor. They believed he had been discriminated against because of his Jewishness, and collected thousands of signatures in their cause. Senator John McCain passed the Rubin Bill in 1988, and in 2001 Congress said that the Pentagon should reexamine the files of Jewish heroes, leading to the belated acknowledgment of Rubin's bravery. Bush didn't relate this tale in his speech, but it is sufficient to prove that the story of American Jewry is not only one of exceptional thriving.