July 11, 2024 • 39 mins
The California gold rush enticed many Jewish merchants west in search of prosperity in the mid-19th century, but their success drew unwelcome attention from state legislators, who passed laws requiring all businesses to close on the Christian Sabbath. Meanwhile, in the early Jim Crow South, Jewish peddlers and landowners faced resentment and violence, sometimes lethal.
Featuring: Jeremy Zeitlin, David Sehat, Rachel Kranson, Zev Eleff, Jonathan Sarna, and Patrick Mason
Narrated by Mark Oppenheimer
Written by John Turner and Lincoln Mullen
This series is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the David Bruce Smith Foundation.
Antisemitism, U.S.A. is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Oppenheimer (00:00):
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
Man, street parking in bigcities, it's horrible. Spots are
hard to find. And even if youget lucky, you still need a bag
(00:22):
of quarters or you have to workwith one of those cumbersome
parking apps on your phone. Butnot if it's Sunday. Whether
you're in Sacramento or Seattle,Atlanta or Boston, you don't
have to feed the meter onSunday. You can stay in that
parking spot as long as you darnwell please. You can park your
(00:43):
car and sleep in it all day, andnever feed the meter. Not even
once. Because on Sundays parkingis free. Nobody objects to free
parking. But there are someother Sunday laws that are more
controversial. For example, insome parts of the country on
Sundays, you can't buy a beer.You can't even shoot a deer. And
(01:07):
in some places car dealershipshave to close. These Sunday
restrictions have a longhistory. Originally, they were
pretty strict. Take the earlyJamestown settlement. A 1611 Law
forbade any violation of theSabbath by gaming at home or in
public. And every man and womanhad to attend church on Sunday,
(01:31):
twice. Repeat offenders could bewhipped or even executed. Many
places did enforce laws againstprofaning the Sabbath, no work,
no commerce, and overtime forreasons that remain fuzzy, these
statutes came to be known asblue laws. These blue laws can
(01:51):
be baffling. After all, how didSunday even become the Sabbath?
Isn't the Sabbath from sundownon Friday until nightfall on
Saturday evening. That's theoriginal Sabbath, the Jewish
Sabbath. Early Christians beganworshipping on Sundays, which
they called the Lord's day, outof their belief that Jesus had
(02:11):
risen from the dead on a Sunday.Over time they conflated these
two terms, the Sabbath and theLord's Day. So when Christians
passed laws to protect theSabbath, and keep it holy, they
meant Sunday. Theire Sabbath,their day of rest. Through the
middle of the 20th century, manyAmerican states and communities
(02:31):
had laws that shut down mostbusinesses on Sundays. Most
workers were grateful for a dayof rest, although they might be
annoyed that they couldn't spendit at the saloon. But the blue
laws were particularlyproblematic for one group of
citizens, Jewish Americans,because the Sunday was not their
Sabbath. So if they wereobservant, they had to close on
(02:53):
Saturday, and then again becauseof the Christian blue laws on
Sunday. And this became a pointof tension.
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
(03:16):
podcast about the history ofantisemitism in the United
States. Episode Three, Merchantsand Money. In our last episode,
we talked about the exclusion ofJews from citizenship rights,
and exclusion rooted in theChristian European sense of Jews
as religious outsiders. In thisepisode, we're talking about
(03:39):
economic stereotypes andresentments. These prejudices
and tropes also had a longhistory in Europe. And they took
root in American culture aswell. By the middle of the 19th
century, Jewish immigration tothe US had accelerated. What had
been an American Jewishpopulation of a few thousand at
the start of the century, by theCivil War had grown to around
(04:02):
50,000. Most of them were Germanspeaking Jews from Central
Europe. After the discovery ofgold in California, thousands of
these new arrivals joined otherAmericans heading west seeking
their fortune. Many Jewishsettlers in California were
merchants setting up shops intowns and cities. By the 1870s,
(04:23):
Jews made up nearly 10% of SanFrancisco's booming population.
There were so many Jewish ownedtextile warehouses in the heart
of San Francisco, that otherresidents just call them "Jew
shops." California was a prettygood place to be Jewish. The mix
of peoples including NativeAmericans, free African
Americans, and Chineseimmigrants, ensured that Jews
(04:46):
were closer to the top of thesocial hierarchy than the
bottom. There also wasn't muchof a Protestant establishment to
hold them down. But asCalifornia's white population
grew, its political leaderstalked about passing a Sunday
Closing law. Here's JeremyZeitlin, a California lawyer who
has researched the history ofthe state's closing laws.
Jeremy Zeitlin (05:08):
If Sunday closing laws are about
consolidating how a communityacts, folks that you see who are
sort of outside the community,you know, the I don't want to
milk a stereotype like thepassing Jewish peddler like,
well, he's not part of thecommunity ever anyway, so why
should we let his alienconsiderations affect the way we
(05:28):
build our communities. And Ithink Sunday closing laws,
that's what they're about.They're about consolidating a
wholesome Christian life.
Mark Oppenheimer (05:38):
California's politicians knew that such a law
would disadvantage Jews. And forsome state leaders that was
precisely the point. It was afeature, not a bug.
Jeremy Zeitlin (05:48):
Some folks understood that if they,
Christian business owners, wereforced to close down they would
lose business on Sunday to aJewish shopkeeper.
Mark Oppenheimer (06:00):
In 1855, as the California Legislature
considered a Sunday closing law,Speaker of the Assembly, William
Stowe stated that he had quote,"no sympathy with the Jews."
They "ought to respect the lawand opinions of the majority."
He said, they were "a class ofpeople who only came here to
make money and leave as soon asthey had." Stowe was pointing
(06:22):
the finger in the wrongdirection. Jews were actually
far more likely than non Jews tostay in California permanently.
But nativism was a powerfulpolitical force in the mid
1850s. For the most part,Nativists were Protestants upset
at the tide of Catholicimmigration from Ireland. Stowe
probably didn't like Catholics,but he also wanted to discourage
(06:44):
more Jews from coming toCalifornia.
Stowe said, quote, "I am for aJew tax that is so high that
Jews would not be able tooperate any more shops." In a
sense, a Sunday closing lawwould function like Stowe's
desire to Jew tax, makingobservant Jews close their shops
an extra day each week. Becausemany Californians were
(07:06):
indifferent to the ChristianSabbath, the proposed 1855 law
didn't pass. But the legislaturereturned to it several years
later. Again, there wasdiscussion of how a Sunday
closing law would harm Jewishbusinesses. An article in the
Sacramento Bee newspaperexplained that "it is
particularly hard upon Hebrews,as they have a Sabbath of their
(07:26):
own to keep and are by this lawof force to keep the Christian
Sabbath also." Ignoring sucharguments, the legislature in
1858 passed a law that requiredthat "no person shall on the
Christian Sabbath, keep open anystore, warehouse, mechanic shop,
workshop, banking house, ormanufacturing establishment, or
(07:48):
sell any goods wares ormerchandise on that day."
After it passed, the SacramentoBee reported that "the Hebrews
intend to test the law at anearly date." Morris Newman
became the test case. Newman wasborn in present day Poland
(08:09):
around 1810. After coming to theStates, he lived in Texas for a
while, then migrated toCalifornia, where he and his
wife had the last of their fourchildren. He established himself
in Sacramento. He was a trusteeat congregation B'nai Israel,
the oldest congregation in town.He didn't own any land, but he
ran a clothing shop. In 1860, hetold census officials that he
(08:33):
was worth around $2,000. Hewasn't wealthy, but he was doing
well. Days after the new bluelaw passed, Newman was arrested
for violating the law by keepinghis shop open on a Sunday, and
he was fined $50. For refusingto pay the fine, he was
sentenced to a month in jail. Hepetitioned the court for release
(08:56):
by challenging the law'sconstitutionality, and the
California Supreme Court agreedto hear the case. One of
Newman's attorneys was SolomonHeydenfelt one of the most
prominent Jews in Californiapolitics. After coming within a
hair's breadth of a US Senateseat in 1851, he got a seat on
the state Supreme Court as aconsolation prize.
(09:19):
Newman's legal team argued thatthe Sunday closing law infringed
on their clients religiousfreedom. The California
constitution guaranteed "freeexercise and enjoyment of
religious profession and worshipwithout discrimination or
preference." This blue law waspretty obviously discriminatory.
"Under this act," the lawyersmaintained "the Jew can only
(09:41):
labor five days but theChristian six." Heydenfelt
pointed to the clear religiouspurpose of the law. The statute
after all, was called "an actfor the better observance of the
Sabbath." And they didn't meanthe Jewish Sabbath. But
attorneys for the stateemphasized that the law had a
secular purpose. Look, they saidit gives everyone a day of rest.
(10:04):
The law didn't stop Newman fromclosing his shop on Saturday and
attending services at B'naiIsrael. The state also noted
that many other states such asPennsylvania, had upheld the
constitutionality of Sabbathobservance laws. Not
coincidentally, it was a Jewishmerchant, Abraham Wolf, who had
challenged the Pennsylvania law.Here's his story and David
(10:26):
Sehat, author of This EarthlyFrame: The Making of American
Secularism.
David Sehat (10:32):
And there were various Jews who challenged
these laws in court. And whatthey were told constantly is you
can absolutely close your shopon Saturday. And it is not
discriminating against you tosay you also must keep it closed
on Sunday, because this is aChristian nation. And there was
really nothing that Jews coulddo to get around that. That was
(10:56):
the law of the land. That waswhat the courts kept telling
them. And so they either had toviolate their faith, or they had
to compete economically at adisadvantage by losing out that
business for two days ratherthan just one.
Mark Oppenheimer (11:08):
One would have expected California Supreme
Court to follow theseprecedents, but it didn't. A
split Court ruled in Newman'sfavor invalidating the act and
his jail sentence. Chief JusticeDavid Terry, writing for the
majority, declared himself infavor of "not only toleration,
Now for a while authorities didnot crack down on those who
(11:29):
but religious liberty in itslargest sense, a complete
separation between church andstate, and a perfect equality
without distinction between allreligious sects." And with that,
Morris Newman was allowed tokeep his clothing shop open on
Sundays, at least for threeyears. In 1861, the legislature
(11:52):
passed a very similar law andthis time, a non Jew ended up as
the test case. By then themakeup of the Supreme Court had
changed. Chief Justice DavidTerry, who had written the
opinion in the Newman case, hadshot a US senator in a duel, and
he'd had to resign his seat onthe court. It was still the semi
Wild West, but shooting senatorswas a bit too wild. Stephen
(12:15):
Field who had dissented in theNewman case was now the Chief
Justice. And the new courtupheld the Sabbath Observance
Act, stating that it onlycompelled citizens to rest not
to violate their consciences. SoMorris Newman's case became a
footnote rather than animportant precedent in Church
State law.
(12:39):
profaned the Sabbath, manysaloons just stayed open. But
then, officials in San Franciscomade a very unpopular attempt to
enforce the law. And it didn'twork. There were just too many
people breaking it and youcouldn't arrest them all. In
response, the Democratic Partysupported repealing the measure.
(13:00):
And that's what they did afterthey won a state election. That
made California the first statein the country to repeal a
Sunday closing law. Californialater passed a new law requiring
employers to give their workersone day of rest every seven
days. But the choice of whichday to rest was up to the boss,
not the workers. So were Sundayclosing laws anti Jewish? That
(13:24):
depends. sticking it to Jewishmerchants was one reason
California's politicians passedits Sabbath law. But in most
parts of the country, blue lawsweren't anti Jewish in their
intent. They could be in theirenforcement however. Laws were
sometimes selectively usedagainst Jews. In New York City,
policemen were known to demandbribes from Jewish businesses
(13:45):
wanting to stay open. Just asJews in Maryland and other
states had fought for the rightto vote and hold office, Jews in
California and elsewhere, soughtrights that they understood as
inherent to citizenship,including the right to observe
their own Sabbath. MorrisNewman's victory in court was a
relatively rare one in the 19thcentury. In fact, Jews and other
(14:10):
religious minorities never didpersuade the US Supreme Court
that Sunday closing laws wereunconstitutional. Blue laws
gradually withered away becauseAmerican Christians stopped
observing their own Sabbath.They wanted to shop and drink on
Sunday, and so Jews got to aswell. We'll be back with more
(14:31):
after the break.
The story goes that whetherJewish immigrants came with
(14:55):
nothing or came with just just alittle, they made it here. For
Jews United States wasdifferent. There just wasn't
that much anti semitism holdingJews back. And there's a lot of
truth to that story. Not that itwas easy to be a poor Jewish
immigrant, but there were jobshere, and there was room for
upward mobility. Here'shistorian Rachel Kranson, author
of the book Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in (15:18):
undefined
Postwar America.
Rachel Kranson (15:24):
Generally speaking, most of the Jews
living in the United Statestoday are the descendants of the
nearly 3 million Jews who leftEastern Europe between 1870 and
1924 when the Johnson-Reed Actrestricted migration from
eastern and southern Europe, andthe Jewish immigrants who came
(15:47):
from Eastern Europe, for themost part came to the United
States in dire poverty, havingsold most of their assets just
to make the journey and most ofthese immigrants did not have
much English they didn't havemuch of a secular education and
they worked at the margins ofthe American economy. They found
their first jobs as factoryworkers often in the garment
(16:09):
industry or in petty retailpeddling or or selling from
pushcarts and some alsosupplemented their income by
taking in borders of newerimmigrants and had them pay rent
to live in their slumapartments, and charging rent
for room and board.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:29):
Because the children and grandchildren of
those immigrants had moreeducational opportunities, and
because many of them succeededeconomically, it's easy to
presume that Jews were on asmooth, easy path of upward
mobility. But it's not thatsimple.
American Jews faced significantforms of discrimination and they
(16:51):
weren't alone. Italian Americansdid too, as Irish Americans had
in earlier decades. In 1882,Congress banned new Chinese
immigrants from entering thecountry at all. Jews faced
challenges, barriers, andimpediments to success, some
legal, some financial, and someviolent. Many American Jewish
(17:12):
men got their start by peddling.Here's historian Zev Eleff,
author of Who Rules theSynagogue: Religious Authority
and the Formation of AmericanJudaism.
Zev Eleff (17:21):
Jews had an outsized role in peddling. Very often, a
Jew from Eisenstadt would arriveby sail. Usually, ahem, usually
men, single men came singlewomen generally did not and
married men preceded theirfamilies in migrating to the new
world in the 19th century. Jewswould come they would meet a
(17:44):
Landsman meaning somebody thatthey recognize that they knew
from their village in southernGermany, and they would maybe
get some tips on how to peddle,maybe they would be able to
purchase certain lotions ororanges at wholesale, and they
would build up a pack, theywould take their business
(18:05):
because after all, if I'm fromEisenstadt, and I meet somebody
else, and I've been here for acouple of weeks, I'm not about
to sell my Landsmann, lotions,whatever, for him to peddle in
my area. Go off to Cincinnati,go to Cleveland, go to Chicago,
go down south to Mobile,Alabama. And they created
(18:27):
networks, social and economicnetworks with one another, which
was pivotal in the economictransformation of Jews in this
country. It also entrenchedcertain ideas of how Jews did
business.
Mark Oppenheimer (18:43):
You heard what Eleff just said certain ideas
about how Jews did business.What were those ideas? Well,
they go way, way back. Inmedieval and early modern
Europe, a disproportionatenumber of Jews had become
merchants, moneylenders andbankers. Why? Well, it's a long
and complicated history. It'snot the case that Christians
(19:06):
forced Jews to becomemoneylenders. And it's also not
the case that most Jews weremoneylenders, let alone wealthy
moneylenders. But it is truethat the church sometimes
enforced prohibitions on usuryor lending money at excessive
rates and interest. And duringthose campaigns, Jews often were
scapegoated, sometimes asgrounds for their expulsion. One
(19:26):
thing is clear, Christiansdeveloped harsh and persistent
stereotypes about Jewishmerchants and bankers. The most
famous example is the characterShylock. In Shakespeare's play,
The Merchant of Venice,
Zev Eleff (19:39):
Shakespeare created one of the most important
documents of anti Jewishprejudice with The Merchant of
Venice. The caricature ofShylock, images of him with a
long nose, obviously beingdeeply concerned about financial
windfall at the expense ofhonesty and morality. In all
(20:00):
likelihood, William Shakespearenever met a Jew.
Mark Oppenheimer (20:04):
In the play, Shylock takes revenge on a
hateful Christian merchant.Instead of charging this man
interest on a loan hedesperately needs, Shylock
forces him to accept a bond of apound of flesh if he defaulted
on his loan. And Shylock wasn'tthe worst depiction of a Jew in
English literature. Chaucer,Marlowe, and Dunn all referred
(20:26):
to Jews murdering Christians.
The image of the greedy andcruel Jewish merchant and banker
became a key part of the wayEuropean and American Christians
thought about Jews. AndAmericans apply these ideas to
all sorts of Jews from wealthybankers to lowly peddlers to
(20:46):
modest shopkeepers. In the mid19th century, RG Dunn and
Company became a national creditagency, providing information
about individuals and businessesto its customers, telling people
who was credit worthy and whowasn't. RG Dunn relied on local
correspondents for itsinformation, and some of these
(21:07):
informants betrayed anunmistakable animus against
Jews. Historian David Gerberread through the files for
Buffalo, New York, which by the1850s had a small Jewish
community. What Gerber found inRG Dunn's reports was an
American updating of the oldtrope of Jewish bankers and
merchants. They were depicted asgreedy and cruel and dishonest,
(21:31):
particularly toward non Jews.Here's a sampling of the
different reasons provided forwhy Jews were not deemed a
credit worthy,
Buffalo Resident #1 (21:41):
Is a Jew, and will pay or not as he
pleases.
Buffalo Resident #2 (21:46):
Prudence in large transactions with all Jews
should be used.
Buffalo Resident #3 (21:51):
Responsible now but is a Jew. There is no
telling him how long he willremain so.
Buffalo Resident #4 (21:58):
Are Jews and should not be allowed to get
behind.
Buffalo Resident #5 (22:02):
Good, but Hebrew good.
Buffalo Resident #6 (22:05):
He is a Jew. And although in point of
fact, he may now be perfectlyresponsible. Yet Jews have a
wonderful faculty of becoming atalmost any moment they choose,
entirely irresponsible.
Mark Oppenheimer (22:18):
These reports advised against giving credit to
Jewish merchants, or suggestedthat Jews only be advanced small
amounts of money. Jews weren'tthe only group singled out.
Irish Americans, for instance,were presumed to be at a high
risk of failure. But as Gerbernotes, Jewish merchants were in
a double bind. It wasn't thatthe credit agency's informants
(22:41):
necessarily thought Jewishbusinesses would fail. It was
that Jewish merchants couldn'tbe trusted. So whether they
succeeded or failed, otherAmericans should view them with
suspicion.
And these stereotypes hadconsequences. In California,
Morris Newman and other Jews hadto close on Sundays. In Buffalo,
(23:05):
Jewish merchants struggled toget loans. Here's another one of
those consequences. In 1862,during the Civil War, General
Ulysses S. Grant issued hisgeneral order number 11. The
order read
Ulysses S. Grant (23:20):
the Jews as a class, violating every
regulation of trade establishedby the Treasury Department and
also department orders arehereby expelled from the
department within 24 hours fromreceipt of this order.
Mark Oppenheimer (23:35):
This order expelled all Jews from Grant's
Military District, whichincluded large portions of
Mississippi, Tennessee andKentucky. Why would Grant issue
such an order? Here's historianJonathan Sarna, author of
American Judaism (23:48):
A History.
Jonathan Sarana (23:51):
General Grant, like other generals, at that
time, believed that smugglingwas a huge problem that was
prolonging the war. If you couldcut off smuggling, the South
would not have the money tocontinue its war effort. And to
(24:17):
his mind, the word smuggler andthe word Jew were synonyms.
Indeed, the tendency was toblame Jews, not just for
smuggling, but for a whole rangeof Civil War era problems,
(24:38):
shoddy goods, Jews. And thereare other similar kinds of
problems that were blamed andplaced on the shoulders of Jews.
And of course, there were Jewswho were smuggling and cheating
(24:59):
and delivering shoddymerchandise, so that allowed you
to reinforce the stereotype.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:11):
There were some Jews involved in smuggling
cotton, which often meantbribing Union Army officers. But
not all smugglers were Jews. Infact, Grant's own father was
complicit in smuggling. ButGeneral Grant blamed Jews as a
class.
Jonathan Sarana (25:26):
It is the most notorious, official act of anti
semitism in all of AmericanJewish history. And there's
nothing comparable really, wherethere is an order against Jews
as a class.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:48):
It was a throwback to the medieval
expulsion orders rooted instereotypes about usurious
Jewish moneylenders. In the end,Grant's order had little effect.
Though some Jews were expelledfrom a few communities,
Confederate attacks on telegraphlines delayed the order's
transmission to most of Grant'ssubordinates, so they never
heard about it. And Jews who gotwind of the order immediately
(26:11):
appealed to the highestauthority in the land. President
Abraham Lincoln overturnedGrant's order within two weeks.
Shortly after his 1868 electionto the presidency, Grant wrote a
letter that served as a publicapology:
Ulysses S. Grant (26:27):
I have no prejudice against sect or race,
but want each individual to bejudged by his own merit. Order
Number 11 does not sustain thisstatement, I admit, but that I
do not sustain that order.
Mark Oppenheimer (26:42):
Then shortly before he left the White House,
Grant attended the dedication ofWashington's Adas Israel
Synagogue and made a donation tothe congregation. Numerous
Jewish leaders praised Grant forthe steps he took to make amends
for his expulsion order. Grant'sorder is exceptional in US
history, but his suspicionsabout Jewish merchants were
(27:02):
common. They were present fromSan Francisco to the deep south
to the northeast. By 1890, therewere more than 20,000 Jews in
the former states of theConfederacy, with established
communities in Charleston andNew Orleans and a growing
community in Atlanta. Jews alsohad shops and warehouses in
small cities and towns acrossthe region, from which merchants
(27:25):
took their wares into ruralareas. Historian Patrick Mason
has written widely aboutviolence in the 19th century
against religious minorities.
Patrick Mason (27:35):
In the late 19th century south you had a number
of Jewish peddlers who wereitinerant salesmen, they were
traveling salesman itinerantmerchants, they would live in
one place oftentimes in a smalltown or a city somewhere, they
would load up a wagon full ofgoods, and they would travel
(27:55):
especially to farms to verysmall towns, to reach people who
were in places that were toosmall to to have shops or
merchants to service them.
Mark Oppenheimer (28:08):
In the backwoods of the American South,
Jewish peddlers became a muchmore common sight after the
Civil War. It was the only waythat many southerners
encountered someone Jewish.
Patrick Mason (28:17):
The southern economy was pretty devastated
after the Civil War, and theSouth was still a very rural
region. So a lot of these smallfarmers who were scattered
around the countryside, theydidn't have access to a lot of
consumer goods, a lot of thingsthat were being produced and
available in cities. It wasoftentimes these Jewish
(28:39):
peddlers, and it wasn't onlyJewish peddlers, there were
other kind of traveling salesmanas well. But there was this
contingent of Jewish peddlerswho they usually weren't pulling
their own wagon that a horse ora donkey or something like that,
but they were literally justgoing house to house farm to
farm in some of these reallyremote areas in the South.
Mark Oppenheimer (28:59):
Abram Surasky was an immigrant peddler from
Poland. His brother had comeover first and established
himself as a merchant in Aiken,South Carolina, where he became
respected enough to serve oncity council for a decade. Abram
Surasky became a sort ofassistant to his older brother.
He took a horse drawn wagon intothe rural areas around Aiken
selling goods and collecting ondebts. On July 28 1903, Abram
(29:25):
didn't come back from hiscircuit. He stopped at the
residence of Lee and Dora Green.Only Dora Green was home and she
invited him inside. Not longthereafter, Lee Green returned
home and found his wife withSurasky.
Patrick Mason (29:41):
What's clear is that Surasky is brutally
murdered by Lee Green. He's shotmultiple times, and then
actually hacked to death by anaxe. So it's a horrific,
horrific murder. And there areno other eyewitnesses other than
(30:01):
the wife Dora Green. This wentto court the following year in
1904. And we actually have greatrecords and affidavits and
testimony from various people.And a number of people say that
immediately after the murder,Lee Green told them he had
killed Surasky. He alwaysadmitted to the murder.
Mark Oppenheimer (30:24):
Lee Green wasn't very good at covering his
tracks. He tried to hide thewagon and the body would soon
had vultures circling above it.He asked Mary Drayton, an
African American neighbor toclean the blood. Lead Green also
tore out of Surasky's accountbook, the pages that recorded
his debt. In court, Lee Greentestified that he saw Surasky
(30:47):
attempting to seduce his wife.Enraged by this crime, he shot
the peddler.
Dora Green backed her husbandup. It was a dishonest but very
shrewd defense. Other witnessestold different stories. Green
had shot at another peddler notlong before he killed Surasky.
Mary Drayton, the neighbor whohad cleaned up the blood
(31:10):
testified that several weeksearlier, Lee Green had told her
husband that he intended to killSurasky. She also testified that
she had overheard Green talkingto a neighbor about concocting
the story that Surasky wastrying to rape his wife. And it
worked. A jury acquitted LeeGreen.
(31:31):
The Surasky murder took place ata time of increased violence
against Jews in the rural south.
Patrick Mason (31:36):
I spent a summer basically going from archive to
archive throughout the south,just seeing what I could find.
And as I did, so a number ofthese cases emerge. I'm
confident that there are manymore cases that I didn't find
either that went unrecorded orthat I just didn't come across.
But I was able to find a coupleof dozen of serious instances of
(31:59):
violence against Jews in thelate 19th century south. It
pales compared of course toviolence against African
Americans where we know thatthere's over 2000 lynchings
during this same time period,and then countless acts of non
lethal violence. But it's stillnot nothing. And it's more than
we knew before.
Mark Oppenheimer (32:19):
Some of these were just acts of violence by
individuals like Lee Green, butothers were more organized, and
they grew out of a toxic stew ofracism and economic resentment.
It's a complicated story. But ina nutshell, white southern
farmers resented merchants,farmers would sometimes mortgage
(32:40):
their land to obtain credit fromthese merchants, and when they
couldn't pay back, they wouldlose their land to the
merchants. And those merchants,having foreclosed on the
farmer's land, sometimes leasedit to black tenant farmers.
White farmers then complainedthat this amounted to unfair
competition.
Some of the merchants involvedwere Jewish, and many of those
(33:01):
white farmers came to understandthemselves as victims of a
Jewish conspiracy. Thesecircumstances fueled the
populist movement in Americanpolitics, and the mix of racial
and economic resentment led tothe rise of vigilante groups
known as white caps. Thesesecret societies mostly attacked
black farmers in attempts todrive them off their land, but
(33:22):
white cappers also targetedJewish merchants and landowners.
Patrick Mason (33:25):
A lot of these vigilante groups are sort of
harkening back to the Ku KluxKlan. So they call themselves
the white caps. And when theyattack people, it's called White
capping them. They specificallygo after Jewish landowners. They
complain of the fact that Jewsown so much land. It's these
long standing stereotypes of theJewish banker, the Jewish
(33:47):
moneylender, the oppressiveJewish merchant, that's always
charging too high of interestrates or ripping people off or
pursuing unfair businesspractices.
Mark Oppenheimer (33:58):
Vigilantes were trying to use violence and
intimidation to do the thingthat General Grant had tried to
do with his order number 11. GetJews out of town. Here's an
example of a Jewish merchantwith the last name Hiller. His
first name is unknown, but weknow that Hiller immigrated from
Europe and settled in Summit,Mississippi in the 1850s. He did
(34:20):
very well and he owned 400 smallfarms, most of which he had
obtained through foreclosures.Black tenants worked on many of
Hiller's farms. In November1892, whitecaps burned 27 houses
on Hiller's farms. Night ridersthreatened to kill Hiller's
agents. Many of his tenants fledand Hiller himself moved to New
(34:44):
Orleans. A well organized effortdrove Hiller out of what had
been his home for four decades.Here's another example.
Patrick Mason (34:55):
Early Saturday afternoon, October 25 1889, a
large party of armed men rodeinto the northeastern Louisiana
city of Delhi. Not far fromwhere Simon Witkowski had been
violently driven from town twoyears previous. The mob fired
their pistols into the showcasesand front windows of the Jewish
(35:16):
owned mercantile establishmentsin the town, discharging about
50 shots into T Hirsch'sstorefront window, smashing S
Bloom and Company and sendingbricks through the windows of
Karp, Wile and Company.Threatening the Jewish store
owners and putting them interror for their lives, the
(35:37):
rioters ordered them to leavethe place within the next 12 to
15 hours, then rode away as fastas they had come. The
townspeople who were friendly tothe Jewish merchants, expressed
a general regret over theincident, and their disapproval
of the mob's activities probablyprotected the merchants from
(35:58):
further harm, at least in termsof making empty threats of
expulsion. Although theattackers were not publicly
identified in the newspapers,their identities must have been
known, since it was immediatelyascertained that the motivation
behind the violence was that themerchants held mortgages on the
land of many small farmers inthe area, and that certain
(36:20):
debtors in the neighborhood werebanded together to run their
creditors away.
Mark Oppenheimer (36:25):
Some residents of Delhi, Louisiana were
outraged by the violence. But alot of people in town thought
the Jews had it coming. OneDelhi woman told a newspaper
that Jewish stores had refusedto hire non Jewish clerks, and
that Jewish merchants wereparasites who took the town's
money and kept it forthemselves. This sort of
(36:46):
southern vigilantism peaked inthe late 1880s and early 1890s.
And white cappers and othervigilantes were more likely to
kill or brutalize black tenantsthan Jewish merchants. But there
were Jewish stores with bulletsthrough their windows, and the
economic resentments shaped theway that many Americans thought
about Jews and money.
(37:11):
The history of American Judaismis full of paradoxes. We've been
discussing white capping in therural American South. At the
same time, there were widespreadpogroms in Russia. There was an
imperial decree ordering theexpulsion of Jews from Moscow in
1891. So for good reason,American Jews saw what happened
in Delhi, Louisiana as anisolated exception. They were
(37:33):
grateful that America was notlike Eastern Europe. Usually
there was outward civilitybetween Jews and other
Americans, whether in SanFrancisco or South Carolina,
Solomon Heydenfelt served on theCalifornia Supreme Court. Abram
Surasky's brother was on theAiken City Council. At the same
time, there were deep rootedsuspicions and misgivings about
(37:54):
Jews, especially Jewishmerchants, bankers, and
businessmen. Whether in postGold Rush California in the US
Army, in the RG Dunn creditagency, or in the backwoods and
small towns of the South, thesemisgivings lead to
discrimination, and sometimesmuch worse. These suspicions
(38:16):
about Jewish merchants andbankers grew into fears about a
worldwide conspiracy. One inwhich rich and powerful Jews
conspired to bring about thedownfall of Western civilization
through revolution and war. Atthe same time, Europeans and
Americans were developing newideas about Jews as a diseased
and dangerous race. And thatcombination of conspiracy
(38:39):
theories and anti Jewish racismushered in the most anti semitic
era in American history.
Thank you for listening toAntiSemitism, U.S.A. It's a
production of R2 Studios part ofthe Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
(39:01):
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism,U.S.A. is written by John Turner
and Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevisis our lead scholar Jim Ambuske
is our producer, JeanettePatrick is our executive
producer. We'd like to thank ZevEleff for being our lead advisor
and we'd like to thank ouradvisory board members Laura
(39:23):
Shaw Frank, Riv-Ellen Prell, andJonathan Sarna. Our graduate
assistants are Rachel Birch,Alexandra Miller and Amber
Pelham. Our thanks to JeremyZeitlin, David Sehat, Rachel
Kranson, Zev Eleff, JonathanSarna, and Patrick Mason for
sharing their expertise in thisepisode. We're able to bring you
this show through the generosityof the Henry Luce Foundation,
the David Bruce Smith Foundationand many individual donors like
(39:45):
you. Thank you for listening,and we hope you'll join us for
the next episode.
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
Man, street parking in bigcities, it's horrible. Spots are
hard to find. And even if youget lucky, you still need a bag
(00:22):
of quarters or you have to workwith one of those cumbersome
parking apps on your phone. Butnot if it's Sunday. Whether
you're in Sacramento or Seattle,Atlanta or Boston, you don't
have to feed the meter onSunday. You can stay in that
parking spot as long as you darnwell please. You can park your
(00:43):
car and sleep in it all day, andnever feed the meter. Not even
once. Because on Sundays parkingis free. Nobody objects to free
parking. But there are someother Sunday laws that are more
controversial. For example, insome parts of the country on
Sundays, you can't buy a beer.You can't even shoot a deer. And
(01:07):
in some places car dealershipshave to close. These Sunday
restrictions have a longhistory. Originally, they were
pretty strict. Take the earlyJamestown settlement. A 1611 Law
forbade any violation of theSabbath by gaming at home or in
public. And every man and womanhad to attend church on Sunday,
(01:31):
twice. Repeat offenders could bewhipped or even executed. Many
places did enforce laws againstprofaning the Sabbath, no work,
no commerce, and overtime forreasons that remain fuzzy, these
statutes came to be known asblue laws. These blue laws can
(01:51):
be baffling. After all, how didSunday even become the Sabbath?
Isn't the Sabbath from sundownon Friday until nightfall on
Saturday evening. That's theoriginal Sabbath, the Jewish
Sabbath. Early Christians beganworshipping on Sundays, which
they called the Lord's day, outof their belief that Jesus had
(02:11):
risen from the dead on a Sunday.Over time they conflated these
two terms, the Sabbath and theLord's Day. So when Christians
passed laws to protect theSabbath, and keep it holy, they
meant Sunday. Theire Sabbath,their day of rest. Through the
middle of the 20th century, manyAmerican states and communities
(02:31):
had laws that shut down mostbusinesses on Sundays. Most
workers were grateful for a dayof rest, although they might be
annoyed that they couldn't spendit at the saloon. But the blue
laws were particularlyproblematic for one group of
citizens, Jewish Americans,because the Sunday was not their
Sabbath. So if they wereobservant, they had to close on
(02:53):
Saturday, and then again becauseof the Christian blue laws on
Sunday. And this became a pointof tension.
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
(03:16):
podcast about the history ofantisemitism in the United
States. Episode Three, Merchantsand Money. In our last episode,
we talked about the exclusion ofJews from citizenship rights,
and exclusion rooted in theChristian European sense of Jews
as religious outsiders. In thisepisode, we're talking about
(03:39):
economic stereotypes andresentments. These prejudices
and tropes also had a longhistory in Europe. And they took
root in American culture aswell. By the middle of the 19th
century, Jewish immigration tothe US had accelerated. What had
been an American Jewishpopulation of a few thousand at
the start of the century, by theCivil War had grown to around
(04:02):
50,000. Most of them were Germanspeaking Jews from Central
Europe. After the discovery ofgold in California, thousands of
these new arrivals joined otherAmericans heading west seeking
their fortune. Many Jewishsettlers in California were
merchants setting up shops intowns and cities. By the 1870s,
(04:23):
Jews made up nearly 10% of SanFrancisco's booming population.
There were so many Jewish ownedtextile warehouses in the heart
of San Francisco, that otherresidents just call them "Jew
shops." California was a prettygood place to be Jewish. The mix
of peoples including NativeAmericans, free African
Americans, and Chineseimmigrants, ensured that Jews
(04:46):
were closer to the top of thesocial hierarchy than the
bottom. There also wasn't muchof a Protestant establishment to
hold them down. But asCalifornia's white population
grew, its political leaderstalked about passing a Sunday
Closing law. Here's JeremyZeitlin, a California lawyer who
has researched the history ofthe state's closing laws.
Jeremy Zeitlin (05:08):
If Sunday closing laws are about
consolidating how a communityacts, folks that you see who are
sort of outside the community,you know, the I don't want to
milk a stereotype like thepassing Jewish peddler like,
well, he's not part of thecommunity ever anyway, so why
should we let his alienconsiderations affect the way we
(05:28):
build our communities. And Ithink Sunday closing laws,
that's what they're about.They're about consolidating a
wholesome Christian life.
Mark Oppenheimer (05:38):
California's politicians knew that such a law
would disadvantage Jews. And forsome state leaders that was
precisely the point. It was afeature, not a bug.
Jeremy Zeitlin (05:48):
Some folks understood that if they,
Christian business owners, wereforced to close down they would
lose business on Sunday to aJewish shopkeeper.
Mark Oppenheimer (06:00):
In 1855, as the California Legislature
considered a Sunday closing law,Speaker of the Assembly, William
Stowe stated that he had quote,"no sympathy with the Jews."
They "ought to respect the lawand opinions of the majority."
He said, they were "a class ofpeople who only came here to
make money and leave as soon asthey had." Stowe was pointing
(06:22):
the finger in the wrongdirection. Jews were actually
far more likely than non Jews tostay in California permanently.
But nativism was a powerfulpolitical force in the mid
1850s. For the most part,Nativists were Protestants upset
at the tide of Catholicimmigration from Ireland. Stowe
probably didn't like Catholics,but he also wanted to discourage
(06:44):
more Jews from coming toCalifornia.
Stowe said, quote, "I am for aJew tax that is so high that
Jews would not be able tooperate any more shops." In a
sense, a Sunday closing lawwould function like Stowe's
desire to Jew tax, makingobservant Jews close their shops
an extra day each week. Becausemany Californians were
(07:06):
indifferent to the ChristianSabbath, the proposed 1855 law
didn't pass. But the legislaturereturned to it several years
later. Again, there wasdiscussion of how a Sunday
closing law would harm Jewishbusinesses. An article in the
Sacramento Bee newspaperexplained that "it is
particularly hard upon Hebrews,as they have a Sabbath of their
(07:26):
own to keep and are by this lawof force to keep the Christian
Sabbath also." Ignoring sucharguments, the legislature in
1858 passed a law that requiredthat "no person shall on the
Christian Sabbath, keep open anystore, warehouse, mechanic shop,
workshop, banking house, ormanufacturing establishment, or
(07:48):
sell any goods wares ormerchandise on that day."
After it passed, the SacramentoBee reported that "the Hebrews
intend to test the law at anearly date." Morris Newman
became the test case. Newman wasborn in present day Poland
(08:09):
around 1810. After coming to theStates, he lived in Texas for a
while, then migrated toCalifornia, where he and his
wife had the last of their fourchildren. He established himself
in Sacramento. He was a trusteeat congregation B'nai Israel,
the oldest congregation in town.He didn't own any land, but he
ran a clothing shop. In 1860, hetold census officials that he
(08:33):
was worth around $2,000. Hewasn't wealthy, but he was doing
well. Days after the new bluelaw passed, Newman was arrested
for violating the law by keepinghis shop open on a Sunday, and
he was fined $50. For refusingto pay the fine, he was
sentenced to a month in jail. Hepetitioned the court for release
(08:56):
by challenging the law'sconstitutionality, and the
California Supreme Court agreedto hear the case. One of
Newman's attorneys was SolomonHeydenfelt one of the most
prominent Jews in Californiapolitics. After coming within a
hair's breadth of a US Senateseat in 1851, he got a seat on
the state Supreme Court as aconsolation prize.
(09:19):
Newman's legal team argued thatthe Sunday closing law infringed
on their clients religiousfreedom. The California
constitution guaranteed "freeexercise and enjoyment of
religious profession and worshipwithout discrimination or
preference." This blue law waspretty obviously discriminatory.
"Under this act," the lawyersmaintained "the Jew can only
(09:41):
labor five days but theChristian six." Heydenfelt
pointed to the clear religiouspurpose of the law. The statute
after all, was called "an actfor the better observance of the
Sabbath." And they didn't meanthe Jewish Sabbath. But
attorneys for the stateemphasized that the law had a
secular purpose. Look, they saidit gives everyone a day of rest.
(10:04):
The law didn't stop Newman fromclosing his shop on Saturday and
attending services at B'naiIsrael. The state also noted
that many other states such asPennsylvania, had upheld the
constitutionality of Sabbathobservance laws. Not
coincidentally, it was a Jewishmerchant, Abraham Wolf, who had
challenged the Pennsylvania law.Here's his story and David
(10:26):
Sehat, author of This EarthlyFrame: The Making of American
Secularism.
David Sehat (10:32):
And there were various Jews who challenged
these laws in court. And whatthey were told constantly is you
can absolutely close your shopon Saturday. And it is not
discriminating against you tosay you also must keep it closed
on Sunday, because this is aChristian nation. And there was
really nothing that Jews coulddo to get around that. That was
(10:56):
the law of the land. That waswhat the courts kept telling
them. And so they either had toviolate their faith, or they had
to compete economically at adisadvantage by losing out that
business for two days ratherthan just one.
Mark Oppenheimer (11:08):
One would have expected California Supreme
Court to follow theseprecedents, but it didn't. A
split Court ruled in Newman'sfavor invalidating the act and
his jail sentence. Chief JusticeDavid Terry, writing for the
majority, declared himself infavor of "not only toleration,
Now for a while authorities didnot crack down on those who
(11:29):
but religious liberty in itslargest sense, a complete
separation between church andstate, and a perfect equality
without distinction between allreligious sects." And with that,
Morris Newman was allowed tokeep his clothing shop open on
Sundays, at least for threeyears. In 1861, the legislature
(11:52):
passed a very similar law andthis time, a non Jew ended up as
the test case. By then themakeup of the Supreme Court had
changed. Chief Justice DavidTerry, who had written the
opinion in the Newman case, hadshot a US senator in a duel, and
he'd had to resign his seat onthe court. It was still the semi
Wild West, but shooting senatorswas a bit too wild. Stephen
(12:15):
Field who had dissented in theNewman case was now the Chief
Justice. And the new courtupheld the Sabbath Observance
Act, stating that it onlycompelled citizens to rest not
to violate their consciences. SoMorris Newman's case became a
footnote rather than animportant precedent in Church
State law.
(12:39):
profaned the Sabbath, manysaloons just stayed open. But
then, officials in San Franciscomade a very unpopular attempt to
enforce the law. And it didn'twork. There were just too many
people breaking it and youcouldn't arrest them all. In
response, the Democratic Partysupported repealing the measure.
(13:00):
And that's what they did afterthey won a state election. That
made California the first statein the country to repeal a
Sunday closing law. Californialater passed a new law requiring
employers to give their workersone day of rest every seven
days. But the choice of whichday to rest was up to the boss,
not the workers. So were Sundayclosing laws anti Jewish? That
(13:24):
depends. sticking it to Jewishmerchants was one reason
California's politicians passedits Sabbath law. But in most
parts of the country, blue lawsweren't anti Jewish in their
intent. They could be in theirenforcement however. Laws were
sometimes selectively usedagainst Jews. In New York City,
policemen were known to demandbribes from Jewish businesses
(13:45):
wanting to stay open. Just asJews in Maryland and other
states had fought for the rightto vote and hold office, Jews in
California and elsewhere, soughtrights that they understood as
inherent to citizenship,including the right to observe
their own Sabbath. MorrisNewman's victory in court was a
relatively rare one in the 19thcentury. In fact, Jews and other
(14:10):
religious minorities never didpersuade the US Supreme Court
that Sunday closing laws wereunconstitutional. Blue laws
gradually withered away becauseAmerican Christians stopped
observing their own Sabbath.They wanted to shop and drink on
Sunday, and so Jews got to aswell. We'll be back with more
(14:31):
after the break.
The story goes that whetherJewish immigrants came with
(14:55):
nothing or came with just just alittle, they made it here. For
Jews United States wasdifferent. There just wasn't
that much anti semitism holdingJews back. And there's a lot of
truth to that story. Not that itwas easy to be a poor Jewish
immigrant, but there were jobshere, and there was room for
upward mobility. Here'shistorian Rachel Kranson, author
of the book Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in (15:18):
undefined
Postwar America.
Rachel Kranson (15:24):
Generally speaking, most of the Jews
living in the United Statestoday are the descendants of the
nearly 3 million Jews who leftEastern Europe between 1870 and
1924 when the Johnson-Reed Actrestricted migration from
eastern and southern Europe, andthe Jewish immigrants who came
(15:47):
from Eastern Europe, for themost part came to the United
States in dire poverty, havingsold most of their assets just
to make the journey and most ofthese immigrants did not have
much English they didn't havemuch of a secular education and
they worked at the margins ofthe American economy. They found
their first jobs as factoryworkers often in the garment
(16:09):
industry or in petty retailpeddling or or selling from
pushcarts and some alsosupplemented their income by
taking in borders of newerimmigrants and had them pay rent
to live in their slumapartments, and charging rent
for room and board.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:29):
Because the children and grandchildren of
those immigrants had moreeducational opportunities, and
because many of them succeededeconomically, it's easy to
presume that Jews were on asmooth, easy path of upward
mobility. But it's not thatsimple.
American Jews faced significantforms of discrimination and they
(16:51):
weren't alone. Italian Americansdid too, as Irish Americans had
in earlier decades. In 1882,Congress banned new Chinese
immigrants from entering thecountry at all. Jews faced
challenges, barriers, andimpediments to success, some
legal, some financial, and someviolent. Many American Jewish
(17:12):
men got their start by peddling.Here's historian Zev Eleff,
author of Who Rules theSynagogue: Religious Authority
and the Formation of AmericanJudaism.
Zev Eleff (17:21):
Jews had an outsized role in peddling. Very often, a
Jew from Eisenstadt would arriveby sail. Usually, ahem, usually
men, single men came singlewomen generally did not and
married men preceded theirfamilies in migrating to the new
world in the 19th century. Jewswould come they would meet a
(17:44):
Landsman meaning somebody thatthey recognize that they knew
from their village in southernGermany, and they would maybe
get some tips on how to peddle,maybe they would be able to
purchase certain lotions ororanges at wholesale, and they
would build up a pack, theywould take their business
(18:05):
because after all, if I'm fromEisenstadt, and I meet somebody
else, and I've been here for acouple of weeks, I'm not about
to sell my Landsmann, lotions,whatever, for him to peddle in
my area. Go off to Cincinnati,go to Cleveland, go to Chicago,
go down south to Mobile,Alabama. And they created
(18:27):
networks, social and economicnetworks with one another, which
was pivotal in the economictransformation of Jews in this
country. It also entrenchedcertain ideas of how Jews did
business.
Mark Oppenheimer (18:43):
You heard what Eleff just said certain ideas
about how Jews did business.What were those ideas? Well,
they go way, way back. Inmedieval and early modern
Europe, a disproportionatenumber of Jews had become
merchants, moneylenders andbankers. Why? Well, it's a long
and complicated history. It'snot the case that Christians
(19:06):
forced Jews to becomemoneylenders. And it's also not
the case that most Jews weremoneylenders, let alone wealthy
moneylenders. But it is truethat the church sometimes
enforced prohibitions on usuryor lending money at excessive
rates and interest. And duringthose campaigns, Jews often were
scapegoated, sometimes asgrounds for their expulsion. One
(19:26):
thing is clear, Christiansdeveloped harsh and persistent
stereotypes about Jewishmerchants and bankers. The most
famous example is the characterShylock. In Shakespeare's play,
The Merchant of Venice,
Zev Eleff (19:39):
Shakespeare created one of the most important
documents of anti Jewishprejudice with The Merchant of
Venice. The caricature ofShylock, images of him with a
long nose, obviously beingdeeply concerned about financial
windfall at the expense ofhonesty and morality. In all
(20:00):
likelihood, William Shakespearenever met a Jew.
Mark Oppenheimer (20:04):
In the play, Shylock takes revenge on a
hateful Christian merchant.Instead of charging this man
interest on a loan hedesperately needs, Shylock
forces him to accept a bond of apound of flesh if he defaulted
on his loan. And Shylock wasn'tthe worst depiction of a Jew in
English literature. Chaucer,Marlowe, and Dunn all referred
(20:26):
to Jews murdering Christians.
The image of the greedy andcruel Jewish merchant and banker
became a key part of the wayEuropean and American Christians
thought about Jews. AndAmericans apply these ideas to
all sorts of Jews from wealthybankers to lowly peddlers to
(20:46):
modest shopkeepers. In the mid19th century, RG Dunn and
Company became a national creditagency, providing information
about individuals and businessesto its customers, telling people
who was credit worthy and whowasn't. RG Dunn relied on local
correspondents for itsinformation, and some of these
(21:07):
informants betrayed anunmistakable animus against
Jews. Historian David Gerberread through the files for
Buffalo, New York, which by the1850s had a small Jewish
community. What Gerber found inRG Dunn's reports was an
American updating of the oldtrope of Jewish bankers and
merchants. They were depicted asgreedy and cruel and dishonest,
(21:31):
particularly toward non Jews.Here's a sampling of the
different reasons provided forwhy Jews were not deemed a
credit worthy,
Buffalo Resident #1 (21:41):
Is a Jew, and will pay or not as he
pleases.
Buffalo Resident #2 (21:46):
Prudence in large transactions with all Jews
should be used.
Buffalo Resident #3 (21:51):
Responsible now but is a Jew. There is no
telling him how long he willremain so.
Buffalo Resident #4 (21:58):
Are Jews and should not be allowed to get
behind.
Buffalo Resident #5 (22:02):
Good, but Hebrew good.
Buffalo Resident #6 (22:05):
He is a Jew. And although in point of
fact, he may now be perfectlyresponsible. Yet Jews have a
wonderful faculty of becoming atalmost any moment they choose,
entirely irresponsible.
Mark Oppenheimer (22:18):
These reports advised against giving credit to
Jewish merchants, or suggestedthat Jews only be advanced small
amounts of money. Jews weren'tthe only group singled out.
Irish Americans, for instance,were presumed to be at a high
risk of failure. But as Gerbernotes, Jewish merchants were in
a double bind. It wasn't thatthe credit agency's informants
(22:41):
necessarily thought Jewishbusinesses would fail. It was
that Jewish merchants couldn'tbe trusted. So whether they
succeeded or failed, otherAmericans should view them with
suspicion.
And these stereotypes hadconsequences. In California,
Morris Newman and other Jews hadto close on Sundays. In Buffalo,
(23:05):
Jewish merchants struggled toget loans. Here's another one of
those consequences. In 1862,during the Civil War, General
Ulysses S. Grant issued hisgeneral order number 11. The
order read
Ulysses S. Grant (23:20):
the Jews as a class, violating every
regulation of trade establishedby the Treasury Department and
also department orders arehereby expelled from the
department within 24 hours fromreceipt of this order.
Mark Oppenheimer (23:35):
This order expelled all Jews from Grant's
Military District, whichincluded large portions of
Mississippi, Tennessee andKentucky. Why would Grant issue
such an order? Here's historianJonathan Sarna, author of
American Judaism (23:48):
A History.
Jonathan Sarana (23:51):
General Grant, like other generals, at that
time, believed that smugglingwas a huge problem that was
prolonging the war. If you couldcut off smuggling, the South
would not have the money tocontinue its war effort. And to
(24:17):
his mind, the word smuggler andthe word Jew were synonyms.
Indeed, the tendency was toblame Jews, not just for
smuggling, but for a whole rangeof Civil War era problems,
(24:38):
shoddy goods, Jews. And thereare other similar kinds of
problems that were blamed andplaced on the shoulders of Jews.
And of course, there were Jewswho were smuggling and cheating
(24:59):
and delivering shoddymerchandise, so that allowed you
to reinforce the stereotype.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:11):
There were some Jews involved in smuggling
cotton, which often meantbribing Union Army officers. But
not all smugglers were Jews. Infact, Grant's own father was
complicit in smuggling. ButGeneral Grant blamed Jews as a
class.
Jonathan Sarana (25:26):
It is the most notorious, official act of anti
semitism in all of AmericanJewish history. And there's
nothing comparable really, wherethere is an order against Jews
as a class.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:48):
It was a throwback to the medieval
expulsion orders rooted instereotypes about usurious
Jewish moneylenders. In the end,Grant's order had little effect.
Though some Jews were expelledfrom a few communities,
Confederate attacks on telegraphlines delayed the order's
transmission to most of Grant'ssubordinates, so they never
heard about it. And Jews who gotwind of the order immediately
(26:11):
appealed to the highestauthority in the land. President
Abraham Lincoln overturnedGrant's order within two weeks.
Shortly after his 1868 electionto the presidency, Grant wrote a
letter that served as a publicapology:
Ulysses S. Grant (26:27):
I have no prejudice against sect or race,
but want each individual to bejudged by his own merit. Order
Number 11 does not sustain thisstatement, I admit, but that I
do not sustain that order.
Mark Oppenheimer (26:42):
Then shortly before he left the White House,
Grant attended the dedication ofWashington's Adas Israel
Synagogue and made a donation tothe congregation. Numerous
Jewish leaders praised Grant forthe steps he took to make amends
for his expulsion order. Grant'sorder is exceptional in US
history, but his suspicionsabout Jewish merchants were
(27:02):
common. They were present fromSan Francisco to the deep south
to the northeast. By 1890, therewere more than 20,000 Jews in
the former states of theConfederacy, with established
communities in Charleston andNew Orleans and a growing
community in Atlanta. Jews alsohad shops and warehouses in
small cities and towns acrossthe region, from which merchants
(27:25):
took their wares into ruralareas. Historian Patrick Mason
has written widely aboutviolence in the 19th century
against religious minorities.
Patrick Mason (27:35):
In the late 19th century south you had a number
of Jewish peddlers who wereitinerant salesmen, they were
traveling salesman itinerantmerchants, they would live in
one place oftentimes in a smalltown or a city somewhere, they
would load up a wagon full ofgoods, and they would travel
(27:55):
especially to farms to verysmall towns, to reach people who
were in places that were toosmall to to have shops or
merchants to service them.
Mark Oppenheimer (28:08):
In the backwoods of the American South,
Jewish peddlers became a muchmore common sight after the
Civil War. It was the only waythat many southerners
encountered someone Jewish.
Patrick Mason (28:17):
The southern economy was pretty devastated
after the Civil War, and theSouth was still a very rural
region. So a lot of these smallfarmers who were scattered
around the countryside, theydidn't have access to a lot of
consumer goods, a lot of thingsthat were being produced and
available in cities. It wasoftentimes these Jewish
(28:39):
peddlers, and it wasn't onlyJewish peddlers, there were
other kind of traveling salesmanas well. But there was this
contingent of Jewish peddlerswho they usually weren't pulling
their own wagon that a horse ora donkey or something like that,
but they were literally justgoing house to house farm to
farm in some of these reallyremote areas in the South.
Mark Oppenheimer (28:59):
Abram Surasky was an immigrant peddler from
Poland. His brother had comeover first and established
himself as a merchant in Aiken,South Carolina, where he became
respected enough to serve oncity council for a decade. Abram
Surasky became a sort ofassistant to his older brother.
He took a horse drawn wagon intothe rural areas around Aiken
selling goods and collecting ondebts. On July 28 1903, Abram
(29:25):
didn't come back from hiscircuit. He stopped at the
residence of Lee and Dora Green.Only Dora Green was home and she
invited him inside. Not longthereafter, Lee Green returned
home and found his wife withSurasky.
Patrick Mason (29:41):
What's clear is that Surasky is brutally
murdered by Lee Green. He's shotmultiple times, and then
actually hacked to death by anaxe. So it's a horrific,
horrific murder. And there areno other eyewitnesses other than
(30:01):
the wife Dora Green. This wentto court the following year in
1904. And we actually have greatrecords and affidavits and
testimony from various people.And a number of people say that
immediately after the murder,Lee Green told them he had
killed Surasky. He alwaysadmitted to the murder.
Mark Oppenheimer (30:24):
Lee Green wasn't very good at covering his
tracks. He tried to hide thewagon and the body would soon
had vultures circling above it.He asked Mary Drayton, an
African American neighbor toclean the blood. Lead Green also
tore out of Surasky's accountbook, the pages that recorded
his debt. In court, Lee Greentestified that he saw Surasky
(30:47):
attempting to seduce his wife.Enraged by this crime, he shot
the peddler.
Dora Green backed her husbandup. It was a dishonest but very
shrewd defense. Other witnessestold different stories. Green
had shot at another peddler notlong before he killed Surasky.
Mary Drayton, the neighbor whohad cleaned up the blood
(31:10):
testified that several weeksearlier, Lee Green had told her
husband that he intended to killSurasky. She also testified that
she had overheard Green talkingto a neighbor about concocting
the story that Surasky wastrying to rape his wife. And it
worked. A jury acquitted LeeGreen.
(31:31):
The Surasky murder took place ata time of increased violence
against Jews in the rural south.
Patrick Mason (31:36):
I spent a summer basically going from archive to
archive throughout the south,just seeing what I could find.
And as I did, so a number ofthese cases emerge. I'm
confident that there are manymore cases that I didn't find
either that went unrecorded orthat I just didn't come across.
But I was able to find a coupleof dozen of serious instances of
(31:59):
violence against Jews in thelate 19th century south. It
pales compared of course toviolence against African
Americans where we know thatthere's over 2000 lynchings
during this same time period,and then countless acts of non
lethal violence. But it's stillnot nothing. And it's more than
we knew before.
Mark Oppenheimer (32:19):
Some of these were just acts of violence by
individuals like Lee Green, butothers were more organized, and
they grew out of a toxic stew ofracism and economic resentment.
It's a complicated story. But ina nutshell, white southern
farmers resented merchants,farmers would sometimes mortgage
(32:40):
their land to obtain credit fromthese merchants, and when they
couldn't pay back, they wouldlose their land to the
merchants. And those merchants,having foreclosed on the
farmer's land, sometimes leasedit to black tenant farmers.
White farmers then complainedthat this amounted to unfair
competition.
Some of the merchants involvedwere Jewish, and many of those
(33:01):
white farmers came to understandthemselves as victims of a
Jewish conspiracy. Thesecircumstances fueled the
populist movement in Americanpolitics, and the mix of racial
and economic resentment led tothe rise of vigilante groups
known as white caps. Thesesecret societies mostly attacked
black farmers in attempts todrive them off their land, but
(33:22):
white cappers also targetedJewish merchants and landowners.
Patrick Mason (33:25):
A lot of these vigilante groups are sort of
harkening back to the Ku KluxKlan. So they call themselves
the white caps. And when theyattack people, it's called White
capping them. They specificallygo after Jewish landowners. They
complain of the fact that Jewsown so much land. It's these
long standing stereotypes of theJewish banker, the Jewish
(33:47):
moneylender, the oppressiveJewish merchant, that's always
charging too high of interestrates or ripping people off or
pursuing unfair businesspractices.
Mark Oppenheimer (33:58):
Vigilantes were trying to use violence and
intimidation to do the thingthat General Grant had tried to
do with his order number 11. GetJews out of town. Here's an
example of a Jewish merchantwith the last name Hiller. His
first name is unknown, but weknow that Hiller immigrated from
Europe and settled in Summit,Mississippi in the 1850s. He did
(34:20):
very well and he owned 400 smallfarms, most of which he had
obtained through foreclosures.Black tenants worked on many of
Hiller's farms. In November1892, whitecaps burned 27 houses
on Hiller's farms. Night ridersthreatened to kill Hiller's
agents. Many of his tenants fledand Hiller himself moved to New
(34:44):
Orleans. A well organized effortdrove Hiller out of what had
been his home for four decades.Here's another example.
Patrick Mason (34:55):
Early Saturday afternoon, October 25 1889, a
large party of armed men rodeinto the northeastern Louisiana
city of Delhi. Not far fromwhere Simon Witkowski had been
violently driven from town twoyears previous. The mob fired
their pistols into the showcasesand front windows of the Jewish
(35:16):
owned mercantile establishmentsin the town, discharging about
50 shots into T Hirsch'sstorefront window, smashing S
Bloom and Company and sendingbricks through the windows of
Karp, Wile and Company.Threatening the Jewish store
owners and putting them interror for their lives, the
(35:37):
rioters ordered them to leavethe place within the next 12 to
15 hours, then rode away as fastas they had come. The
townspeople who were friendly tothe Jewish merchants, expressed
a general regret over theincident, and their disapproval
of the mob's activities probablyprotected the merchants from
(35:58):
further harm, at least in termsof making empty threats of
expulsion. Although theattackers were not publicly
identified in the newspapers,their identities must have been
known, since it was immediatelyascertained that the motivation
behind the violence was that themerchants held mortgages on the
land of many small farmers inthe area, and that certain
(36:20):
debtors in the neighborhood werebanded together to run their
creditors away.
Mark Oppenheimer (36:25):
Some residents of Delhi, Louisiana were
outraged by the violence. But alot of people in town thought
the Jews had it coming. OneDelhi woman told a newspaper
that Jewish stores had refusedto hire non Jewish clerks, and
that Jewish merchants wereparasites who took the town's
money and kept it forthemselves. This sort of
(36:46):
southern vigilantism peaked inthe late 1880s and early 1890s.
And white cappers and othervigilantes were more likely to
kill or brutalize black tenantsthan Jewish merchants. But there
were Jewish stores with bulletsthrough their windows, and the
economic resentments shaped theway that many Americans thought
about Jews and money.
(37:11):
The history of American Judaismis full of paradoxes. We've been
discussing white capping in therural American South. At the
same time, there were widespreadpogroms in Russia. There was an
imperial decree ordering theexpulsion of Jews from Moscow in
1891. So for good reason,American Jews saw what happened
in Delhi, Louisiana as anisolated exception. They were
(37:33):
grateful that America was notlike Eastern Europe. Usually
there was outward civilitybetween Jews and other
Americans, whether in SanFrancisco or South Carolina,
Solomon Heydenfelt served on theCalifornia Supreme Court. Abram
Surasky's brother was on theAiken City Council. At the same
time, there were deep rootedsuspicions and misgivings about
(37:54):
Jews, especially Jewishmerchants, bankers, and
businessmen. Whether in postGold Rush California in the US
Army, in the RG Dunn creditagency, or in the backwoods and
small towns of the South, thesemisgivings lead to
discrimination, and sometimesmuch worse. These suspicions
(38:16):
about Jewish merchants andbankers grew into fears about a
worldwide conspiracy. One inwhich rich and powerful Jews
conspired to bring about thedownfall of Western civilization
through revolution and war. Atthe same time, Europeans and
Americans were developing newideas about Jews as a diseased
and dangerous race. And thatcombination of conspiracy
(38:39):
theories and anti Jewish racismushered in the most anti semitic
era in American history.
Thank you for listening toAntiSemitism, U.S.A. It's a
production of R2 Studios part ofthe Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
(39:01):
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism,U.S.A. is written by John Turner
and Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevisis our lead scholar Jim Ambuske
is our producer, JeanettePatrick is our executive
producer. We'd like to thank ZevEleff for being our lead advisor
and we'd like to thank ouradvisory board members Laura
(39:23):
Shaw Frank, Riv-Ellen Prell, andJonathan Sarna. Our graduate
assistants are Rachel Birch,Alexandra Miller and Amber
Pelham. Our thanks to JeremyZeitlin, David Sehat, Rachel
Kranson, Zev Eleff, JonathanSarna, and Patrick Mason for
sharing their expertise in thisepisode. We're able to bring you
this show through the generosityof the Henry Luce Foundation,
the David Bruce Smith Foundationand many individual donors like
(39:45):
you. Thank you for listening,and we hope you'll join us for
the next episode.
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